June 25, 2012

Transportation movie night: Forterra

Next up in our virtual recap of May’s transportation movie night is Forterra (formerly known as Cascade Land Conservancy). Forterra has been active in community engagement efforts around the Central Issaquah Plan and recently received a grant to continue that work in a more official capacity.

Forterra presented a series of four short films highlighting how bikes can contribute to a more livable accessible community, and some of the obstacles riders face.

How Bikes Make Cities Cool – Portland from Kona Bikes on Vimeo.

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

Copenhagen – City of Cyclists from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

September 14, 2009

PARK(ing) Day

This Friday, September 19 is PARK(ing) Day. This is the day when communities around the world take back a bit of their town that has been set aside for cars and turn it into a park.

That’s right, GAIT has partnered with our friends at artEAST to turn a parking space across Front Street from UP Front Gallery into a park for one day. The plan is to have (simulated) grass, (real) plants, (real) artists making (real) art, and a (real) bike rack.

There is more info about the event at the Issaquah PARK(ing) Day group page.

If you plan to stop by and enjoy the park, you can RSVP for the event.

If you can hang out at the park for an hour or two on Friday, keep an eye on things, and explain the concept to curious passers-by, fire me an email with your availability and I’ll coordinate. The park will be open from 5am to 9pm.

Tell your friends, and I hope to see you at the park!

June 22, 2009

Links for 6/22

Offered without commentary for now, but here are some interesting things I’ve stumbled across lately…

Lynnwood’s Multi-Choice Transportation system

Planning Complete Streets for an Aging America

Cycling hazard tracking: bikewise

Another cycle hazard site: Bicycle Watchdog

June 26, 2008

Bridges and bikes

I joined Bob Miller for the “Bridges of Issaquah” ride this evening. There were four of us plus Bob. I put a version of the ride pretty close to what we did up on Bikely if you want to see where we went.

The most fun part of the ride for me was when we were cutting through the school administration parking lot to take the trail over to Dogwood (it’s not a bridge, but it’s a handy bit of ped/bike infrastructure that Bob chose to highlight). As we were reaching the end of the pavement, Bob noticed a bike off in the blackberries. It turned out to be a bike and a trailabike attachment.

The amazing thing is that Bob had just heard of a fellow cyclist having a similar rig stolen from in front of his house a couple of days ago. David Kappler was with us on the ride and happened to have the Issaquah Police non-emergency number on his cell phone (it’s 425-837-3200) so he called to see if the theft had been reported. But the more Bob looked at the bike the more sure he was that this was the one. The suspected owner was just a little ways out of our way, so I offered to tow the bike (and trailabike) there with my Xtracycle. Here’s a picture David snapped of the rig:

Xtracycle towing a bike towing a trailabike.

When we got to the bike’s suspected home we discovered that yes indeed, this was the stolen bike and the owner was very happy to be reunited with it.

Everybody left there pretty happy and we finished up the ride catching the last couple of bridges on the route.

June 23, 2008

Carfree Family Stories

GAIT members Christine and Kent Peterson gave a talk last week at the Towards Carfree Cities conference in Portland. They talk about the joys and challenges of living in Issaquah (and elsewhere) without a car. It makes for inspiring reading. I encourage you to click that link and read their story. They even give GAIT a very nice plug near the beginning of their talk!

Even if the thought of giving up your car sounds like torture, the same process of identifying your real transportation needs that Christine and Kent describe is just as valid if all you want to do is cut back a little on your driving (and with gas prices what they are, who doesn’t want to cut back a little on their driving?)

March 22, 2008

Road angeling

Kent saw a woman picking up trash while walking her dog around Issaquah.

Isn’t that great? See a problem, go ahead and fix it. Don’t need to ask for permission. Don’t need any recognition. Be the change.

The comment thread on that post is full of other people who do similar actions. Nollij called it “road angeling” which looks like a typo, but catches the spirit of picking up trash just because you can.

If you see an act of quiet heroism like this around Issaquah, take a picture and put it in the GAIT Flickr pool (or send it to me and I will).

November 28, 2007

The ribbon is cut

Mayor Ava Frisinger cut the ribbon for the High Point connector this morning. I’ll post some pictures later if any of them turned out, but I’ll have a hard time saying anything better than what local bicycle activist Kent Peterson wrote about the trail.