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05-30-09, 04:50 PM
‘Pedaling Revolution’
By Jeff Mape
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/books/excerpt-pedaling-revolution.html?ref=review
Nice section on New Yorker cyclists/activist Mark Gorton:
Sometimes it is tempting to think of these urban cycling advocates as the crazy Jihadists of the sustainability movement, given the physical risks and cultural opprobrium cyclists often encounter. But the truth is that cycling has attracted a much broader — and often more sophisticated — demographic than many might think. Take Mark Gorton, who has minted a New York fortune at the intersection of finance and high tech. Gorton's empire includes a hedge fund that uses sophisticated computers to make lightning-fast trades as well as a controversial internet file-sharing company under attack from the music industry. But he is also an avid cyclist who has become one of New York's chief patrons of the "livable streets" movement. It all started years ago, he explained, when he just wanted to ride his bicycle a couple of miles to work at the Credit Suisse Bank in midtown Manhattan.
"It was one of those things that I was aware of when I was riding there that if I did it long enough, I was going to get into a pretty bad crash — it was just inevitable," he explained. "When you almost get killed a few times you start to realize, this is stupid. Here I am doing something that is more environmentally friendly, healthier, it's the sort of behavior that the city should be trying to encourage, and yet it has designed the system so that it's really hostile to bicyclists."
....
"After thinking about it," Gorton added, "I realized you probably could reduce the amount of traffic in New York by 80 percent and not have any negative economic impact at all — and probably only positive economic impacts. And once that gets in your head, I couldn't be content with the world anymore." Gorton began plowing his money into the notion that he could change the realities of the New York streets. He became the largest donor to Transportation Alternatives, the city's chief bicycle and pedestrian lobby. He started his own nonprofit, with the idea of giving neighborhood activists software tools they could use to develop plans for such amenities as public plazas and low-traffic streets. And perhaps most prominently, he financed a new internet site, Streetsblog, which became a rallying point for cyclists, urban planners, mass transit geeks, and everybody else who had come to question why so much space should be turned over to cars in a city so compact that most residents don't even own one. From checking the internet addresses, Gorton's bloggers found out that city bureaucrats, particularly in the Department of Transportation, were also loyal readers — if only to see how streetsblog was beating up on them each day. Like a modern-day William Randoph Hearst, he had found his megaphone.
By Jeff Mape
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/books/excerpt-pedaling-revolution.html?ref=review
Nice section on New Yorker cyclists/activist Mark Gorton:
Sometimes it is tempting to think of these urban cycling advocates as the crazy Jihadists of the sustainability movement, given the physical risks and cultural opprobrium cyclists often encounter. But the truth is that cycling has attracted a much broader — and often more sophisticated — demographic than many might think. Take Mark Gorton, who has minted a New York fortune at the intersection of finance and high tech. Gorton's empire includes a hedge fund that uses sophisticated computers to make lightning-fast trades as well as a controversial internet file-sharing company under attack from the music industry. But he is also an avid cyclist who has become one of New York's chief patrons of the "livable streets" movement. It all started years ago, he explained, when he just wanted to ride his bicycle a couple of miles to work at the Credit Suisse Bank in midtown Manhattan.
"It was one of those things that I was aware of when I was riding there that if I did it long enough, I was going to get into a pretty bad crash — it was just inevitable," he explained. "When you almost get killed a few times you start to realize, this is stupid. Here I am doing something that is more environmentally friendly, healthier, it's the sort of behavior that the city should be trying to encourage, and yet it has designed the system so that it's really hostile to bicyclists."
....
"After thinking about it," Gorton added, "I realized you probably could reduce the amount of traffic in New York by 80 percent and not have any negative economic impact at all — and probably only positive economic impacts. And once that gets in your head, I couldn't be content with the world anymore." Gorton began plowing his money into the notion that he could change the realities of the New York streets. He became the largest donor to Transportation Alternatives, the city's chief bicycle and pedestrian lobby. He started his own nonprofit, with the idea of giving neighborhood activists software tools they could use to develop plans for such amenities as public plazas and low-traffic streets. And perhaps most prominently, he financed a new internet site, Streetsblog, which became a rallying point for cyclists, urban planners, mass transit geeks, and everybody else who had come to question why so much space should be turned over to cars in a city so compact that most residents don't even own one. From checking the internet addresses, Gorton's bloggers found out that city bureaucrats, particularly in the Department of Transportation, were also loyal readers — if only to see how streetsblog was beating up on them each day. Like a modern-day William Randoph Hearst, he had found his megaphone.