As I mentioned in an earlier post, there was a time when I actually regarded Coca-Cola as an energy drink. I'm sure some cyclists still do. In fact, some might regard it as a performance-enhancing drug.
Like nearly every cyclist in the developed world, I've seen innumerable Coke ads on billboards, storefronts and even painted on the sides of buildings. But I've never seen one quite like this:
It's a still from Late Spring (Banshu), a 1949 film directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Based on Kazuo Hirotsu's novel Father and Daughter (Chichi to musume), it belongs to a genre of Japanese film called shomingeki, which deals with the ordinary daily lives of modern working- and middle-class Japanese people. This genre flourished during the immediate postwar period, in spite (or, some say, because) of the heavy censorship imposed by Allied occupying forces.
Such films usually focused on families, featured simple plots and were shot with static cameras. This genre might be compared, in some ways, to the Italian neo-realist films of the same period (such as Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief) and the French New Wave that brought us the likes of Le Quatre Cent Coups (The 400 Blows) a decade later.
There's a certain irony to seeing a Coca-Cola road sign in a film that's supposed to--at least on the surface--celebrate an idealized version of Japanese family life. Then again, some have seen it as one of the ways Ozu subverted the censorship of the time.
Hmm...Coca-Cola presented as a threat to traditional authority in order to subvert the censorship imposed by an occupier. It's a bit much to wrap my head around. Maybe it's easier to think of Coke as an energy drink--or even a performance-enhancing drug!
I may not ever need their services. But if I do, I'll be sure to call them, just because of their name.
I'm talking about an outfit called Cycling '74. Their home page describes them as "a full kit of creative tools for sound, graphics, music and interactivity in a visual environment."
Hmm...It sounds like a few bicycle races I've been to.
Headquartered in San Francisco (where else?), Cycling '74 was founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli to serve as the distributor for his various collections of software.
According to the company's website, he took the name from a 1974 bicycle catalogue that contained many of the images used on the company's original website.
He could have done much worse: 1974 was an interesting year in cycling. It was probably the apex of the Bike Boom in America. Eddy Mercx won the last of his five Tour de France titles. The World Championships were held for the first time in North America--in Montreal, to be exact. And SunTour, Campagnolo and other component makers would make significant changes to their lineups.
Most important, I think, is that the iconic images of the Bike Boom--the bikes, the riders and the rides--seem to come from that year, or thereabouts. When people think of a "Bike Boom bike", images of that year's Fuji S-10S, Raleigh Grand Prix or Super Course, Motobecane Mirage and Schwinn LeTour, among others, come to mind.
Here in the US, there's one very easy way for a politician to ensure that he or she will not be elected: Proposing a tax increase.
Forget that. If it even sounds like a tax increase--or the government, in any way, shape or form taking more money--it will destroy the aspirations of any candidate.
That is one of the reasons why no New York City mayoral candidate has ever proposed it. Michael Bloomberg, in the middle of his second term as Hizzoner, made it part of his long-term sustainability program for the Big Apple. Then-City Council Speaker Christine Quinn favored it. So did the conservative Republican leader of the New York State Senate, Joseph Bruno. And then-Governor Eliot Spitzer liked the idea, too.
The somewhat-modified plan was approved, 30 votes to 20, by the New York City Council on 31 March 2008. To qualify for Federal funds to research and implement the plan, the State Assembly had to vote for it by 7 April. That day, after a closed-door meeting, the Assembly's Democratic Council decided not to vote on the proposal, citing "overwhelming opposition", in the words of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Within three months, the price of gasoline would spike to $4.00 a gallon. (I know that for you Europeans, that is cheap. But I can recall my father filling up the gas tank of the family station wagon for $5.00 when I was in my early teens!) That, ironically, would cause a five percent decrease in automobile trips into Manhattan below 60th Street, the area that would have been affected by a congestion-pricing plan.
I think it was Woody Allen who said, "Life is hard. But what's the alternative?" Something like that might be said about congestion pricing. Yes, it would cost money and it might mean giving up something else. But if it saves lives--forget "lives" plural, let's talk about just one, perhaps your own--wouldn't it be better than the alternative?
Turns out, a claim that congestion pricing could save lives is not hyperbole. There's evidence to support it, courtesy of in Colin Green and his fellow researchers.
Professor Green is a health economist at the University of Exeter Medical School. This month, he and his colleagues will present a study at the Royal Economic Society's annual conference in which they show that in the congestion zone, there has been, not only a dramatic decrease in the number of accidents, but also an even more dramatic drop in the accident rate, i.e., the number of accidents per vehicle mile driven.
That was a significant finding because a decline in the number of accidents could be attributed to other factors--or could be seen as a statistical aberration--more easily than such a shrinkage in the rate per mile.
Moreover, Dr. Green and his cohort found that fewer accidents were occurring in the rest of London, outside the congestion zone. What that suggests is that one of the objectives of congestion pricing is being achieved: People's behavior is changing. More are riding bikes and walking; fewer are driving. And the revenue collected from congesting pricing is used to improve mass transit and cycling infrastructure, which causes more people to see them as realistic alternatives to their (usually short) driving trips.
Milan, Singapore and Stockholm all have plans similar to London's in place. As far as I know, no one has studied them in the way Dr. Green has examined London's plan. But I would suspect that similar, if less dramatic, results have been achieved. Whatever the results, if lives are saved, I think it's worth whatever would be charged to drive and park in the center of the city.
