Last night a few hundred people gathered for a forum at The Newseum entitled Cities, Bicycles, and the Future of Getting Around. The "rock star" panel included from left to right Bruce Katz of Brookings, the musician David Byrne of Talking Heads fame, Portland, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, and I think the real rock star of the show, Janette Sakik-Khan New York City's DOT Commissioner. She's just a fantastic speaker with much to be proud of.
Mr. WashCycle did such a good write up of the event, that we're just going to link to his recap here (Cities for Cycling, December 9, 2009). Please check it out!
The event was used to help promote David Byrne's new book Bicycle Diaries and launch a new platform for advancing biking called Cities for Cycling sponsored by the National Association of City Transportation Officials. The hightlight of the event for me was the absolute energy in the jam-packed room for doing more about making it easy for people to choose cycling as a transportation mode. In fact some of the most spirited exchanges and applause lines revolved around doing more locally. And I was happy to see the discussion centering on adding cycle tracks and lanes, bike boxes, bike parking and other onsite facilities as well as education and encouragement "culture" and safety campaigns. It sounded like the Washington, DC region is ready to take on Portland's supremacy as the biking mecca of North America. And that would be a good thing for all of us.
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Transportation Bureau Chief for Arlington County in the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.
Comments