Staycation Weekend

I had a great, almost free, weekend right here in good ol' Cleveland.

Friday: After a full day's work and a job interview (yikes), I went home to regroup and meet up with Jeff. We took the Rapid to University Circle and strolled to the Cleveland Museum of Art to see our friend R.A. Washington's choreopoem entitled A Love, A Kiss, A Death. His production was proceeded by some really great open mic poetry reading as part of the free Black Poetic event.

On to Mekong River for a late dinner of Pad Thai and Basil String Beans. Last stop, Passport Project for the 2009 Global Groove Party. I traveled the world without leaving Passport's storefront on Buckeye.

Saturday: Slept in and then bussed downtown to volunteer at Councilman Cimperman's Cleveland Pride booth. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in awhile and just generally enjoyed the good, friendly vibe of the festival.

I walked down picturesque Lakeside Avenue to Tower City and then took the Blue Line to Shaker Square where I met up with some folks for the Larchmere Porchfest, a free music festival hosted on the front porches of folks in the Larchmere neighborhood. We ended Porchfest at the Academy Tavern where the booze, blues and breezes cooperated with my staycation vibe.

Heelsplitter

Riders Pay Cost of Kickbacks

The recent RTA construction manager kickback news is disheartening. RTA is cutting service and raising fares because of budget shortfalls while at the same time most likely overpaying for construction, renovation and maintenance. Sigh.

Maybe RTA can recoup some of the money and use it for the Metroparks Zoo Bus.

Duplexity

Oh, Cleveland. I saw you standing on half of a duplex porch with your suspenders and your flyswatter slapping at mayflys through the smoke from your cigar.

Boltz

I am knee deep in collaboration as a choreographer with the fab creative team of the Tesla Orchestra. We are a group of Clevelanders versed in wacky ideas, science, engineering, choreography, costume design, screen-writing, music, videography and general DIY-ness.

The performance, Boltz, is a multi-elemental performance featuring a 2 mega-volt musical tesla coil. 

Last night I ran the second dance rehearsal with a group of three open-minded, creative and talented dancers. I am having fun working with new people, sharing artistic vision, opening myself to new posibilities and creating something in community that none of us could do on our own. It’s my hope that Boltz is the first of many Tesla Orchestra productions.

Boltz will premiere at 9pm Friday July 10^th and Saturday July 11^th on Star Plaza at the 2009 Ingenuity Festival. 

Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

MacGyvering seed starting shelves

Retro-fitting toilet paper tubes as compostable pots

Gardening with Jeff and the neighbor kids

Finishing an alpaca wool vest just in time for summer

Wrapping up my dance career 

with a performance of Molt at Cleveland Public Theatre

Last day in Stuttgart

Aided by a map and five hours of free time, I went on a self-guided walking tour on my last day in Stuttgart. My intent was to expand my experience to other neighborhoods beyond the center of the city. 

About half a kilometer uphill from my hotel is Karlshohe Hill, a ridge that runs across the south and western parts of the city. The hill is a picturesque park with winding trails, plenty of benches and a vista overlooking the center city. Grape vines were grown along the slopes during the middle ages until the end of the 19^th Century; they have been reintroduced on some of the terraces.

View from the Milch Bar

I stopped at the Milch Bar on the Terrace which was designed for a federal garden show in 1961. I had a cappuccino, read Moll Flanders and sat at the edge of the vineyard overlooking the city. After reading a couple of chapters I set off to see the majestic Athena Fountain, built by Karl Donndorf in 1911.

Athena

I wound through the park, getting a little lost until I found the Hasenbergsteige, a steep ancient road which eventually leads to the Northern Black Forest. The steep road turns into a footpath, the Blauer Weg (Blue Path) that continues up the south side of Hasenberg Hill. Along the path are ancient stone walls with steps and narrow gates every so often leading up a terrace to residences. Looking down the hill, I had breathtaking views of Heslach Valley.

Back gate on the Blau Weg

The trail leads to Mount Birkenkopf, a 511 meter hill, World War II memorial and the highest point in the area. Between 1950 and 1955, 1,750,000 cubic meters of rubble from World War II were deposited on the hill, which locals call Monte Scherbelino (Mount Shards). From the top of the hill, there are panoramic views of Stuttgart and the country.

I returned via the Blauer Weg, but then took an alternate route back to Hasenbergsteige. I descended a narrow, steep staircase and path instead of the less steep, winding trail. I got lost on the way back to the hotel and accidently explored Bobblingerstrasse, a colorful and less ostentatious neighborhood than the one along the Hasenberg. 

Looking up the steps towards the Blau Weg

Cradle of Automobile Embraces Cycling

This is a repost from the Cleveland Executive Fellowship Blog

Stuttgart has been a car-dominated city for more than 50 years. Dubbed “The Cradle of the Automobile”, it is home to Daimler Benz, Porsche, Maybach, Bosch and Mahle.

“Nobody thought about cyclists for years,” said Claus Kohnlein, Stuttgart's Bicycle Officer in our meeting on Thursday. His department has been working to reduce speed limits and increase the number of bike lanes in this auto friendly city.

The newest part of his bicycle strategy is the Call a Bike Program which is designed to address traffic congestion, improve air quality and increase mobility options.  Call a Bike is a Deutsche Bahn program in several of Germany's major cities and Karl-Heinz Erdt, Duetsche Bahn Dispatcher for Call a Bike Stuttgart was also at the meeting.

One of Stuttgart's 65 Bike Stations

Implemented in 2007, Call a Bike has been widely accepted in Stuttgart with 60,000 bike rentals in 2008. There are 65 bike rental station in 10 square kilometers of the Downtown area. The city converted car parking spaces into bike stations, with 6 bicycles in each former car spot.

How it Works Herr Erdt and Herr Kohnlein demonstrated how to use they system and the time it takes to rent a bike is only slightly longer than it would take to unlock a personal bicycle.

1. There is a one-time registration completed online at www.callabike.de or by calling 07000 5 22 55 22. You must provide a credit or debit card number for the rental fees. There is a 5 Euro registration fee that will be used for your first bike rentals.

2. Call the number on the bicycle on your mobile phone and the automated system will provide a code that must be entered into a keypad to release the bike lock. The system will also text your phone with the number so that you may lock and unlock the bike multiple times during the rental.

3. There is a bolt that locks the wheels if you need to lock your bike, but don't want to return it to a station.

4. To return the bike, bring it to any of the 65 stations, lock the bike to the rack and enter the same four digit code. 

Who uses Call a Bike?

The largest demographic of Call a Bikers are residents and tourists 18-35 years old because this is the age group most comfortable using mobile phones. Although, using a mobile phone is convenient for many , Herr Kohnlein explained that it was also a drawback for people without cell phones. Stuttgart and Deutsche Bahn are researching the possibility of a kiosk to make the system even more user friendly.

User Cost

The bikes are free for the first hour and then can be rented by the minute, the day or the week. It costs 8 cents a minute to rent or a maximum of 9 Euro each day. Bikes can be rented for a a week for 36 Euro.

Multi-modal transportation is the goal.                                  Trains, Bikes & Car Sharing make a complete system. 

Transit Culture

“If you need mobility, we are your partner,” Herr Erdt said. Duetsche Bahn has a corporate mindset of true customer service. I also noticed this attitude at the local transit agency in Duisburg. There is truly a focus on the rider's experience throughout their entire journey. The transit agencies we have spoken with in Germany value customer goodwill and see it as their duty to provide the best possible user experience. 

In the future, Stuttgart would like to combine the bike system with Pedelc bikes because Stuttgart is a very hilly city. There are political, technical and financial obstacles to providing the electric bicycles, but it may be a bike rental option in the future.

Duetsche Bahn provides maintenance and ensures stations have bikes at all times. 

Start-Up Costs

The investment and risk of the program is assumed by Deutsche Bahn and it does not profit from the Call a Bike program, but the bikes are excellent advertising and the system encourages people to ride trains because they know they can hop on a bike when they arrive. The City of Stuttgart pays Deutsche Bahn a fee to provide and maintain Call a Bike. Each bike costs 1,000 Euro, each rack costs 300 Euro and the bikes are very well maintained. 

Bike Rental in Cleveland 

Could a program like this work in Cleveland without an entity such as Duetsche Bahn? Herr Erdt and Herr Kohnlein don't believe this type of bike rental will work without a partnership between the city and a large partner—whether it is a public, private or charitable entity.

I am not sure which organizations could best create a bike sharing program, but I imagine a Call a Bike Station at Cleveland's forthcoming Bike Center, Public Square at the CSU campus and at University Circle to start. 

Duisburg Nord Landschaft Park

This is a repost from the Cleveland Executive Fellowship Blog.

Duisburg Nord Landschaft Park

Duisburg Nord Landschaft Park was once a 200 hectacre industrial wasteland. Over the past ten years, the area has been transformed into a park. It was not a forced greening of a post-industrial space, but a graceful transition that combined fecund growth, decomposition and re purposing of structures.

Nature has undeniably returned to the area. Springtime bird songs provided the soundtrack to my park experience. I glimpsed rabbits hopping and ducks splashing in the wetland areas that formed in structures and tanks left to collect water.

Wetlands

The park provides many activities: hiking, biking, diving, climbing, playgrounds,tours and entertainment.

Climbing Wall

The park is a lovely juxtaposition of wild growth, maintained buildings, decaying structures, landscaped gardens, fields and a large area called the Wilderness—a restricted area where people are verboten.

Wilderness Area

The park reminded me of the unintentional transition that is already happening in some of the vacant industrial areas in Cleveland. One could perceive vacant factories with busted windows, climbing vines and trees erupting from its parking lots as blight. However, Duisburg Nord Landschaft Park demonstrates that redeveloping industry can be both a passive and positive change.

So, what is the potential for Cleveland's Industrial Valley, the vacant buildings along the RTA's Red Line Rapid? Can we ditch the golf course aesthetic for our green spaces and allow nature and industry to coexist as a recreational space? I think we could with a lot of foresight, patience and a small amount of human intervention.

More photos of Landschaft Park on my Flickr page.