Bike Ready

Generating action to respond to climate change is among the many things Green Map System does. In 2016, we worked with local film makers Peter Shapiro and Barbara Ross to create a new resource:

BIKE READY

Framing cyclists’ response in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, this film has become a springboard for local preparedness. Along with the 4-minute film, in 2016, we created an adaptable Bike Ready Organizing Guide you can download as a PDF .

Get #BikeReady too - watch full screen! 

Filmed in NYC neighborhoods impacted by 2012’s devastating storm, Bike Ready turns powerful footage into a resource for organizing bicyclists for emergency response. Scenes include getting around when the subway and gas stations are closed, mutual aid bike repair, cyclists delivering hundreds of pounds of relief supplies and using pedal power to generate the electricity needed to recharge phones.

With its solutionary approach to addressing the 'new normal', this video and guide are designed to help communities get organized. Watch it with fellow cyclists and start planning! Produced by Green Map System and directed by Peter Shapiro with support from Occupy Sandy Relief, the volunteers of Time’s Up, and LES Ready. More about this readiness and resiliency-building project will be added to this page, GreenMap.org/bikeready.

Now Available! Chinese, Spanish and Japanese versions, thanks to Kuan-Yi Chen, Francisco Cernusco, and Shingo Nishida. Thanks to everyone at LES Ready for supporting the translation! Watch full screen.

Thanks to Peter's great editing, Bike Ready debuted in the Bicycle Film Fest on June 25, 2016. We have also created other climate projects, including a Bike Tour Video (in Chinese, too) about designing engaging high impact explorations by bike that won a Creative Climate Award.

Review Green Map's climate response, including local maps and community projects .

Comments, ideas, welcome! Here is the transcript, in case you are curious. Please contact us or tweet at #BikeReady.

Green Map's climate mapping and interventions began in 2006, as described on this page and at the Crisismappers conference.

Here are some bike generator parts and a Time's Up video about Occupy Wall Street's energy bikes. Bike Collectives are everywhere, too! Although bicycles seem to be left out of the planning in many places (for example, here is Sweden's 2018 "If War or Crisis Comes", other cycling resources we have found include this article about relief ride participation and NYC biking rules. Lots going on in Portland Oregon, from the basics to commuter bikes to cargo bikes. Here's the competitive Disaster Relief Trials, too.

At Transportation Camp, an unconference held in Brooklyn in 2019, a Bikes in Emergencies discussion opened with a Bike Ready showing. As we talked over policy that prevents emergency planners from including bicycles in their work in NYC, some great resources were suggested, including Jersey City’s United Rescue through which EMS trains citizens to help their neighbors before an ambulance arrives - and people do this by bicycle, to arrive quickly, in everyday emergencies. It’s inspired by Hatzaleh - Israel Rescue rapid response for mass casualties which even sells specially equipped bicycles and other vehicles. We discussed bike lanes as critical infrastructure, and how Citibikes could become released for use in emergencies (in exchange for the stations’ usage of the street, city planners’ time, etc) and more. Do you know of related resources? Let us know, we'd like to link them here. 

Here is our How to Make a Green Map Bike Tour video, and you'll see some of the same neighborhood along the East Village's Avenue C - Loisaida - in English and Chinese - in 2013, a year after Superstorm Sandy, thanks to Aaron Reiss and Angran Li.