Our Favorite Mayor's Office of Transportation & Utilities Is Throwing a Birthday Party

Now, we've known our fair share of Mayors Offices of This and That. When you're a 40-year old bicycle advocacy organization, you meet a lot of people, and a lot of offices. Hell, there are stories we could tell you...the trouble we got into with some Mayors Offices back in the 70's...heh...do you know what a Squirrel Clap Kit is? No? Well, we're not going to tell you. Go ask PennDOT, or your mother. We live in tame times, today. That's all we'll say about that right now. *clicks tongue*

But we're here to tell you about our favorite Mayor's Office of Transportation & Utilities. MOTU, to their friends. And we're friends. Definitely. Definitely good friends. MOTU lives here in Philly, and they are turning 5 years old in October! Can you believe it?

To celebrate, MOTU is throwing itself a bunch of celebrations. Normally, that might seem kind of tacky - but if you know MOTU, you know they're real laid back. They just like to have fun, and when fun isn't being had, they make it happen. Can't fault them for that.

What do they have planned? Well, grab your party calendar and add the following to your social docket:

October 9
MOTU at Nerd Nite
Join members of the MOTU Family as we raise a glass to bikes, trains and airplanes.
7:00 PM | Frankford Hall | 1210 Frankford Ave
Information here

October 14
First Person Arts StorySlam
Theme: "Journeys"
7:00 PM | World Cafe Live | 3025 Walnut Street
Information and tickets here

October 21
MOTU at 5
Celebrate the release of MOTU's Progress Report
MOTU releases its five year progress report. Join MOTU and First Person Arts for an evening of story-telling with special guests and celebration of the great work we have done over the past five years.
7:00 PM | Free Library | 1901 Vine Street
Free tickets here

See below for a transcript of the speech MOTU gave to the room last night after we all chanted "speech!" for 30 seconds, and the event flyer. It's a transcript, so the stuff we shouted mid-speech is in italics. In unrelated news, we have a headache like whoa and these fluorescent lights are brutal this morning.

In 2008, Mayor Michael A. Nutter founded the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities (yeah he did!). Five years later, Philly recycles more (whoooo!), uses more renewable energy (I got sunshine on a clouuudy daaaay), is safer for pedestrians and has improved infrastructure to support motorists, transit riders, bicyclists (B-C-G-P! B-C-G-P!) and pedestrians. Throughout the month of October, MOTU will be celebrating the hard work of the administration and its partners in making Philadelphia a safer and more mobile city (bright lights, bright lights, and the big citaaaaaay) Please join us in person and on-line as we share the story of Philadelphia’s transportation and utilities evolution. We hope you will distribute this email widely (whaaaaa? are we in an e-mail right now? whoa), and more importantly, we hope you can join us on October 9th, 14th and 21st!