This is great! I was down in the City on Sunday and was strolling around Central
Park and saw a section blocked off and there were skaters dancing and just
showing off their moves. I was so bummed that I didn't have my skates with me.
(And that morning, I had my skates in my hand and decided not to bring them!)
Thanks D. for sharing the article.

Doug Sham
Silver Bay, NY


--- On Tue, 8/12/08, sk8godfather@... <Sk8GodFather@...>
wrote:

> From: sk8godfather@... <Sk8GodFather@...>
> Subject: [inline-instruction] New York Loves "Summer Streets"
> To: "skatersalliance" <skatersalliance@yahoogroups.com>,
"sfskaters@..." <sfskaters@...>
> Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 2:13 PM
> Well skaters, it looks like closing streets for recreation
> is taking off with a huge bang. Everywhere it has been
> tried, it's been successful. New York began theirs last
> Saturday. We do the same here in San Francisco on Aug. 31.
> I am hooking up skaters with the organizers of these city
> road closure efforts and injecting skating into the mix.
>
> Each and every one of theses cities should have a skating
> component to showcase skating as alternative transportation,
> recreation and fitness. While bike companies, fitness
> groups and others are using these events to get people to
> try their products and promote their sports, skating is
> asleep at the switch.
>
> That is not a deterrent for C.O.R.A. We are pushing forward
> with Sunday Streets San Francisco. It is shaping up the be
> the largest and most successful in the United States. We
> will have 200 pairs of skates for people to try out. We
> will promote our CORA SkareFit Program and get people out
> skating for fitness. We will present the Sunday Brunch
> Skate and lead people on a skate along the closed roads
> stopping at all the pods along the way.
>
> We have raised over $100,000 to pay all the costs involved
> in presenting both days of Sunday Streets in San Francisco.
>
>
> Check out ther video from New York's Summer Streets at
> http://streetfilms.org/archives/summer-streets-2008-nyc/
>
> Here is what the editorial folks at the New York Times
> published today.
>
>
> August 12, 2008
> Editorial
>
>
> Putting the Park in Park Avenue
>
> Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not had an easy time trying to
> unclog New
> York City's gridlocked streets. Most notably, he lost a
> high-profile
> political battle a few months ago over congestion pricing.
> Now, though,
> the mayor has found a clever way to free at least some of
> the city's
> streets some of the time.
>
> Last weekend, Mr. Bloomberg and his commissioner of
> transportation,
> Janette Sadik-Khan, unveiled an innovative program called
> Summer
> Streets. Nearly seven miles of Manhattan streets, from the
> Brooklyn
> Bridge to Central Park at East 72nd Street in Manhattan —
> including a
> large stretch of Park Avenue — were shut off to car
> traffic for six
> hours on Saturday. They will be car-free again for the next
> two
> Saturdays this month.
>
> Without honking horns and speeding taxis, the streets
> became serene
> parks, open to throngs of cyclists, in-line skaters and
> strollers. Yoga
> and fitness classes added to the therapeutic feel. Cyclists
> and walkers
> mostly seemed to respect each other, and people found
> themselves doing
> something decidedly un-New York: meandering.
>
> Rerouted cars, meanwhile, did not seem to be terribly
> inconvenienced.
> Hundreds of police officers were on hand to direct them
> around the
> impromptu park.
>
> New York is not the first city to temporarily transform its
> traffic-clogged streets. It has been tried, with great
> success, in
> Bogot?, Colombia, where car-free Sundays and holidays are
> called
> Ciclov?a, and in Paris. Mayor Bloomberg has said that if
> these early
> experiments with Summer Streets are a success, he would
> like to do it
> again, and perhaps extend it to other parts of the city. If
> Saturday was
> any indication, New Yorkers are voting with their feet —
> in favor of
> more chances to displace the cars, trucks and taxis for a
> day, and go
> for a stroll.
>
>
> Keep Rollin',
>
> D. Miles Jr.
> The GodFather of Sk8
> http://www.cora.org http://www.skatinplace.com
> http://www.SkateGoldenGate.com
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Community email addresses:
> Post message: inline-instruction@...
> Subscribe:
> inline-instruction-subscribe@...
> Unsubscribe:
> inline-instruction-unsubscribe@...
> List owner: inline-instruction-owner@...
>
> Shortcut URL to this page:
> http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/inline-instructionYahoo!
> Groups Links
>
>
>