December 2011
64 posts
Onnellista uutta vuotta Helsingistä!
Happy new year’s from Helsinki!
Party hard! :)
Root for more bike lanes for 2012!
- Dianne
5 tags
It’s getting brisk out there. →
cycleangelo:
It’s getting brisk out there. The high was 26 degrees with the wind chill factor, and it’s about that time where the fingers begin to get numb and the eyes get watery after about an hour on the saddle. Regardless, we suck it up and spin. I was going to attempt to write something worthy of expressing my love/hate for the cold season riding, but then I came across some wise...
9 tags
S.F. parklets: a little tour of a major trend →
The eight tables give Cafe Abir’s parklet a restaurant-alcove feel.
The most significant change to San Francisco’s landscape in 2011 involves a conjuring act that turns parking spaces into pedestrian nooks.
They go by the name of parklets, a word that didn’t exist two years ago, and when 2011 arrived there were only four. Now there are 22, with six more approved and 44 in...
9 tags
SF Bay Area NYE transit options →
BART will be running trains until 3 a.m. on New Years Day, three hours longer than usual. San Francisco’s Muni system will offer free light-rail service until 6 a.m.
The last Caltrain will leave the city at 2:15 a.m. All trains will be free after 11 p.m., Caltrain officials said.
BART trains will run on their normal intervals during extended hours, meaning that if a train normally arrives...
3 tags
10 tags
Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren, H&M Linked to... →
Looks like Abercrombie & Fitch has another “situation” on deck, only this time it has nothing to do with getting the cast of Jersey Shore to doff its merch. The American retailer is among 14 global brands Greenpeace is calling out for allegedly releasing hormone-disrupting chemicals—specifically nonylphenol ethoxylates—into the environment. Used as surfactants in textile production, NPEs...
9 tags
6 tags
Refugees find [East] Oakland can be worse than... →
Al-Sharif, 40, is one of more than 50 Iraqi refugees who have been moved to East Oakland by the International Rescue Committee. The nonprofit’s officials say they won’t settle refugees in unsafe neighborhoods, but Al-Sharif and dozens of other Iraqis blame the organization for exposing them to an unfamiliar type of violence - one perpetrated by gangs rather than political...
7 tags
“This election is about more than replacing that president; it is about saving a...”
– Mitt Romney. Romney Compares Gingrich to Comedienne as Ex-Speaker Hits Paul. sfgate, 28.12.11.
9 tags
9 tags
Hyper-local markets provide big economic boost →
Shoppers stock up on produce at the Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco’s Mission District. Economists say “community food enterprises” like Bi-Rite benefit their local economies significantly more than a typical non-locally owned business. In addition to supporting local food producers, the Bi-Rite Market uses local printers, local sign makers and local designers, and 90 percent of...
11 tags
BART planners begin work on new vision for future →
Way back in 1957, Bay Area planners were thinking big. Concerned about the booming population and worsening traffic congestion, they proposed a round-the-bay rapid transit network that eventually spawned today’s BART.
Now, 54 years and 4 million people later, it’s BART’s turn to think big. Planners are working on a new vision for the future - one that could include express...
4 tags
4 tags
8 tags
10 tags
Apple Files Patent for MacBooks Powered by Fuel... →
The [patent] application filing stated rather bluntly that due to “our country’s continuing reliance on fossil fuels has forced our government to maintain complicated political and military relationships with unstable governments in the Middle East, and has also exposed our coastlines and our citizens to the associated hazards of offshore drilling. These problems have led to an increasing...
4 tags
Mayor Quan Celebrates 18 New Miles of Bikeways in... →
omg! 18 new miles of bike lanes!
this event was a few days ago.
New bikeways on: Santa Clara Ave Fruitvale Ave Foothill Blvd MacArthur Blvd E 12th St W Grand Ave Santa Clara Ave MacArthur Blvd 14th Ave Park Blvd 27th St/Bay Pl 38th Ave Telegraph Ave Lakeshore Ave Webster St 2nd St Washington St New signage on: Fruitvale Ave 38th Ave E 12th St Tunnel Rd Shafter/Colby 55th St 53rd/Cavour 2011...
1 tag
another small update on winter travels
Took the 10h ferry ride from Turku/Åbo, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden.
It’s not snowing in Stockholm. :( light-rain/snow falling into rain
Visited Uppsala today. 40mins north by train. University town, 4th largest city in Sweden, with Europe’s oldest university and Sweden’s largest cathedrale.
As in most university towns, lots of people cycling. Snowing there. Some packed snow...
small update on my finland holiday travels
I’ve been in 7 Finnish cities so far in my Finland travels this winter.
and in every city, I see people still cycling despite the crappy weather.
Crappy weather as in around +1°C. meaning more often slush than snow. :/ :(
Lots of bikes parked in front of train stations, on the main shopping streets, in front of cafes and stores..
Wide sidewalks with signs designating them as shared...
8 tags
4 tags
7 tags
Get ready for 'super-sized' lunar eclipse →
If you’re making plans for the weekend, know this: Saturday will begin with what’s likely to be one of the prettiest lunar eclipses seen from Southern California in years. All you have to do is get up at about sunrise and make sure to have a clear view of the northwestern sky. The weather is expected to be cool but clear.
The moon will take on an orange or reddish hue as it goes...
6 tags
6 tags
Finland round 2!
*personal update*
Hi everyone!
I’m going to Finland (and Sweden) again this winter break! (thanks UCSD for the special 4 week break [usu. 3 weeks])
My itinerary:
fri. 09.12 SAN 21.00 → sat. 10.12 → 15.20 LHR 18.05 → 23.00 HEL
sun. 11.12 Helsinki → Lahti → Kouvola
ma 12.12 Kouvola → Mikkeli
ti 13.12 Mikkeli → Kuopio
ke 14.12 Kuopio → Joensuu
...
7 tags
copenhagenize: pain and pleasure — invalidecykler →
I remembered this shot from a while back of a girl carrying her crutches and getting doubled by her mum. The bicycle is a versatile tool. I know several friends who, after many years playing sports, have problems with their knees. They are invariably advised to ride a bicycle by their doctors. If you also make the bicycle the quickest and safest way to get around a city, people will do so —...
7 tags
Watch
Dress like a chap! Rickshaw Tweed Ride 2011
Join us for a classy jaunt around the city in your best knickers and chaps. It’s the 2011 Tweed Ride hosted by Rickshaw Bagworks. Here’s our route. More stops and details will be added soon.
Starting at Public Bike’s South Park headquarters (where beautiful bikes will be on loan) we’ll dash onward towards:
Biergaten stop...
8 tags
11 tags
Shopping local a boon to local economies →
in case you didn’t know already..
you can read up on reports and studies to confirm this for yourself.
Shop local! Support your own neighborhood and city :)
Don’t leak money out to big multinational corporations that don’t give a shit about you/the99%.
the Elmwood Theatre on College Ave. in Berkeley. my hometown fave small movie theatre. (screw multiplexes!)
8 tags
Occupy San Diego Riders Bike Raid — fri. 09.dec →
OSDR Weekly Friday Bike Raid! Meet at 11:30 AM @ the Balboa Park Fountain. We will leave at noon. We will protest banks and big business. We will head to various banks in Hillcrest, North Park, etc. Then head to Mission Valley to protest big business and bloated consumerism. At Mission/Fashion Valley Malls. Bring signs and anything for visibility. And of course positive vibes. Occupyyrcorner has...
10 tags
WatchJANETTE SADIK-KHAN, NYCDOT, HERO. (to me, at least.)
interesting quote from someone interviewed in this clip:
”traffic speeds today are the same as they were in 1915” (in midtown manhattan) (5-7mph)
5 tags
when I go to the recycling center.. →
reblogging this for every time I go to the recycling center, and return home with my same two bags of glass bottles.
why the recycling workers’ lunchtime so variable???!!!
citymaus:
to turn in my glass bottles, and
The worker guy isn’t there.
dsfksdmfdslf The sign posted at the center says lunch break is from 12–1. NOT 1–2. (I went at 1:50)
This is the 3rd or 4th time this has...
5 tags
1 tag
3 tags
“Stadtluft macht frei.”
– “a proverb the Germans invented in the Middle Ages; ‘City air makes men free.’
— Garreau, Edge City: Southern California, pg. 279.
5 tags
"only at UCSD would a mob of students force open a... →
Students forced open the doors of a closed University of California San Diego library (CLICS at Revelle College) Monday and rushed inside, vowing to stay around the clock until the end of final exams Friday…
Several students stressed that they were “reclaiming” the library and took pains to avoid the word “occupy” or a connection to the Occupy movement.
“This library was always a...
6 tags
Bay Area transportation projects to be judged on... →
“Talk to any business person about not having a benefits-vs.-cost discussion and they’ll say, ‘Duh, you mean you don’t do that?’ ” said the commission’s executive director, Steve Heminger. “They insist on it, but in the transportation profession it is not all that common. … This levels the playing field.”
BART’s plan to run...
14 tags
8 tags
“Bikes are pretty cool, but if American cities really want to learn something...”
– -Kasey Klimes (via Twitter)
I’ll go ahead and reblog this, not out of vanity but because I mean what I said. It is so easy to make cities for people that considering how often we’ve failed to do so becomes a mind numbing exercise.
I should add: the most dangerous possibility is that we throw up...
4 tags
6 tags
Occupy Our Homes National Day of Action: dec.06th →
Defremery Park, 16th & Adeline St. (Map) West Oakland, CA 94607 Tuesday, December 6th, 12:00 PM
Big Banks tried to kick a 103-year-old woman out of her home—that’s how low Wall Street will go to make a buck.
But decent people understand that you just don’t do that, and the police officers and movers Deutsche Bank sent to evict 103-year-old Vita Lee and her 84-year-old...
4 tags
2 tags
17 tags
9 tags
7 tags
US Senate wants the entire USA to be a... →
In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.
The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of...
3 tags
9 tags
Spandex wars: Chicago bike critic looks crappy in... →
Who among us has the time, stamina or ego to ride a bicycle to work? Ego? When was the last time you saw a cyclist stop for a stop sign? Or wait his turn at the end of a line of cars backed up at an intersection? Besides, I’d look silly in cyclist couture. Imagine me in a Castelli Sorpasso bib tight cycling suit (available online for around $179.95 plus shipping). I’ve never paid...
6 tags
8 tags
Watch
There was a demand, and we met the demand. … 22% to 49% mode share over the course of a few weeks.
Kinzie Street: The First of Many Protected Bike Lanes for Chicago streetfilms.org, 01.12.11.
Second protected bike lane / cycle track being worked on now + the whole network.
I’m excited. gotta visit Chicago.
6 tags
