Carless in Chicago

Lake Claremont Press multi-book release party!

Come out on February 3 for a fabulous multi-book release party at the Cultural Center! RSVP to lcp@lakeclaremont.com. Here are the details:

All Things Local: Local Authors, Local Topics, Local Businesses, Local Publisher

WHERE: Chicago Cultural Center, 1st Floor Publishers Gallery (Randolph Entrance)

WHEN: February 3, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Lake Claremont Press is partnering with the Publishing Industries Program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs to bring you this smashing celebration of all thing local releated to the release of our four newest guidebooks.

–Historic Bars of Chicago (Sean Parnell)
–Carless in Chicago (Jason Rothstein)
–Oldest Chicago (David Anthony Witter)
–The Beat Cop’s Guide to Chicago Eats (Sgt. David J. Haynes & Christopher Garlington)

Enjoy free food and drink–including Schlitz beer honoring its proud Chicago tied-house heritage–compliments of some of the local businesses featured in our guidebooks.

Win raffle prizes donated by some of the local businesses featured in our latest releases, including the Willowbrook Ballroom, Hot Doug’s, Twin Anchors, Miller’s Pub, The Metro, Schubas, and the Old Town Ale House.

Enjoy local musicians discovered by the “Carless in Chicago” amongst us.

Meet the authors and buy autographed copies of their books at great discounts.

Meet with representatives of local organizations that also support the mission of these books, including the Chicago Bar Project, Active Transportation Alliance, Preservation Chicago, and Local First Chicago, and learn what cool things they’re up to.

Space is limited and will be more heavily advertised to the public in the next two weeks. As family and friends of the authors and Lake Claremont Press, you are receiving advance notice. Please RSVP to: lcp@lakeclaremont.com.

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Joint appearance with John Greenfield at Quimby’s this Thursday

John Greenfield, who kindly interviewed me several months before my book was released has a book of his own: Bars Across America, a story about biking — and drinking — coast to coast. John and I will be appearing together for a joint reading at Quimby’s Bookstore (1854 W. North Ave.) this Thursday evening at 7PM. I hope to see you there.

(If you can’t get to Quimby’s, you can also get John’s book at other local stores or at Amazon.)

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More on Carbon Nation Screening

Quick update to the Carbon Nation screening event: I’ve been added to the post-screening panel, joining Jim Slama of Family Farmed and Lisa Elkins of 2 Point Perspective. Hope to see folks there!

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Attend Mindful Metropolis’s Carbon Nation Screening and Get a Free Copy of CiC!

On September 23, Mindful Metropolis will be hosting a reception and screening for Carbon Nation, a new film from Peter Byck about climate change solutions. And thanks to the generosity of my publisher, Lake Claremont Press, the first 100 people to buy tickets online will receive a FREE copy of Carless in Chicago! I’ll be on hand to sign copies and answer questions during the reception.

(There’s a small catch: to get your free copy, you’ll need to bring a used book to donate to Open Books, a local non-profit that runs literacy programs.)

Tickets are $15 (less than the cover price of the book) and can be purchased in advance online.

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More on Active Transit and Obesity

I’m not the best poster child for the calorie burning benefits of giving up car ownership since I tend to use my more active lifestyle as justification for eating more ice cream. But in my real job working in public health, a lot of my projects concern the relationship between active transportation choices and obesity prevention. I’ve recently run into a couple of items illustrating the connections between transit and health:

An excellent graphic (sadly non-embeddable) illustrating the typical transit mix in states matched against obesity rates in those states.

A Freakonomics post referencing some of that same data, and connecting it to a recent study from North Carolina showing lower obesity rates among streetcar users (blogged about previously).

A new study from the American Public Transportation Association (PDF) exploring the links between transit and longer, healthier lifespans. (Via the always excellent Bobulate.)

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Economics of Parking

In the book, I briefly mention Donald Schoup’s excellent book, The High Price of Free Parking, but I don’t go into great detail about how changing the way we price parking might improve our quality of life. As it happens, a couple weeks ago, economist Tyler Cowen wrote a great Op-Ed about this very topic, which also led to some interesting follow-up debate. One advantage of being a slightly lazy blogger is that I can list all of these discussions together in a comprehensive post.

Free Parking Comes at a Price by Tyler Cowen.

Arnold Kling responds, and Cowen responds back.

Robin Hanson responds to both, and Kling replies.

On a roll, Cowen also provides a little more ‘color commentary’ here and here.

Of course, here in Chicago we’re living through the great parking meter privatization experiment. Aaron Renn (the Urbanophile) provides some excellent commentary, focusing largely on how Chicago’s parking meter deal locks the city into a pretty inflexible model for parking policy.

For the moment, I’ll spare readers my own entirely correct but quite unpopular opinions about what Chicago should be doing differently parking-wise.

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The public health case for less traffic

As most readers of the book and this blog know, I work in public health, and while the intersection of public health and going carless isn’t a big theme in the book, it’s a big interest of mine. On his blog (which I don’t visit often enough), Ken Archer rightly chides the CDC for only emphasizing traffic safety as a way to reduce road fatalities, and not encouraging reductions in traffic itself. This omission seems particularly odd given that embracing active transportation lies at the heart of many of CDC’s obesity prevention initiatives.

In case you didn’t know, auto accidents are the number 1 cause of death among 1-34 year olds. Here in Illinois, about three people die on the roads every day, with approximately eleven traffic-related injuries occurring every hour. I’m all in favor of seat belts and airbags, and all the traffic calming we can muster. But choosing to go places on foot, by bike, or on mass transit is often the safest decision you can make.

(Via Yglesias.)

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Hollywood’s got it wrong

One of the last questions Phil Ponce asked me when I was on Chicago Tonight was whether being carless was a social stigma (although he didn’t put it that way). I think I did a pretty good job explaining that it isn’t, but he raised an important point about how many people perceive not owning a car. As if to drive home the point, today, my friend MaryLee was kind enough to pass on this Slate article about Hollywood’s relentless portrayal of carlessness as shorthand for failure. It’s kind of ironic that movies tend to portray the carless as weak, broke, and lonely given that giving up your car can give you much greater control over your life, put thousands of dollars back in your pocket every year, and provide a lot of opportunities to enjoy your time with other people instead of being stuck, alone, in traffic. But I can’t deny these stereotypes exist, although they’re a little tiresome.

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Chicago Tonight interview finally airing!

Broadcast delayed will not be broadcast denied. The interview I pretaped with Chicago Tonight back in June will finally air this evening! The show starts at 7PM on WTTW, Channel 11, and the segment should begin around 7:25 (that last bit is subject to change). I’ll update this post with the video once it’s available.

Update: Here it is:

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Speaking of CTA and other transit funding…

I feel negligent in not mentioning sooner that for those interested in transit funding (and that should be just about anyone interested in Carless in Chicago), Greg Hinz over at Crain’s has been doing a great job covering the latest developments down in Springfield. In his latest blog post, he mentions a topic that seems to be dear to his heart (and to mine): the quick funding or road projects versus the glacial funding of mass transit projects.

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Profile of CTA Chief Rodriuguez

This month, Governing magazine (which I used to read a lot more often when I knew their art director) runs an interesting profile of Richard Rodriguez, who currently serves as head of the CTA. I don’t know that much about Rodriguez, but I’m certainly familiar with his reputation as an agency fixer (which he tries to downplay in this profile). It’s a nice piece, although not terribly deep when it comes to how the CTA can get out of its perpetual crisis state.

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Public Transit, Personal Health

I talk quite a bit in the book about the relationship between transportation choices and our personal health, although as someone who often takes the train to beloved Chicago food destinations, I’m not always the best person to make the case. But this week, the New York Times reports on a study of the light rail system in Charlotte, NC demonstrating a pretty clear link between weight loss and choosing public transit over cars. (Not that this is a new finding in general, but this is the most recent example.)

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Speaking tomorrow night at Break the Gridlock Event

Tomorrow night, Wednesday July 21, I’ll be giving a short talk and selling copies of the book at Break the Gridlock’s happy hour event, held at Quencher’s Saloon at Fullerton & Western. The event runs from 7-9, and my portion will be towards the beginning of the evening. I hope to see you there!

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Carless in Chicago

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Lake Claremont Press multi-book release party!

Joint appearance with John Greenfield at Quimby’s this Thursday

More on Carbon Nation Screening

Attend Mindful Metropolis’s Carbon Nation Screening and Get a Free Copy of CiC!

More on Active Transit and Obesity

Economics of Parking

The public health case for less traffic

Hollywood’s got it wrong

Chicago Tonight interview finally airing!

Speaking of CTA and other transit funding…

Profile of CTA Chief Rodriuguez

Public Transit, Personal Health

Speaking tomorrow night at Break the Gridlock Event

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