TONIGHT ! CIVIC BY DESIGN FORUM

April 2, 2012

Bike Sharing-A Global View: Tues. April 10

CABA’s Martin Zimmerman as Guest Speaker


Why is bike sharing the rage and where does Charlotte fit into the bigger picture ? With 236,000 bikes in 33 countries and still accelerating, bike sharing is on the move!  Martin has just returned from a study tour of Buenos Aires, Argentina where he experienced the bike share system and interviewed bike system managers, experts and local advocates. Prior tours of Paris, Lyon, and Strasbourg in France and Washington D.C. in the USA have rounded out his views of bike share’s merits and challenges. His article pending publication for Urban Land magazine highlights his findings. Martin has published over 80 articles and reviews on current issues of urban design, smart growth and mobility in the USA and abroad.
DATE: Tuesday, April 10.
LOCATION: Levine Museum of the New South, 200 East Seventh Street. Bike racks next door at Uptown Farmers Market. Half block from CATS light rail stop. Free gas guzzler parking in 7th St. parking deck.

TIME: 5:30-6:30.

RSVP: info@civicdesign.com


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CABA IS IN ARGENTINA

March 22, 2012

Meetings taking place 

Executive Director, Martin Zimmerman met last week in Buenos Aires with Andres Fingeret and Clara Rasore of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and Matias Kalwill, founder and director of the CABA’s sister organization, La Vida en Bici (“Life on Bicycle”). Martin is checking out the local bike scene in the context of overall sustainable transportation solutions. Lots of new on-road paths just built in a city infamous for its past aversion to the power of two wheels.  Photo above shows the popularity of the  ”Bicing” yellow bike share cycles in the Ricoleta district. Martin returns to Charlotte in time for the Urban Assault Ride this Sunday.

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260 BICYCLES = 1 XMAS TREE

December 22, 2011

 Shenyang, China. (ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)

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BACK FROM FRANCE !

December 9, 2011

Fact-finding tour of bike sharing systems

Message from Martin Zimmerman, CABA Exec. Director  ~ ~ 

In mid-October I returned from a pretty remarkable 3 – week trip…..to Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg, three of the most successful “bike-sharing” cities in Europe. In Paris I interviewed Monseur Albert Asseraf, the JC Decaux company representative for the “Velib” bike-share system (20,000 bikes; usage increase of 20% over last year).  I met with him and the JCD maintenance and repair guys on a barge along the Seine just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Met with other insiders and community activists in Lyon and Strasbourg whose successful bike share systems predate Paris’. Pedaled the systems in all three cities to gauge the quantity and quality of the bike infrastructure and check out what segments of society are actually using bikes on an everyday basis. (Lyon is about as good as it gets). I took the subways, trams, trains and boats (and of course walked for miles in each city) to view how the transportation systems were integrated.

Bike sharing systems are simply well-managed fleets of high-quality bikes available for short-term affordable credit card rental at various locations within cities. There are now more than 375 systems in 33 countries. (For more on bike sharing  - use the Search box on this page or CLICK: Bike Share.)

The results of this trip will be used by CABA as a public service to inform local decision-makers who are just beginning to consider its feasibility in the Queen City, possibly in concert with the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

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GLOBAL WARMING ACCELERATES

November 5, 2011

Higher than worst case scenarios

Dateline: November 4 – Washington Post and other sources

Zero emission vehicle. copyright Andy Singer cartoons

Year 2010 results are published. We first saw this on page 6A of the Charlotte Observer. Read this excerpt > ” We’d be facing much higher land temperatures — as much as a 5.5°C (10°F) rise in parts of the United States — plus a six-foot sea-level rise by 2100, along with large species loss, many more extreme weather events, and a big hit to the world’s food supply. Arctic temperatures could rise as much as 11°C (20°F), which would, among other things, speed up the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet…”

It’s increasingly difficult to find a ray of hope when confronted with data as alarming as these findings. CLICK: Dire warnings to read full Washington Post article.

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IN MEMORIAM: STEVE JOBS

October 15, 2011

Take a few minutes 

View this YouTube video..

…then pass it on.

A brilliant analogy – presenting the thesis that “the computer is the bicycle for our minds“.

A younger Steve Jobs speaks on memory and the imagination for a Library of Congress documentary

Thank you to Treehugger online and others for letting us know.

And his more recent comments at the commencement exercises of Stanford University:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

*                 *                *

Steve Jobs’  inventive genius, commitment and profound passion to causes larger than himself will be sorely missed.

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