Category Archives: equal opportunity

The beautiful necessity of cycling

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…human inventions are magical in that they give life to what heretofore had no existence. Our good working ideas have the capacity to direct our lives in a manner indistinguishable from any other reality.  —Cormac McCarthy, “Cormac McCarthy Returns to the Kekulé Problem” in Nautilus

The invention of cycling is a remarkable achievement.  Along with walking, cycling epitomizes sustainable transportation.  Human beings are designed to move under our own power. Walking is the most basic transportation.  A bicycle is the most basic vehicle.  By designing our cities and streets around the concept of serving walking and cycling well, we improve all types of human mobility. It is the long-term solution to our current transportation challenges.

This song by Rush, Subdivisions, reminds me of the world I grew up in.  It sometimes felt alien, partitioned, and anonymous spending so much time in automobiles.  A new degree of culture is emerging that commands our respect for the inalienable freedoms of human movement.  The culture that embraces an array of transportation opportunities dramatically improves our travel safety, and revs up our lives and economy.  Multimodal transportation–serving all travel modes–is the new helm.  This framework brings health, sustainability, and builds community.  It’s a saner world, one where we are not incessantly rushing, but spending time doing things that truly bring us joy, and listening more to what our bodies have to tell us.

An article in The Guardian today mentions “vehicles are now America’s biggest CO2 source”.  It discusses reducing emissions and improving efficiency, but not increasing walking and cycling.  It’s not an either/or proposition, it is about viewing walking and cycling as priorities, absolute necessities, basic public goods.  Without serving those choices, we are left with a conundrum.  We’ve learned structuring cities and streets around cars reduces choices.  Walking and cycling make healthier, happier people, and better places.  They’re good choices.  Everyone yearns for health, happiness and freedom.  Elevating the idea that streets are for people makes many transportation problems disappear, and creates a system that matches our human potential.

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We need to get more people experiencing cycling to open minds.  It is a key technology for sustainable development.  Cycling aligns with the beautiful necessity of our human nature.  We are an animal designed to move with our legs.  The bicycle unites that reality with an ingenious tool.  Cycling is magical, like having wings or discovering new superpowers.  It changes the way we experience and perceive the world. Cycling joins the power of wheeled locomotion with the sensitivities and keen pleasures of being human.  By designing our streets to serve walking and cycling first, we’ll give rise to a new form of built-environment that connects us through our activities and makes our spirits soar higher.  Once we obey the concept of designing cities for wellness, our culture can expand in new directions, giving our dreams real leg power.

Akemashite omedetō gozaimasu

明けましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year!

People shining in the streets

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There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.  —Thomas Merton on an ordinary day in Louisville, KY

Freedom in a free society is supposed to be for all. Therefore, freedom rules out imposing on the freedom of others. You are free to walk down the street, but not to keep others from doing so. –George Lakoff, “Why Hate Speech is Not Free Speech”

One of the most beautiful experiences in any city is the street scene, with all kinds of people moving around.  When we are missing that, we lose a certain sense of community.  That’s why it is so essential to design our streets around a social operating concept.  Streets can imbue human beings with a sense of dignity.  They are one of our most interactive spaces.

When UNM President Chaouki Abdallah first visited Albuquerque, he thought “it looked like a Third World Country”.  Then he woke up the second day, saw the mountains, and thought “this could work”.  As we reimagine our city, remember the environment we build is human habit, natural habitat, we live here.  And our streetscapes are a product of our collective imagination.

When people are walking and cycling about, shining in our streets, a sense of buoyancy abounds.  It’s uplifting to all of us, our common humanity.  Let’s encourage more of that with planning and designs.  And make sure we integrate everything we need to live with conviviality, including all of nature.  Our streets help us become native to place.  We can feel at home here. Imagine living happily and healthily on safe and peaceful streets, for us, and for our children.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.  — H.G. Wells

References:
UNM President on an unlikely journey, https://www.abqjournal.com/1012754/journey-4.html

Challenging times with leadership opportunities

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“I should say up front, I’m a one-issue voter. I would vote for almost any president who had a brilliant climate change agenda.” –Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist at GMO

I like this interview with Jeremy Grantham.  He challenges the old mental architecture of economic growth by offering a new paradigm.  Economic growth with environmental protection. When one person stands up for the truth and cares, it becomes easier for all to take responsibility.  Especially when that person transcends stereotypes and offers analysis and answers while honestly examining the complexities in our world, beginning with where we stand.

In my lifetime (I’m 42) the average hourly pay (adjusted for inflation) for the American worker has been stagnant.  For some perspective, in France wages have gone up 140 percent in the same timeframe, in Japan 80 percent, in the UK 65 percent.  Bicycling has helped me moderate that impact with its savings.  Cycling is a huge part of the shift we need to make promoting renewables, quality of life and opportunity.  We can have cycling and rising wages.  And we should not feel sorry for ourselves, because people in places like Africa have not profited as much as we have from carbon pollution, yet their suffering from the consequences is worse.

More of Grantham’s key observations–
*out of the 20th richest nations, the U.S. is last in income equality and last in economic mobility
*instead of reversing these trends we are witnessing the “complete flowering of corporatism” where industries are appointed to oversee the agencies that are meant to protect the people
* the Chinese have advantages including taking science more seriously (Grantham measure this by noting 9 out of the 10 people in the last Chinese regime had PhDs, while in the US Congress all the way up the presidency we have 1-2 PhDs depending on how you view doctorates)

To make the pendulum swing back towards a brighter future, we need to get capital flowing to renewables, including cycling.  Then we’ll reap the long term benefits of harnessing free power, and giving the people the tools we need to lift up our lives, including education.  We need to reward the corporations and investors who are doing it right, incentivizing beneficial behaviors.

I first saw Grantham on Charlie Rose in 2013, at which time he speculated we ‘may already have cooked our goose’ with climate change.  How resilient is the earth?  How ingenious are its people?  We’ve been lucky so far, and I think the American people are excited for this adventure.  All our excellence comes from everyday citizens, courageous leaders speaking up, organizing and implementing what we know and will discover as we build a better world beginning at home.

Watch Grantham on Charlie Rose:  https://charlierose.com/videos/30816

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”  –William Bryant quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Cycling in the news

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Cycling is a strategic initiative that creates positive system-wide changes.  Here are four stories from the news that show the depth and variety of cycling’s impact.  Cycling works wonders…

Founded in 2009, the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, or NICA,  “spreads the gospel of healthy, active lifestyles to the community” by getting more kids on bikes.  Ryan McAllister, who launched a NICA program at a high school in Salmon, Idaho in 2015, says “the team has slowly begun to change people’s minds in the small town. It’s the kids who drive the change. They have fun riding their bikes, they tell their friends, they educate their parents, and, with the help of coaches, they work with other user groups to help them understand public land issues, stewardship practices, and cultural shifts.”

Read more at http://www.velonews.com/2017/07/from-the-mag/u-s-mountain-biking-thrives-high-school-leagues_444843

Supporting cycling for kids helps build health, confidence, and social skills, and is a practical tool that can help them get to school.  In the US we spend almost $1000 dollars on average per child on transportation to school, not to mention the incredible time commitment from parents transporting their children.  With bikes we could save money while giving kids freedom, independence, and an amazing array of wholesome benefits.  Cycling makes good economic sense, and kids love to ride.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/25/technology/culture/bike-student-transportation/index.html

Technology doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.  Bicycles are one of the most powerful disruptive technologies ever.  Sometimes the solution is simple and obvious.  But it takes more than technology, it takes cultural and behavioral changes led by people who are living the dream and understand the full capabilities inherent in the bicycle.  Embrace local cyclists!  The transportation evolution is led by your neighbors, friends, and local citizens.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/05/technology/bikes-disrupt-cars/index.html?iid=EL

Bicycles can unleash Americans from burdens like automobile debt.  In places like Africa, bicycles have even more profound impacts on human lives.  This story touches upon the perspective of female cyclists in Africa.  “A bike makes all the difference.”  Mobility freedom increases all freedoms.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/25/i-can-pedal-faster-than-a-man-can-run-how-bikes-are-changing-the-dynamic-on-africas-roads

What can cycling do in your life?

The Nature of Change

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Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.  –Martin Luther King Jr.

What does it look like to treat others in a way that contributes to their health and well-being?…It looks like honoring their dignity.  –Donna Hicks, “Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict”

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On Saturday I was at home working from my computer.  I was taking a day off the bike.  After all is was forecast to rain and snow.  But I felt restless midmorning, and the sun was shining.  Then I realized there was a mobile food market  happening downtown that I wanted to check out.  The perfect confluence of reasons converged on my morning plans.  I had a desire, I had a reason, and sunshine.  I was out the door at 11am pedaling down Zuni toward downtown.

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On Zuni Road a dark grey cloud produced a fabulous hail storm.  White pellets ricocheted off my face and bounced like ping pong balls on the ground.  I covered my red skin and pedaled on!  Downtown I came across the Women’s March.  Civic Plaza was full of citizens rallying, people speaking what they believed.  Peace, loving earth, science & reason, ending every form of discrimination and bias, equality all around.  Government for and by We The People.  It didn’t feel like a protest.  It was a broad coalition of emerging leaders walking forward.

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The atmosphere generated by the buzz of the crowd and inspiring talks from leaders on stage was electric.  One of the key elements that makes this kind of inclusion possible is the strange paradox of human life.  We have dual properties acting simultaneously.  Diversity is part of the richness of the human tapestry and we rightly celebrate it.  And at the same time we are able to relate to each other because on the inside, there is a common bond.  We are all the same.

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E pluribus Unum–out of many, one–is the motto of the U.S.A.   I believe it is characteristic of leadership to treat others well and live universal values–peace, inclusion, understanding, responsibility, empathy.  To stop bullying, we cannot be bullies ourselves.
“The last refuge of intolerance is not tolerating the intolerant.” –George Eliot

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We’ve always known by intuition and feeling that treating others well is the most satisfying action we can make.  And now we have science–biology and psychology–informing us that our actions count.  “The research tells us, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the way we treat one another matters” (Hicks p. 125 in Dignity).  As Abraham Lincoln said, “We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”  Pay it forward.  Everyone, not only U.S. Citizens, are worthy of the dream.

mlk-pedaling

The Many Faces of Cycling, Most Beautiful Ones

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I came home from a Saturday morning ride with friends, ate lunch, started reading and came across this.  An article called Pimp My Bike: Detroit’s Custom Cycles in Pictures in The Guardian.  Here are a few pictures from the article.  Photos are credited to Nick Van Mead, from the article.

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beautiful

Ashia, waving in the photo above, is quoted in the article saying she feels safer with groups, “It’s positive — and God Knows in Detroit, we need positive things like this.”

This blog is usually original posts, but obviously the Slow Roll movement in Detroit merits our attention.  They are innovating and reaching out to expand the conversation about our public roads, our cities and neighborhoods, economic renewal, social wellness, all propelled by bicycling.  This movement is bigger than any one group, in fact, it’s a global movement.

“It makes the city far more human…they have conversations, make eye contact…the people are friendlier” than they were before all these rides started, says Todd Scott of the Detroit Greenways Coalition (quoted from the article).  And my goodness, don’t we all need friends.

Resources/Credits–
Go read the article on The Guardian, it conveys the beautiful essence–  https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2016/nov/02/pimp-my-bike-detroit-custom-cycles-slow-ride-in-pictures
Photo Credits to Nick Van Mead
I’ve blogged about Slow Roll before.  Let’s be cities of friendly bicyclists.
Check out my post Green Infused Classic Cars for another innovator, a very famous one.
And more landmark journalism by Nick Van Mead and The Guardian–
America’s Road Trip: Will the US Ever Kick the Car Habit

Bicycles in the American Tradition

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“It’s completely clear to me that we’re in a midst of a total revolution in the way we get around…the street does not belong to the car, it has to be shared, get used to it.”
–Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, interview in 2012

The bicycle is the most common vehicle used in the world.  In America we are emerging from an era where “development of a transportation infrastructure focused almost exclusively on the private motor car” (from FHWA, A Recommended Approach for Accommodating Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel).  With movements such as New Mexico Complete Streets and multimodal transportation planning, we are seeing an unprecedented amount of collaboration across sectors and between disciplines and communities to change the built environment and diversify mobility culture.  The result is a disruption of the status quo and more equity in transportation, and the emergence of a bold movement toward active transportation and a culture of health.

Bicycles have been here all along, but are becoming more visible now.  To a lot of people seeing bicycles using the road looks different.  It reminds me of the acting cast of the Broadway Musical Hamilton which recasts Alexander Hamilton’s story with black and Latino actors.

In an interview on Charlie Rose, Ron Chernow, the musical’s historical advisor and popular author of American history, said:  ‘When I sat down to watch Hamilton, I thought my God all the actors are black and Latino.  What is the director doing?  But then watching the show I forgot what race or ethnicity they were.  The show is showing us who we are now.  Historically, people felt excluded from America.  This show is one of the greatest advertisements for diversity we’ve ever had.  It announces the arrival of a new generation in American life…this is the new face of America…and the beautiful thing is this new face of America, people who might have felt excluded before, have embraced American history.’  America’s inclusion and accommodation of diversity and expansion of our values is our greatest ongoing story propelling us forward toward a more perfect union.

For all Americans to have equal opportunity at a healthy life, it is important that we include active transportation choices in our everyday roads for routine travel to work, school and extracurricular activities.  To embrace diversity of travel modes on our roads is to help usher in positive change.  Health is a palpable kind of wealth that can easily be shared and there is no limit for how much of it there is to go around.  We are redefining life on the road.  It feels good.

Daveed Digs, who plays Thomas Jefferson in the theatrical musical production Hamilton, says about his experience on the show.  ‘This is the only time I’ve ever felt particularly American…it gives value to whoever you are…This show says you are part of the history of this country, what you are doing is leading up to the next moment.’–on Charlie Rose, The Cast of Hamilton (worth listening to!)

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view of Salinas Pueblo Missions monument, a place that stirs the imagination