Lucky you don't live in Tennessee

Gets ugly out there. Ride yer bike on River Road, go to jail *.

*HB 0342 by *Moore. (SB 0276 by *Haynes.)

Motor Vehicles - As introduced, prohibits operation of bicycles on River Road in Davidson County between U.S. Highway 70 / S.R. 24 and the Cheatham County line; violation is Class C misdemeanor. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 8.

The League of American Bicyclists opposes such restrictive laws. As does the Bicycling Coalition of New Mexico. A Knoxville cycling blog is reporting on this.

* (Class C misdemeanor penalty not greater than thirty (30) days in jail or a fine not to exceed fifty dollars ($50.00), or both, unless otherwise provided by statute)

Note: at last report (2/24/09), the bill was taken off the calendar.

And Ed Grothus is gone...

Being an anti-nuke activist in Los Alamos must be one of the few things harder than being a bicycling activist in a land of motorists. A hard sell. So when Ed Grothus finally checked out this week, perhaps it was to him a bit of a reprieve.

But when so much seems to be measured in everyday terms such as meeting milestones or performance initiatives, Ed (seen here on Youtube) reminded us that a mushroom cloud is more than an abstraction. Or, as Robert Oppenheimer might paraphrase from the Bhagavad Gita , "we have become death, the destroyer of worlds". Not just with bombs, either. How many species have gone extinct due to Man's having overwhelmed our natural systems? We are practically as efficient as a bolide impact!

So keep the big picture, not just the small stuff. That goes for most things. Including bicycling advocacy.

Godspeed, Ed. And let's remember that granite lasts a lot longer than humankind.

Joel is back...

Sure enough, Caballo Bike & Ski is open for business again. I stopped by and chatted with Joel for a few minutes today. He is also working on getting his web site up again.

Good to see that shop with its lights on again! When the website is up, I'll link to it here. And, thanks to Anon for mentioning it.

The Economic Stimulus and Bicycling

I'm copying this out of an email I get from the National Center for Bicycling and Walking. Not sure what Sharon means by "reconcile"--the bill has Congressional leadership approval, but has not been voted out of Congress yet. See NY Times link.

Dear Centerlines Readers,

Today, Wednesday, February 11, 2009, members of Congress reconciled the House and Senate versions of The Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more popularly known as the Economic Stimulus Bill. As you are likely aware, the economic stimulus bill has generated a tremendous amount of political hyperbole—both in favor of and against its passage. However, there are now three simple facts that remain: 1) the bill has passed both chambers; 2) very soon $800 billion will be allocated by Congress; and 3) a significant percentage of that amount will be devoted to transportation projects.

Making sure that the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists are looked after once the stimulus funding is disbursed to the states is now the primary concern of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking. We believe that the best way to ensure that this happens is to support the House bill which requires that 45 percent of transportation funding go through the Surface Transportation Program formula, which will preserve funding for the Transportation Enhancements program.

NCBW believes that this is the best compromise towards ensuring that bicycle-pedestrian projects are built by the state DOTs, that public accountability for transportation spending is maintained, and that transportation spending conforms to the will of the American people, as expressed in Congress’s passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act in 1991 and subsequent reauthorizations.

If you are ready to take action now, please follow this link to the League of American Bicyclists’ website.

http://tinyurl.com/al4y88

If you would like to learn more about America Bikes Collation’s stance on the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, please follow this link to our website.

http://www.bikewalk.org/economic_recovery.php

Sincerely,

Sharon Z. Roerty, AICP/PP
Executive Director
National Center for Bicycling & Walking

Bob Mionske and Velonews: Good Night, and Good Luck

Bob Mionske has ended his Legally Speaking column in Velonews.com The last essay is titled Good Night and Good Luck. Guess Bob watches the same movies I watch. Or, follows the same famous journalists. The essay is an excellent synopsis of where we are in the continued saga of cyclists's rights.

Fortunately for us, Bob is quite the web presence. He is continuing online with a blog. And, his book. And, Velologue.

According to his web site, Bob is not ceasing his bicycle magazine writing. Rather, he will be moving his articles to Bicycling Magazine. Guess I'll keep paying my LAB dues since the mag comes as a fringe benefit to membership.

I'm still disappointed by the change. Even long after I have gotten too fat to race anything other than the Grim Reaper, who is always trying to catch my wheel, I still follow Velonews.com closely. Bicycling gave the bum's rush to most of the columnists (Langley, Pavelka, etc. who are now here) whom I used to follow.

Bicycle Coalition of New Mexico

Only seven registered BCNM members from Los Alamos? I would suspect we are under-represented. If you are concerned about cycling, go join. Its admittedly really tough to have a statewide organization in such a large state, but the alternatives are not to have any statewide coordination at all.

There are actually quite a few people registered statewide. We look kinda wimpy here in BombTown.

You can register here:
http://www.bikenm.org/cgi-bin/MemberMan/Register.pl

Thanks for thinking about it!