[Scpg] Thurs. July 28 Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities with author Jeff Mapes Booksigning & Talk SB Downtown Library Faulkner Gallery

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Thurs. July 28  Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American 
Cities with author Jeff Mapes   Booksigning & Talk SB Downtown  Library 
Faulkner Gallery

Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities'  Author 
Jeff Mapes comes to Santa Barbara

When David Byrne writes your book review for the New York Times, you 
know that you are on to something. Jeff Mapes, political columnist for 
the Oregonian, has come out with a timely piece of investigative 
journalism about the bicycling movement sweeping cities throughout the 
country. A journalist and political columnist with a skill for engaging 
narrative, Mapes presents inside stories from the current high stakes 
NYC bike path battles, to the pioneering of bicycle routes on roadways 
in 1970’s Davis, Ca.

No writer has their finger on the pulse of the growing bicycle movement 
and the public policy struggles it causes like Mapes. Pedaling 
Revolution has a rare 5 stars on the Amazon rating. Notably, Pedaling 
Revolution's write up from Talking Heads frontman and cycling advocate 
David Byrne, but other book reviews as well, have been extremely 
positive. His premise (and subtitle) that bicycles are changing American 
cities is provocative and underscores the tensions surrounding increases 
in bicycling.

The Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition is sponsoring a live talk with Jeff 
Mapes, ‘Pedaling Revolution’ : How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities 
Thursday July 28^th at 7:30pm at the SB Public Library’s Faulkner 
Gallery Jeff will be taking about his book and sharing stories from the 
bicycling movement Books will be available for sale after the event. The 
event is free.

For more information, please contact:
Edward France Executive Director
Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition
805 617-3255  ed at sbbike.org <mailto:ed at sbbike.org>

‘Pedaling Revolution

By JEFF MAPES
Published: May 29, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/books/excerpt-pedaling-revolution.html

'Pedaling Revolution,' by Jeff Mapes: Bike Messenger (May 31, 2009)

 From New York's Williamsburg Bridge to San Francisco's Market Street, 
rush-hour traffic jams — those iconic emblems of American life — teem 
with millions of cars, trucks, and buses. At first glance, only the 
increasing miles of congestion and the stylized curves of the cars 
distinguish twenty-first-century gridlock from decades past. But now, 
bobbing lightly in the exhaust-filled urban streams is a new addition: 
the bicyclists. By the hundreds of thousands, these unlikely 
transportation revolutionaries are forgoing the safety of a steel cage 
with airbags and anti-lock disc brakes for a wispy two-wheeled 
exoskeleton as they make their way to work, school, and store.

There are, of course, the ever-present bike messengers, fueled by pure 
adrenaline and their own private code of survival. But stand on the new 
bicycle and pedestrian ramp over the Williamsburg Bridge and you'll also 
see well-dressed men and women, riding upright on shiny bikes outfitted 
as carefully as an executive's BMW. Tattooed young hipsters rush by, 
handling their battered bikes with nonchalant ease. Young women glide by 
on beach cruisers. Grim-faced riders in spandex and aerodynamic helmets 
speed by on expensive road bikes that seem more air than metal. Only 
their document-packed saddlebags hint at a day of serious desk work.

For the first time since the car became the dominant form of American 
transportation after World War II, there is now a grassroots movement to 
seize at least a part of the street back from motorists. A growing 
number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of 
urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as 
they create a new society on the streets. They're finding physical 
fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity — and, still all 
too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury.

These new pioneers are beginning to change the look and feel of many 
cities, suburbs and small towns. In the last decade, thousands of miles 
of bike lanes have been placed on streets around the country, giving 
cyclists an exclusive piece of the valuable asphalt real estate. As gas 
prices rise, traffic congestion worsens, and global climate change 
becomes an acknowledged menace, a growing number of cities have launched 
programs to shift a measurable percentage of travel to cycling. Take 
Chicago, for example. When it comes to transportation, the Windy City is 
known as the nation's railroad crossroads. But it has adopted a 
blueprint calling for 5 percent of trips under five miles to be made by 
bike. In the concrete canyons of lower Manhattan, New York City is 
literally pioneering a new kind of street, one designed to allow 
cyclists to peacefully pedal while largely separated from cars and 
trucks. And in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, local officials have 
built a bike network that in the span of a little over a decade has 
helped turn about one in twenty commute trips into a bike ride.

In these cities and elsewhere, motorists are learning to share the 
streets with a very different kind of traveler, one who often perplexes 
and angers them. Listen to talk radio and you can hear the backlash as 
callers vent about bicyclists who blow through stoplights or who ride in 
the center of the street and slow drivers behind them. Bicyclists 
express their own anger at inattentive drivers and a car culture more 
concerned with speed and aggressiveness than safety. And that sense of 
fury helps fuel a bicycle-rights movement that is growing in visibility. 
Bicycling, once largely seen as a simple pleasure from childhood, has 
become a political act.

The burgeoning bicycle culture is a rich tapestry. It ranges from the 
anarchic riders of Critical Mass to the well-heeled Lance Armstrong 
look-alikes on bikes expensive enough to rival the cost of a low-end 
car. For the young "creative class" that cities are fighting to attract, 
bicycles are a cheap, hip way to get around town. That's why Louisville 
— not exactly a beacon of the counterculture — has made a determined 
effort to become friendly to bicycling. The city's mayor sees it as a 
good way to attract those young people who will power the economy 
decades from now. On the other end of the age spectrum, bikes are a 
low-impact way for AARP-age adults to exercise after their joints can no 
longer take the pounding of jogging. In fact, the two baby boomers who 
competed for the presidency in 2004, George W. Bush and John Kerry, are 
both avid cyclists who would cart their bikes along on campaign trips. 
Four years later, Democrat Barack Obama became the first mainstream 
presidential candidate to promote cycling as a transportation tool and 
to actively solicit the support of cyclists in his campaign.

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