Subject: Bicycle Newsletter 4-14-99 Date: 04/14 6:42 PM Received: 04/14 7:16 PM From: Michael Bluejay, bluejay@mail.com To: bicycle@ccsi.com ###################################################################### \__/ == /_____/ BIKING IN AUSTIN NEWSLETTER ___/ \ _/ \___ covering bikes as alternative transportation / /\ \/___/\ \ \___/ & \___/ bluejay@mail.com * michaelbluejay.com/bicycle Michael Bluejay, editor April 14, 1999 ###################################################################### [See very end for publication & subscription info. To unsubscribe, just let me know you want off.] [Please visit our website, the most comprehensive resource for cycling as alternative transportation: http://michaelbluejay.com/bicycle ] Biking in Austin newsletter sponsored by: *********************************************************************** * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE 2815 & Fruth, off 29th & Guadalupe * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE NEW & USED BIKES * REPAIRS * ACCESSORIES * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE http://pobox.com/bluejay/waterloo * *********************************************************************** ###################################################################### #### C O N T E N T S : #### #### * Email discussion list has a new address #### * Trial date set for Ben Clough's Killer #### * Route Tip: Avoding the light at Guadalupe & Koenig #### * Mirrors vs. Helmets: An interesting story #### * Gas Out Boycott: A dissenting opinion #### * Car Busters: Latest newsletter (from Europe) #### ###################################################################### ====================================================================== Email discussion list has a new address; now offers digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The old email discussion list (austrans-bikes@mail2.realtime.net) has moved and now has an easier address: austin-bikes@topica.com. If you were subscribed to the old list, your address has been auto- matically moved to the new list. If you're not on the list and you'd like to join, just send an email to austin-bikes-subscribe@topica.com The new list offers new features, including the ability to receive messages in digest format if you like. That means at the end of the day, you can get one big email with all the day's posts, instead of getting all the posts one at a time as they come through. (Of course, you can still get them one at a time if you prefer.) The austrans-roads list has moved as well, and the address is now austin-roads@topica.com. The rest of the austrans lists will be moving to topica soon. ====================================================================== TRIAL DATE SET FOR BEN CLOUGH'S KILLER ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lauren Robishaw will go to trial on May 19th for running a red light and killing cyclist and Yellow Bike volunteer Ben Clough in October. The trial will be in the County Courthouse, at 10th & Guadalupe, in the 299th District Court. For updates (including the time of the trial), you can call the Travis County District Attorney (512-473-9400, ask for the 299th trial court division, cause #99-0982). Of course, we'll post updates here if we learn of any changes. ====================================================================== ROUTE TIP: AVOIDING THE LIGHT AT GUADALUPE & KOENIG ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Crossing Koenig at Guadalupe is a pain, because the light is really long, and what's worse, it often won't change for bikes if there are no cars to trip the sensor. A way around this is to cross on Chesterfield, where there's no traffic light, instead of crossing at Guadalupe. North of Koenig, get between Guadalupe and Chesterfield by riding over the pedestrian foot bridge. Guad. | =========== Denson | | --**----- | \ | | | | ============ Koenig | | | | ----------- 55-1/2th | | | | Chester- field ** = pedestrian foot bridge ====================================================================== MIRRORS VS. HELMETS by Bill Canfield, canfield@cae-plus.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [We were recently talking about safety equipment on the email discussion list, and some comments were made that equipment that can PREVENT you from getting hit (like lights and mirrors) are possibly more important that equipment that tries to minimize the impact after you've ALREADY been hit (like helmets). Amid this discussion, Bill related the following story.] A few years ago that I went shopping for a handlebar mirror at a prominent West Campus bike shop which shall go unnamed. The employee that was helping me tried to talk me into getting a mirror that attached to a helmet. At the time, I occasionally rode without a helmet, and I told him that I wanted a mirror the most when I didn't have a helmet on. Get this: he refused to help me any further -- wouldn't sell me the mirror --, saying that I should always wear a helmet! Now that's a safety-minded fellow. It's really throwing the baby out with the bathwater: encouraging more risk, in order to prove a point about safety. Well, I now take my business elsewhere. ====================================================================== THE "GAS OUT" CONTROVERSY ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Some people are protesting the "high" price of gas by planning a boycott on gasoline for the day of April 30th. Here's one of the emails that's being forwarded around the Internet: - - - - - - - - - - - THE GREAT "GAS OUT". It's time we did something about the price of gasoline in America! We are all sick and tired of high prices when there are literally> millions of gallons in storage. Know what I found out? If there was just ONE day when no one purchased any> gasoline, prices would drop drastically. The so-called oil cartel has decided to slow production by some 2 million barrels per day to drive up the price. I have decided to see how many Americans we can get> to NOT BUY ANY GASOLINE on one particular day!> Let's have a GAS OUT! Do not buy any gasoline on APRIL 30, 1999! - - - - - - - - - - - And here are some of the responses: by Jeff, Rainforest Relief, Portland OR (4-9-99) I can't imagine how you can think that lower gas prices will lead to anything but more driving, more air pollution, accelerated global warming, more destruction of sensitive marine and rainforest habitats where much of the oil is produced and refined , and more oil spills. Your priorities must be seriously screwed up if all you do is whine about a supposedly high price of gasoline, when ours is among the lowest price in the world, because of huge government tax breaks and subsidies to the oil companies. Considering all the subsidies, the true price of gasoline is over $16 a gallon (not even counting the cost of environmental damage), so consider yourself lucky. Better yet, take a bus, train, bike, or walk. You'll do us all a favor. And please give up this ridiculous campaign before you do some real damage. by Darrell Rose, mdrose@main.com (4-13-99) So, you think that you are getting ripped off by the oil cartel? Well, we both are, and the interesting thing is that I don't have a car or drive much. I'm ripped off when I pay my federal phone tax every month which goes directly to the military protecting "all the precious oil in the middle east". I'm ripped off when I pay my federal income tax which goes to subsidize the oil industry. Don't believe me? Read the business section of the Houston Chronicle 4/11/1999 about how Mexican oil companies are bitching about Mexican citizens going to the US to buy cheaper gas and they (the Mexican oil company and gas stations) want the Mexican government to subsidize oil just as the US government does. I believe that the best thing that can happen for this country is for the price of gas to up. Cheap gas is poisoning the air, our national security and our collective health. I know firsthand having been a flier in the Navy that the military launches and recovers hundreds of planes daily in the middle east all in defense of oil. How ass-backwards. We don't need to be running around clogging the skies with our exhaust (have you ever taken a good look out the window while passing thru 3000-5000 ft and seen the brown sh** that we call air that we all breathe?) worrying about a bunch of precious oil wells. We don't need to use our military to watch after and protect an obsolete form of energy that poisons the air and compromises and indepts us to other countries. Fuel cells, solar and nuclear can provide for us, that and showing people how they poison themselves when they use their car to go 1/4 mile down the road because they are too fat or lazy to walk. So feeling sufficiently screwed over by the oil cartel? I am. They've hijacked our government, taxed the hell out of all of us, destroyed the environment (Valdez oil spill, Niger delta being destroyed) murder people (Ogoni tribe in Nigeria, Velera in Venezuela) and shackle us to our jobs to pay for the car you have to have to survive in the environment of their making. Look at yourself as you read this: are you overweight? Got a gut? Got the A/C cranked up because you feel too hot? Can't walk outside because it is too hot? Can't get to work without your car or get groceries? What if it all disappeared or started going away tomorrow? Would you survive or would your last dying thought after weeks of agony be, "How did I/we let ourselves get in this position?" Now is your precious gasoline too expensive in cost or is it a poisonous placebo numbing you to your dependence and the destruction of our environment.? -- Darrell Rose P.S. Revelation! Let's all call the Arabs et al. derogatory names, they'll get pissed and not sell us any oil, bubba and bubbette will run out of gas and not be able to run us over.....AND we'll all ride happily and breathe easily ever after. Damn, if it works we'll start calling the Colombians derogatory names and win the "War On Drugs". *********************************************************************** * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE 2815 & Fruth, off 29th & Guadalupe * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE NEW & USED BIKES * REPAIRS * ACCESSORIES * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE http://pobox.com/bluejay/waterloo * *********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN * Monthly edition no. 7 - April 1999 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- from CAR BUSTERS, 44 rue Burdeau, 69001 Lyon, France tel: +(33) 4 72 00 23 57 - fax: +(33) 4 78 28 57 78 - Car Busters is a magazine and resource centre for the European car-free/anti-car movement. * Have anything to share with the rest of the movement? Send it marked "for bulletin" to Car Busters and we'll put it in. IN THIS EDITION: - SAUVONS LA VALLEE D'ASPE - CALLING FOR INSULTING CRITICISM - TOWARDS CAR-FREE CITIES II : THE UPDATE - MAGAZINE DEADLINE: SUBMIT! - QUE? TRANSLATORS NEEDED - NOT-SO-WITTY DISCLAIMER SAUVONS LA VALLEE D'ASPE FOR THOSE who missed the announcement in Car Busters magazine #4, the former railway station La Goutte d'Eau is hosting an action weekend May 22-23 to save the Aspe Valley in the Pyrennees from the E7 Motorway and to reopen the local Oloron-Canfranc railroad line to the Spanish border. SNCF, the French national train company, has commenced proceedings to evict La Goutte d'Eau. Come on, come all. Directions: Train to Pau, transfer to Oloron Ste. Marie, bus to Cette-Eygun, walk back one kilometre and you can't miss it. Telephone: (33) 05-59-34-78-83. Ask for Eric. The A SEED Europe network stopped by en route to its annual gathering in Spain, and did a drive-by action and engaged in slogan-eering in white paint on the motorway-to-be. TOWARDS CAR-FREE CITIES II : THE UPDATE THE FIRST Towards Car Free Cities conference held in October '97 in Lyon brought together activists from across Europe and beyond and launched Car Busters into existence. Two years later, the second conference is being planned, to focus on the exchange of information and skills between Eastern and Western Europe. To be hosted by Green Federation and held in Krakow, Poland, in late October, the conference will help even out the disparity in knowledge and experience from East to West, and hopefully "jumpstart" a movement resisting the importation of car culture in the East. Green Federation has found a conference site and another for accomodation, located 30 metres from each other and a short walk from the city centre. Meanwhile, Car Busters has completed its conference fundraising effort, and awaits the funders' decisions. The exact conference dates will be available in next month's bulletin, and a future bulletin will contain a registration/application form. As funding and facilities limit participant numbers to 100, this will be followed by a participant selection process. Two-thirds of participants will come from Eastern Europe, and one-third from the West. Stay tuned. CALLING FOR INSULTING CRITICISM ENTHUSIASTIC PRAISE also welcomed, but Car Busters is in need of feedback. Locked away in our little office in sunny Lyon, we don't hear so much about what people think of the magazine, email bulletin and resource centre. What's working? What could be better? What do you want to read? What resources would you like to see offered? Feel free to flood us with your thoughts, criticisms and words of wisdom. MAGAZINE DEADLINE: SUBMIT! EVEN CAR BUSTERS doesn't write itself. The deadline for issue 5 is rapidly approaching, and we need your contributions. Give us your news, letters, artwork and pictures. If Car Busters is to represent the transport movement, it has to be written by the transport movement. And that's you folks! So put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and send us a couple of hundred words of news, or a letter. And if you have an article idea blooming in your head, let us know. Submissions are due on April 20 (uh-oh, that's close...). QUE? TRANSLATORS NEEDED TO LINK UP the international transport movement, it's necessary to speak in more than just English (ben oui!). Which is why Car Busters has magazine translations in German, French and Spanish (si, si, si), and its web site in French, English, German, Spanish and Esperanto (certe!). But where's the Norwegian, Russian, Croatian e Italiano? If you are fluent in any language besides English, and have the time to translate a couple of paragraphs or whole articles, once or regularly, let us know. We never have enough translators! Merci, danke, grazie, dank u, gracias, kvala, kesenum, and thanks. NOT-SO-WITTY DISCLAIMER CAR BUSTERS has unanimously decided to purchase a fleet of shiny, new, and heavily polluting company cars to avoid the uphill, five-minute gruelling walk from our apartments to the office. Therefore, to avoid hypocracy, we'd never dream of blaming you for doing the same. Really. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PUBLICATION / SUBSCRIPTION INFO Michael Bluejay, editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Biking in Austin is published about once every week or two. You either asked for this newsletter, or I personally know you to be a cyclist and I thought you'd want it. If you no longer want the news- letter (or if someone forwarded it to you and you want your own subscription), just let me know. Articles are by me if uncredited. Articles by others may have been edited. Biking in Austin newsletter sponsored by: *********************************************************************** * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE 2815 & Fruth, off 29th & Guadalupe * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE NEW & USED BIKES * REPAIRS * ACCESSORIES * * WATERLOO CYCLES 47-CYCLE http://pobox.com/bluejay/waterloo * *********************************************************************** Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the sponsor