I guess the Disc Golf people have a committee also maybe a sub sub committee and a very effective lobby.
stay positive sheep:)
New additions to serve Huntsville, Madison border
A new dog park and an 18-hole disc golf course are coming soon to a park near the border of Huntsville and the city of Madison.
The announcement was made Thursday night at the Huntsville City Council meeting. read more here
DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Senate approved a "Bill of Rights" for bicyclists Thursday that backers said gives them additional protections as they squeeze onto roads with cars and trucks.
Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, said eight to 10 people a year are killed in accidents between cars and bicycles.
"You do have a problem and we should spend some time on it," said McCoy. "It's not a perfect bill and we'll be back here in a year or two addressing some other issues.
The Senate approved the measure on a 30-17 vote, sending it to the House and an uncertain future.
read more here
You know the deal!!! Meet @ 6:30 ride @ 7pm SE Corner of Courthouse
Don't believe the hype!!! it's going to be 70 and warm somewhere on earth.
we got velcro and tang.... but this is just smart!!!! Thanks Netherlands and thanks Peter!!!!!
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has appointed a citizen advisory committee to help make the city more friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Tennessean reported Dean has also added a bike and pedestrian coordinator to his staff.
Dean told the newspaper better accommodation of walkers and bike riders is part of how Nashville could be transformed into a "really livable world-class city."
City plans already in place call for about 300 new miles of sidewalks and 400 additional miles of bikeways by 2016.
But Prevention magazine ranked cities by walkability last winter and Nashville was 444th on the list. By comparison, Memphis ranked 73rd.
___
Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com
The disabled Congolese band offers a plea for polio awareness in this blunt and oddly uplifting clip.
By JOHN PECK
Times Staff Writer john.peck@htimes.com
Battle hopes for wider shoulders, dedicated lanes and route signs
City transportation planners and bicycle advocates, fresh from a major bike summit in Louisville, Ky., plan to incorporate some of those bike safety ideas soon in Huntsville.
The Louisville summit shared the way that city brought cyclists, pedestrians and the motoring community together on projects that made it a nationally recognized, bicycle-friendly community. read more here
Is BASC going to play their cards right?
Stimulus Package to Spark Bicycle Projects
DENVER, CO (BRAIN)—When President Barack Obama signed off on the $787 billion economic stimulus package earlier this week, bicycle advocacy groups such as Bikes Belong were still trying to figure out what it all meant.
What it could mean is $700-$900 million in extra spending on bicycle-related projects. “This is very good news for bicycling,” said Tim Blumenthal, executive director at Bikes Belong. But then added, “If we play our cards right.”
Much of the stimulus money dedicated to transportation will be handed over to each state’s department of transportation, according to Blumenthal. Loosely translated: These state officials aren’t obligated to build bike lanes and bike paths with this newfound money. In fact, they’re much more apt to fund highway projects with the stimulus money—with the thought that it puts more people to work. read more here
Do we know what is happening here?
North Carolina has received $838 million in federal economic recovery funding for transportation projects.
State Transportation Secretary Gene Conti announced Tuesday that $735 million will go toward highway and bridge projects, and about $103 million will fund transit initiatives, including aviation, bicycle and pedestrian, ferry, public transportation and rail projects. read more here
Stickers the new Gun!!!!!
(CNN) -- A bicycle with a sticker advertising a Florida punk-folk band forced the evacuation of a Memphis, Tennessee, airport terminal late Monday afternoon, authorities said.
A pilot alerted airport police when he saw a bike with a sticker that read "this bike is a pipe bomb" parked near the passenger ramps of Terminal C at Memphis International Airport, according to the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority.
"Terminal C ticketing and baggage claim at the airport were cleared out," said airport spokesman John Greaud. "A K-9 unit responded and found no explosive materials at the scene."
"This Bike is a Pipe Bomb" is the name of a band based in Pensacola, Florida, and this is not the first time in the band's 12-year history the name has caused a commotion.
Bikes sporting similar stickers at college campuses in Ohio and Philadelphia led to building closures, arrests and the bikes' destruction by bomb squads acting on the assumption the sticker was announcing a real threat.
The owner of the Memphis bike was taken into custody by airport police, Greaud said, but was later released because they had no grounds to hold him. Greaud said federal authorities were discussing possible federal charges, but a federal source said it was "a non-event."
More here
Introduction
This manual will teach you safe bicycling on public roads and streets.
Most books about bicycling begin with the selection of a bicycle and accessories. This one is going to be different. We're going to start with bicyclists' attitudes about riding on the road.
The most important factor in how you ride your bicycle is how you feel about it. If you find bicycling enjoyable and reasonably safe, then you'll want to cover greater distances and go more places. But to do so, you usually have to ride in the company of cars - and sharing the road with cars calls for an attitude of security and confidence.
Once you have that confidence, you can safely and enjoyably take on a commute to work in city traffic or a long day's tour on almost any kind of roads. Almost anyone can become a confident, streetwise cyclist. Start out with conditions under which you feel comfortable and work up to more difficult ones. This booklet will show you how.
Keep in mind that the rules of the road apply to all drivers of vehicles, regardless of vehicle type. But the laws themselves often describe only what a bicyclist is required to do, not how to do it. This manual describes how to do it. This manual will teach you safe bicycling on public roads and streets.
2pm Optimist Park. Ditch your car ride, your bike, or be ridiculed:)
could we change the name from Optimist to Realist Park?
Dallas, others seek to mimic Portland’s biking successes
They call her the “bike queen,” and it’s no surprise why.
Mia Birk, the 41-year-old former bike program coordinator for the city of Portland, is doing what some might have deemed impossible.
After shaping much of Portland’s bicycling landscape in the 1990s, she’s now helping transform the billionaire-dwelling, car-loving city of Dallas, Texas – yes, the one that topped Bicycling magazine’s “Worst Cities for Cycling” last year – into a bicycling haven.
“Dallas certainly is not very bike-friendly now,” says Eric van Steemburg, executive director of the Friends of Katy Trail group, a nonprofit that promotes the paved 3.5-mile pedestrian and bike trail that winds through Dallas. read more here
It really is a great country we live in!!!!! I think this could be huge here what do you all think???
From Treehugger
See, necessity really is the mother of invention...sort of. Anthony Mikrut got the idea for his small business the Kinky Llama at 3 a.m. one night/morning, when his girlfriend (he says) got a hankering for some sex aids. What they soon found out, as Mikrut told the Chicago Tribune on the video clip, is that ordering a pizza or even a beer delivery in the wee hours is easy. But ordering up sex toys is a bit more difficult. So Mikrut set himself up in business - crowding his apartment with shelves of sexy stuff. The sustainable twist is that Mikrut makes his deliveries to 27 Chicago zip codes in the dark of night (and of course, in daylight also) by his bike. Mikrut says 98% of his bike deliveries are to women, who don't seem to want to wait for gratification, while a nearly equal percentage of his mail-order is to men. Next day delivery of order is free...delivery within one hour is an extra $5.
The Kinky Llama needs a trip to TreeHugger
Mikrut's idea is great - we need lots more local bike delivery services, which are essentially CO2 free on the delivery side. However, the Kinky Llama stocks mostly a run-of-the-mill assortment of 1,500 sex toys, videos, and accessories. They aren't so green, and tend to be encased in miles of plastic. Mikrut says he wants to eventually open an upscale sex toy boutique. It would be great if it could be more in the style of Love Me Naturally.
Conservative Republicans who live in fear that someone, somewhere is having an orgasm, might do well to note this. People who don't have anything to do -- like work or spend money -- are free to have tons of wild, working-class sex. Sometimes the only optimistic thing in your life is an erection.
So it was a stroke of genius when Larry Flynt of Hustler and Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild, asked Congress for a $5 billion bailout for the porn industry. It was the first and only laugh anyone has provided in regard to the economy thus far, with two generations of porn kings pointing out that the emperor had no clothes. Some of us thought -- well I thought -- for the first time -- "Hey, yeah! WTF? Why do they get a bailout? Where's everyone else's bailout? Where's my bailout?" read more here
A new pavement marking that bicyclists hope drives home the message that motorists must share the road with them is on its way to central Arkansas.
It is known as the shared lane marking, or sharrow.
The marking, intended initially for qualified roadways popular with bicyclists, is chiefly designed to alert motorists that bicyclists may be on the road and signal to bicyclists their proper place on the road, said Casey Covington, an official with Metroplan, the long-range transportation agency for central Arkansas.
"Sharrows have been used on lower-speed urban roadways throughout the United States and have generally been accepted by bicyclists throughout the United States, and those in the engineering profession," he said. read more here
By Rep. Earl Blumenauer
With this latest attempt to strip bike finding from the recovery bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated how out of touch they are with their pathologically short-sighted attacks on bicycles. To their detriment, they are continuing their trend from last Congress of using the most economical, energy-efficient, and healthy forms of transportation as their whipping post. Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.
Moreover, bicycle and pedestrian paths are precisely the kind of infrastructure projects our country needs. These projects tend to the most "shovel-ready" and are more labor-intensive than other projects-- therefore putting more people to work per dollar spent. more here
WELL NO, NOT REALLY KEEP COMPLAINING!!! THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS GREASED. THANKS TO EVERYONE!!!
The city has updated their website and put up the PSAs!!!!
Thanks for writing Mayor Tommy Battle and the City of Huntsville. I know how passionate individuals like you all are on this issue and I applaud your commitment to educating our public.
I did ask our webmaster add the PSAs to our website. You'll find them on the front page and a link to them can be found at:
http://www.hsvcity.com/Planning/bikeplan.php#committee
It is my understanding that the PSAs are also running on the GovAcc channel and I can promise you that I hand delivered broadcast ready copies of them to all of the television stations in the area for distribution. I will instruct that the PSAs should air more frequently on the channel.
I'm receptive to hearing different and new ways of communicating and will welcome any other suggestions you have on this matter.
Thanks for your contact and for your attention to this matter.
All my best,
Trent Willis
Chief of Staff & Communications
Mayor Tommy Battle
City of Huntsville
Not sure if anyone has seen the groundbreaking "SLIDES" on the public access channel but below is a review.
Dear "",
As I sit here watching Rachel Ray (The Joker) beat meat with a skillet. From time to time I change the channel and generally land on the public access channel.
I had no idea that the city has had so many problems with cyclist here. I see that your slides address this fringe group of outlaws. Your slide while taking place in a quiet country setting does exactly what it should do send these backward apes out in the country and not into the city streets.
The other slide is to "use bike paths where available". I really like this trick considering there is only one bike path and it is 500 hundred feet. Good job send these dead beats and hippies to a dead end street. That will show them!!!!
One of my favorites is the cartoon with how to put a helmet on. It shows that these are not really people but caricatures and if we hit them with our cars they will bounce back just like the roadrunner and coyote.
Lastly, you state in another slide that cyclist should use hand signals, well I have one for you, guess which one?
I also like the fact that while along with many others who participated in the filming of the two PSAs with "city officials" have not made the public access rotation while it was a complete waste of my time and everyone else's thanks again for driving that point home. I would much rather see static slides that communicate very little and give my antidepressants a chance to work.
I have now sold my useless bike and bought a brand new hummer so maybe you and I could hang out at the next monster truck show.
By Anthony Siracusa, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Monday, February 2, 2009
The League of American Bicyclists has urged Congress to include bicycle lanes, designated bike paths and more shared roadways in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan.
"The message," the league stated, "is to urge Congress to ensure that any infrastructure investments going to the states under the recovery bill are balanced across the states geographically and across various types of transportation modes." read more here
Are you a bicyclist that's tired of being cut off and hit by cars? Well get a pair of these handlebar key plugs and you can at least deface the perpetrator's car in the process of getting run over.
These modified handlebar plugs speak to the disgruntled urban cyclist. By retro-fitting stock parts with up-cycled keys, bikers can now find satisfaction with close encounters. This concept puts a new twist on the timeless tradition of car-keying revenge. By Matt Braun and Jared Delorenzo.
They cost $5 for a set of two and fit snugly into regular handlebars and assholes. But in all honesty, if I catch you keying my car I can and will kill you. I'm serious -- if you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk.
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