"[Thomas] Jefferson, believing that the taming of the horse had resulted in the degeracy of the human body, urged the young to walk for exercise."

from: Undaunted Courage by Stephen E Ambrose        

[editor's note: I bet Jefferson would be quite saddened by today's state of affairs]

Scott Render sends along a photo of the brand-new bike lane on 8th street.

In case you haven't noticed, the posting has been very slow in May, owing to this author's total commitment to Bike Month. :) YOU could author articles so this doesn't happen again.

Running on Empty from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

May 10, 6pm, Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville

A Documentary Film about the Past and Future of Transportation

Watch the trailer:

Need a map? Ekstrom Library is served by TARC routes 2, 4, 29, and 94. It is also served by a plethora of bicycle facilities. Coming by car? There is pay parking at the Speed Museum or the "green lot" off 3rd street right past the overpass on the left.

Help spread the word: tell your friends about it on Facebook.

A: To Work

Check out this cool map, courtesy Metro, of the places people biked for Bike to Work Day 2009:

Click here to download the hi-res pdf version of this map.

Viewing Jimmy's online bicycle calendar, three thoughts occur:

1. If you like bikes, you should check it out
2. Just this year, there's been such a ramp-up in bicycle culture here, its incredible
3. Thanks, Jimmy! I'll submit a bunch of dates...

Bicycling for Louisville's valet bike parking at Thunder Over Louisville via Mary Beth B.

These folks will get home much faster than motorists.

SFWeekly is running a tremendously in-depth (and long) article about their TARC equivalent, MUNI. It's called "The MUNI Death Spiral", and some words apply equally well to River City:

This leads to the last group of people responsible for Muni's woes: its owners, we the riders. We enjoy boasting about how you never need to walk more than two blocks to find a stop, but we don't seem to ponder how costly and inefficient this is. We are quick to rail against moves affecting the most vulnerable among us — but we seem to accept hardships affecting everyone, which render the system unreliable. ...

Once again, Muni exists for you. Not the drivers, not the managers, not the politicians — you. And you have some difficult decisions to make about what kind of transit service you want to have, and what, if anything, you'll do to get it. Complaining about Muni is easy. Owning it is not.

or
Why The Internet Is Great

311 is a good service, I use it often.

SeeClickFix.com is now my preferred portal to 311. Why? Because it allows me to interact with other users besides the government, and hold them to a higher standard than a civil servant would. For example, here's a driver that is complaining that the school zone on Southern Parkway is (gasp) half a mile long. Slowing down to 25mph from 35mph will cost him or her ... wait for it ... 20.6 seconds! So they filed a complaint with SeeClickFix that the school zone was too big, and that it should be contracted.

No one from government is going to tell this motorist they're assuming a car-centric vision of roads. But with SeeClickFix I don't need them to. I can do it myself. Here is my reply:

Yes, children do walk a half mile to school. It takes a staggering 10 minutes for them to do so. So slow down and give em' a break, because they don't have a perfect grasp of traffic law yet. Remember, you are a licensed driver, trained and responsible for the 2-ton piece of metal that you send hurtling through space at high velocity. Your responsibility is to drive carefully and anticipate errors on the part of other road users, especially our most vulnerable.

And I prefer SeeClickFix for other reasons as well. It lets you upload pictures and video, which are worth 1000 words. Also, there's less shenanigans where you have to fill out your blood type, date of birth, etc. It's short and to the point. Hooray!