Category Archives: Light Wheels

Longtime NYC Advocate for human-scale vehicles, including electric-assist bicycles and pedicabs, as well as a stronger local, creative and public role in determining public-space issues. I imagine streets in the future filled with clean, quiet, weather-protected, multi-person conveyances that are … Continue reading →

The following is testimony was given by me at the hearing at DOT today, May 29th, regarding the new rules covering ebikes: The flowering, here in its most natural and needed environment, of human-powered, with modest electric assistance, and human-scale … Continue reading →

Jul 06, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 8863 We face a choice: we either learn how to master the machines we create and use them to enhance our lives or they will come to dominate us.

Many of the most disturbing events taking place around the world, the Middle East, Ukraine, etc. revolve around the supply of fossil fuels. It is a militarized world because there are stores of wealth, instead of more equitable distribution, and … Continue reading →

https://books.google.hr/books?id=TE3wTD1ckF4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false In 1974, Bradford Snell, a legislative assistant to Senator Hart of Michigan, and Judiciary Committee staff attorney, delivered an historic report on the partnership between two great American industrial powers, the General Motors Company and the Standard Oil Company … Continue reading →

Aug 24, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 9331 For over 150 years of the industrial revolution, bigger has always been better, but in the 21st century figuring out how to downscale will be the most daunting challenge mankind will face. Many … Continue reading →

Find some old, discarded, broken, or unused bikes of any description. Find a pad of paper and a pencil or pen and look in the library for helpful information. Begin to imagine what a different kind of vehicle might look … Continue reading →

1. This is an invitation to individuals and groups, literally everywhere, to design and construct examples of the kind of transportation we need in order to survive this period. Must be as minimal as possible, with a human-powered component and … Continue reading →

while most comfortable, vehicles possible is the aim here. Users should be able to assume any posture which is their preference, from standing, to leaning, to sitting and recumbent. Also, the clear, outer, weather-protecting shell, must easily be partly, or … Continue reading →

HELP! The only two states that allow recreational pot use are playing Call it the Pipe Bowl The new Mayor of New York has made it one of his first priorities to reduce the number of roadway casualties in that … Continue reading →

The original colonial Tea Party was a bit of blame-the-victim, racist, black-bag op terrorism, with a spoonful of patriotism, and so is the current one for many of its most passionate adherents. The difference is that back then, we were … Continue reading →

THE BIG  QUESTION;  IF YOU ARE DOWN TO YOUR LAST TEN DOLLARS, DO YOU GET FOOD, YOUR MEDICINE OR GAS FOR THE CAR? We need water, air, and the occasional snack, to survive. Clothing and a roof over your head may not be … Continue reading →

PUCK magazine, in downtown New York City, gave political satire its most powerful boost. Its momentum has propelled it 150 years into the present day in the form of Comedy Central and millions of youtube videos. The impatience of these … Continue reading →

Pickers and gatherers of produce, People getting their hands dirty, by pulling roots and breaking stems, filling baskets and boxes, are making about a penny a pound for their work, give or take. When the final products of their efforts are passed … Continue reading →

While there is almost no image more elegant or romantic than a person simply riding a bike, we are constantly being enticed into embracing something grand, a car, a nice big house, which is intended to inflate our sense of … Continue reading →

Jun 08, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 8317 Instead of spending hard-earned income on an asset that sits 23 hours out of the day and takes constant ‘care and feeding’ in the form of toxic, polluting fuel, just to move 170 … Continue reading →

May 25, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 5726 Both the NY City and NY State legislatures are preparing to vote in the next month on legalizing electric-assist bikes. Would giving politicians and their staffs’ test rides, where they are, be a … Continue reading →

May 11, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 5762 Sometimes I blog to get things off my chest and maybe, get you to think a bit differently about a topic near and dear to me. Sometimes, I just do it to clear … Continue reading →

May 04, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 7600 Could it be that the curious devices depicted in the famed Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs point the way toward slowing, if not ending the rise of the automobile as the dominant machine force on … Continue reading →

Apr 27, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 4811  If New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio wants to see accident deaths drop to zero in his city, he will have to ensure that there are fewer cars and trucks and more pedicabs … Continue reading →

Apr 20, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 7492 We’ve shaped our society around cheap, but dirty and exhaustible energy. In the 21st century, it’s time to start thinking creatively about healthful ways to re-power our lives, by burning caloric energy instead … Continue reading →

Apr 06, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 5872 An invitation to use the power of the internet and crowd-sourcing to commemorate the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the New York World’s Fair. As one way to take notice of these remarkable … Continue reading →

Mar 23, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 5779 When you’re down to your last ten dollars, do you buy food, medicine or gas for the car? I want to propose a simple way to begin to change society for the better. … Continue reading →

Mar 15, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 2003 There is no better way to counteract global warming, change bad societal habits, and to respond to the negative effects of oversized, petroleum-fueled transportation modes and their threat to our economic and atmospheric … Continue reading →

Mar 09, 2014. What is taken for granted in most forms of transportation, weather protection, the potential for multiple riders, access to creature comforts and the ability to carry freight, is absent from virtually any current versions of human-powered and … Continue reading →

Mar 02, 2014 25 years ago we put on a show at the Municipal Art Society in NYC called “Going Nowhere Fast”. It covered a full range of transportation modalities and identified the problems and possibilities inherent in them, from … Continue reading →

Feb 23, 2014. It appears to me that we are turning into a world of activists, that we are reversing decades of minimum involvement by the masses in the determination of their destinies. It is happening on different continents and … Continue reading →

Feb 16, 2014 Oddly, when charts are made, measuring the use of energy and its production, the most important form of it, human-power, is ordinarily excluded entirely. Fueled by calories, most available from rooftops, yards, fields, and window-boxes, truly locally-grown … Continue reading →

Jan 26, 2014. I’m not sure what Disqus is, but I know it eats comments. One of the pleasures of writing pieces like this is the responses that it can provoke. Sadly, often nothing is said in response to the … Continue reading →

Oct 13, 2013. Article Viewed 1482 Times The Permian Extinction took 95% of all living species. It is thought to have been caused by the release of a great store of methane from its oceanic vault, following volcanic activity in Siberia, powerful … Continue reading →

Jul 22, 2013. Article Viewed 6541 Times Now that the NYS legislature has ratified its identity as the lamest State Legislature in the country by once again failing to pass a bill legalizing electric-assist bikes, the campaign to reverse this … Continue reading →