Friday, June 22, 2007

New time for Ladies' Night!



Starting June 25 Ladies' Night will move to every other Monday from 6pm to 8pm.



Ladies' Night is open, noncompetitive shop time for woman-identified individuals. Bring your own project or work on one of the Bike Library's under the guidance of female mechanics.

Ladies' Night dates throughout the summer will be July 9th & 23rd, August 6th & 20th, September 3rd & 17th.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

The Salvage Story


Beside getting more folks on bikes another basic goal of the Bicycle Library is to divert metal from the landfill by salvaging parts for reuse from bikes that are themselves beyond reuse and recycling the left over scarp metal.

This load, taken today, on the Bike Library’s 8 foot trailer put us over 1000 pounds of metal recycled this year by this mode of transportation since our first run with the trailer in early March. Overall, with the help of City dump trucks last week, we have recycled 2730 pounds of metal.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

“What are the three aspects of your community most in need of improvement in order to accommodate bicyclists”.

Kent Ralston, Assistant Transportation Planner for Iowa City asked me my opinion on, “What are the three aspects of your community most in need of improvement in order to accommodate bicyclists” in relation to the Bicycle Friendly Community application he is filling our for Iowa City.

Here's my response:
1) Engender a community-wide culture of respect for bicyclists and pedestrians through programs of education of rights and responsibilities for cyclists, police officers, and the general public; and increased enforcement of related laws, ie. lights on bicycles, failure to yeild to peds and cyclists, etc. Some of this could be done through soft enforcement, ie giving of lights to nighttime cyclist riding without lighting etc.
2) Survey citizens to find what are the barriers they preceive to using a bicycle for their regular transportation needs and address these issues.
3) Set concrete, measurable goals for improving cycling in Iowa City.

4) bonus Improve safety of I-80 crossings at Dubuque St, Dodge St. and Hoover Highway.

What would be yours?