On the calendar: Talk transportation and bike to work

Events

On the calendar: Talk transportation and bike to work

by David Alpert • May 4, 2009 10:51 am

URBANEXUS DC: On Thursday, May 21, Next American City's URBANEXUS is coming to DC. At noon, Harriet Tregoning, Director of the DC Office of Planning will lead a conversation about the future of our cities. Then at 7 pm, NAC's Ben Adler, Matt Yglesias, DCist's Sommer Mathis, Reihan Salam and I will discuss activism, blogs and urban policy.

RSVP for either event here. The lecture is free; the panel is free for subscribers, or you can subscribe at a discount rate of $15 for one year and attend the panel.

Discuss the future of transportation: Congress is about to draft the 6-Year Transportation Reauthorization bill that will allocate billions of dollars and set priorities that will significantly affect our region. The Coalition for Smarter Growth is organizing forums in Virginia and Maryland with local leaders to discuss these priorities.

The Virginia forum is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5th at 6:30 pm in Falls Church, featuring Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman, Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists, and Joe Schilling of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. RSVP here.

The Maryland forum is Thursday, May 14th at 6:30 pm in College Park, including Eric Olson of the Prince George's County Council, Duchy Trachtenberg of the Montgomery County Council, and James Corless of Transportation for America. RSVP here.

Bike To Work Day: Friday, May 15th is Bike to Work Day. WABA and local governments are organizing pit stops with breakfast and entertainment from downtown DC to Bowie and Leesburg, commuter convoys to ride with experienced bicycle commuters, and more.

ACT for bikes and peds at the Medical Center: At this month's Action Committee for Transit meeting, WABA board member Casey Anderson will talk about bicycle and pedestrian facilities (or the lack thereof) at the expanding National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. Tuesday, May 12th, 7:30 pm at the Silver Spring Center, 8818 Georgia Ave in downtown Silver Spring.

Bike with the Swiss: The Swiss Embassy is hosting an exhibit, reception and panel about making nations more bicycle friendly on Wednesday, May 13th. The forum features Zurich Mayor Elmar Ledergerber, DC Councilmember Tommy Wells, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, and others from the Swiss government, Rails-to-Trails, and the State of Maryland. RSVP here.

The Greater Greater Washington calendar lists these and many more events around our region. Know of an event we should list? Submit it here.

5 comments Share	— tags: bicycling, blogging, BRAC, commuting, Earl Blumenauer, events, Harriet Tregoning, Maryland, pedestrians, Switzerland, TEA, Tommy Wells, Virginia, WABA

On the calendar: Shop, ride, talk, listen (May 18, 2009)
On the calendar: Smart Growth past, present and future (May 11, 2009)
Live chat: Chris Zimmerman, Thursday at 1 pm (Apr 14, 2009)
One day to greatness (Feb 4, 2009)
One week to a greater party! (Jan 29, 2009)

Comments

david, not sure if you know or not, but any idea if i should have gotten cofirmation on the two NAC events? i registered a couple of weeks ago and haven't received an automated confirmation or anything else.

by jaime on May 4, 2009 11:35 am

The Swiss can teach us a lot about non-auto transportation.

I hope everyone going to the Swiss Embassy event on biking either bikes or takes the metro instead of parking in the neighborhood. The Swiss Embassy is equidistant between the Cleveand Park and Woodley stops, about a 0.5 mi walk from either.

I lived in German speaking northern Switzerland in the late 80's and at that time they were WAY ahead of the US in bicycle infrastructures, environmentalism (with accompanying systems and policies) and of course transit.

While I was there a national law was passed that cars waiting for red lights must turn off their engines. Emissions from re-starting are significantly less then idleing more then 2 seconds. In Basel trees were marked with colored ribbons indicating their health status, ill to healthy. Air pollution was killing the trees. In Switzerland this is very important because weak/dead trees do not hold back avalanches.

by Bianchi on May 4, 2009 1:55 pm

Bianchi - CO2 emissions from re-starting are trivial compared to leaving it running, but it's my understanding that other emissions - the ones that cause tangible ground-level air pollution, composed of ozone and acid rain which kills trees - are vastly increased by this strategy.

by Squalish on May 4, 2009 4:07 pm

Squalish-take it up with the authors of the Swiss studies that informed the policy. I just relayed what happened and the rationale behind it. They must have had some idea about what they were doing. No? The dying trees was a huge national issue.

by Bianchi on May 4, 2009 5:18 pm

In the Netherlands, they teach you to switch your engine of when you expect to idle for more than 30 sec, for instance at railroad crossings. Hybrids do this themselves.

by Jasper on May 5, 2009 12:41 pm