Saturday, July 26, 2008

Human-Powered Cities!

Too much carbon monoxide for me to bear.
Car after bus after car after bus
after this my lungs will be so f***ed up.

--
Cake, "Carbon Monoxide"


This has nothing to do with kayaking, except in the sense that all human-powered vehicles share a certain kinship. Check out this short film about Bogota, Columbia's "Ciclovia." Each Sunday, the city closes 90km of roads to cars, and opens them up to cyclists, skaters, and walkers. I was struck by the way communities are transformed (re-formed?) when their residents aren't simply speeding past each other at 40mph. Cleveland gets a mention here for its own small steps in this direction, the "Walk and Roll Cleveland" movement...but this film shows what could be possible.

MLK Boulevard will be closed for cars on August 24th. Now if we can only close our Lakeshore to jet-skis every Sunday, that'd be some progress!

1 comment:

j-man said...

That was really cool, I don't know how much planning or resources it would take to pull that off in like LA or something but it would be so beneficial, it just shows how behind the US really is I guess. Also very awesome/fitting quote!