Proposed Bikeway to SF to Honor Boston's Rich Bicycle Heritage
From Boston City Hall at 12 noon on Friday April 28th, scout cyclist, Scott Campbell leads the charge for a summer long relay calling for a safe bikeway to San Francisco. Riding for the nonprofit National Bicycle Greenway (NBG), he will depart Boston on his bicycle journey with the blessings of Boston Mayor Tom Menino and local bike advocates including the Livable Streets Alliance and Mass Bike. The NBG is working on commitments from several parties that will usher Scott from the Boston celebration. These groups include the kids from Bikes Not Bombs who rode with the NBG last year and the press grabbing 15-person busycle that Menino piloted at last Fall's Hub on Wheels festival. The Boston Globe has expressed interest in a feature and all of this will also be captured by a local documentary film maker.
The many cyclists who will then escort Scott through the 32 big cities along the way, will be joining him as he collects support for the bikeway that will connect all these population centers to one another. A part of the 5th Annual National Mayors' Ride, Scott will travel east to west to symbolically honor Boston as the birthplace of bicycling in America. It was also in Boston that Thomas Stevens ended his ride from San Francisco on the world's first ground transportation vehicle, the HiWheel bicycle (also called a Penny Farthing), in 1884.
Scott will also be doing advance scouting work for the 2007 coast to coast Author Tour that "Awake Again" author and NBG Founder, Martin Krieg will be doing on an 1881 HiWheel with his new book “How America can Bike and Grow Rich, The National Bicycle Greenway Manifesto”. Besides honoring Stevens, the Mayors' Ride will honor another precedent set by the history of transportation in America. In Krieg's research, he is finding many parallels between this nation's first coast to coast highway, the Lincoln Highway which began in 1914, and the National Bicycle Greenway he and his group foresee. Billed as an 'Appeal to Patriots' the success of the Lincoln brought the unabated car sprawl that is choking America today. The NBG sees their network of roads that will also begin as one, as a way to fight the new enemies -- our overweight epidemic, time wasting and stress inducing traffic jams, wars for oil, and noise and air pollution that have resulted from our love affair with the automobile.
More info: bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2006