Product Description

In a world of growing traffic congestion, expensive oil, and threats of cataclysmic climate change, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on the streets of urban cityscapes. In Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes explores the growing urban bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities across the U.S. He rides with bike 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 everyday folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Mapes, a seasoned political journalist and long-time bike commuter, explores the growth of bicycle advocacy while covering such issues as the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling for short urban trips. His rich cast of characters includes Noah Budnick, a young bicycle advocate in New York who almost died in a crash near the Brooklyn Bridge, and Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN), who took to bicycling in his fifties and helped unleash a new flood of federal money for bikeways. Chapters set in Chicago and Portland show how bicycling has became a political act, with seemingly dozens of subcultures, and how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are seizing streets back from motorists. Pedaling Revolution is essential reading for the approximately one million people who regularly ride their bike to work or on errands, for anyone engaged in transportation, urban planning, sustainability, and public health—and for drivers trying to understand why they’re seeing so many cyclists. All will be interested in how urban bike activists are creating the future of how we travel and live in twenty-first-century cities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32989 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780870714191
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In a time of climate change and car-worship, bicycle riding has become a political statement and a policy issue, with its own grassroots movement working "to seize at least a part of the street back from motorists." After a dry but brief history of the bicycle and its political significance (Susan B. Anthony said bicycles have "done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world"), Mapes reports from the world capitals of bicycle culture. Mapes explores Amsterdam, marveling at the ease with which cyclists, motorists and pedestrians share the road. In San Francisco and New York City, he finds cycling groups at their most hip and radical, and joins them on a "Critical Mass" protest, in which cyclists take to the streets en masse to block traffic and take over rush hour streets; they've caused siginificant headaches for the NYPD, especially during the 2004 National Republican Convention. Focusing largely on the cyclists themselves, Mapes puts a passionate and pragmatic face to the "new urban bike movement" while connecting the dots between cycling culture and a host of quality of life issues.
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From the Inside Flap
Pedaling Revolution is essential reading for the approximately one million people who regularly ride their bike to work or on errands, for anyone engaged in transportation, urban planning, sustainability, and public health—and for drivers trying to understand why they’re seeing so many cyclists. All will be interested in how urban bike activists are creating the future of how we travel and live in twenty-first-century cities.

About the Author
Jeff Mapes is senior political reporter for Portland’s The Oregonian and has covered Congress, state government, and numerous local, state, and national campaigns. He is also author of the blog, Mapes on Politics.

Customer Reviews

Bicycles are okay, but "a tricycle means independence"
A few confessions. First, I fall into the ideal reading demographic for this book. I own bikes. I ride bikes. And I am very interested in transportation issues, particularly as they pertain to bicycles. When Tom Vanderbilt's extraordinary book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) came out, the first thing I did with it was turn to the index and look up all the references to bicycles. (You say "nerdy" and I say "wonky"!)

And I live in the American Mecca (or "Amsterdam") of bicycling, namely Portland, Oregon, as does author Jeff Mapes.

But my most dramatic confession is this: I'm only halfway through Pedaling Revolution. (Eep.)

But at this point in the journey, the rest of the book could be printed in Swahili (I have nothing against the language, besides being unable to read it) and this would still be a five-star read. Why? Well, in a general sense, Mapes has done a fine job of giving me a historical context for the evolution of the bicycle in our society. Fair enough, but surely other books do the same?

They do. But Mapes brings a professional journalist's chops to this assignment. He peppers his account with interviews and human interest angles, and he knows the value of both a well-placed anecdote and statistic. To put it crudely, while Mapes' research was clearly Herculean, he doesn't let you see him sweat.

I'll be back to edit this review upon book's completion, but here are a few specifics that stick out in my mind this far:

By one UCLA professor's estimate, the sum total of all the parking spaces in the U.S. take up an area about the size of Connecticut. (Remember, that doesn't count roads!) Ouch.

Suffragette Belva Ann Lockwood (she twice ran for president in the late 1800s) was often spotted pedaling around Washington D.C. on her largish tricycle. As she said, "A tricycle means independence for women, and it also means health."

Along the lines of quotable quotes, try this one on for size: "The more I think about U.S. domestic transportation problems... the more I see an increased role for the bicycle in American life." George H.W. Bush, U.S. ambassador to China, 1975

Exceptionally well written book that will have you taking notes
This is a very well written and readable book. As others have noted, it is interspersed with a interviews, anecdotes, and other journalistic elements that make for an entertaining read. For a non-fiction book on a relatively narrow topic like bicycling, it's certainly a page turner. I am already an avid bicyclists and a proponent of utility bicycling, but I am also a suburbanite in the not-so bike friendly South-east US. At first this book had me day-dreaming about living in Portland or Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but by the end I am inspired to engage in my own community for more liveable bicycle friendly streets in Charlotte, NC. Thank you Jeff.

Must read- very enlightening
This is a must read. This book provides a great perspective of what can and should be done to support alternative transportation. Other countries are so far ahead of where we are in terms of thinking holistically about bike transportation. Cycling has benefits far beyond the obvious health and transportation benefits. Read the book and you'll see. After reading this book, I feel the mass media and the government has significantly short-changed the cyclists who have endangered their lives to help support alternative transportation. Next time you see a cyclist, instead of thinking why are they going so slow and get out of my way, you should be thinking why didn't I do that.