August Issue Deadline Friday July 21
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DATES TO REMEMBER Tues June 20 - 5:30pm Tue Jun 20 - OSCA BBQ/Music Nite, Brewer Pk, OSCA BBQ/Mu sic Nite starts 5:30pm ECOS Interpretive Centre Sat Sep 9 - Old Ottawa South Grand Opening - 7:30pm Porch Sale OSCAR Brewer Park The Community Voice of Old Ottawa South YEAR 26, VOL.28, No. 10 THE OTTAWA SOUTH COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION REVIEW JUNE/JULY 2000 SAVING THE TAJ MAHAL: PEDAL POWER ON DELIVERY VAN TURF BY DAVID HOFFMAN Il ntemet or not, North America's messengers is a myth in New York I bicycle messengers are not going City. Business is actually up because ■J away. Reviled by pedestrians internet retailers are using them to and drivers alike, they are surviving deliver products bought on the Web. the world wide web just like they They are taking on all the best riders, survived the fax machine. What's driving up biker incomes. more, they, are returning to the parcel Delivering 10% of local urban delivery of decades ago. cargo by 2003 is the goal of Bike Cart For 20 years, bike messengers Age in Victoria, BC. Their first made their niche with trips of less contract is to distribute a local than two miles, carrying in their magazine. With their ability to carry bulky shoulder bags. But the modem plastic tubs or livingroom sofas, messenger can only carry about a interest has been shown by local cubic foot weighing up to 30 pounds. supermarkets, drug stores and Until now. The cargo bike can caterers. carry up to 36 cubic feet and 200 Thirty years ago, kids delivered pounds at nine mph. Ottawa has three newspapers and groceries by bike. cargo bikers, delivering magazines Today, an organic food retailer London, England courier cargo bikes thriving in India since the and newspapers year-round on preset provides produce delivery by bike in LynxRedstar uses an articulated 1930s as pedalcab tricycles employ delivery routes where speed is not an Esquimalt and Victoria. Hauling 18 recumbent quad to deliver up to 150 10% of the adults in Agra, home of issue. bins of produce at a time, riders say kg, as much as a small van. One is the famous Taj Mahal. They slow the I distribute controlled-circulation, the work is invigorating, self-paced even equipped with a refrigeration rate at which internal combustion computer magazines to downtown and low-stress. unit to deliver salmon to hotels. engines dissolve Agra's ancient offices and shops using a trailer built With seven 8-foot trailers, Bikes Washington, DC is home to monuments, to say nothing of from recovered bike parts. The other At Work runs an all-bicycle delivery Scrooge, a bike messenger who can airborne lead breathed by Agra's two replenish newspaper boxes using service in Ames, Iowa, a midwestem carry 200 pounds of freight and school children. Each Agra pedicab commercially-built 'BOB' trailers. All town too small to support urban-core accepts heavier items regular bike driver eliminates the annual emission of us*enjoy slipping through traffic bike messengers. The company messengers can't. A Bogota, of 11 tons of lead and 4,000 tons of and always finding a place to park. delivers groceries, magazines and Columbia, bakery replaced 200 particulates which 2-strokê taxi Our incomes are comparable to recyclables. The University of Iowa delivery trucks with 800 cargo bikes, engines produce. messenger biking. uses them to collect 13,000 lbs/ 5900 dramatically cutting costs and Cargo bikes may have long been Delivery bikes used by retailers kg from 150 locations and take it to a providing much-needed jobs. In absent in car-happy North America half a century ago were typically depot three miles away using a single Amsterdam, courier giant DHL uses but not elsewhere. They haul more heavy, single-speeders with pedal bike pulling two trailers at once. If bicycles exclusively for their weight tonnage in Asia than all the world's 'coaster' brakes and a smaller front the company becomes bonded, it may and distance class. The Swiss postal motor vehicles combined. In major wheel under an oversized carrier start handling bulk mail delivery. service uses 3,700 delivery bikes and urban centres most fresh produce in basket. Payload was about twelve Insurance giant United Services 4,000 bicycle trailers. Bicycle market centres is brought by bicycle cubic feet or thirty pounds. They and Automobile Association in San delivery networks exist in Portland and tricycle. In Beijing, a furniture larger models were widely used by Antonio, uses 80 tricycles for and Eugene, Oregon, Santa Cruz and store hires cyclists to wear advertising milkmen, grocers, brewmasters and maintenance and delivery at the Berkeley, California, New York City, and pedal around the city seven hours tradesmen. world’s largest office building. The Boulder, Colorado and Ghent, a day all week, for $80 a month, What delivery niches can Ottawa building's service level is a kilometre Belgium. comparable to what migrant workers expect to see filled by cargo bikers? long. The cost of maintaining eighty Canadian bicycle messengers can earn. Cycling is easier work than In cities like Berkeley, California, a tricycles can easily be exceeded by a now deduct the cost of lunches as a construction. messenger company uses four cargo single electric cart having a bad year. fuel cost, thanks to a federal appeal Even the World Bank has changed bikes to deliver office mail and food Around Texas, many oil refineries, court ruling. While an average man its policies to encourage greater use and has been taken on by an chemical plants and aluminum uses 2,700 calories per day, a bike of bicycles in developing countries independent book retailer trying to processors use on-site travel trikes in messenger will use 4,000. The extra for personal and cargo transportation. reclaim market share with better and place of motorized carts or cars. calories are valued at $11-13 a day, Most people around the world can't cheaper delivery than big chains like And then there are quads, an annual tax savings of $500. afford a car. Plenty of barriers stand Bames and Noble or Amazon.com. four-wheeled human powered What does all of this have to do in the way but things are changing. E-commerce hurting bike vehicles designed to transport cargo. with the Taj Mahal? Single-speed INSIDE... OSCA AUGUST ISSUE Safe Boating Umpire in Chief Ottawa South Community Association Summer Injury Prevention Windsor Chronicle Pt 3 Phone 247-4872 Fax 247-2114 DEADLINE Letters to the Editor Simply Shakespeare E-Mail: [email protected] Car Sharing Finance, Politics, Schools . Surf us on the Web: FRIDAY JULY 21 Best Kept Secret Summer at the South... www. O/dOttawaSouth. com And much, much more.....! E TH PAGE 2 ™ OSCAR - OUR 26 YEAR JUNE/JULY 2000 _The CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions should be kept to less than 250 words in length. Submission OSCAR in electronic format is preferred, either by e-mail to The OTTAWA SOUTH COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION REVIEW OSCAR(d),OldOttawaSouth. com or on 3Î4” diskette delivered to the Firehall Office, along with a clear, printed copy. Please title your files with your name ' 260 Sunnyside Ave, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 0R7 or other clear word rather than a cryptic combination of numbers and letter. We get a lot of files with the same name and this confuses the computer. Diskettes PLEASE NOTE: The OSCAR Has No Fax will be returned only if labelled with your name. OSCAR PHONE LINE: 730-1045 We cannot guarantee that phoned-in or faxed submissions will be accepted. If e-mailing us, text (ASCII) is preferred, although we also accept attachments VISIT OUR WEBSITE: WWW. OldOttawaSouth. com in other formats. No formatting is necessary. E-mail: [email protected] Edited articles cannot be returned for review before publishing. We will edit Editor: Peter Hecht 730-1045 only sparingly for grammar, meaning and length. Pictures, drawings and photos Business Manager: Marim Moreland 730-3762 will be used, if possible. Please label all photos. Standard color photos Distribution Manager: Lily Hecht 730-1045 acceptable. We will make every effort to return diskettes and photos to the Advertising Manager: Gayle Weitzman 730-1058 (not classy ads) Firehall Office within two week after publication. Items not picked up after 2 months may not be returned. No attempt can be made to contact you. - MONTHLY DEADLINE: 2ND LAST FRIDAY OF MONTH OSCAR is an unfunded, community paper paid for entirely by advertising. All staff are volunteers. It is published for the Ottawa South Community SUBSCRIPTIONS Association (OSCA) Inc. Distribution is free to all Ottawa South homes and Moving away from Ottawa South? Know someone who would like to businesses and selected locations in Old Ottawa South, the Glebe and Billings receive The OSCAR? We will send The OSCAR for 1 year for just $20 to Bridge. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Canadian addresses (including Foreign Service) and $30 outside of Canada. OSCAR or OSCA. The Editor retains the right to edit or include articles Drop us a letter with name, address, postal code and country. Please include à submitted for publication, which become the property of The OSCAR. cheque made out to “The OSCAR”. OUR DEADLINE FOR THE AUGUST ISSUE IS ERRORS AND OMISSIONS FRIDAY JULY 21 Although we try our best to prevent errors or omissions, we cannot be held responsible should they occur. All articles represent the opinions and views of FOR DISTRIBUTION INQUIRIES, CALL 730-5902 AND LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR LILY the writers and not necessarily those of the Ottawa South Community Association or The OSCAR.