Center for Appropriate Transport

The Center for Appropriate Transport (CAT) is a non-profit community center dedicated to bicycles and alternative transport located in Eugene, Oregon, United States.

CAT holds publicly funded educational workshops for teaching youth from ages 12 to 21. Within the 8,000-square-foot (740 m²) facility there is a public bicycle repair workspace and a bike machine-shop for the design and manufacture of special-purpose bikes, particularly cargo bikes and recumbents. There is also a bike museum on site, a bike rack-building workshop, and a sewing facility. CAT formerly held the offices of Oregon Cycling magazine, which ceased publishing in 2009. CAT is also home to Pedaler's Express, a pioneering workbike-based delivery service.

History

CAT was founded in 1992.

To create the center, Jan VanderTuin gathered the founding core group, which included bicycle retailer and activist Kurt Jensen, writer and racer Jason Moore, Bowerman, and Rain Magazine editors Greg Bryant and Danielle Janes. Bryant was instrumental in bringing Oregon Cycling into CAT, and obtaining non-profit status. CAT opened on November 20, 1992.

Within a few years CAT and Rain Magazine were no longer partners, and by 1995 the emphasis turned to youth education when CAT began contracting with local school districts to work with youth in need of a hands-on education. CAT is an alternative education program registered with the Oregon Department of Education and as such is one of the few publicly funded bicycle schools in the United States.

See also

• Network Charter School

External links

• Center for Appropriate Transport (official website)