DIY bamboo bikes

Check this out! A studio in Brooklyn offers classes for people to make their own bamboo bikes. My question: Can I make one with beautiful lugs?

Ghost Bike

Beautiful, and incredibly sad, ghost bike photo by Michael Simonitsch

Dog-Lovers Bike Parade in NYC

...and another one... how did I miss this?

The First-Annual Doggie Pedal Parade: Dog lovers and bike lovers combined at the First Annual Doggie Pedal Parade in lower Manhattan. Sponsored by the environmental organization Time's Up!, the parade celebrated the city’s animal rescue groups and highlighted green means of transportation. Organizers also held a "Pup Your Ride" event, but even pedalers without pooches were encouraged to participate – by dressing up as their favorite animal.

New York Bicycle Wedding photograph

I was delighted to see this wedding photograph as the lead photo of my TA StreetBeat this week.

Here's what it said: T.A. staffer Ryan Nuckel married longtime member Rachael Myers last weekend. Our sincerest congratulations to the happy couple.
Image courtesy Andrew Hinderaker

[Streetsfilms] Sands Street Gets a Sassy, Center-Median Cycletrack

I really like solutions like this where cyclists are completely separated from traffic, pedestrians and parking. The separate level and sloped curbs also show a magnificent attention to detail and understanding of how cyclists use the road.

[The Sartorialist] Cycle Chic in New York and Paris

Everyone has probably already noticed that the Sartorialist is cycle chic blogging, but I thought I would make an official proclaimation.

Visiting NYC this summer?

Have we got an idea for you!

Governors Island is a carfree Oasis.

Free bikes on Fridays

Art Break

Fernand Léger (1881-1955)
1943-48
Huile sur toile
H. 129 ; L. 161,5 cm
Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot.

Aux cours de plusieurs voyages aux Etats-Unis entre 1931 et 1939, Fernand Léger avait été impressionné, par New York, qu'il qualifiait "de plus formidable spectacle du monde". Exilé aux Etats-Unis pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, il enseigne à l'université de Yale, puis à Mills Collège, il croise les jeunes étudiantes qui s'habillent sans conformisme. La jeunesse adopte alors une mode osée aux couleurs criardes. Le mauvais goût est une caractéristique de ce pays, le mauvais goût, la couleur forte peut donner ici le plein usage de son pouvoir. Les filles en short, habillées comme des acrobates de cirque. Si je n'avais vu ici que des filles habillées avec goût, je n'aurais peint ma série des cyclistes... Les Cyclistes font partie de la série de peintures, appelées La Belle équipe qui se termine par La Grande Julie (MOMA, New York). Léger nous restitue plus exactement le choc des couleurs que la provocation de la jeunesse, il impose un style brutal, incisif qu'il préfère au "goût" sophistiqué français. Les Quatre cyclistes posent au cours d' une fête sportive. Le balayage des projecteurs, lui donne l'idée de séparer la couleur du dessin figuratif. Dans les rues de New York, il avait déjà été impressionné par le jeu des projecteurs publicitaires "je parlais à quelqu'un, il avait la figure bleue, puis vingt secondes après, il devient jaune.... cette couleur-là... elle était libre, elle était dans l'espace. J'ai voulu faire la même chose dans mes toiles

Google/T: In the course of several trips to the United States between 1931 and 1939, Fernand Léger was impressed by New York, called it "the greatest show on earth". Exiled to the United States during World War II, he taught at Yale University, then at Mills College, he crossed the young students who dress without conformism. The youth then adopt a fashion bold colors garish. The bad taste is a characteristic of this country, bad taste, color can give strong here full use of his power. Girls in shorts, dressed as circus acrobats. If I had seen here as girls dressed tastefully, I had painted my series of cyclists ... The cyclists are part of the series of paintings called La Belle team that ends in La Grande Julie (MOMA, New York). Light returns us more accurately the clash of colors that the provocation of youth, it imposes a style sharp, incisive he prefers to "taste" sophisticated French. Four cyclists pose during a sports festival. The sweeping headlamps, gives him the idea to separate the color of figurative drawing. In the streets of New York, he had been impressed by the play of advertising projectors "I was talking to someone, he was found blue, then Twenty seconds after he became the color yellow .... then .. . It was free, she was in space. I wanted to do the same thing in my paintings. "

Thanks to Didier Couval

Hipster Olympics

Transportation Ethics

Randy Cohen, New York Times Magazine’s acclaimed “Ethicist,” on Transportation
Quotes/paraphrases from the interview:
“Ethics are the effects of our actions on other people. …
“The word we ethicists use to describe (people who drive around the city) is “selfish”….
“What civilization is is a restriction on individual freedom….
“Public parking in the city: why is it good for the city for people to be able to store their private property in public space when public space is limited….”

I made it!

For those of you keeping track of my itinerary, I am in Paris. I'm spending the day at Tina's near Canal Saint Martin, but tonight I go to Montreuil to see the Boisseaus (my French family). Being here feels totally natural, altho my French is rusty (what there is of it!). I now remember why I used to carry a compass for walking these crazy medieval streets.

It's much colder here than in New York. I wonder if I brought warm enough clothes. Here are a few more observations:
* I walked past a skinny little old black man pooping on someone's front steps on my way to the Metro in Ilana's gentrified neighborhood, Fort Green, yesterday morning. I wonder if that would happen on the upper east side.
* I am very much in style in Fort Green -- women with plastic-frames abound. Even in Paris I don't feel frumpy. Did I come to the fashion or did the fashions come to me?
* I've seen the Paris rental bikes everyone is talking about. I'll post a photo when I can.
* With the exception of all those bike paths we used on the Century, Paris appears to be more bike-friendly than New York based on the number of bike lanes and paths on the streets I have walked since I arrived.

Thoughts while waiting to board the plane to Paris

Today I walked around Brooklyn. It was much smaller than I expected. I walked from Ilana’s in Fort Green to Brooklyn Heights then back through Cobble Hill. The old parts of New York looks like Europe with attached buildings and cobble stone streets. When we rode through the more suburban parts of Queens on the Century, it looked just like Ohio with ticky tacky little houses made with brick and metal railings. Higher end homes were made with stone, also like in the Midwest. Our suburbs are quintessentially American.

Ilana’s friend Carly, who she met when they both lived in Nicaragua, is also trained as a city planner. She went to Cornell. But Carly does community work with a school. Of course, I don’t work as a city planner right now either. Anyway, Carly wanted to discuss the congestion pricing issue with me, bc she is very concerned about the impact it would have on the low-income. We discussed these problems and their possible solutions:
1) Low-income workers who need to have their cars in the city for their jobs would be adversely impacted. Of course, there are respectful ways to address this issue. The Universal Lifeline telephone program is a good example of an honor-system discount program that’s respectful to the recipients for that reason. Low-income workers who use a vehicle in the city would also benefit from reduced traffic because they would be able to get around town more quickly. For example, if a worker needs to drive his truck from client to client and he works for himself, he would be able serve more clients in a day with less traffic on the roads and therefore make more money.
2) Vehicles parking at the edges and crowding people’s neighborhoods – the current system has it’s boundaries primarily in low-income neighborhoods, which would mean that disadvantaged people would be more adversely affected. This is fixed by changing the boundaries. In London, they found that the edge neighborhoods did not experience a change in traffic and parking, but London is a sprawling city and there are thousands of access points. The access points to Manhattan are primarily bridges likely to cause clusters of street parkers at these bottle necks. However, the solution is easy – select the boundaries so that there are thousands of access points and there won’t be any clusters of parkers and accessors.
3) I am very concerned about the crowding on the subway. I suggested that more people would have to ride the buses. Carly said the buses are too slow because people are always looking for change, the bus has to lower itself at every stop, and because of the traffic. Obviously, the traffic would be addressed with fewer cars on the road due to congestion pricing, but an exclusive right of way would also help. A bus rapid transit system with pre-paid, elevated platforms would also speed up the system. This would be a capital investment, but funds for it could come from the congestion pricing program.

My plane just announced boarding for group 1. I’ll tell you the rest later.

Traveling sucks

...especially when you travel American. I arrived at the airport at 7:20 for an 8:10 flights. I meant to get there earlier, but I missed the first train which would have gotten me there at 7. I did the auto check in, and much to my surprise it said I had missed my flight. They had moved it 20 minutes earlier and require a 30 minute advance check in.

They said it was my travel agents responsibility to tell me the flight was earlier. I recognize that I could have checked the night before, but honestly I have never had this experience before. I called the travel agent (STA), and they just told me they hadn’t received any notification and sounded generally incompetent. I asked if I would receive notification in the future, and they assured me I would, but hung up absolutely confident that I would not. (I checked my Paris flight before I left the house.

The website said no change. Oddly, when I arrived at the airport later that same day, the flight had been delayed 5 minutes but was listed as “ontime”.)

Anyway, back to my story… the only unpleasant thing that happened on the flight was one of the attendants walking up the aisle yelling in each person’s ear from behind “seat belts fastened” when we all had them fastened and she hadn’t checked. I think it damaged my hearing her voice was so shrill.

They showed the premiere of a new TV show called Cane that I made a mental note after watching never to watch again even by accident. Then they showed Gracie, a movie about a girl who wants to play on the boys’ HS soccer team. I cried. I’d give it 3 stars. They also played several reruns of Cheers and Fraiser.

One full hour passed between when we landed and when I was reunited with my bag. I was out of cel phone range while on the subway. So, my sister was frantic with worry when I finally arrived in Fort Green close to 9 p.m.

Waiting for my Paris flight, and everything went smoothly. I went through security in my little tank top and capris (it's warm!) – the security girl laughed at me, I think because there was just no way I could set off the alarm since I was nearly naked.

My friend Joyce (not to be confused with my mother Joyce) has been talking lately about how she can never tell if someone is attracted to her in real life. But at Burning Man, she felt liberated to express her attraction as did others towards her. She is from New York. I noticed that no one is the slightest bit shy about staring here. And I stare right back. (Maybe I flatter myself. Maybe people stare because they think I’m funny looking. But even Ilana pointed out that in New York it’s OK to admire pretty people. They certainly gaped when I was walking around with her.)

New York Century

Photos of Ilana and me the day before the ride


Ilana and a few of her friends rode the New York Century yesterday. You can view all the photos here.
Map of the route


Laura, Dan, Carly, Ilana, me
We frolicked in this fountain built for the world's fair. The firemen drove up to make sure we weren't drinking the water. A few minutes later, the park police drove up to tell us not to go in the fountain. We were done by then, but another group had been inspired by our fun. Carly explained to the police: "They aren't from this country. So, they are used to freedom. I knew this would be a police state thing."


Me and Ilana en route
You can see in the back the clunky "Jamis" mountain bike borrowed from one of Ilana's friends that I rode.