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Kim YoungKim Young is the director of Bicycle Intercommunity Action and Salvage (BICAS), a nonprofit organization that promotes the bicycle as sustainable transportation. She also works with the Youth Bike Underground.Best Public Art Eric Cooper's Pedestrian Bicycle Bridge is a critical connection between Mountain and the Rillito. And it's beautiful--it's a really nice design made of found metal objects. It's handcrafted with all these things that were once primarily utilitarian: tools, huge old wrenches, gears. It's not like one of those freeway gigs. The freeway art is like, OK great, come on through. It's much better to put it where people can actually hang out. It's north of Mountain, near the river park. It's awesome. Best Place To Astonish Out Of Town Guests The best thing I can think of is to take them to the Catalinas, the Rincons, the Santa Ritas or the Tucson Mountains. If they don't like that, then send them to Phoenix--because there's just nothing that's gonna impress them. Best Bike Path
Best Proposal For Bicyclists There's talk about making Sixth Street a major arterial corridor devoted to alternate modes of transportation. All you have to do is put it in and it will look like China or something--bicycles and pedestrians everywhere. I mean, everybody would use it. Best Social And Environmental Groundswell I feel like Tucson has this incredible vision for the 21st Century. There's permaculture, bike culture, straw-bale, rammed earth, water harvesting, solar design, community gardens, seed banks, all that. In Tucson, the alternative has become the norm. I mean, if we could just do something about the cars, we'd be stoked. There's so much support for what are in some places just concepts. People are actually doing the work here. Best Alternative To Nintendo Television, computers, the web...you know, it's like "Get me to an off-ramp!" I think that stuff has its features, but it's way too passive. That's one thing about the Youth Bike Underground--you can really observe how much energy kids have for relevant, hands-on activities. The kids fix bikes and earn bikes; it's for adults, too. We sell bikes, and they make bike racks and so we sell bike racks. It's the best place to get a bike. The organization is run by Allen Reilley and me; he's a mechanic and a bicycle inventor. We have a benefit coming up on November 1: It's going to be a bicycle-art auction and our annual fundraiser. Best Local Band
Barely Bi-pedal is very cool, if you can find them, because they've
been kicked out of everywhere. Although they do get gigs. They've
been playing at Nimbus Brewery a lot lately. They have a tuba,
and they play sheet metal; sometimes there's a trombone and a
guitar. It varies. They're going to play at our benefit. Their
music is so original; it's like industrial gospel.
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Third Street (in Sam Hughes) is a model I'd like to see everywhere.
They've limited Third Street to local traffic only, so it's probably
one of the only places in town that's devoted to the bicycle.
There's a noticeable drop in automobile activity, and that's completely
raised the number of bicyclists there. Everybody takes that route
or one close to that, and it affects other neighborhoods, too.
I'd like to see something like that going down in every neighborhood.