The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Streetfilms: Ciclovia in Bogota, Colombia
|| 4/15/2008 || 8:55 am || Comments Off on Streetfilms: Ciclovia in Bogota, Colombia || ||

Continuing on the topic yesterday’s post about how my neighborhood used to be a bike track, I figured that I should follow-up the entry with something bicycle related. I saw this video a few months ago and even sent it to my old Urban Geography Professor. The 7 minute video is about Ciclovia in Bogota, Colombia, which is a a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic. As you can see in the video, residents come out to walk, bike, run, skate, recreate, picnic, do aerobics, and basically enjoy the city safely and pollution-free.

I found the video to be very inspirational. In the back of my mind, I began constructing the theoretical Ciclovia map of Washington, DC. What roads would be closed? Would people take part en masse? Or would it be relegated to some corporate sponsored yearly event like Bike to Work Day?

Frankly, I don’t know, but I think it would be fun to start small. DC currently has miles 17 miles of bike lanes, and I don’t think people would give up their coveted on-street parking in favor of bicyclists, so most streets can’t be closed off. However, there are some streets that could be (and sometimes are) made one-way (P Street) and there are some wide streets that could be partially closed (15th Street). In this respect, DC could do a Cyclovia and it wouldn’t require that much work.

But what about participation? If you delineate it, will they ride on it? That being, if there was to be a Cycloviva, would there be enough people riding their bikes to justify the road closures? Frankly, I don’t think there would be enough sustained interest if it were a weekly event– not enough bicyclists in DC. Instead I think it would work better as a seasonal event. Cyclovia Spring, Cyclovia Summer, etc. and over time there might be a critical mass.

Related Bicycle Entires:

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Then & Now Birds-Eye Views of the Westminster Neighborhood in Washington, DC [1884 & 2005]
|| 4/14/2008 || 12:42 pm || Comments Off on Then & Now Birds-Eye Views of the Westminster Neighborhood in Washington, DC [1884 & 2005] || ||

Detail the bicycle track before Westminster Street was created
from Adolph Sachse’s birds-eye view of the nation’s capital, 1884

Due to file format issues, only recently have I been able to open most of the maps available in the Library of Congress’ American Memory Collection. Last night I found an interesting birds-eye view map of Washington, DC by Adolph Sachse that was published in 1884. Its a massive map that appears to be composed of six separate sheets and contains a listing of many of the businesses in Washington City as well as locations of various public & government buildings. In many ways the map acts like a geovisual address book (the phone had not been invented yet) because, at a glance, one can easily find services offered by local merchants. Judging by the branding in the upper right hand corner of the original map, it appears that the map was sponsored by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, a major railroad company of the day.

According to my neighborhood’s official history, Westminster Street did not exist in 1884 and the birds-eye view above supports this claim. While not labeled in the image above, Parcel 362, as it was known on the original DC maps, was called also called “the old circus ground” and Athletic Park. It had a 150-foot long grand stand along T Street, which was built in 1883 (building permit number 1047) in preparation for the fifth national convention of the League of American Wheelmen, a national organization of bicyclists. The first American bicyclist to ever ride 100 miles on an outdoor track did it on that track in 1884. As someone who uses a bicycle as their primary means of urban transportation, I can only smile knowing that 121 years ago my residence was an outdoor bicycle race track. However, I laugh because I traveled with an exgirlfriend’s family circus when I was younger!

Below is a birds-eye view of the Westminster Neighborhood published by Microsoft, with imagery of Pictometry International. It features imagery that was taken in 2005 and when compared, you can see how much the area has changed in the last 121 years. The Athetic Park is gone and in it’s place are dozens of rowhouses that were built shortly after the map above was published. A unique and historically aware addition to the neighborhood is something you can see below in the playground on Westminster Street. No, it’s not because that is where I had my exhibit “North, South, East, Westminster“. Rather, if you look closely, you can see a small race track! A scaled reminder of what once was.

Detail of the Westminster Neighborhood by Microsoft, with imagery of Pictometry International

Related Bicycle Entries:

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GPS nabs another one…
|| 5/6/2005 || 10:39 am || Comments Off on GPS nabs another one… || ||

Those nifty 24 satellites rotating around the earth got another person…

GPS Device Finds Robbery Suspect
POSTED: 8:55 am EDT May 6, 2005
CINCINNATI — Police say modern technology foiled an old-fashioned bank robbery.

A teller placed an electronic Global Positioning System device in a bag of stolen money, allowing police to track down a suspect in just 42 minutes Thursday.

“Around here (GPS) is still relatively rare,” Hamilton County sheriff’s office spokesman Steve Barnett said. “But with the advancement in technology and the continued success of catching bank robbers, soon I would hope that other financial institutions would jump on board.”

Authorities said that after William Ingram, 46, left a U.S. Bank in suburban Colerain Township, the GPS device tracked him to a car dealership in Hartwell, where he was returning a Honda that he had borrowed for a test drive but actually used as a getaway car.

When Ingram was confronted, money began spilling from his pockets, officials said.

One year ago, I remember reading this news item:

Nowhere to hide for Dutch bike thieves

By Wendel Broere in Amsterdam
March 13, 2004

Police plan to bait thieves with bicycles equipped with hidden global positioning transmitters in the latest effort to stamp out Amsterdam’s rampant bicycle theft.

The Netherlands has more bicycles than its 16 million inhabitants, but in the capital alone an estimated 80,000-150,000 bicycles – more than one tenth of the total – are stolen every year.

“It would be great to get hold of the organised bicycle thieves, to track the whereabouts of stolen bikes and see if any end up in an official bicycle shops,” a police spokesman said.

“We just want to do everything we can to combat bicycle theft and are going to use new GPS technology.”

Police plan to chain up bicycles with the GPS emitters in parts of the city notorious for bicycle theft. GPS, the worldwide radio-navigation system used for shipping and military purposes, enables users to pinpoint the position, speed and time to locate themselves or an object.

Bicycle theft is so widespread in Amsterdam that rental shops will not let customers leave without giving them a crash course on bike locking – attaching both wheels to the frame, and chaining the bicycle to a fixed object, such as a bicycle stand.

Police said they were targeting professional bicycle thieves. This group makes a substantial profit from rebirthing and is known for scouring the city at night and lifting several bicycles at a time, putting them in vans or trailers.

Campaigners against bicycle theft say the majority of bicycle thieves, 40 per cent, are professionals while 30 per cent are drug addicts looking for a quick and easy way to get cash for their next fix. The remainder are usually impulsive thieves, sometimes students or youths – and very often drunk – who steal a bike to get home after their own was stolen.

Something most people don’t realize is that the new cars that come with OnStar allow you & your car to be tracked 24/7. Granted some people do not mind this safety aspect of OnStar, but if you were really interested in “getting away from it all,” and decided to cruise somewhere to not be found, those 24 nifty satellites will be on your ass no matter what. I wonder if there is some way to switch OnStar off & on when you want some geospatial privacy. I sincerely doubt it though. Otherwise those car thieves would turn it off once they commandeer the car. Regardless, I have issues with notion that my movements can be traced at all times. I already think about this every time I use my debit card and even when I use my cell phone.

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: