2nd Annual Heartbrakes Prom Benefiting Bici Cooperative

Our friends in Birmingham are having an alleycat!!!!! 


This event on February 13 marks one year that Bici Bicycle Cooperative has been kicking it wild style in Birmingham, Alabama. Couples race around downtown and partying all night long with a keg, music of some sort, karaoke, photo booth, and PIE lovingly made by PieLab in Greensboro, AL!

It’s that time again! We’re working hard to plan our next Bici Alleycat, the 2nd Annual Heartbrakes Prom Benefit. It’s going to be just as much fun as last year – racing around downtown Birmingham, killer prizes, beer, music, and a photo booth – all in a brilliant old warehouse.

Deets:
February 13, 2010
Race at 7:00
Start and after party @ Magic City Wholesale
$10 gets you racing, partying, and beering!
So far, we have prizes from Chrome, Rickshaw Bags, Knog, Higher Ground Roasters, and Good People Brewing Company. Hell Yes!

4 Million Fewer Cars on the Road

America's Love Affair with the Automobile May Be Coming to an End
Surprisingly, the U.S. car fleet has started shrinking, and while this is widely associated with the recession, there are other forces at work.

America's century-old love affair with the automobile may be coming to an end. The U.S. fleet has apparently peaked and started to decline. In 2009, the 14 million cars scrapped exceeded the 10 million new cars sold, shrinking the U.S. fleet by 4 million, or nearly 2 percent in one year. While this is widely associated with the recession, it is in fact caused by several converging forces.

Future U.S. fleet size will be determined by the relationship between two trends: new car sales and cars scrapped. Cars scrapped exceeded new car sales in 2009 for the first time since World War II, shrinking the U.S. vehicle fleet from the all-time high of 250 million to 246 million. (See data atwww.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2010/update87.) It now appears that this new trend of scrappage exceeding sales could continue through at least 2020.

Among the trends that are keeping sales well below the annual figure of 15-17 million that prevailed from 1994 through 2007 are market saturation, ongoing urbanization, economic uncertainty, oil insecurity, rising gasoline prices, frustration with traffic congestion, mounting concerns about climate change, and a declining interest in cars among young people.

Market saturation may be the dominant contributor to the peaking of the U.S. fleet. The United States now has 246 million registered motor vehicles and 209 million licensed drivers--nearly 5 vehicles for every 4 drivers. When is enough enough?

read more here

Help Haiti

Tuesday evening a major earthquake struck Haiti near the capital of Port-au-Prince causing catastrophic destruction in the western hemisphere's most impoverished nation. At least 2 million people have been affected. Oxfam has 200 staff on-the-ground responding with public health, water, and sanitation services to prevent the spread of disease.

• Help now by donating to our Haiti Earthquake Response Fund

BOISE IDAHO Leads the way!!!!

BOISE - A nearly five hour Boise City Council meeting Tuesday evening ended with several new laws in place to protect cyclists and pedestrians. The changes contain three sections penalizing both reckless drivers and cyclists and nearly everyone at the city council meeting attended in support.

Drivers will now be expected to yield to cyclists at intersections, leave at least three feet of distance between bikes and cannot cut bicycles off when turning. Cyclists are now legally required to give a warning before passing someone on the sidewalk, dismount in crowded pedestrian areas and cannot ride recklessly swerving on and off of sidewalks.

"Motorists and bicycles have to share the road," said Michael Zuzel, member of a special city task force on cycling safety. "They have to share the responsibility for making the roads safe. That's why some of these ordinances would penalize motorists for their behavior and some would penalize cyclists for their behavior."


read more here