MyWHaT

Try to get a chance to watch this 8 min video over the weekend titled Beauty and the Bike. It’s a short version of a 55 minute film by Darlington Media Group in the UK.

The documentary sets out to answer the question, “What makes – and stops – teenage girls from cycling.” It’s not what you might imagine. Again, it boils down to infrastructure and design.

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Have a great weekend. Thank you for the great first week.

Cul-de-sacs are dead ends.

Each Friday, Wheels will share links to interesting articles, sites and what-have-you found during the week that didn’t make a post:

• The end of cul-de-sacs is near street connections actually reduce car use.
• Re-engineering slowness back into building design Making stairways central options & other techniques to increase walking.
• Vehicle idling- Revisited! It’s not necessary, even in the cold.  Turn it off.
• An urban mountain bike skills park something for Parks & Rec?
• A year without getting into a car People do it everyday.
• VW releases $600 car that gets 258mpg ‘nough said.
  
• A district of Guangzhou China has 1% automobile use & world doesn’t end!
• The Conservative Case for Walking and Biking could have used this over the holidays
  
• America’s Car Fleet Shrank in 2009 economic downturn? Cash-for-Clunkers? What gives?
  
• But, Despite Risks, Internet Creeps Onto Car Dashboards
• Which goes along with the 2009 Word of the Year: Distracted Driving
• My kingdom for a pair of boots by the Oregonian Editorial Board offers a reality check for both the hard-core biker and the car-addict. Sometimes it just makes sense to simply walk. They remind us that it wasn’t that long ago where walking was the most used method for getting around.

In the world before cars came along, people walked everywhere, even from city to city. It wasn’t recreation, it was transportation, and yet it kept people fitter in both body and brain.

I wanted to restart the discussion about trouble spots in Traverse City for pedestrian & bicycle safety concerns.

In a previous post, I was responding to a discussion that took place on the Plan for TC forum about street safety.  I provided this quick,  non-comprehensive list:

South Entrance of NMC on Front St.

Munson Ave.

Garfield & Front Intersection

The entire route of Garfield (Agave is .5 miles away from my house, still difficult to reach)

Woodmere (TART crossing has blind spot)

8th St.  (Suicidal)

Front St. (different stretches have different issues)

Cass St. & Union St., south of Old Town

7th St. crossing of Division

14th St.

Division St.

Grandview and Division

What examples can you provide for Traverse City? For other locations in Northern Michigan?