These guys are always so much fun to watch – and the top breakfast place in town, to boot (in my opinion)!
Swiping some bread for the arduous journey.
I do believe that this is the only box bike in town.
It’s Green Commute Week – will you try something new? If you do, click here to enter our contest to win a gift card for free coffee or the helpful guide, “Everyday Cycling.”
The first Saturday afternoon of Tulip Time, I went for a walk downtown along with about 14,000 of my closest friends.
Here’s what 8th Street looked like from the crosswalk:
(These pictures all need to be cropped, but I don’t know how to do that from my phone yet. So scroll through that sky…at least it’s finally blue!)
Street view:
And in the other direction:
And the sidewalks looked like this:
And this:
I just ran across this article that describes a Dutch “woonerf” (pronounced VONE-erf) again today. A woonerf is a very small shared street that is intended for people, bicycles, and occasionally cars traveling at walking speed only. It looks like this:
This is what a woonerf looks like.
8th Street is a little bit like a woonerf during busy times, with speeds for all practical purposes limited to walking speed. (The same thing happened during the ice-sculpting competition this winter.) Of course, that begs the question: If it’s too busy for people in cars to be able to move faster than walking speed, then why are we choosing an option that has one or two people (in a car) taking the space of twenty people (on foot)? It’s polluting, it doesn’t allow emergency vehicles to get through, AND it’s inefficient.
There’s no great conspiracy afoot, I’m sure, but the problem is that in spite of our Dutch roots… well, we’re still pretty American. And it doesn’t really occur to us Americans to just up and close roads to cars. Most of the time that doesn’t even make sense; there are plenty of failed pedestrian malls dotting our nation that attest to that (and in the case of Muskegon, an almost completely razed downtown). But I think it’s fair to say that Tulip Time traffic is Too Much of a Good Thing. And we haven’t even talked about what it’s like after the parades, or the woman in a wheelchair I saw attempting to traverse four-lane River Street by the library, or any of the pedestrian near-misses I’m sure many of us witnessed. WHY are we requiring our guests to play Frogger with traffic?
So… what if we could turn that around? What if Tulip Time didn’t have to be traffic hell?
What if we prioritized travel by bike and on foot during the festival? What if we encouraged people to bring their bikes and park their cars well out of town? What if we created even temporary bike lanes for them? What if 8th Street were only open to non-motorized traffic and a shuttle… And what if we expanded that to include a network of downtown streets that would easily and safely let people get to their destinations sans automobile? What if we funded a shuttle that would run between all the major Tulip Time venues and would come every five minutes? What if we sat down on May 12 (the day after Tulip Time ends this year) and made a 20-year plan to cut Tulip Time traffic in half by 2033? It would be a 180-degree shift from where we are now – but that’s okay! The world is changing, and this is a completely do-able endeavor.
Crazy talk, I know, but let’s talk crazy for a while. What do you think? Since I’ve yet to meet the neighbor whose favorite part of Tulip Time is the traffic, let’s assume that traffic reduction is a worthy goal. What would you suggest to make that happen? Feel free to either comment below or over on our Facebook page. Can’t wait to hear what you have to say!
Try something new for Green Commute Week – bike, bus, or feet – and win a prize! More details HERE!
Green Commute Week!
Green Commute Week is here again! And this year – a contest!
You all know I love alternative transportation. It saves money and lets me eat more ice cream, but most of all – it’s just FUN! Deciding to get around using not-the-car is something of a leap into the unknown, though, and those first few times can be intimidating.
And that’s where the contest comes in! It’s simple: try using a different mode of transportation to get to a place, and you’ll be entered into a contest to win one of two prizes (your choice): a $10 gift card to any locally-owned coffee shop, or a copy of Everyday Bicycling by Elly Blue. So if you normally drive to preschool, take your kids on the bike. Or walk from work to a coffee shop instead of stopping on the way in. Or plan an outing to the playground and take the bus there. Whatever you want! If you’ve ridden your bike to work but never taken it to the store, then taking it to the store counts; if you’ve taken the bus to the store but never with your kids, then bringing the kids counts. This is about trying new things!
Entering is easy: Head over to our Facebook page and say, “I did it! I ________________. It was awesome/okay/I thought I was going to die.” You can enter one time for each outing you do, with an extra entry for each kid you have with you. You can also get two extra entries for liking our Facebook page and another two for posting a picture of your adventure there!
So head out and try something new! Tell your friends, and forward this to everyone you know. This is going to be FUN!
For more information on Green Commute Week and the great freebies you get for participating, click here.
Tulip Time is in full swing here in Holland, Michigan! And in honor of klompen (wooden shoes) and the old country, let’s look at the Dutch this Friday.
One.
The Dutch are world leaders when it comes to getting around by bike. Copenhagenize recently published their 2013 index of most bikable cities, and Amsterdam topped the list.
Top Bicycling Cities, according to Copenhagenize – 2013
Here’s a breakdown.
Dutch cities on the list: three, including Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Eindhoven. Eindhoven is the home of the amazing floating roundabout recently featured in National Geographic and elsewhere.
I was a little surprised to see that Nagoya, my former home, was ranked at #11! Although tons of people ride their bikes for transportation in Nagoya, there’s virtually no dedicated bicycle infrastructure. Pretty cool nonetheless.
You’ll notice that there are NO American cities on the list. Zero. Not even the much-hailed Portland made the list – and that is just how far we have to go, my friends. Opportunity is everywhere!
Two.
It’s more than just bikes, though. The Dutch know how to make their cities LIVABLE. And traffic speed has a lot to do with it. A street with slow-moving car traffic can feel vital because of so much foot traffic. People feel comfortable there, and this article argues that it’s what makes such a busy place feel so cozy.
Three.
In the 1970s, the people of the Netherlands dramatically changed course with regard to transportation when national fury over the deaths of children in car crashes converged with the oil crisis. They stopped throwing money into large highway projects, and began instead investing in what have become state-of-the-art cycle paths. “Build it and they will come proved true in the Netherlands.” An encouraging look at what can be done over the course of a few decades if the political will is present.
Four.
This video has some beautiful images of what it is actually like to ride in the Netherlands – little bike-shaped traffic lights and all.
Five.
Okay, that’s enough videos. Let’s end with a gratuitous tulip pic, shall we?
Tulpen.
Riding to the craft fair.
It had been a bad night.
Object of affection, so angrily hurled from the crib in the dark.
It was one of those evenings when I really should have gone to bed at 9:00…but, of course, didn’t. When I finally crawled under the covers, no sooner had my head hit the pillow than I started to hear Abigail cough… and cough… and cough. Her cold had flared up again and her poor little lungs just don’t like colds. We bundled her in to the bathroom while we dug around in search of unexpired Albuterol. One breathing treatment later, we all headed back to bed.
Two hours later, it was Mae who was up coughing. I went upstairs, rocked her, settled her down. And again a half an hour after that. And then things get kind of fuzzy. Was it 4:00 a.m.? 5:00? Really, no idea, but it was a very long night. (As it turns out, she has another ear infection.)
(And because I know that I’d be thinking it, I should digress here to note that my husband and I have a well-honed alternating system for night-wakings. I drew the short straw this time, but he more than pulls his weight.)
I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t greet the morning with joy. But we were scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m. in order to participate in the local CROP Walk, an event which I normally love, so I WAS required to greet the morning in some fashion.
Love that somebody rode their beautiful vintage Schwinn to the CROP walk.
The CROP Walk is a fundraiser to fight world hunger. Its design splits whatever money is raised between local organizations and far-flung locales, so it supports the Buen Pastor center for migrant children here in Holland, but also supports projects in states like Mississippi and countries like Serbia and Pakistan. And individual walkers can designate charities of their choice, if they prefer. It’s really a great program.
As painful as the morning was, there was something appropriate about doing this walk on so little sleep. On average, a woman in a developing country in Africa or Asia walks about 3.7 miles to get water each day. As my fist clutched that travel mug of coffee, I thought about the woman on the other side of the world who makes this walk on a daily basis just to get enough water to make it through the day, whether her kids sleep or not.
I’m so weak.
That there was a bit of irony here wasn’t lost on me. I spend a great deal of time supporting active transportation as a lifestyle… and yet in this event I walk as almost a sort of penance. But the dose makes the poison, as they say. How similar is walking to school to walking to get water? Food for thought, to be sure.
At any rate, it WAS a beautiful morning for a walk. And it gave us the opportunity to see what it’s like for members of our community who walk for transportation, too, many of whom don’t have a choice in the matter. We saw this several times:
Dead-end sidewalk. Honestly. Why even bother?
Of course, we also got to watch the the pea-green buds just beginning to unfurl their little leaves. We saw the first forsythias in bloom, and the girls discovered just how sweet violets smell as we encountered them along the path.
We saw the tree swing that we all dreamed of as children…
And the beautiful blooms of a long-awaited spring.
All the while chatting with friends and earning ourselves a donut or two. And isn’t that what active transportation is all about? Using our bodies the way they were designed to be used, experiencing the small beauties around us, and engaging with other people. LOVE.
It was Tulip Time… did you do a walkabout this weekend?
http://instagram.com/p/YvXZ4Zr1cv/
We pulled up to the playground Monday and found that we weren’t the only ones who had biked there! Good friends of ours happened to be there as well.
***
Ticket sales have picked up for Dinner and Bikes. If you’d like to go, order here right away!
