Saving The Planet… And Ourselves Is As Easy As Riding A Bike
Two thirds of America’s energy needs are tied up in transportation. How we get around shapes our communities, our health, and our future.
Americans dream big, but those dreams have gotten out of hand. The results: expanding waistlines, sprawling communities, vehicles so large and thirsty that wars are fought to keep them running, oil disasters, and an energy plan that heats everything up to maintain a way of life. Beyond the blame, America needs real solutions: lean, clean, game-changing answers that put people on the road to health and energy independence.
America needs to go for a bike ride. With Joyride: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet, author and transportation expert Mia Birk helps them out the door.
Joyride: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet follows pioneering transportation leader Birk’s 20-year crusade to integrate bicycling into daily life. With just a table scrap of funding, Birk led a revolution that grew Portland, Oregon into a city where bicycling is a significant part of their transportation system. Birk then hit the road, helping make communities across the nation healthier, safer and more livable. While many books bemoan the pain of the world’s problems, Joyride offers hope and a blueprint for changing our world for the better.
Mia Birk is the award-winning CEO and co-owner of Alta Planning + Design, a 72-person international firm dedicated to creating active communities where bicycling and walking are safe, healthy, fun, and normal daily activities. She has been involved across North America in hundreds of bicycle, pedestrian, trail, and Safe Routes to School plans, projects, and programs. Birk is also Adjunct Professor at Portland State University, where she co-founded the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation. She is a co-founder of the Cities for Cycling project of the National Association for City Transportation Officials and the Association for Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. She was the Portland Bicycle Program Manager from 1993-1999, Transportation Program Manager at the International Institute for Energy Conservation from 1990-1993, and has a Master?s Degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Birk lives in Portland, OR, with her two children, ages 11 and 8. Bicycling is her main means of transportation, and a winning strategy for maintaining her family?s health, safety, budget, and community connection.
Book sales will support non-profit organizations working to creating a healthier, more sustainable world.
Joyride: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet
By Mia Birk
With Joe “Metal Cowboy” Kurmaskie
Cadence Press
www.miabirk.com