Tag: bike

Winter Birding: An Audio Postcard

  • The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). (Photo by Mike McDowell)

Despite the cold weather… there are some dedicated wildlife
watchers taking notes, taking photos and enjoying the outdoors. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ed Janus recently joined
four people in the snowy woods and fields to watch them as they watched
birds. He brings us this audio postcard:

Transcript

Despite the cold weather… there are some dedicated wildlife watchers taking notes,
taking photos and enjoying the outdoors. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ed Janus
recently joined four people in the snowy woods and fields to watch them as they watched
birds. He brings us this audio postcard:


Noel Cutright: “There’s something happening 365 days a year. Whether it’s in June, in
the height of breeding season here in Wisconsin or in the depths of the winter, you
can
find birds just about anywhere.”


(bird song)


“I think people when they think about going birding in the tropics, they’re always
looking
for the new birds that we don’t have here in Wisconsin. And I was kind of surprised
at
how moved I was when I started seeing some of our birds down there.”


(sound of Bald Eagle)


Mike McDowell: “One way to get people who aren’t really interested in looking at birds
is watching something as lovely as a Bald Eagle. A good place to see them would be
Sauk City, along the Wisconsin River. One time I had a bald eagle there fly right
up into
a tree right next to me. Just a gorgeous view of it in the sun. You can watch them
fly
down from the trees and fly over the water and scoop down and grab a fish and bring it
up to a tree and eat it.”


NC: “Well, we’re starting up a bike trail here in downtown Port Washington. Very
protected. Very close to the lakeshore. I hear a chickadee calling here as we get
started.”


(sound of chickadees)


Delia Unsom: “We used to go out for walks a lot, and one day we were out and saw this
red-tailed hawk circling. And so, you know we were watching that but it was so far
away, so I went out and bought this little, tiny pair of binoculars…”


Chuck Heikkinen: “For twenty bucks.”


DU: “For twenty bucks. And then you start seeing birds up close and then before I
knew
it, Chuck had his own pair of twenty dollar pair of binoculars.”


CH: “Once you get really close to a bird with binoculars, you start to see things
you’d
never imagine.”


DU: “Like birds that we would just totally ignore before – for example sparrows.
Sparrows look so plain, but once you really get into birding, there are certain
sparrows
that are just beautiful.”


(sound of goldfinch)


NC: “Goldfinch flying over. They say ‘potato chip’ when they fly. ‘Potato chip,
potato
chip.'”


“Sometimes if you’re quiet and go out and sit in the woods or along the shore and
birds –
and you’re quiet and don’t make a lot of movement, you can get close to birds. Just
sit
down some place and let the birds come to you. It’s a good way to see them up close…”


(sound of Cooper’s Hawk under)


NC: “There goes a Cooper’s Hawk.”


DU: “Seeing birds is one thing, but hearing birds is another thing.”


CH: “After learning the songs of the birds, it’s almost like being in a symphony.
It’s just
incredibly beautiful sound. Almost like hearing the heart beat of the planet.”


(sound of cardinal under)


NC: “Single note call of a Cardinal. Northern Cardinal – just flew across the path
there.”


CH: “What it does, what it’s done for us I think has pulled the whole state into our
life.
Just all corners of the state we’re pretty well acquainted with because of birds.”


NC: “There’s a White-breasted Nut Hatch I just heard. Yank, yank, yank. Yank, yank,
yank.”


(sound of Nut Hatch under)


DU: “It’s easy to get obsessed with birds, you know? It really is easy. But think
about it:
it’s a great thing to be obsessed about. You know, if you’re going to have an
obsession,
why not something beautiful that gets you outdoors, it brings you out into nature, you
know that makes you happier. There’re just some gorgeous, fantastic days. You know,
in the past we wouldn’t have been outdoors. Now we’re always outdoors.”


MM: “Really all they need is a pair of binoculars and a little bit of time and it’s
great
exercise and why not?”


(bird song fades out)


HOST TAG: “Noel Cutright, Mike McDowell, and the husband and wife team
of Chuck Heikkinen and Delia Unsom watch birds in their home state of Wisconsin. Ed
Janus produced that audio postcard for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.”

Related Links

Greenways to Garner Green for City?

  • Proposals to build greenways in Detroit are raising interest, hopes, and concerns. (Photo by Val Head)

Many cities looking to revitalize their urban centers
have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:

Transcript

Many cities looking to reviatlize their urban centers have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:


This abandoned rail line twenty-five feet below street level might not be many peoples’ first choice for a walk or a bike ride. But Tom Woiwode thinks soon it might be. Woiwode is the director of the GreenWays Initiative for all of Southeast Michigan. When he takes a look down this former Grand Trunk Western Rairoad line in Detroit, he doesn’t see the fast food wrappers, tires, and crashed and rusting shopping carts. He sees trees and grass and benches. And more importantly, he sees people, and places for people to spend their money.


“So maybe a bike repair shop, restaurants, some opportunities for music venues and those sorts of things, so people can ride their bike on down to the riverfront and along the way either stay here for lunch, or along the way stop and rest and enjoy the ambiance, or take their food and go on down to the riverfront where they can enjoy the extraordinary natural resources of the river as well.”


We’re standing near the city’s sprawling open-air produce market. It’s one of the most popular draws for people from inside and outside the city limits. When it’s complete, the greenway will link the market to Detroit’s greatest natural asset: the Detroit River. Greenways are a new redevelopment concept in Detroit. But elsewhere, Woiwode says, they’ve proven a well-tested urban redevelopment tool.


“In fact, back in the late 90’s, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Denver – two municipalities that are roughly similar in size to Detroit – both characterized their greenways programs as the most important economic development programs they had within the city.”


Minneapolis is another city that’s had success with greenways. In fact, backers of the greenway plan in downtown Detroit say they were inspired by a similar project there. Last month, Minneapolis completed the second phase of what will eventually be a five-mile greenway along an abandoned rail line much like the one in Detroit. It’s called the Midtown Greenway. And it’ll eventually link the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River thruogh neighborhoods on the city’s south side.


Eric Hart is a Minneapolis Midtown Greenway Coalition board member. He says even the greenway’s most avid supporters joked that people might continue to use it as a dumping ground for abandoned shopping carts like they did when it was just a trench.


“Since then, since it was done in 2000, there’s been a lot of interest in the development community to put high-density residential structures right along the edge of the greenway. And it’s viewed more like a park now.”


Since the first phase was completed in 2000, one affordable housing development and a 72-unit market-rate loft project have been completed. And five more housing developments – mostly condos – are in the planning stages. Hart says people use the greenway for recreation and for commuting by bicycle to their jobs.


Colin Hubbell is a developer in Detroit. He says he’s all for greenways, as long as they’re not competing for dollars with more pressing needs in a city like Detroit: good schools, for example. Or safe neighborhoods. Hubbell says the question needs to be asked: If you build it, will they come?


“I’m not sure. I’m not sure, if, given the perception problem that we have as a city, how many people on bikes are going to go down in an old railroad right away, I’m not sure even if that’s the right thing to do, given the fact that – I mean, we have a street system. And just because there’s a greenway doesn’t mean if somebody’s on Rollerblades or a bicycle that they’re not going to stay on a greenway.”


Hubbell says Detroit already has a lot of streets and not much traffic – leaving plenty of room for bicyclists. Hubbell says it might be cheaper to paint some bike lanes, and put up signs. But he says connecting the city’s cultural and educational institutions, the river, and commercial districts with greenways is a good idea – as long as they’re running through areas where people will use them.


Kelli Kavanaugh says that’s exactly what’s happening with greenway plans in the city. Kavanaugh is with the Greater Corktown Economic Development Corporation in southwest Detroit.


“You can’t just stick a greenway in the middle of a barren, abandoned neighborhood and expect use. But when you put one into a growing neighborhood, a stabilizing neighborhood, it really works as another piece of the quality of life puzzle to kind of support existing residents, but also attract new residents to the area. It’s another amenity.”


Greenway backers say for a city struggling just to maintain its population, Detroit can only benefit from safe, pleasant places to walk and bike. And if other cities are any indication, they say greenways should also help bring another kind of green into Detroit.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Ugly Bikes a Better Alternative to Cars?

  • Community bike projects are springing up in cities and college campuses across North America. The idea - ride a bike when you can avoid driving a car. They're old and made intentionally ugly so people won't steal them. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

America is a cult of the automobile. We drive everywhere. You can pick up a donut and coffee in the morning, a burger in the afternoon and a six-pack of beer at night and never leave your car. But some environmentally-conscious people want us to leave the car in the garage. And they’re offering us old, ugly bikes instead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:

Transcript

America is a cult of the automobile. We drive everywhere. You can pick up a donut and coffee in
the morning, a burger in the afternoon and a six pack of beer at night and never leave your car. But
some environmentally-conscious people want us to leave the car in the garage. And they’re offering
us old, ugly bikes instead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:


(bike bell)


These bikes are old, and they are ugly. But the Michigan
State University Bike Project isn’t worried about how its
bikes look. That’s unless they’re not ugly enough.


These kinds of creaky, old bikes were abandoned long
ago for bikes with gears, handle brakes and cool brand
names. Once they’re taken in, these old bikes are painted
a bright canary yellow – really ugly.


But that’s what the bike project’s organizers want. The
bikes just need to work, but not too well. They need to
stick out, but not in a good way.


Tim Potter says, the less desirable the better.


“We don’t want to make them look too good, because
we don’t want people taking them home and keeping
them. So we try to make them intentionally ugly and
very identifiable.”


Potter says they want people to borrow the bikes, but
they don’t want them to keep them. He helped launch
the project last May. They wanted to give Michigan
State students and professors a free and non-
polluting way to get across campus.


“We just want to encourage more people to use
bicycles to reduce traffic, to reduce pollution, and to
improve their health.”


At Michigan State, the bikes are leased to campus
departments and signed out for daily use.


Gus Gosselin rides one of these old yellow bikes in
the bitter cold of winter and the dead heat of summer.
He and Potter have been working on the bikes ever
since Gosselin brought the idea back from Canada.


“I was vacationing in a cabin in northern Ontario and
my neighbor was a bicycle shop owner from
Virginia. He told me that at his university when he
was a college student, they would take these
abandoned bikes and paint ’em some color, and then
just park ’em all around for people to just use as
needed.”


Similar programs have sprung up across North America.
At other campuses like Hampshire College in
Massachusetts and the University of Texas. And in cities
such as Portland, Oregon, and St. Paul, Minnesota.


Before the concept came to North America, there
were community bike programs all across Europe.
Most U.S. bike programs use yellow to distinguish
their bikes. Amsterdam and Copenhagen use white.
Regardless of color, the concept remains the same:
Use a bike when you can avoid using a car.


The Michigan State bike project is just getting
started.


Across Lake Michigan in Wisconsin’s capitol, the
Red Bike Project is approaching its sixth birthday.


The program here started when a bike shop decided
to donate free recycled bikes to the city of Madison.
Now the bikes are in for their winter repairs.
Dismantled red frames sit on the floor in the back of
the shop. They’re waiting for a new paint job and
wheels.


“For the first three years the bicycles were
completely free so they’d be launched as it were like
on Earth Day in April. And then as we repaired and
painted more, we launched more. They would go
people could hop on them, leave them anywhere.”


Roger Charly owns the bike shop that started
painting and distributing the bikes. He says the
University of Wisconsin students drive the program.
And he says Madison is a biking town. It was ripe
for a community bike project.


The project caught on, but in unexpected ways, says
Charly.


“You know at bar time down on campus you hear
people arguing about, ‘that’s my red bike or I’m
riding this red bike home.'”


And Charly says the arguments for the bikes weren’t
the only problem. He says sometimes, bikes would
end up in the nearby lake, or people would ride them
outside the city and abandon them.


So, he had to make riders put a deposit on their bike.
It gave them more responsibility. And Charly says
the program has flourished.


“Our fleet is about 300 bicycles right now which is
the most its ever been, so I suppose we could top out
at as many as 1000 bicycles.”


But there are 400,000 people in the Madison area.
So, a thousand red bikes might seem like a rather
pedestrian numbers to consider a success.


But these projects don’t have lofty goals of
converting an automobile society to one of bike
riders.


Back in Michigan, the yellow bike project has 25
bikes for a campus of more than 40,000. Terry Link
organizes the Michigan State Bike Project. He says
they would be happy to have 100 bikes by spring.


“Yeah, I think sometimes we look for the big changes
and we don’t tackle things because we such very
little in the ocean of change that maybe we feel we
need. But it’s individual actions that really start. I
think people that find themselves getting on bicycles
more, it changes the way they look at a lot of things.”


And Link thinks a community bike program can work
anywhere.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.

Bikers Gear Up for Epa Battle

  • Some motorcycle riders are concerned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unfairly targeting bikers with a proposal to reduce motorcycle emissions. Illustration courtesy of ABATE of Illinois.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to clean up pollution from motorcycles. Motorcycle enthusiasts don’t want the government telling them how to operate their street bikes. It’s become a battle between bikers and bureaucrats. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to clean up pollution from
motorcycles. Motorcycle enthusiasts don’t want the government telling
them how to operate their street bikes. It’s become a battle between
bikers and bureaucrats. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:


(pipe sound #1)


Bikers turn their heads when they hear a pair of exhaust pipes cackling
by. The sound catches their attention as much as the style and chrome on
the motorcycle. Bikers such as Neil Toepfer say making changes such as
with exhaust pipes are a part of the culture of motorcycle enthusiasts.


“That’s how we express ourselves, making changes on the bike that make
it even more fuel efficient or perform the way that we the rider want it to perform.”


And the sound of the bike is a big part of identity for many riders.


(pipe sound #2)


But motorcycle riders such as Toepfer say they’re concerned about an
Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would crack down on
motorcycle exhaust systems. Toepfer and others have gone so far as to
ride their bikes to Washington to let Congress know they oppose the
EPA messing around with their freedom to modify their bike pipes.


“The thing with the EPA… and I’m probably going to get
somebody’s nose out of joint when I say this… but the EPA is just a
government agency. They don’t answer to the people. They don’t listen to
the people. They’re bureaucrats that have their own agenda.”


Toepfer is being mild compared to what some other bikers are saying
about the EPA. There seems to be a bit of a culture clash. A poster on
the internet by one motorcycle riders association depicts a mock-up of
an assault rifle toting EPA official in riot gear. The caption reads “He’s
from the Government, but he’s not here to help.” It goes on to read “He’s
here to take your heritage. He’s here to take your freedom. He’s here to
take your motorcycle.”


Many bikers say they don’t understand why the EPA is going after their
motorcycle exhaust pipes…


(pipe sound #3)


Mike Hayworth is the owner of Watson’s Wheels of Madness, a custom
motorcycle shop in Alton, Illinois. He suspects the problem is either the
government bureaucrats don’t have enough to do… or do-gooders who
can’t mind their own business…


“These environmentalist people, they want to rule our lives
and they’re going to take and do whatever they can to say ‘We got to stop
this and we got to stop that.’ What kind of pollution does a motorcycle –
there’s not enough motorcycles in the United States to pollute anything.”


That same argument is being made in Washington, D.C. Thomas Wyld is
a lobbyist with Motorcycle Riders Foundation. He says a study by the
California Air Resources Board found that street bikes were only
responsible for six one-thousandth of a percent of all motor vehicle
emissions.


“And if you took that pollution inventory of motor vehicles and
made it equivalent of a 100-yard football field, street motorcycles would
occupy a quarter of an inch on that field.”


Wyld adds that motorcycles are fuel efficient, reduce traffic congestion,
and take up less parking space. Wyld says those are things the EPA
should be encouraging instead of pestering bikers with exhaust
emissions restrictions.


(pipe sound #4)


The EPA is a little baffled by all the noise about the emissions proposal.
Don Zinger is with the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality.
He says the bikers don’t understand the proposal…


“These new requirements will have absolutely no effect on
existing motorcycles.”


Zinger says any new restrictions on exhaust systems would only affect
new motorcycles that come off the assembly line after the restrictions are
implemented… probably four years from now.


And Zinger notes… motorcycles pollute a lot more than most people
realize.


“A typical motorcycle built today produces about 20 times as
much air pollution as a new car today over every mile that’s driven. 20
times. That’s pretty significant.”


So, the EPA says street motorcycles should be made to pollute less, as
the EPA has required many other types of vehicles to do.


Many bikers believe the EPA is targeting street motorcycle riders
because they’re a small segment of society with a reputation of being on
the wild side. EPA officials say bikers won’t notice a difference in the
sound or performance of the bikes under the proposed emissions
restrictions… but it will mean they’ll pollute less.


(bike pipes leaving the scene)


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

BIKERS GEAR UP FOR EPA BATTLE (Short Version)

  • Some motorcycle riders are concerned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unfairly targeting bikers with a proposal to reduce motorcycle emissions. Illustration courtesy of ABATE of Illinois.

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering new rules to reduce pollution from motorcycles. The EPA says street bikes pollute far more than cars or even SUVs:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering new rules to reduce
pollution from motorcycles. The EPA says street bikes pollute far more
than cars or even SUVs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


The EPA’s proposal would require new motorcycles to substantially
reduce exhaust emissions. The EPA says the average new motorcycle
pollutes 20 times more than the average new car. Don Zinger is with the
agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality.


“The motorcycle standards have been in place since 1980. In
other words, they have not been changed in 22 years now. So, we think it’s
appropriate to consider more stringent standards for motorcycles.”


Bikers are concerned that the emissions restrictions will affect the
performance of motorcycles. They also say the EPA is trying to take
away their right to change how their bikes sound. Many bikers feel the
rumble of their motorcycle is a statement of their individuality. EPA
officials say they just want the motorcycles to pollute less.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.