Trackstand Kim

Posted on December 7, 2011 by .
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My photo of Kim Capriotti trackstanding in front of the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas was my most popular photo yesterday on Flickr. Kim’s a professional photographer from Chicago. I think a girl watching site linked to the photo.

Bike news and stuff below the fold.


Kimberly

The National Center for Safe Routes to School published a new report that compared how school children traveled to school in 1969, 1995, 2001 and 2009. 48% of children walked or biked to school in 1969; in 2009, only 13% of students of traveled to school using their legs, while 45% get a ride in the family car or truck. Astonishingly, 30% of students who live less than 1/4 mile from school — that’s 440 yards, or one lap around the track — got a drive to school.

Bike Snob NYC skewers media anti-bike sentiment that appears even in New York City. Streetsblog covers the same issue a little more seriously.

Bike lanes in East Harlem pros and cons.

This is kind of interesting and could be a unique gift: Energy bars where you Pick your own ingredients via a web interface. Via Kent.

Streetsblog Network: Paying developers to build free parking.

Science Based Medicine: Antioxidants and exercise: More harm than good?

I’ve mentioned the parking benefit a couple of times here: The Federal government bribes you to drive to work.

I imagine this is less gruesome than it sounds on first reading: “Police [says] that 22-year-old Ronis de Oliveira Bastos [accused of eight murders] used his blue bicycle in at least half of the killings.” I picture the scene from the movie “Prince of Darkness” where Alice Cooper stabs a guy to death with a bicycle frame.


Kimberly

Mark V has crush on Subaru-Trek racer Emily Batty.

BFROU: Hardworking bikes of Singapore slideshow.

Fort Collins Colorado encourages winter cycling.

Gucci + Bianchi collab = a $14,000 carbon fiber “urban” bicycle.

You can track Tom Vanderbilt’s bike rides on Strava. He’s the author of the book Traffic.



See also:

  1. Middle School Traffic Safety
  2. Colorado bike haiku
  3. Safe Route to School Conference 2011
  4. Consumerist says Ride a Bike


  • http://twitter.com/Wuss912 Wuss912

    you mean this isn’t a girl watching site?

  • Anonymous

    I guess that suggests that “Safe Routes to School” is completely ineffective. Which is consistent with my experience with the same. Actually, the SRTS stuff I see invariably make things WORSE. Perhaps we should abandon the notion that throwing money at motorists to design facilities for pedestrians and cyclists is a good or even acceptable idea. IMO, better simply to turn off the tap and accept that there are worse things than benign neglect.

  • http://www.cyclelicio.us/ Cyclelicious

    The world is a big place, Steve.

    Schools in Boulder County Colorado effectively emphasize encouragement and education with their Safe Routes programs. At my son’s former elementary school, we saw the rate of children walking and biking to school shoot up to 96% (yes, really) from 36%.   The school used to have the typical morning and afternoon traffic jams, but today the small handful of parents who still drive their kids to school are the exception.  I’ve heard kids who are driven to school ask to be dropped off a block or two away from the school so their friends don’t see them in a car.

  • Anonymous

    Of course you are correct that SRTS has an occasional success and I certainly applaud the whole idea. But I have seen many SRTS projects that made things worse and the stats support that what I have seen is the rule rather than the exception. I actually posted on a horrible engineering job I later discovered was a SRTS project. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have scared off the kids who already walked and it HAS improved the route for the drop off parents.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe seeing what governments do around Texas fosters the notion that we’d all be better off not to give them our money. No matter HOW appealing the pretext.

  • Jack

    Use to live in TX and what a great place to prove that government and free enterprise are both failures when it comes to upgrading livability.  But those are common problems throughout the USA.  

    In our “green” ‘hood, there are many parents who drive their kids to school in giant SUVs who live within two blocks.  Pedestrians are an endangered species.  When I use to walk to places in my business suit in TX, drivers would yell “Hey LOSER!”.

  • http://wvcycling.net/ lalahsghost

    Poor Bianchi, what have they done to you?