One Street News

November 2015

Vol. 8, Issue 7

1. Indianapolis Shifting Away from Cars and Into Bike and Ped Projects
2. Resources – Listserv Recommendations
3. Resources – Global Shift to Cycling Would Cut Carbon Emissions
4. Hot Topics - Are Helmet Programs Scaring Kids Away from Bicycling?

Indianapolis Shifting Away from Cars and Into Bike and Ped Projects

Few people would think of Indianapolis, Indiana as a model for bicycle and pedestrian transportation funding. But in recent years, this Midwest U.S. city has broken free from its former car-centric self. Here’s an excerpt from a recent article describing this city’s extraordinary transformation:

“…All told, you’ve got a Midwestern city where it’s possible not only to get around downtown without a car but also to commute to multiple suburbs and take day trips. While visitors may seem like the most obvious beneficiaries—and tourism is way up—residents are heeding the call, with a significant influx of millennials and empty nesters to the urban core.

“There’s this movement backward out of the suburbs and back into the city center,” said Manning. “People are discovering this whole new lifestyle where they don’t have to own a car and realizing that’s what they want. The entire face of the city has changed.””

Read the rest of the article linked from One Street’s home page under Inspirations.

Resources – Listserv Recommendations

In our August-September E-newsletter we asked all of you to offer your recommendations for alternatives to Yahoo and Google groups for listservs that provide these services for connecting members:

  • Two-way email discussion (not one-way newsletter services like MailChimp and Constant Contact),
  • Easy email delivery and email response to entire group without having to login to a website,
  • A daily digest option,
  • Free or affordable,
  • Easy to setup without major website programming,
  • List administrator can add emails directly without first sending an invitation.

Thanks to all of you who responded! It seems that there are no longer free or affordable listservs that provide these services. So that second-to-last bullet is no longer possible. However there are several ways to build such a service into your own website. Following readers’ leads, these are the services we can now recommend:

• Mailman Mailing List Manager – This is the most complex of the options we found, but should work on most websites. You would need an expert web developer to set it up for you. It is free and once it’s in place, should be easy to maintain. Many universities use this option. One reader recommended asking your local university to set up a listserv for your organization through their system. But the universities we found with listservs require using only emails with a .edu extension. Better to set Mailman up through your own website.

• Mailster for Joomla websites – this checks out as an excellent option for those of you who have Joomla websites. If you want the daily digest service, which is definitely important, you will have to pay the one-time €69 (~$90) fee to get their Business package. You can also pay about $70 each year for their support, but this is optional. Reviews are good and it comes highly recommended.

• Drupal Commons for Drupal websites – this one did not check out so well, but we thought we’d include it. While it offers email notifications to list members, it requires them to log into the website in order to respond. That defeats the concept of an email discussion group. But it might be useful for some of you looking for this sort of service.

Any more that we missed? We’re always looking for great resources that can help our readers. Please email your recommendations to info{at}onestreet.org.

Resources – Global Shift to Cycling Would Cut Carbon Emissions

With the COP21 talks underway in Paris, you might be looking for great talking points that show why shifting to bicycling will make a positive impact on climate change. A recent study delves deep into the statistics. This article does a nice job of summarizing the study and includes a link to the study for those eager for the stats.

Hot Topics - Are Helmet Programs Scaring Kids Away from Bicycling?

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

Over the years, I’ve had a hard time watching as bicycle safety programs move toward scare tactics, especially when it comes to programs for children. What used to be a fun excuse to show off your bike riding skills has become a frightening experience culminating in horrifying displays like dropping melons. As the kids in the audience watch these melons (or sometimes eggs) hit the floor they are told this is their head if they don’t wear a helmet when they ride their bike.

Interestingly, as “bike safety” has turned to “bike terror” fewer and fewer children are riding bikes. Could there be a correlation? I tackled this topic in my recent post on the Bike Helmet Blog: Are Helmet Programs Scaring Kids Away from Bicycling?