Price Tags is an online publication created by Vancouver city planner Gordon Price. Traveling the world with his camera and computer, he has documented cities’ transformations from Portland to Paris to Vancouver.

Traffic and other facts of urban life frighten thousands of Miami-area residents so much that they never venture far from home by bike or on foot. Green Mobility Network is working to change that. Your help and support are essential.

This swim-bike-run event starts and finishes in Larry and Penny Thompson Park, with a long loop past the animals of the neighboring Miami Metrozoo. It's bound to be a scenic treat -- and a great event for spectators as well. Green Mobility Network members and friends will be working onsite. To help out, write to john@greenmobilitynetwork.org.

It was thrilling to see the progress on the Miami Bicycle Master Plan that was presented Aug. 19 at Grapeland Heights Park.  

It shouldn't surprise us that Detroit and its academic allies have discovered the term "Green Mobility." A reader passes along the news that the Society of Automotive Engineers had a symposium earlier this year to talk about the future of transportation in a scarce-petroleum economy. There was this attention-grabbing statement early on:

"We eventually have to transform our transportation systems so their consumption and environmental damage is brought under control."

But John Heywood, director of the Sloan Auto Lab at MIT, warned the audience, "Get real!" What will make a difference in the next couple of decades, he said, is improvement of existing systems.  He spoke of smaller, lighter, more efficient cars, and other speakers touted new and better mass transit -- even "personal mass transit," whatever that means.

You can watch the symposium in a series of six videos, lasting 10 to 25 minutes each, at this link.
There's a free Green Mobility Network tee-shirt for the first person to find walking or bicycles mentioned in the program.

Last night's defeat for the Miami 21 zoning overhaul in the Miami City Commission doesn't in any way stop or reverse the progress made over the past year in making the city better for bicycling. Progress for pedestrians may be another matter.

The Bicycle Master Plan, which can be seen in draft form at a meeting August 19 (refer to our calendar at the left), points to several ways that riding in the city can be improved. We do need to understand and get behind the plan, and let city commission candidates know it's important.

This is a chance to see the draft of Miami's Bicycle Master Plan and offer your input and response. The meeting will be at Grapeland Park, 1550 NW 37th Ave., Miami, starting at 6 p.m.

Thanks in part to all of you advocates, the repair and repaving of Miami's M-Path is underway at last, working from north to south along the nine-mile greenway. Please be sure to tell your Miami-Dade County commissioner that you appreciate this. Thanks to Douglas Clark for the photo. You can see more of his work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcvision2006/tags/mpath/ .

The Alliance for Biking & Walking awarded a $30,000 matching grant to Green Mobility Network today, in support of our "Complete the M-Path" campaign and our education and advocacy efforts. The matching grant was made possible by Planet Bike and is the first of a series of grassroots bicycle advocacy grants the accessory company will make this year.

This is both a challenge and an endorsement for Green Mobility. We need to raise funds locally to get the full grant, but having these two organizations smile on our work is a welcome affirmation that we're effective. More about this later on.

http://www.planetbike.com/page/
http://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org/site/

If bicycling is lots more than a sport for you, you're probably part of the bicycle culture. Did you know there's a magazine edited with you in mind? It's Momentum, the magazine for self-propelled people. I loved it as soon as I started reading, because it covers transportation cycling so well. And if you subscribe ($15) through this link -- www.momentumplanet.com/advocacy-subscribe -- the publisher promises to make a $5 donation to Green Mobility Network. You'll see an alphabetical list of bike-advocacy groups the magazine cooperates with, and we're in there.