One Street News

Spring 2021

Vol. 14, Issue 1

  1. Bosnian Project Underway, Please Help
  2. Resources – New Book: Cycling for Sustainable Cities
  3. Resources – U.S. Taking Bikeway Design Seriously, Finally
  4. Hot Topics - Jaywalking Decriminalization
  5. Future Hot Topic? – Engineless Cargo Transport, Bikes and Sailing Ships

Bosnian Project Underway, Please Help

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

We’ve started! Our GoFundMe Charity fundraiser got off to a terrific start. We raised the bare minimum of funding to get started on our project training Bosnian bicycle and community activists in effective campaign planning. So now we need your help more than ever.

Our partners at the Center for Environment (CfE) have begun sending our application form to likely groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a deadline in early April. Then we will choose the best applicants to become our new trainees.

This puts a lot more pressure on our fundraising effort. Every element in our project budget remains compromised.

Please help us get the fundraiser restarted by donating!

Even small donations encourage others to contribute. Also sharing the fundraiser link on your social media helps. You can find all the details about the project on the fundraiser page.

Let’s show our brave Bosnian activists that people care and really want this project to succeed.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

Sue

Resources – New Book: Cycling for Sustainable Cities

Cycling for Sustainable Cities, the new book from John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, captures the latest trends for increasing bicycling around the world. Beyond detailing the many benefits of cycling for people and communities it also offers hands-on best practices from dozens of bicycling, urban planning, and public health experts. City planners, activists, and anyone interested in shifting trips to bicycling will want a copy of this new book. Buy yours today here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cycling-sustainable-cities

Resources – U.S. Taking Bikeway Design Seriously, Finally

Since the 1980s, any U.S. bike advocate who has traveled to other countries has returned embarrassed. Most developed countries, and even some developing countries, have done a better job of providing for their bicyclists. In the U.S., those pushing vehicular cycling ideals that expect all cyclists to ride in traffic without any bike lane or path were happily latched onto by officials who preferred to do nothing for cyclists – a match made in heaven.

But decades of determined discussions and field trips to Europe have slowly shown policy makers that streets designed for the most vulnerable travelers (cyclists and pedestrians) also benefit car drivers and their entire communities. The glacial progress has been agonizing for us to watch, but finally our national transportation officials are touting bicycle design best practices used around the world.

Find the most recent guides (two published just last month) on One Street’s Street Design page by scrolling to the heading “The U.S. is finally moving past basic bicycle provisions.” If you have the stomach for it, you will also find a disturbing presentation linked under that heading that shows the long, agonizing road we in the U.S. had to suffer. First enjoy the new ones, though. Yay. Finally.

You can even join an upcoming webinar on the new FHWA guide supplements on April 7. Learn more and register here.

Hot Topics - Jaywalking Decriminalization

Did you know that the terms “Jaywalker” and Jaywalking” were invented one hundred years ago by the auto industry in order to shame people who crossed the street outside a crosswalk? Back then, people still understood that streets are public space, so of course people can cross that space and even use that space in any way they choose.

The auto industry saw this expectation as a threat and launched their successful jaywalking marketing campaign. The clever auto industry marketers chose the word jay because, back then, jay was another word for idiot. By the 1920s, jaywalking had become a household, derogatory term.

That marketing campaign, one hundred years ago, worked so well that to this day most people see jaywalking as a public disturbance. Car drivers still shout at people crossing the street, calling them idiots and worse. And lawmakers have passed countless laws making jaywalking a crime.

Recently, the state of Virginia took a bold step against this fabricated offense by decriminalizing jaywalking. This move was prompted by too many cases of police harassment, using jaywalking to stop black, homeless, and other marginalized people. Read this recent article about it here. Be sure to click on the link in the article about the auto industry’s “jaywalking” campaign. Scary.

Let’s hope that other states and countries follow Virginia’s lead.

Future Hot Topic? – Engineless Cargo Transport, Bikes and Sailing Ships

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

Earlier this year, I spent four weeks working as a trainee crewmember on the engineless sail cargo ship, Tres Hombres. I spoke with other crewmembers about the similarities between cargo delivered by sail and by bike. I thought I could do a Hot Topics article about this, but the information on the internet is so convoluted, both for bikes and sailing ships. Articles mix sailing ships with engines together with those without. Cargo bikes are often e-bikes. I’d like to focus on engineless, because this is the truly emission-free form of transport (no polluting batteries either). Do you know of links to resources on either sort of engineless transport? Even books would be cool to discover. If I receive some good leads, I’ll write it up for a future newsletter.

Sue