Category: Around the Web

Around the Web, Newfoundland and Labrador

The Fluvarium

flurvarium_logo.gifThe Quidi Vidi/Rennie’s River Development Foundation (QVRRDF) promotes responsible stewardship through education, raises awareness of the nature of freshwater systems, provides leadership in urban watershed management and operates The Fluvarium as a public centre for environmental education. The Fluvarium delivers an environmental education program to over 10,000 school children annually.
The Fluvarium is a project of the QVRRDF, a non-profit, charitable organization, formed in 1985, to restore and enhance the area along Rennie’s River and Quidi Vidi Lake, in the heart of St. John’s. The QVRRDF is responsible for the development of a 7.5 km walking trail system along Rennie’s River/Quidi Vidi Lake.
Visit the web site: http://fluvarium.ca

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Around the Web

You Never Bike Alone – the Movie

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You Never Bike Alone is an 80 minute documentary, now available on DVD, looking at how cyclists are building critical mass in Vancouver, Canada, and changing the face of the city. It is the story of how a social movement grows and the people behind it.
The cycling phenomenon known as Critical Mass is a reclamation of public space that started in San Francisco in the early 1990s and spread by the internet throughout the world. On a set day, at the end of every month, cyclists and other self-propelled people ride en masse through city streets.
Vancouver has become renowned for its big Critical Mass bike rides, and particularly the party spirit that attracts all types of cyclists.
You Never Bike Alone charts the development of these mass rides in Vancouver over the last decade, from the (pre-Critical Mass) protest rides across the historic Lions Gate Bridge in the early to mid-Nineties, through the “No Fun City” years of the late 1990s and early 2000s, where cyclists were routinely arrested for riding together, up to giant Critical Mass rides of more recent years.
Along the way, You Never Bike Alone strips down for the Wholesome Undie (an underwear ride protesting the Molson Indy race) and throws caution to the wind for the World Naked Bike Ride, a ride founded in Vancouver by a Critical Mass regular.
YNBA catches up with the local “freak” bike collective (who make art bikes from recycled machines) and looks at how cyclists are sharing the “velo love” through buildathons, street theatre, and rides.
Drawing on footage shot over the last decade, it asks whether cycle activists are succeeding in their goals. Through interviews with motorists “stuck in traffic,” cyclists of all backgrounds, and local politicians, some of whom ride on the Mass themselves, it asks whether Critical Mass and similarly styled rides are winning hearts and minds.
With its goal of having 10% of journeys by bike by 2010, the year Vancouver hosts the Winter Olympics, the city seems to be heading toward a more sustainable future. However, plans are afoot to embark on a massive road infrastructure expansion program in the Greater Vancouver Region called The Gateway Project, that will flood Vancouver with commuting cars and encourage further sprawl of the city’s ever-expanding commuter belt.
The lines are drawn, but which vision will prevail?

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