Category: People

Danish Modern: Copenhagen Cycle Chic’s Mikael Colville-Andersen

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Mikael Colville-Andersen with his kids Felix and Lulu-Sophia.

[This article originally ran in Urban Velo magazine.]

As “The Pope of Urban Cycling,” Mikael Colville-Andersen is one of today’s leading bicycle advocates, but also one of the most controversial. He’s known as the kingpin of the stylish cycling movement via his award-winning photo blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic. The site mostly features candid photographs of attractive, well-dressed women on wheels, for a largely female readership. For his day job as CEO of Copenhagenize, a nine-person transportation consulting firm, he travels to cities around the world, advising politicians, planners and advocates on ways to emulate the success of the bike-friendly Danish capital.

Mikael’s blogs have a global following—Cycle Chic has inspired some 150 spin-offs in other cities. He’s also a sought-after public speaker who gave the keynote address at this year’s Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Place conference in Long Beach, California. But he’s not without his critics. His outspoken opposition to helmet promotion troubles many North American advocates. And at least two female bike bloggers have critiqued his Cycle Chic aesthetic and rhetoric as being sexist, elitist and counterproductive for encouraging regular folks to ride.

In July I visited Copenhagen for the first time and, as advertised, it’s a biker’s paradise with mellow traffic, grade-separated bike lanes on all major streets and good-looking, stylish people on classy Dutch cycles everywhere you turn. I met up with Mikael, a bright-eyed, energetic man, at his flat in Frederiksberg, a town completely surrounded by Copenhagen. We sipped cans of Carlsberg as his young kids Felix and Lulu-Sophia practiced soccer and picked flowers in their lush back yard. Mikael and I discussed his views on helmets, the differences between Copenhagen and Amsterdam, why he’s underwhelmed by Portland, and why bikes should be marketed more like vacuum cleaners.

Continue reading Danish Modern: Copenhagen Cycle Chic’s Mikael Colville-Andersen

Once in a decade opportunity: ride the ‘L’ in a private, chartered tour

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A photo from the Soul of Chicago Express tour in 2006. 

There are only a few spots left (just a bit more than 10) on the Central Electric Railfan’s Association “inspection tour” of the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘L’ system on 2200-series and 5000-series cars on Sunday, November 18. From CERA’s website:

This event will involve a morning enjoying the CTA 2200-series cars on routes they initially served in 1969, and will finish with a tour via the 5000-series ‘L’ cars, now in service on CTA’s Pink and Green Lines.

We will visit parts of the Blue, Pink, Green, Orange, Red and Yellow Lines, visiting various stations for photo opportunities and affording a chance to enjoy a ride on both the system’s oldest and newest train cars for a compare-and-contrast event not been done in recent memory.

CTA has confirmed that the train will pick us up at Jefferson Park on the Blue Line, a break at about 2:30 PM where you’ll be able to go get a bite to eat downtown, and more fun on the train and visiting the CTA’s newest stations at Oakton and Morgan, wrapping up at about 5:30 PM at Morgan/Lake (with access to the ‘L’ system, of course, to return to Jefferson Park).

Tickets are $42 each. If you’re interested, please contact (email preferred) charter organizer Tony Coppoletta immediately to confirm availability: tony@coppoletta.net / 312-685-2446. You will be able to pay in person when you check in at Jefferson Park. Graham Garfield of Chicago-L.org is helping to host this charter, and I will be assisting. This will be my third chartered tour and they provide a unique opportunity to explore the trains and stations, chat with other train enthusiasts, and take tons of photos that at other times might seem weird to fellow passengers.

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If not for the Soul of Chicago Express chartered tour in 2006, I’d probably have never visited the 63rd/Ashland Green Line station in Englewood to see its unique design characteristics. 

Since this is a chartered tour, the route doesn’t have to follow what normal, revenue service trains take. This tour will use the no-longer-used incline between Racine and Illinois Medical District Blue Line stations.

Sunday, November 18, 2012
1030 to ~1730 hours
Time for a lunch break, in the Loop, will be made available.

Meeting location: Jefferson Park (CTA Blue Line station)
Check-in will begin at 0945 hours (receive tickets there, check-in closes after 1015, as the train departs at 1030)

Fatality Tracker: 44-year-old pedestrian killed in hit-and-run crash in West Rogers Park

Tsering Dorjee, 44, seen here with his youngest son
Tsering Dorjee. Photo by Bill’s Digital Photos.

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 23 (12 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 6 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 8 (our last update listed 7)
Skateboard: 1 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)

Update November 17, 09:30: The driver turned himself in on Thursday. Fernando Jasso Perez, 23, has never had a driver’s license. “Cook County Judge Donald Panarese Jr. set bail at $750,000 for Perez, who was charged with reckless homicide and failure to report the crash” (source). The Chicago Sun-Times published an editorial Friday urging state legislators to create a visitor drivers license for illegal immigrants. One of the benefits they espoused? “Police officers making a stop would know who is driving the car. With the threat of deportation lessened, illegal immigrants would have less of a motivation to leave the scene of an accident.”

Tsering Dorjee, a 44-year-old Tibetan man from India, was killed in a fatal hit-and-run crash on Monday around 6 PM in the 6400 block of N Maplewood Avenue in West Rogers Park and police are still looking for the driver, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Dorjee worked in the Cook County Clerk’s office and was the president of the Rogers Park Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s very distressing and very disappointing because, in our community, we have very few deaths but they are natural – sickness or old age,” [Lhakpa] Tsering said [president of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago]. “This is the first time a hit-and-run has taken a life in our community.’”

The car was described as a dark blue Volkswagen Beetle with the Illinois license plate P121817. Police asked anyone with information to call 312-745-4521.

Dorjee’s brother-in-law, Dakpa Jorden, 46, “was also injured in the collision and suffered a fractured neck and leg”, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time. View previous Fatality Tracker posts.

Some of my favorite new sustainable transportation stuff of 2012

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Jana Kinsman of Bike-A-Bee.

Newcity magazine recently invited me to highlight some of my favorite aspects of the local sustainable transportation scene for their Best of Chicago issue. Here’s what I selected:

Best bike-centric Kickstarter campaign

Bike-a-Bee

Jana Kinsman’s pedal-powered apiculture service has generated quite a buzz. Last winter Kinsman, a graphic designer and illustrator with the all-female collective Quite Strong, used the “crowdfunding” website to raise $8,646 for beekeeping equipment and packages of bees, plus a bicycle trailer to transport the gear. She now maintains hives at community gardens and urban farms all over town, such as Eden Place, a nature education center at 43rd Place and Shield Avenue in the underserved Fuller Park community. The hives help pollinate nearby plants and serve as educational tools for neighborhood kids. It’s a honey of a project!

BikeABee.com

Continue reading Some of my favorite new sustainable transportation stuff of 2012

Grid Shots: Political and advocacy statements

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An anti-dooring sticker is posted on a pole on Wells Street. These were printed by individuals several years ago. The website has been defunct for a long time. Photo by Michelle Stenzel. 

Cyclists being doored is a major issue. It led to one death this year and in 2010, it comprised almost 20% of all reported bicycling-automobile crashes. There’s a political and advocacy cause in this issue: road designs must be changed and people driving and bicycling need to be continually educated and reminded about avoiding a collision.

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Hannah’s Bretzel stores have bikes with big baskets out front with the message “low emission vehicle”. Are these used for delivery, or just parked here? Photo by Seth Anderson.

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An advertisement spans Elston Avenue on a railroad viaduct that says “Save Health, Save Jobs, SaveSafetyNet.com”. Photo by Michelle Stenzel.

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A ghost bike is prepared in Daley Plaza for Jepson Livingston at the Ride of Silence in May. Photo by Drew Baker.

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In July 2011, Grid Chicago asked the United States Postal Service to stop parking its trucks in bike lanes.

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A mannequin placed on Wacker Drive by the Chicago Department of Transportation wears a black t-shirt printed with “One of 32 pedestrians killed last year [2010] in Chicago”. 36 pedestrians were killed by automobiles traffic in 2011. Photo by Mike Travis.

Add your photos to our Flickr group for consideration for future Grid Shots posts. View past Grid Shots post. See what themes are coming soon.

Fatality Tracker: Driver turns truck right in front of cyclist, killing him

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 22 (10 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 6 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 8 (our last update listed 7)
Skateboard: 1 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)

A person riding a bike on westbound Augusta Boulevard was killed this morning when a driver of a truck traveling in the same direction turned right onto northbound Ashland Avenue. The crash happened at “about 10 AM”. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Cook County medical examiner’s office said the man was in his 50s and was pronounced dead at 10:35 a.m.

The driver of the truck, Danny Darling, 47, of Michigan City, Ind., remained at the scene and was ticketed for making an improper right turn, Mirabelli said.

There is a discussion about this on EveryBlock, with details from apparent witnesses. In 2011, 7 bicyclists died in traffic. An improper right turn is another name for “right hook”, which is regulated by Municipal Code of Chicago 9-16-020. In this case it carries a fine of $500.

View Ashland & Augusta in a larger map. This is one of those intersections where the bike lane ends very prematurely before the intersection, in this case ~190 feet before the westbound Augusta stop bar.

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time. View previous Fatality Tracker posts.