As you probably are aware, we in North America are suffering from some giant bastard dropping a hot pocket on us. Some big old bubble of heat has been lying on us taking the temperatures in Michigan from our normal sublime 70's into the 80's and (gasp) 90 degree territory.
It's not even comfortable to drink beer in weather like that. I've been getting up really early to ride my bike before the heat sets in. Most people I know are weird and still have jobs and families and stuff to do, so I've been riding safely in the cool of the day alone.
It's not a bad gig, and not all I've been doing with my little "me time."
Our local bike club has put together our own fundraiser for the families affected by the horrific tragedy of June 7th. We have designed a nice jersey to sell to anybody interested in helping. It's a map of Michigan that has Kalamazoo marked with the chainlink heart symbol from Kalamazoo Strong. 20% of the purchase will go directly to the families of the victims.
It's a cool looking jersey,
available as long as the demand continues. I know I have readers all around (Google is watching) so I want to know these are worn in Russia, the UK, Denmark, Macedonia and where ever else the interweb goes. Order up! They are produced to order and don't take long.
http://www.voler.com/browse/collections/details/li/KalamazooStrong/
Following up on the realm of cycling safety.
As a citizen advisor to the area transportation study, I was invited to the annual
Michigan Transportation Planners Conference.
It's a fun filled 3 day adventure full of colorful powerpoints
presented by engineers. It was a close call a couple of times,
but I managed to stay awake throughout.
I was (no sarcasm here, really!) amazed at the preoccupation with
Complete Streets initiatives. It seems to have finally sunk in that our
cities have become unlivable piles of concrete and
the car may not be a useful form of urban transportation.
Even Detroit has gotten into the act by dieting Dearborn Rd,
the great bastion of auto history.
Along with other planning presentations we were taken on a tour of
the culinary institute built by the local community college.
What does that have to do with transportation?
It was built with limited parking
to promote the use of public transportation, cycling and walking.
In the immediate parking lot, there are 5 spots for cars, 30 for bicycles
and the campus was built right on the planned MUP which will be
a north/south commuter route in the future.
In all the conference and speakers were predictably mundane
except for the fact that all these city officials and planners
seem to be totally committed to multi-modal traffic
and mitigating the dominance of the automobile.
This is good reading. And, it's hot here on Cape Cod also.
ReplyDeleteThanks, we are just waiting for this heat to go away so we can get back to normal.
DeleteMarc
It is good to hear that your public officials are starting to "get it" with respect to transportation infrastructure and livability.
ReplyDeleteI do miss the days when I lived in Michgan and thought that 90-degrees was unbearably hot.