Re: Cycling Thoughts Bike Lakewood President Erika Durham

The setting:

1st half: Now That's Class, 10pm

2nd half: Rising Star Coffee Roasters 11:30am

The players:

J: John McGovern

E: Erika Durham

A: Ambience

The Tags: vehicular cycling, baroasters, coffee, lakewood, polo, we-built-this-city, Hartzler's milk, robots, diets

The Key to Diverse Bracket Styles Used Herein:

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Setting: Now That's Class: Wednesday evening, April 07

J: A machine to roll a whole carton of cigarettes?

E: What did we do before technology? Nobody did anything.

J: Well, that's the thing about technology, it's an enabler in every way; for better or for worse.

By the way, I am recording this conversation; everything that's been said by all parties, can and has been recorded.

Ambience: Are you actually recording this?

J: Yes

E: Yes, he is.

J: I feel like, to me, there are so many really amazing people around cycling here in Cleveland.

 E: I feel like there are a lot of people I should know, but I don't

 J: In time, in time…..

So, it was fun to play [bicycle] polo, eh?

 E: That was sweet! That's one of those things….where I approach the situation with some amount of physical fear, but if I can get beyond that, then I love it.

 J: Oh yeah, yeah.

Well, compared to how they (Pedal Republik of Cleveland) were playing, we were like in s-l-o-w---m-o-t-i-o-n.

 E: That's probably how they started too.

 J: So, how did you become the director of Bike Lakewood?

 E: Honestly, I'm not really sure how it happened. You know (Lakewood City Councilman) Tom Bullock?

 J: Yeah.

 E: Well, I knew that they had started that group a few years ago with Tim Liston. And, I was bicycling all the time to school at Cleveland State.

 J: And you're from Cleveland originally?

 E: No, I grew up in Cleveland Heights, went to high school in Berea, and moved to Lakewood after that.

 J: Wow - - that's like the flip-flop hub of Cleveland living!

 E. I went to college in Youngstown and lived in New York, Northern Michigan, Bowling Green, then California and then I came back here.

 J: That's a great sample of Living in America! So……… in Cleveland, lots of higher income white folk really enjoy places like Cracker Park and Leprosy Village, but how do we get people to appreciate the neighborhoods we have here in the city--that urban lifestyle, which is largely based on the proximity of goods and services? Along those lines, how do we as a city enable more people to chose the bicycle for their lifestyle?

 E: That's one of my primary goals for Bike Lakewood. And also to show cyclists how to communicate to people in cars. I've had some interesting experiences with that, and it's often very powerful.

 J: You've hit upon the crux of it. Automobiles have been given so many liberties, the 'right-of-way' over the past 50 years. It's like carte blanche, you know. Roads are wider, speed limits are higher, less crosswalks, etc. But we are starting to realize that this damages everything else. So, the question is how do we start to repair the fabric of our cities?

 E: If you think about humans, if you think of any situation where you are trying to get away from something, the biggest thing on your mind is that you just don't want to get caught. Most people hate conversation [with someone they don't know], so If you can get to the point where you force a conversation with someone, that's not aggressive or negative in tone, then it makes them think about it the situation, even just the slightest bit, that begins a cycle of change for people [and society].

 J: With an attitude like that, we can make Cleveland a global destination once again!

 Setting: Rising Star Coffee Roasters; 3 days later

 J: Is that John Johnson character a humorless robot barista, or what?

 E: Strangely, I've never actually witness him craft an espresso drink….

 J: Do you think that the quality of the milk has anything to do with the quality of the final espresso drink?

 E: Absolutely, that's why we only use Hartzler's Milk.

 J: Robot Johnson, You look a little bit like a deranged SouthPark character right now, not Butters, but that emo-kid that always flips his hair back. Did you know that Comedy Central gives away SouthPark as a piracy prevention measure?

 Ambience: Not to mention, artists never made money off record sales and the label system; they made all their money off touring.

 J: You mentioned Tim Liston (inaugural president of Bike Lakewood) as someone who convinced you that putting Bike Lanes everywhere is not the best way to promote or otherwise incentivize cycling. In a sense, we (American society) incentivize driving by building roads everywhere, often to nowheres. I recall Henry Kaiser's instructive quote in the 1940's that the only limit to the success of the automobile is a limitation in the number of roads. So, how to the same for cycling?

 E: Well…..Chicago has a spine for cycling in the form of a path along the lake and that's one example, where you can use this spine to travel north and south and then come back into the city on an east/west street to reach your destination. A rails to trails type path along the railroad tracks that run between Clifton and Detroit is an idea supported by many people. However, the tracks are still in use.

 J: EcoCity Cleveland, before they became GreenCityBlueLake, did an interesting study on the effect of wide vs. narrow streets on the speed of cars. The varying width of Mayfield Road is a great example of this and is still portrayed online.

E: Well, I think that narrowing makes a ton of sense and would be even better for cyclists if bicycle facilities made use of colored paint, like an entire lane painted in green, instead of just lines and symbols, to indicate to drivers that cyclists belong here. I think if people saw the city making genuine efforts in the name of cycling, that would be huge, in terms of getting non-cyclists to use a bicycle for transportation. I think that Cleveland has to make this effort, in order to attract the next generation of citizens, as a way to send a signal to current and future residents, that they are not stuck in the old way of doing things.

Bonus Questions:

Ms. Durham's Bicycle of Choice:

A 1974 Raleigh Record steel frame 'frankenstein' fixed gear. I got it at Needful Thingz in East Cleveland with parts mostly from OCBC.

Ms. Durham's Fuel of Choice:

Beer, mostly beer!! and french fries, actually Happy Dog tater tots.