Bicycle Racing on The Universityhouse Channel April 24

Bicycle racing in Maryland is just one of the subjects featured on Episode 107 of "Perils For Pedestrians". The program will be carried on The Universityhouse Channel (DISH Network 9411) on Tuesday, April 24, at 9:30 PM Eastern time, 6:30 PM Pacific time.

John Z Wetmore, host of the "Perils For Pedestrians" television series, opens the program with an interview with Mark Sommers of DC Velo. Sommers is the organizer of a criterium bicycle racing event in Silver Spring, Maryland. A criterium race consists of numerous laps around a closed course. It is spectator-friendly because the cyclists pass the same spots repeatedly during the race. Sommers discusses the logistics of holding a race on closed-off streets in a dense downtown area.

The Silver Spring event was several separate races over the course of the day for different age and skill categories. Wetmore interviews Rebecca Larson, winner of the women's professional race. She has been racing since she was a teenager. The previous month she came in sixth in the National Road Race.

Wetmore then travels to Nashville, Tennessee, for a look at Music City Moves. Music City Moves is the "Active Community Partnership" for the Nashville region. It is one of 25 partnerships across the United States receiving funding from the Active Living By Design program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Over five years, the partnerships are to work on making changes in their communities to promote physical activity as part of daily life. Laurel Creech, with Team Green, and Toks Omishakin, with the Metropolitan Planning Department, discuss the progress made so far.

The final interview is with Caryn Giarratano, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the Missouri Department of Transportation. She is working to include bicyclists and pedestrians in planning and design at MoDOT, a process called "routine accommodation" or "complete streets".

"Perils For Pedestrians" is a public affairs television series that looks at problems confronting pedestrians and bicyclists in their communities, and solutions to those problems from across the United States, and around the world. John Z Wetmore, host of the series, has interviewed advocates, engineers, planners, and public officials in all 50 states and in 9 foreign countries. In addition to The Universityhouse Channel on satellite, "Perils For Pedestrians" appears on over 100 public access cable channels. Episode 107 can also be seen on Google Video at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7288397554545138503