Bike the Strike!

Bikescape talks to New Yorker Naomi Renek and Jym Dyer about biking during the great holiday transit strike of '05. Then we look at domestic spying and the infiltration of New York's police provocateurs into political events including a fifteen rider memorial ride.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

While Transportation Alternatives counted a five-fold increase in cyclists at the bridges entering Manhattan, Times up! organized bike pools to help novices with their commute. Bike blog has pictures and accounts.

The New York Time's Jim Dwyer (not our Jym Dyer!) ran an exposé (subscription) about the situation. Video here. (click on the video link)

Listen to the Democracy Now! Piece about undercover police infiltration of Critical Mass and other events.

I-witness video uses video cameras to document police conduct at demonstrations and to deter police violence. They work with legal defense teams to support people arrested at demonstrations, and to support civil suits which may be filed against the police.

A trip down market street in 1905

This week Bikescape dabbles in found video. The 'scape is still primarily an audio show because I love radio and the challenge of conjuring up a world in your mind while you cook dinner or ride the bus.

But this time I couldn't resist sharing this old film shot from a cable car on Market Street, San Francisco's main thoroughfare back in 1905, just a year before most of what you see here is destroyed in the great earthquake and fire. There is a bit of bike content here but this podcast concentrates on the history of the street most San Francisco cyclistst use every day.

You can listen to my commentary or just turn off the sound and let yourself be transported to a time just before the rule of the automobile.

Best if viewed using itunes or quicktime. (I used imovie to assemble this and optimized it for viewing in itunes and on the ipod)

Watch the video

or to bikescape in itunes.

You can download a higher resolution version of the film in three parts and in various formats from the Library of Congress.

The very first Critical Mass style ride on Market Street took place in 1896, nine years before this film was shot.

The non-profit Market St. Railway collects and preserves old streetcars that you can ride down Market St. and beyond.

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle talks about Melinda Stone's 2005 remake of the movie to commemorate the original film's centennial. (All of the other sites I've visited had credited the film to "unknown" but this article attributes it to one Jack Kuttner.)

Here is a history of the ferry building with a nice sequence of pictures showing the it evolution over the years.

The music came from a treasure trove of old Edison cylindars from his old lab in New Jersey.

Transportation for a livable city

A balanced and sustainable transportation system, along with land use that will support it can turn cities into places where people actually talk to each other and community can flourish.

Bikescape visits Tom Radulovich at Transportation for a Livable City to talk about how to make it happen.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

Here's a link to the song from last weeks show.

Times Up! wants you to complain about the proposed NY helmet law. (Scroll down a bit)

Check out the Geary Blvd. Bus Rapid Transit Study. and take part in the e-workshop. Be sure to encourage them to consider bike lanes as a part of the plan!

Sebastien, the guy that performed the closing song is selling his cd's here.

Taking off the training wheels

One never forgets one's first experience on two wheels. Bikescape reconnects with the feeling.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

That's my brother (left) and me on the red schwinn with the solid rubber tires.

Bikeboom is a great website for los angelenos with an open source calendar. (Anyone can post events)

The bike kitchen is the web site for the folks who'll teach you how to tune your bike.

Chris Carlsson will be leading his bike tour about San Francisco ecological history.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will be having is winterfest, among other events. (check the calendar!)

The San Francisco Bicycle Ballet

This is just an experiment to see how video works on bikescape. Let me know how it works!

Watch the video

Bikescape didn't make it to the SFBB show last week because of birthday conflicts but here's a three second clip of the bikerinas doing a move knnown as the"daisy."

See you all next week with a new podcast about first bike rides...

-jw

Commuting together: The Genentech bike club

Why ride alone when you can ride together? Bikescape joins the Genentech Bike Club as they splash through the rainy streets fifteen miles from San Francisco to their suburban office park. We talk of many things: food, dress, and cycle commuter accommodations in the corporate world.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

We also visit Nelson Nygaard and Associates and talk to Adam Millard-Ball about planning for better transportation

The Cranksgiving Alley Cat ride is happening in New York where this film by Lucas Brunell was filmed.

Don't Miss the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's Winter Fest

Bridging the gap

This week Bikescape looks for a way across the San Francisco Bay by bike. We look at the BART train and the Bay Bridge Bike Shuttle and take a peek into future possibilities.

Listen to the podcast
or go straight to Bikescape in itunes

BART's bike rules

Here's an old movie about the construction of the Bay Bridge

Here's a link to the Bay Bridge bike shuttle

Let's keep an eye on the Rincon Hill Plan and make sure room is left for a bicycle approach to the Bridge

The Transbay Terminal is due for a makeover

Come see the Bike Ballet! Friday, Nov. 11, 7PM - Midnight; Dogpatch Saloon, 2496 Third (@22nd Street)*

Chris Carlsson will be leading a bike tour of San Francisco Labor History (scroll down)

Both the London and New York Halloween Critical Masses went off without a hitch. Check them out at Bikeblog

Riding with Pedal Express

Bikescape leaves the urban jungle of San Francisco and crosses the Bay to the leafy college town of Berkeley. We visit the Berkeley Center for Appropriate Transportation and go for a ride with Pedal Express.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes


BCAT seems to not have a web site but the CAT in Eugene does.

Some of the bikes used by Pedal Express

Workbikes

Missing Link Bicycle Cooperative and Inkworks Press (where I work) like Ped Ex are members of NOBAWC and are Alameda County Certified Green Businesses.

We made a delivery at Southerland Bike Shop Aids

Busted flat in the big apple

In the face of the NYPD's opposition, New York's critical Mass rides still. We talk to Michael Green and Jym Dyer about the current state of the ride.

Listen to the podcast or
go straight to Bikescape in Itunes

Music from Wendy Mae Chambers on the car horn organ

The Rinky Dink Sound System song by David Rovics

Send your money to Times Up! to help defray legal costs

Mr.Bike

We talk to Dave Glowacz, aka Mr. Bike, author of Urban Bikers' Tips and Tricks about biking in the city. He also fill us in on what's happening in his home town of Chicago.

Listen to the podcast or go to Bikescape in itunes

Dave also works as the education coordinator ant the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.

Bike Summer is for wimps! Chicago is the "City of Broad Shoulders" and the home of Bike Winter.

The Governator vetoes two big bike bills in California. Find out what to do here.

Last Chance to check out the Bicycle Film Fest in San Francisco! Catch it in Tokyo next.

Mona's Mural

In the spirit of Art Mobs Mona Caron takes us for an audio tour of her 340 foot long mural adorning San Francisco's Duboce St. Bikeway.



Listen to the podcast or
go straight to Bikescape in itunes

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the opening.

The Bicycle Film Festival

Still We Speak defends your your rights!

Some say Leonardo da Vinci invented the bicycle.

San Francisco's Courier Disaster Response Team

How can bicyclists help out in a disaster? We find out when Bikescape talks with Serenity Enriquez who started the Bike Courier Disaster Response Team.

Listen to the podcast or
subscribe in itunes

Serenity was awarded Local Hero Status by the San Francisco Bay Guardian

NERT

broken links repaired and a new one

Radio4all moved to a new server and changed the links to the podcasts and I had to repair the feed. I'm sorry if you get new downloads of shows you've already heard...

And speaking of links, here's one to a great blog run kindred spirit Michael Green out of NY. The blog is called bikeblog and its got a lot of first hand accounts and photos of the vibrant and exciting NY bike scene.

Fetish for fixies

This week we explore the mystique and magic of the fixed gear bicycle. Meet some san francisco messengers as they tell us why they ride these edgy and sexy bikes.

Listen to the podcast here
or go straight to bikescape in Itunes

Rob mentioned Bay Area master frame builder Bernie Mikkelsen

During bikesummer '04 in NY I went for a ride with some guys from Old Skool Track. I'm the second from the left in this picture from Orchard Beach in Da Bronx

Photo credit: Old Skool Track

Sheldon Brown's site has some good pages on fixies

Vive la Revolution!

The San Francisco Grand Prix is this Sunday! You can ride the course before the race too!

My new friend Kyle (who I met through this podcast) and I will be showing the film Still we Ride after the next critical mass at Station 40 at 3030-B 16th at Mission at 9 pm. $4-10 donation. If you miss it here you can still catch it at The Bicycle Film Festival maybe in your town

Laws and sausage

They say you don't want to know how laws or sausage are made but Bikescape ignores all of that and visits City Hall in San Francisco to see the Bicycle Advisory Committee in action.

Listen to the podcast here
or go to Bikescape in Itunes

The San Francisco Planning Department

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Trees not Cars and The Alliance for Golden Gate Park has been fighting against the garage in Golden Gate Park

Bicyclists have a three times larger chance of suffering a heart attack in the hour after riding in the pollultion of heavy traffic.


Note: Like everyone in the on-line radio world, radio4all.org is having bandwidth problems. You can still find bikescape there and I encourage you to check out the unique its programming but the files are now going to be stored at ourmedia.org. Please shoot me an email if there are any problems with the new set-up.

Marin county hits the jackpot

Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate gets $25 million to improve bike and ped facilities. We talk with Deb Hubsmith of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition to find out how its going to be spent.

Listen to the podcast
or go to bikescape in itunes

Take your bike on Golden Gate Transit from the East Bay to Marin.

They have free wifi at Mt Tamalpais State Park!?!

The non motorized transportation pilot program will also give $25M each to Columbia, MO, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, and sheboygen County, Wi.

Bike Talk Radio rebroadcasts a Bikescape show in Davis California. (They got transmitters!)

Cycling and community - a conversation with Chris Carlsson

How does your choice of transportation create or destroy community? We talk with author, historian, co-originator of Critical Mass and my friend Chris Carlsson to get some insight.

Listen to the podcast or
go directly to Bikescape in itunes

Buy or download these and others of Chris' books at Full Enjoymment Books.

More links that Chris sent me-
www.shapingsf.org

www.processedworld.com
www.lipmagazine.org/ccarlsson


Some of the events mentioned in the community calendar segment were unintelligable so here are the links-

Get information about the Mt. Tam Double Century ride at the Marin Cyclists website

Contact Brandon to learn about the Vertigo tour of San Francisco.

James Howard Kunstler - "The Long Emergency"

Bikescape talks about the efffects of peak oil with James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century .

"The circumstances of the Long Emergency will require us to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do and how we do it, from the kind of communities we physically inhabit to the way we grow our food to the way we work and trade the products of our work. Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away."

Listen to the podcast

Other books by Kunstler include The Geography of Nowhere and The City in Mind, Notes on the Urban Condition.

Sustainability is big in corporate America today.

The fight goes on to stop the suburbanization of urban spaces in San Francisco. This time its Home Depot.

Market St., San Francisco's "Main Stem"

Bikescape takes a long (51 mins!) look at San Francisco's main drag, Market Street. San Francisco Bicycle Coalition program director Andy Thornley and in a cameo appearance, Robin Levitt of Octavia Blvd podcast (scroll down) fame take us for a tour of the street cyclists love to hate.


Listen to the podcast

If you observe vehicles parked illegally, you can call the DPT Enforcement Division directly at 553-1631

Bike polo!

San Francisco's Bike Kitchen needs a new home

Ride the double (yes double!) century around the San Francisco Bay. Register here.

Bike Summer, LA Part 2

Another Bikesummer day in Los Angeles and more bike fun ensues. This week bikescape presents impressions of LA's nascient bike culture as manifested in in one of the big group rides, Critical Mass.

Listen to the podcast

Midnight Ridazz doesn't seem to have a web site but you can read about it here. It was covered in the LA Times and blogged at Cicle.org.

Critical Mass ended at Hollywood and Vine were we attended the Bicycle Film Festival where Still we Ride, a film about New York Critical Mass was featured.

Joe Linton, the guy that was hawking his bike tour of LA's historic bridges wrote a book on the subject.

For those of you reading this in the "info" page on Itunes, here's the link to the shownotes with the links intact.

http://www.bikescape.blogspot.com

Bike Summer LA Part 1

Bikescape takes the Calshuttle to LA for a few days of Bike Summer, a month of activities designed to promote biking and bike culture. We meet with the folks at the Bicycle Kitchen and the volunteers of Times Up! We also met with Tomatoes who led a single speed cruiser race.

Listen to the podcast

Send an email to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to demand a pedestrian oasis in Golden Gate Park!

Trust your mechanic

This week we go to American Cyclery to visit with mechanic Bike Dave. We talk about bike lanes, bike theft, how to keep your chain clean and lubed and so much more.

Listen to the podcast

Beware of stolen bikes at some used bike shops!

Transportation for a Livable City would like help promoting some assmbly bills in California.

-j

Heavy pedal cyclecide!

This week Bikescape takes the family to the County Unfair and we walk the pedal powered midway. Then we take in the Life-size Mousetrap game.

Listen to the podcast

Esmerelda Strange performed. Meet her and get some of her songs here.

Señor Coconut

More links to come in a coupla days.

-j

World Environment Day

The United Nations returns to its (and Critical Mass's) birthplace in San Francisco to stage World Environment Day. Bikescape takes a walk through some exhibits and attends the Green Cities panel discussion.

We look for something to be hopeful about and come up decidedly short.

Listen to the podcast

The Scrap House was built by the San Francisco Building Inspections Dept and Public Architecture.

The SF Weekly ran a great article about the connection between housing and biking.

Wonderwater Rain Catchment Systems


City Car Share

Nelson Nygaard Consulting

Transportation for a Livable City

Leah Shahum from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wrote this op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle.

World Naked Bike Ride! June 11

Kibitzing with kash

This week Bikescape goes to the ballpark to visit with bike valet extraordinaire Kash and his kids, Iris and Zoe. We talk about car free living with kids in the 'burbs and in the city, ballparks without parking, car free vacations to Yosemite and a lot of other things.

Then, as usual, we look at news and events in the world of cycling.

The podcast of the Scavenger Scramble alleycat race is still to come. It's going to take some time to make sense of the hours of audio I accumulated that day!

I will post links in the next few days.

Listen to the podcast

Bike to work day

Bikescape joins the legions of workers as they bike to their jobs on Bike to Work Day. We meet few of the ones who are not in any particular hurry and get their thoughts. Chris Carlsson was one of them.

Then, as we do each week, we look at news and events in the bike world.

Listen to the podcast

Scott Mace contributes a segment from San Francisco suburb El Cerrito on the new bike parking set-up at BART Stations.

Still we Speak event in NY.

Reverend Billy supports NY Critical Mass with a benefits in NY and San Francisco.

The San Francisco Housing Action Coalition will host a bike tour led by bicyclist and architect David Baker.

If you're reading this now you missed a great party at the San Francisco Bike Kitchen featuring Cyclecide.

"To get an idea of what, exactly, the Cyclecide folks do, imagine Cirque du Soleil. Now take away the grace and beauty of a hundred seminaked French people and replace it with a bunch of surly, moonshine-swilling, outlaw types wearing monkey boots and moth-eaten clothing." August 2003 SF Weekly

..."contraptions that look like Salvador Dali dream- cycles riding through a psilocybin hallucination...." May 2001 SF Chronicle

"One of the group's mottoes is ``No brakes, no problem.'' These people aren't anti-safety, but safety isn't a major priority. Or a fleeting consideration." August 2000 SF Chronicle

-jon

Robert Moses and the Birth of Car Culture

"At the very moment… that we have torn down our elevated railways, because of their spoilage of urban space, our highway engineers are using vast sums of public money to restore the same nuisance in an even noisier and more insistent form. But what is Brooklyn to the highway engineer - except a place to go through rapidly, at whatever necessary sacrifice of peace and amenity by its inhabitants?"
- Lewis Mumford, The New Yorker (1959)

Did you ever wonder how we got this way? Bikescape examines the legacy of Robert Moses, the man who manipulated government to conform to his vision of the modern city.

Listen to the podcast

The Gowanis Expressway as it looks today

Transportation Alternatives and the community have sued to prevent the reconstruction of this highway in favor of a tunnel.

Robert Caro's book about Moses, The Power Broker

Robert Moses' Response to Robert Caro's The Power Broker

Jack Thurston's archive of bike shows on London's resonance fm radio. He's got some of his shows mp3'd on his blog. Jonathan at Podbike tells me he's now got a podcast feed.

Cars by The Desperate Bicycles and others of thier songs can be found here

(Gosh, I wish I could get rid of these italics...)

-j

I like my bike

This week we look at bike news as we kick off Bike Month. Then we take a look at my bikes.

Listen to the podcast

Last Fridays New York Critical Mass followed a different strategy this month but the cops still got a few riders as they tried to crush the ride.

Tranportation Alternatives and the NY DOT in New York plans a Bike Summer type month of events this May

Bike Polo in San Francisco

Velodiablo's post about bicycle polo

Take a moment to help stop the threat of bike tolls on California bridges and highways

The Bob trailer is a great one-wheeled cart that's good for camping as well as zipping between cars with a week's worth of groceries.

Burley is a fine worker owned cooperative that made my kiddie trailer and my piccolo trailer-cycle.

A sad article about Chris Robertson who is memorialized by the two Triumphs that I keep for him.

My Soma track bike.

Old Skool Track, NYC

Radical Radio picks up the 'cast

Check it out!

From Radical Radio's site:

"Radical Radio is a non-commercial news, analysis and commentary-based alternative news radio that is comprised of an 18 - 25 hour program that is updated every 2-3 days and features current alternative news from sources like Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, the Shortwave Report and international Indy Media reports and mixes them with political speech from groups or personalities such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis and many, many others. This is peppered with music and poetry. We aim to offer the best in alternative news radio available on the web. We hope you like the taste more than the bland pablum of commercial radio, or the middle of the conservative perspective that NPR dishes out.. Stay tuned, stay informed and stir it up!"

The revolution will not be motorized

With apologies to Gill Scott Heron. New lyrics by Larry Chinn.

Listen to the podcast

Lyrics from the Bikesummer website (1998 San Francisco BS archive pages)

Gill Scott Heron

biking and blathering

Bikescape invites you to join him on his commute from San Francisco to Berkeley. We ride across town before the sun rises, take the train under the Bay, then roll through SF's cinderella sister, Oakland to work in West Berkeley. Along the way I chatter and sermonize about the advantages of high density, European style cities over
auto-induced sprawl.

Listen to the podcast

The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

A Map to follow

podcast servers are back up again

Seems to be working now...

-j

PS Critical Mass tonight!

San Jose Ave bike lane ribbon cutting

From the SFBC news - (I hear there will be free Mitchel's ice cream!)

Wooo-hoo! We're having a Big Happy Lane-Loving Ribbon-Cutting Celebration for the newly-striped San Jose / Guerrero bike lanes, this Saturday (4/30) at 12 noon, in the little triangle on the east side of San Jose at 28th Street. Come out and join district Supervisors Ammiano and Dufty as we raise a hearty holler for these great new lanes and the hard-working neighbors and public servants who made them happen!

Sadly, not everyone is loving these swell new lanes -- there are some grumbling motorists making complaints to City Hall -- so be sure to show your support. Of course, phone calls and emails to supervisors and city staff are great (send a thank-you note to Supervisors Dufty <bevan.dufty@sfgov.org> and Ammiano <tom.ammiano@sfgov.org> if you haven't already, and give those DPT folks <livable.streets@sfgov.org> a big smooch, too!), but you can also be a big help by distributing informational flyers to bicyclists and others in the area. Contact Andy Thornley (431-BIKE x307 or andy@sfbike.org) and we'll get you set up for effective flyering on this important new link in the Citywide Bike Network. And we'll see you Saturday for a good old time on the brand new San Jose / Guerrero lanes!

podcast servers are up again!

Radio4all.net was down for a few hours which is why you couldn't get any podcasts this afternoon. All fixed now.
-j

The bicycle lifestyle

After catching up on the news, Bikescape rides up fifteen stories to the plush new offices of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to meet with executive director Leah Shahum. We talk about how to ease yourself out of car culture and into the bicycle lifestyle.

Listen to the podcast

Shout outs to
The Michigan Cycling Podcast
Bike Talk Radio on KDRT Radio in Davis, California (and in the pod-o-sphere)
Kickbiking
Five Speed Cassette likes Ann Coulter but we have common ground in cycling!
Podbike is a directory of bike podcasts

An update on the New York Critical Mass Situation from the front page of the NY Times. The article is archive already and you have to pay to read the whole thing...

Democracy Now! has a better segment and its free

If you're not getting this podcast by subscribing to it via RSS using the free ipodder app, you're missing half the fun!

This may or may not be the same guy leah's talking about but, if not, this blogger is his kindred spirit. (For informational purposes only, not an invitation to flame or troll him!)

Bike to Work Day

Learn to drive your bicycle

Recomended reading from Velodiablo

-j

Bikescape checks out the new San Jose Ave bike lanes

Public space is reclaimed for bikes (and the community!) as new bike lanes are striped

This week we take a walk along the new San Jose Ave bike lanes. Seven years in the making this reclaimation of public space has finally come to pass. We talk to the main instigator Gillian Gillette about how she rallyed her neighbors and allied them with the bike community to make her neighborhood a more livable place.

Listen to the podcast

The San Jose Ave. website

TLC is the fiscal sponsor for the neighborhood coalition

Walk San Francisco

SF Bicycle Coalition

Mitchell's Ice Creamery, the best ice cream in the world
688 San Jose Avenue at the corner of 29th Street
11:00 a.m. to 11:00 pm.
7 days a week

Broken links fixed

A-Infos, where I store the mp3's for the podcasts went and archived the files and changed the links. They're fixed now and I'm about to ping the feed and see if a disaster awaits for those of you using podccast clients. Hopefully, some of you won't be re-downloading old episodes. Please leave me a comment here if you have a problem with the feed and I'll get right on it.

Sorry.

A-Infos is a great site, by the way. Remind me to make a donation for their great, free net radio hosting service.

-j

Bikescape looks at the news

A review of recent news about bikes and space

Listen to the podcast

With lawsuits and nets, New York keeps chasing Critical Mass

New York cops violate court order

James Howard Kunstler asks
What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

Time's Up! needs your money for their defense fund

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition needs you to stuff envelopes

Still we ride!

New York City tries to shut Critical Mass down but the ride goes on in the courts and on the streets. Bikescape talks to Jym Dyer in New York to get a firsthand account.

Also: a calandar of bike events in San Francisco and New York.

Listen to the podcast

Time's Up!
NYC's direct action environmental organization

Video coverage from NY1

There's a new movie coming out soon about NY Critical Mass called (guess what?) Still we Ride

Indymedia has a page devoted to the NYCM situation

Democracy Now! ran a segment too.

Bicycling – a quiet statement against oil wars

Bikescape dismounts and marches to end the war getting a few interviews along the way.

Listen to the podcast

"We need an energy policy that encourages consumption"
- George Bush

Oil, War And A Growing Sense Of Panic In The US
Robert Fisk

Pizza power!
Fuel that gets you there and tastes good too! (and doesn't kill anyone, either!)


Get one of these here

Pedaling and Pontificating

Bikescape takes a ride down San Jose Ave and Valencia Street and checks out the reclaimation of public space from cars.

Listen to the podcast

Music by The Vikter VZ Experience
More songs at the website!

The web site of the San Jose - Guerrero Coalition to Save our Streets

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

March 19 demonstration to end the oil war
The blood is on the hands of everyone who drives. Get there by bike!

-j

Octavia Boulevard Comes to Life

Only tangential references to bikes this week!

As Octavia Boulevard rises from the rubble of the old Central Freeway, Bikescape takes a tour along with about thirty others led by Robin Levitt and Tom Radulovich. The walk was jointly sponsored by Walk San Francisco and Transportation for a Livable City.

The downfall of the freeway and the rise of the Boulevard is another chapter on San Francisco's ongoing freeway revolt, a grass-roots movement that goes back to the fifties. San Francisco owes its livability, charm and cohesive community to the individual neighborhood activists who banded together at strategic times to fight the auto culture that was treatening to choke the city with cars and blight. Imagine what almost happened: an elevated freeway on Polk St. and six lanes cut into a trench where the Panhandle an Golden Gate Park now stand! And most of these victories (and some of the losses) squeaked by on six to five votes!

listen to the podcast

More links mentioned in the podcast

• San Francisco Better Neighborhoods plans
• San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
• Octavia Boulevard Housing Design Competition
• Car Critical Mass - 1998
  

-j

Critical Mass!

From the birthplace of Critical Mass, San Francisco, Bikescape takes you on the this months ride.

One of these days I would really like to have a segment in the show where I run four or five short sound scenes from Critical Masses around the world. If you have an mp3 player that records, you can do it! Send 'em in and I'll get 'em on!

listen to the podcast


Links from the show
Return of the Scorcher
A 30 minute documentary directed by Ted White

We are Traffic
A Movie about Critical Mass

Here's a link to the Waterford track bike I saw during the ride.

archive.org

sf lan

All radio , where bikescape is hosted

Riding and Ranting

I just figured out how to record and bike at the same time. Here's twenty minutes of stream of consiousness.

Stay tuned for San Francisco Critical Mass coverage sometime this weekend!

listen to the podcast
(tech note: I used audacity to assemble this show and it seemed to name the show "rant," rather than the file name. Sorry about that.)

Links

Mission: Not Impossible
Urban cycling is rewarding dream to be enjoyed From the San Francisco Chronicle

www.critical-mass.org

Bikesummer, LA

This week Bikescape travels to rainy southern California to meet the organizers of LA Bikesummer, a yearly month long series of rides, workshops, actions and fun all aimed at raising bicycle awareness, fostering the bike community and changing the world.

I caught up with Lars Lettonen (hope I spelled your name right!) at the benefit for Bikesummer at the Basswerks Gallery on W. Adams St. The entertainment was provided by rock royalty Kristen Hirsh of 50 Foot Wave, formerly of the Throwing Muses. The evening began with an electrifying set by Ruin the Ending from Providence, Rhode Island.

The weather was EXTREMELY wet but most people showed up by bike.

I was in town to attend the seventy fifth birthday of my father-in-law (Happy birthday, Mark!) so I had to leave early and didn't get to meet everyone I wanted to meet, so if you're with BSLA, and you want to add your voice please post some comments below, send me an email or, better yet, an mp3 for me to put on the next show.

listen to the podcast

Some links

Bikesummer
Basswerks Gallery
Kristen's web site

Send me an email and let me know what you think!

San Francisco gets a clue

San Francisco Supervisor Jake McGoldrick proposes congestion pricing for downtown drivers.

-j

The Maiden Voyage of the SS Bikescape!

Well Here it is: the first episode of the bikescape!

My excitement is tempered by the fact that I uploaded the wrong file the first time, one that was just a test. How fucking EMBARRASSING!! So, if you happen to download the file directly from radio4all.net, please ignore the file dated 02-12-05. I sound tired and stoned. I was really at the end of a long session of trying to find out how to get soundflower to work.

Sigh.

Anyway, enjoy the show and please write to me at bikescape@sbcglobal.net and let me know what you think.

listen to the podcast

Car culture alternative peddled
Protesters celebrate `the joy of the bicycle' outside auto show Chicago Tribune
-j

Introducing the bikescape podcast!

Hey there! Welcome to my first ever post to the soon-to-be home of the bikescape pod cast!

What's a podcast?

The idea is to have a semi regular podcast show with music and discussion about bikes, bike culture, and bikes in the world. We might have a "live" report from San Francisco Critical Mass or, perhaps we could have an interview with city bike planners. Maybe I'll spend an episode debating steel vs. carbon fiber or I could rant about how we've gotten into a stupid war just so Americans can drive!

I have a few technical issues to deal with, like where to host the mp3's and how to set up the feed but I hope to have things resolved by the end of the month. Stay tuned and leave comments!

-j