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1.Space
How much space do you need? How many cyclists will you be able to attend? Start small, but you should foresee the possibility of expanding. Try to offer enough space to fit the bikes. Remember that it’s possible to fit 10 bikes in the same space required to park one car.

2.Practicality
Avoid bike racks that allow chaining the bike only by its wheel. They do not offer enough safety and they might damage the bike. The models that leave the bicycle on a vertical position are also inconvenient. An example of good design and simplicity is the one that looks like an inverted U.

3.Comfort
You should consider a bike-parking that is not exposed to weather, especially if the bike is going to stay there for a long period of time. The rain is very harmful to the bike parts, so can be the sun, which can make the bike seat too hot, what might be uncomfortable and can cause damage to the seat. You should also avoid places close to unloading areas, trash cans or some other place that might be dirty or smell bad.

4.Location
This and the next two items are directly related. Make sure that the bicycle parking place is not too far, which might discourage the use and show disregard towards the cyclists.

5.Visibility
In many cases there are no indications that there is a bicycle parking facility. Many cyclists may not feel like asking for a place to park and just leave. Make it clear that cyclists are welcome.

6.Accessibility
Avoid places that you have to go through narrow passages, bumpy ground, too many people going by, stairs or other obstacles in order to get to it.

7.Lighting
During the day that’s easy, but if you are going to have cyclists at night time too, make sure that the lighting is good.

8.Security
Make sure there’s no danger of theft. The best option is to place the bike parking where it can be visible all the time. If that’s not possible, there should be someone to guard the bikes or the place should have restricted access.

9.Special treatment
Use your imagination. Offer discounts, gifts and/or prizes to cyclists.

I ride my bike to-and-from work and Uni everyday through peak hour traffic and I find the pollution to be unbearable. Where possible I will ride the side roads and the creek track so that I don’t have to wear my muzzle. But in an urban environment, as a dedicated cyclist, it’s simply not possible for me to avoid heavy traffic while relying on my bike as a mode of transport. The way I see it is that if every health conscious cyclist joined me in wearing an anti-pollution mask, not only would we be sending a visible message to others about the health effects of an auto-dominated society, we would also be starting a new fashion trend. I have been driven to wearing a facemask for the sake of my health. Join me in protecting yourself so that I don’t look like a lonely eccentric fool.

The fact is that traffic pollution is bad for you. The fine particulate matter and toxic chemicals found in vehicle exhaust is commonly known to be linked to higher rates of respiratory disorders such as asthma, bronchitis and decreased lung functioning. Traffic exhaust contributes to morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease and is a risk factor connected with lung cancer. Benzene is a known carcinogen that is found in higher levels in diesel exhaust, which is a concern considering the increasing congestion of heavy freight on Melbourne’s roads. A World Health Organisation study from 2000 reports that some evidence suggests an increased risk of childhood leukaemia from vehicle exhaust where Benzene may be the responsible agent. This is just one of the most dangerous substances in the cocktail of chemicals that is vehicle exhaust. For a comprehensive list of chemicals found in vehicle exhaust and their effects on human health- research, www.worldcarfree.net/ resources/stats.php.

Reading through these chemicals reminds me of an anti-smoking ad. Indeed, it seems to me that there are strong similarities between the health issues of traffic induced air pollution and cigarette smoking, except that awareness of the health effects of traffic pollution is decades behind the anti-smoking campaign. Think about it. If the tobacco industry was able to put up decades of stubborn resistance in denying the blatantly obvious (that cigarette smoking is bad for you) then what chance do health campaigners have of bringing to light the true costs of traffic pollution? Oil and automobiles are economically and emotionally two of the most entrenched vested interests in our society. Cigarette smoking has been successfully discredited as an anti-social behaviour in our society, but it isn’t so easy to make people see our addiction to the automobile in the same light. A majority of us rely on our private car to function in our everyday lives. It is the machine that binds our society. In affluent countries, the private car has provided the majority of us with an unprecedented freedom of personal mobility. This is a freedom that will not be easily relinquished. Our dependence on the private car is far more powerful than any tobacco addiction.

I’m not saying that we should ban cars. For all of the damaging side effects that our auto-addiction has brought (air pollution, road trauma, traffic congestion, noise, sedentary lifestyles) our society would collapse overnight if people couldn’t drive their car. Whether I like it or not, our society has tacitly agreed that the private car shall be a necessary evil in our lives. We accept the evil of air-pollution for our freedom of mobility. What I cannot accept is that some people no longer recognise our auto-addiction as an evil in the first place. Our auto-dependence is so deeply embedded within our culture that it is unfathomable for us to even consider the costs of our utter reliance on the automobile, let alone to change our transport behaviour. People will continue to drive their cars, no matter what the health costs. And I will wear a face mask.

Having grown up in a country town, I am perhaps more sensitive than your average Melburnian to the air pollution. Or should I say that your average Melburnian is more desensitised to air pollution than me? This isn’t because Melbourne hasn’t got an air pollution problem, you can visibly see it staining our magnificent city-scape on any blue skyed day. It’s just that air pollution is a permanent feature of city living. It is an accepted evil that is no longer recognised as an evil in the first place, and so it has been allowed to get worse. Air pollution is like breathing, you don’t notice it until you’re made to.

At this point I’m sure that many proud and indignant Melburnians would like to point out that the air pollution isn’t that bad. The argument usually goes, “Yeah but the pollution in Melbourne isn’t as bad as in Sydney!”

To these people I would like to point out two things. One, Melbourne is a better city than Sydney. A truly world class city shouldn’t get stuck justifying its shortcomings by comparing itself to other, inferior cities. We should be seeking to stand up against other world-class cities that are ahead of us in any given area. In terms of transport, we should be viewing our traffic problem as deplorable compared with cities leading the world in best practice sustainable transport. These happen to be the most cultured and liveable cities in the world. Secondly, a city doesn’t need to have a smog problem on the scale of, say, Mexico City, where 7 in 10 children have had their development stunted from lead in traffic pollution, for traffic fumes to be a health issue. In my case, it doesn’t matter what city I’m in. When I’m riding my bike in dense traffic, say, Hoddle or Alexandra parade, I’m breathing in fumes straight from the exhaust pipe.

So from function comes fashion. I have opted to protect my health by wearing an anti-pollution mask. The fact that traffic fumes are bad for your health seems to me as obvious as the fact that cigarette smoking is bad for you. Yet, somehow science and public awareness on the issue hasn’t arisen to reveal the true health costs of traffic induced air pollution in urban environments. Personally, I’m not going to wait for that to happen. I’m going to mask up. Join me.

Written by Patrick Lias

The film resulting from these interviews – “Via Express en el mundo” – address the futility of envisioning super highways as solution for traffic problems, when they will in fact only create a new ocean of cars in a time when the oil they will consume, is already leaking in the ocean as we speak.

The video got more than ten thousand hits in 3 days. The mission of @negrosoto was more than acomplished. So much that a day after, @negrosoto got this email from YouTube:

The situation is delicate as copyright is here used as a weapon of censorship. Copyright was not created for abuse like this. It is clear that the government of Jalisco see that in the Super Information Highway , freedom of expression flows at great speed and they are not willing to tolerate it. One more time, copyright claims are used to shut down critics and pretend that it is business as usual and that building Via Express in Jalisco is a very good solution.

My friend Jesús used the video material of the Government of Jalisco – probably produced using tax money – to make a critique. A clear case of fair use. Both the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that governs Youtube and the mexican law of intellectual property allows the fair use of copyrighted material by the public.

Trying to get their message across to society by manipulating freedom of expression is not really a good strategy for Via Express. Using copyright-based censorship to legitimate an infrastructure project facing great opposition is neither a good way of promoting Via Express, nor to defend the imaginary benefits of the intellectual property system.

The video was taken down and that act itself proves the lack of vision of the promoters of Via Express: any other idea around cars and mobility will not even be considered. There is no space to consider that there might be other possible solutions or even less that maybe the solution proposed is part of the problem.

More cars, more highways, stricter copyright, censorship – absolutely primitive ideas!

In a fragile democracy like the mexican one, with few formal ways of influencing policy, we have to be alert and protest every time copyright is used to censor the voice of citizens or control public space.

Even though YouTube shows in this broken link that the department of communication of the state of Jalisco as the ones that asking for the removal of the video, the government has issue official statements through Twitter, denying their involvement in the removal of “Via Express en el mundo”.

So who was it then?

It is important to know, as some questions yet have to be asked. For example, did the government clear the rights to use the song ‘Intro’ from “The XX” as background music in their video. If they did, should public money really be used to pay for copyright. If they didn’t, then why hasn’t the Content ID of YouTube taken it down?

We can’t let copyright be used to enforce censorship. This is why copyright right now is loosing all its credibility and turning more and more into a disciplinary weapon used against society.

When copyright is used to protect cars and attack citizens, we are in big trouble!

The protest is growing on the net and I wouldn’t be surprise if it also spills over into other areas of society. The project of Via Express now has more attention than ever and not exactly in support of the project. Many internet users have uploaded the video on other video platforms and are seeding the torrent of “Via Express en el mundo” in protest.

We will not let them shut us down. Cars are not more important that people and copyright is not more important than freedom of speech. Let’s move beyond that!

You can download the source video from here and host it in your own server or account or help with seeding the torrent.

Vía Express en el mundo – Megaupload

Vía Express en el mundo – torrent

By Geraldine Juárez, originally published at: http://criticapura.com/the-super-highway-and-censorship/2010/07/

The trip was marvellous, as was our time in Santa Fe. The train departs from the combined bus and train station in downtown Albuquerque (itself well served by city buses), which seems over the years to have come a fair ways in the transformation from a concept to an actual place which one might wish to visit, and drops you either at the government buildings (Santa Fe being the state capital) or a short walk (or shuttle bus ride) from the famous and touristy downtown plaza. The tickets are on sale on the train, or if you make the trip regularly you can buy a pass; while waiting for the train, you can read about the number of cars that the train takes off the highway each year, and the consequent reductions in tons of CO₂ emissions.

What’s not to like?

On discussing the journey with friends and family in Albuquerque, the main reaction was, “Oh yes, I plan to take that someday.” People also voiced their concern that the train is losing money. When I asked if they similarly expect the roads and highways to prove profitable, the response was so violent that for the sake of polite conversation, I changed the subject.

I suspect the anger was due to the impression that the train is a frivolous invention quite inappropriate in a time of economic crisis, whereas roads and highways are the infrastructure that allows the state to function. This impression is furthered by the fact that everyone pointed out to me that it takes 50% longer to reach Santa Fe by train than by car: 90 rather than 60 minutes. The problem, they explained, is that the native Americans insisted on having stations on their reservations, though nobody actually uses them, and that slows the trains down. Apparently they should have agreed to having the tracks built across their land without asking for anything in return. When all else fails, blame the Indians. (I wonder what the excuse is for the slowness of the train between LA and San Francisco, which when we took it required 12 hours?)

Others told me that they would like to take the train, but they can’t afford the time. Since it is slower than driving, it would mean losing an entire hour out of a working day…. Other than the time that it takes to reach the station in Albuquerque rather than driving from one’s home, I would look at the time difference as pure gain. In a car, if you are driving you have to pay attention to the traffic the whole way, though potentially you could listen to a book on tape. Being a passenger doesn’t usually afford much opportunity for productive work either. But on a nice comfortable train like this one, where many of the seats also have tables, there is plenty of chance to work.

I spent the time reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, enjoying the scenery, chatting with my husband, writing postcards, speculating on the psychological condition of a family down the aisle (the wife was silent but would nod her head as if to indicate that she was paying attention; the husband talked nearly non-stop to what I assumed were his in-laws), and buying a little jewellery from the native American couple seated across from us. I had enjoyed seeing how industrious the man was, fastening wires onto pendants while crouched on the platform waiting for the train doors to open, and now continuing to sort through necklaces and pendants. We bought two necklaces and enjoyed a pleasant conversation that drifted along with the train through the landscape. When he handed me his business card, I was amused and delighted to discover that their names are those of my great-uncle and grandmother. This seemed a good omen. And certainly not time wasted. If I had been so inclined, I could have, as I saw others doing, pulled out a laptop, or taken a nap. The trip, that is, meant three hours gained rather than two hours wasted.

As for the lack of use of the stops on the reservations, a simple solution would be to invest a little money into building something worth visiting, right at the stations: perhaps local versions of Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, complete of course with a restaurant and gift shop. One might also wish to see why apparently none or few of the inhabitants of the reservation use the train to reach Albuquerque or other destinations. In other words, rather than complain, try turning the existing stations into more profitable use.

It’s a pity that the media continually tells people that trains are wasteful, frivolous, expensive gadgets that distract from the real business of cars and driving. Fortunately the pleasure of taking a train should be sufficient to ensure that, despite all the propaganda, people continue to demand them. Certainly our experience was that the train was immensely popular. In fact, most of my train rides in the US have been on crowded trains; similarly for public transit. Further proof that in the free market system, the public does not necessarily get what the public wants.

Something to think (and write) about the next time I take a train.

–Written by Debra Efroymson

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The protest marked the culmination of a dramatic week, in which work on the HOTO group’s contested “Cvjetni arcade” development was blocked by activists from Green Action and the Right to the City initiative and the site occupied.

Early on 17th May contractors for the City of Zagreb, acting in lieu of the private investor, erected a metal fence around the Varsavska Street – a public space soon to be privatized and turned into an entrance ramp for the private investor’s underground car park. The entrance was blocked by activists in the morning, who were joined at around midday by several hundred residents who hammered on the fence and eventually pulled it down and occupied the area. Activists have been camping out there in shifts since then and are staging daily cultural events.

First published on http://writtenwithwit.blogspot.com/

Roll up! Roll up! It´s the great Ecotopia Biketour 2010 extravaganza!

Twenty years ago the first Ecotopia Biketour was organised to reach the Ecotopia gathering in a environmentaly acceptable way and to raise attention to environmental topics. After the first Ecotopia Biketour in 1990 every year another temporary eco caravan appeared in a different part of Europe for around two month. During the history of Biketour nearly every country in Europe was visited and Biketour became known in a wide activist scene in most countries in Europe. This contributes into creating, year after year, a heterogeneous group of people that meet, cycle and organize activities together. The Biketour is a form of ongoing popular education and also an action itself, as a visible and public example of sustainable transport and living.

This year the Biketour will take place between June 26th and August 31st. On our way we will visit and support local groups working on ecological and social issues, participate in different action camps and community projects, give and take part in workshops, cook together, while we build up friendships and networks between activists from different countries. In 2010 the Biketour will participate in several climate camps and the Carfree City conference, will support No-Border activists in Calais, take part in local critical mass initatives and will link up with the Transition Town network in the UK. For it´s 20th anniversary the Ecotopia Biketour is moving trough the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

Ecotopia Biketour is a project, based on consesus-decision-making which is open for everyone who wants to help out with the preparation or join us during the tour. Find out more about us at www.ecotopiabiketour.net

Moritz Binzer

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