Exploring New York City’s Stair Streets with Michael Cairl | Episode 255

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

For the past three years, our friend Michael Cairl has been recovering from a stroke that limited his mobility and transformed how he gets around the city. As part of his recovery, Michael has been exploring the city in new ways and documenting it on his blog, On Foot, On Wheels. On foot, he has been climbing the city’s many stair streets, tackling more than 20 of them on his urban walks with friends and family. There are over 100 mapped public streets in the city that are actual staircases, most of them in the hilly sections of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, (including the one made famous by the 2019 film Joker), but Michael’s also climbed them in Brooklyn and Queens. On this virtual program, Michael will share some of his favorite spots he has discovered, and his passion for making the city more accessible to all. While you can’t navigate these streets on wheels, Michael’s adaptive tricycle built by Adapt Ability allowed him to continue his love of cycling, and all proceeds from this program will support Adapt Ability Bikes.

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Cross Country on a Citi Bike: The True Story of an Adventurous New Yorker | Episode 240

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

Take a lunch trip from NYC to LA to Tulsa and back with tour guide and travel writer Jeffrey Tanenhaus. In 2015, he took a Citi Bike and pedaled it cross-country, a wild ride chronicled in his new book, West of Wheeling: How I Quit My Job, Broke the Law & Biked to a Better Life. Our colleague and friend will join us from his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where this former New Yorker now runs a tour company, to chat about inspiring highlights from his experience on the road. And he’ll even take us on a tour of his neighborhood and show us his collection of unique Oklahoma ephemera.

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Cycling for All New Yorkers: Adaptive Bicycles with Adapt Ability | Episode 141

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

As New Yorkers are riding their bicycles more than ever, new Brooklyn-based nonprofit Adapt Ability is on a mission to ensure that people with disabilities can enjoy cycling in the city’s parks and streets. During this virtual program, we will interview Sunset Park entrepreneur Sandra Alfonzo about her journey from being a bicycle shop owner to running a nonprofit that makes and rents adaptive bicycles to children and adults with disabilities. We’ll also go live to Michael Cairl (check out his blog On Foot, On Wheels) in Prospect Park to see the trike he uses from AdaptAbility in action and to hear about his experience transitioning to adaptive cycling.

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Transit at Brooklyn Navy Yard, Past and Present

Former World's Fair shuttle at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1942

Yesterday the Brooklyn Navy Yard announced that they will be rolling out the first autonomous vehicles in New York City, which will provide a self-driving shuttle service inside the Yard’s gates. This exciting announcement inspired us to look back at the history of transit in and around the Yard. Poorly served by mass transit, getting tens of thousands of workers in and out of the Yard has been a 200-year struggle, but recent upgrades, and a willingness to experiment, have vastly improved the Yard’s transit connectivity in recent years.>> Continue reading