Congratulations to M-DOT, the GreenWays Initiative, and the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance for their award and much-deserved recognition from the Federal Highway Administration.

MDOT honored for leadership role in GreenWays Initiative in Southeast Michigan: “A 100-mile network of non-motorized trails and greenways in southeast Michigan has been honored by the Federal Highway Administration.

Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Director Kirk T. Steudle accepted the award for ‘exceptional environmental stewardship’ at the Nov. 29 State Transportation Commission meeting in Lansing. ‘This award reflects our commitment to making non-motorized trails available as a transportation mode,’ said Steudle. ‘Trails are a part of the transportation mix that is essential to protecting the health and well being of Michigan residents, and greenways contribute to enhancing quality of life.'”

This site is undergoing a complete overhaul. The old content had grown stale and was tedious to update. And from a structural standardpoint, it was written using Dreamweaver templates and table-based layouts. This new site is built on a CodeIgniter PHP framework with full CSS styling and layouts.

There still much to do including:

• Adding more recent crash data
• Updating the law section, including corrected links and MCL content
• Correcting all of the broken link, especially for media articles
• Developing a tagging system that makes web site updates easier
• Styling the photo gallery to match the site
• Wrapping some of the Blogger output (e.g. labels) in the m-bike format

We’ve also got some exciting bike projects in the works. We’ll be adding that information to this site soon.

Now get off the Internet and go ride…

www.m-bike.org
Promoting Safe and convenient bicycling in Metro Detroit

From the Michigan Land Use Institute: “It’s not that Mr. Burden dislikes cars. It’s just that he is certain that the quality of life improves if people don’t spend so much time sitting in them. And, like everybody else, he can’t stand congestion. He’s come up with some unexpected solutions. The answer to traffic congestion in most towns isn’t making roads wider, says Mr. Burden. Just the opposite: Roads need to be put on a “diet.” Taking lanes away slows traffic but, surprisingly, the road then actually carries more vehicles more efficiently. Mr. Burden has other traffic remedies, such as shrinking intersections, constructing roundabouts, building boulevards with divided medians, and designing places where people can walk, bike, and ride public transit.”

Detroit Synergy has been putting on some great rides recently. One of the themed rides was the Java Junket. We rode to the more unique and cool coffee shops in Detroit and Hamtramck. The early November weather cooperated. Special thanks to Tom, Club 1923, and the Bureau of Urban Living for putting this together.

metromode’s recent interview with Robert F. Kennedy included a question on bike infrastructure investment. (Thanks, Kelly!)

mode: There are other environmental initiatives in Michigan right now, such as the Greenways Initiative, which is investing millions of dollars into a network of trails and bike lanes in Southeast Michigan. Can you speak to how such investment can spur economic development and whether or not such an investment is prudent in a time of recession and high unemployment?

RFK: Let me say this: Good economic policy is, 100 percent of the time, good environmental policy. Conservation produces many more jobs than does the exploitation of virgin resources. If, on the other hand, we treat the planet as a business in liquidation for a few years of pollution prosperity, for an illusion, our children are going to pay for our joyride. It is deficit spending — our prosperity on the backs of our children.

We are not protecting fish and birds here. Nature is the infrastructure of our community. If we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a nation, as a civilization and provide the next generation with the community that our parents gave us, we have to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure. This is our lakes, bike ways, rivers — the landscapes that connect us to our past, our history, and provide a context to our communities. They are our source, ultimately, of values, virtues, our character as a people.

Investment in the environment does not somehow diminish our nation’s wealth. It is an investment in infrastructure, like telecommunications and roads. It ensures the economic vitality of our generation and the next generation.