Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities

Front Cover
Oregon State University Press, 2009 - Political Science - 288 pages
Updated Edition includes a new epilogue by the author

In a world of increasing traffic congestion, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on city streets. Pedaling Revolution explores the growing bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities, suburbs, and small towns across North America.

From traffic-dodging bike messengers to tattooed teenagers on battered bikes, from riders in spandex to well-dressed executives, ordinary citizens are becoming transportation revolutionaries. Jeff Mapes traces the growth of bicycle advocacy and explores the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling. He rides with bicycle advocates who are taming the streets of New York City, joins the street circus that is Critical Mass in San Francisco, and gets inspired by the every-day folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Chapters focused on big cities, college towns, and America's most successful bike city, Portland, show how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are claiming a share of the valuable streetscape.

"A growing number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as they create a new society on the streets. They're finding physical fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity--and, still all too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury." --from the introduction

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
7
How Cyclists Created a Political Movement
27
Learning from Amsterdam
61
Copyright

7 other sections not shown

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About the author (2009)

Jeff Mapes is a reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting. He covered state and national politics for the Oregonian for nearly thirty-two years. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is a longtime bike commuter.

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