Bike Biennale

Say "Biennale" to intellectual snobs like me (We're the kinds of people who tap our index fingers to our chins and say, "Interesting" when we're looking at something we don't quite understand.) and we think of an art exhibition that takes place every two years in Venice--or other exhibitions that have stolen appropriated the name.

Now there's another kind of Biennale--one for bicycle architecture.  Even for someone who's as jaded as I am has as realistic expectations as mine for bicycle infrastructure, it looks like an enlightening (no, I won't say "interesting") exhibit.  And it would be even more enlightening for most of the folks charged with planning and executing bicycle infrastructure in most places.

This Biennale, which opened in Amsterdam (where else?) the other day, features bicycle infrastructure that's recently been built as well as design proposals.  In the former category are two lanes in Limburg, Belgium I'd want to ride because they seem so other-worldly. One slices directly through a pond, so that cyclists are riding at eye level with the water. (I think now of tour buses "parting" the "Red Sea" during the Universal Studios tour.) The other rises as high as 32 feet into the canopy of a forest.  Both of those lanes are intended to entice more people to ride.  

Among the proposals is one that, if built, I would be able to experience regularly.  It would be built on an abandoned rail line in my home borough of Queens.  In its path, an "upside down bridge" would feature a community center at the base, a "floating forest" at each end of the top and bike paths along the side.

I hope that this Biennale will show not only can bike infrastructure be both practical and beautiful, but can be built in places not called Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
  

Trade War Sends Giant Back To Its Roots

When Trumplethinskin announced tariffs on goods from China, one thing was clear to anyone with an IQ of room temperature or higher:  Jobs would not suddenly re-appear in Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Of course, El Cheeto Grande, not being a member of that exclusive club, went ahead with his move.  

Maybe I am not giving him enough credit for his intelligence:  After all, sold the promise of jobs returning, as if they'd simply migrated for a season, to large numbers of people.  Then again, at least some of those people are as desperate as he is avaricious or delusional, depending on what you believe.

So what are the results of those tariffs, so far?  Well, for one thing farmers--many of whose livelihoods are tied to exporting what they grow--are losing sales.  And it doesn't look like jobs are coming back to the US, at least not in the bicycle industry.

Prices are already increasing for many bikes and related goods.  But the world's largest bicycle producer found another way to deal with those new import taxes:  going back to its roots.

I am talking about Giant.  Chairwoman Bonnie Tu said, "we took it seriously," when Trump announced a 25 percent surcharge on almost everything coming from China.  "We started moving before he shut his mouth."

Giant's factory in Taichung City, Taiwan

That meant, of course, she had a very short window of time in which to act.  But act she did:  She shifted production of the company's US-bound bikes from its Chinese factories to the company's headquarters in Taichung City, Taiwan.

The first Giant bikes sold in North America during the 1980s were made in Taiwan.  So were all of the products the company exported to the America, and most to the rest of the world, during the 1990s and early 2000s.  

Bonnie Tu

Ms. Tu says, though, that the company's long-term plan involves moving as much production as possible as close to the markets as is feasible.  Right now, in addition to its Taiwanese facility and the five factories it operates in China, Giant also has a plant in the Netherlands and has announced they are building another in Hungary.

Will Giant start making bikes in the US?  Ms. Tu hasn't said as much, but it wouldn't surprise me if they set up shop in some low-wage "right to work" state in the South.  If they do, I just hope the bikes are better than some of the stuff that came out of Schwinn's since-shuttered Greenville, Mississippi plant.

Keeping Out The Hordes Of Bikes From Canada

The US Department of Homeland Security's mission statement begins with this:

  The vision of homeland security is to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure and resilient against terrorism and other hazards.  

  Three key concepts form the vision of our national homeland security strategy designed to achieve this vision:

• Security,
• Resilience, and 
• Customs and Exchange.

In their efforts to achieve that vision, the DHS has helped to keep out all kinds of threats, including would-be terrorists and weapons.

And, now, bicycles.

One mile separates Prescott, in the Canadian province of Ontario, from Ogdensburg, in the US state of New York.  That mile is the width of the St. Lawrence River. 

Until 1960, ferry service linked the two cities.  That ended when the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge. The US side of the bridge is indeed in Ogdensburg, but the Canadian side funnels vehicles into Johnstown, a few kilometers east of Prescott.

There has been talk of reviving, not only a ferry service for vehicles, but of boat crossings for cyclists that would take 12 passengers and bikes on each trip.  

In fact, Brett Todd, the mayor of Prescott, has met with the Ogdensburg City Council to seek support--which he already has in his hometown--for a pilot project that would shuttle bicycles two weekends this summer.  He suggested the 19-21 July, which is Founders' Weekend in Ogdensburg, and 2-4 August, which is a civic holiday in Ontario.

Apparently, the folks on the New York side of the river are in favor of the project.  But their city council hasn't been able to do something that Todd has managed to do in his town.  He met with Canada Border Security, and they offered to support the pilot project, free of charge for two years. On the other hand, he explains, "Requests made by Ogdensburg city officials have not been met with quite as keen a response."

Those requests to the US Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security, he recalls, came back asking for new facilities and manpower the committee saw as excessive, especially considering how few passengers and bikes would be involved.  "An average family with a pontoon boat could bring that many people into the country," he said.

And they could start a chain migration of more people--and bicycles. Oh, my!