Archive
Extend your weekend: Ride a bike
NOTE: MyWHaT is on a bit of a hiatus while the editor and main contributor walks for a seat on the Traverse City City Commission. During this time of transition archived posts will occasionally be stuck to the front page.
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Recommended: A bike ride, even if it is down the street to the park.
Nice video for Specialized Women by Specialized Bicycles
“When I get on a bike I become timeless.”
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Have a great weekend.
Let the competition begin: TC’s best bike rack
On my way for a dip in the bay, I couldn’t resist parking across the stroad at Rose Street Dental’s new toothy bike rack. Well done Dr. Wentzloff. Well done.
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Reminds me, help local businesses evaluate their bike racks with this handy guide we created a few years ago:
Posted with BlogsyWhat’s to fear of slow speeds?
20’s Plenty For Us
from Streetfilms
Locally
Last week, the Traverse City Planning Commission was presented with data collected in Kids Creek Neighborhood. The volume and speed data was collected last year on 7th Street, 6th Street, and a section of Elmwood Avenue. Over the span of a week, 24%, 22%, and 15% of the vehicles passing through were traveling in excess of 30-mph, respectively on each street. The actual numbers:
- 9,460 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on 7th.
- 3,472 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on 6th.
- 1,218 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on Elmwood.
How safe do you feel knowing that nearly 14,000 vehicles are speeding through your neighborhood every week? As the Kids Creek Neighborhood president, Homer Nye asks, is this acceptable?
As we have pointed out countless times, the difference speed makes in public safety, and consequentially health, is staggering.
What are you going to do about it?
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NOTE: Data was collected by City of Traverse City Engineering Department between July and August 2012
Resilience through reading: Horizon Books honors local luminary with display
With respect we repost this. As Bob said many times, “you should read this book?
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Community elder, luminary, and cranky pirate Bob Russell from the Neahtawanta Inn and Center isn’t known by everyone, but he sure is known by a lot of us in the community, across the state and in the country. He’s worked on hyper-local projects and he’s worked on international projects, ranging from septage treatment plants to NGO communication networks. Bob is currently living with cancer and the uncertainty of the next stage is part of everyday. If you know Bob, you know that he has spent a lifetime contemplating the uncertainty of the here-and-now and how large, centralized, and impersonal systems have created dangerous dependence on unsustainable regimes. The academic term for this study is resilience.
Recently, Horizon Books set up a display of Bob’s recommended must reads from his rather large library. You’ll find it on its own stand, by the front door next to the spinning stand of cards. No links are provided below…
View original post 911 more words
GT County Road Commission to consider more transportation choices
Last week, the 500th Complete Street policy in the nation was adopted in the Memphis, Tennessee. Thursday night (8/22 at 7pm), the Grand Traverse County Road Commission will consider adding to that total.
Julie Clark, of TART Trails, will present a draft resolution that came out of the Grand Vision Complete Streets Coalition this Thursday night. Similar policies have been adopted in the area by Garfield, Acme, Kingsley and TC-TALUS. Traverse City also has a Complete Streets resolution.
The County Road Commission building isn’t the easiest to get to, but if you find your way to the south end of LaFrainer Rd. (Down Barlow, across South Airport, up a big hill, and all the way to the end) at 7-pm on Thursday night it’d be great to show support for safer streets and roads that offer more choices to more people.
Announcement: MyWHaT Bike Rack finds new home
Announcement
It’s a planter. It’s a bike rack. As passersby are fond of saying, “that’s a cute idea.”
The MyWHaT Planter Bike Rack is now on loan in front of Morsels on E. Front St.
If strategically placed, 3-4 bikes at a time can be locked to the steel bars rising above the planter. Morsels has had limited secure bike parking here and with the café seating area not fully utilized for tables, it seemed like as good as place as any for the planter rack that was formerly hosted by SEEDS on 8th St.
We just ask that on the south side, keep your bike snug against the rack and away from the sidewalk.
Happy bike parking.
* Interested in a planter bike rack of your own? Send us message.
Start where you can: TC’s first sharrow
Sharrow-up
Quietly this summer, Civic Center Dr. has become an intentional street designed to encourage safe and convenient bicycle traffic. It started with the paving of a short trail connector and recently wrapped up with an additional 100 feet of bike lane, an “except bicycles” sign to allow appropriate counterflow for travel, and the addition of Traverse City’s first sharrow.
A sharrow is a shared lane marking used to help position cyclists, announce that bikes belong to all traffic, and generally guide people on bikes along a route. They aren’t a panacea, but used smartly and in the right context, they are effective.
Kudos goes out to the County, City, County Parks and Recreation and TART Trails for coming together to make this happen.
Traffic calming: A means to livable streets
from Streetfilms
The missing ingredient in Traverse City is the political will, creativity, and recognition that speed on neighborhood streets is simply uncivilized–yes, I’m referring to the man who drive 50-mph down my street on Sunday.
Person on foot killed in sickening hit-and-run
There are a number of reasons that maybe have initially caused them to think they needed to leave the scene, but how an individual cannot come to the police or come to a friend after such a time frame and report the incident still amazes me.”
My heart goes out to the friends, family, and associates of Richard McClellan Jr….To the driver, find your conscience.
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