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M II A II R II K Nov 22, 2010 8:32 PM
Expansion of Bike Lanes Brings Backlash


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

Quote:
Over the last four years, the streets of New York City have undergone a transformation: More than 250 miles of traffic lanes dedicated for bicycles have been created, and several laws aimed at promoting cycling have been passed. The efforts by the Bloomberg administration have placed New York City at the forefront of a national trend to make bicycling viable and safe even in the most urban of settings. Yet over the last year, a backlash has taken hold.

Bowing to vocal opposition from drivers and elected officials, the city last week began removing a 2.35-mile painted bike lane along Father Capodanno Boulevard on Staten Island. In Manhattan, a community board held a special hearing this month for business owners to vent about a new protected bicycle lane on Columbus Avenue — in particular, the removal of parking spaces and the disruption of the normal traffic flow.

In Brooklyn, new bicycle lanes have led to unusual scenes of friction. Along Prospect Park West, opponents protested last month alongside supporters of the lanes. And last year, painted paths along Bedford and Kent Avenues in Williamsburg caused disagreement between cyclists and Hasidim. The lane on Bedford Avenue was later removed. So far, the opposition to the city’s agenda on bicycles has far less organization and passion than the bicycling advocates, but it is gaining increased attention.

The City Council will hold a hearing on bicycling on Dec. 2 to address balancing the needs of cyclists with those of other road users, said Councilman James Vacca, the chairman of the Transportation Committee. The hearing will also look at how well the Transportation Department has worked with community boards to review large-scale road changes. Meanwhile, the Police Department and the Transportation Department have begun a crackdown on bicycle-related traffic violations amid complaints from some pedestrians.

Surging bike ridership has created a simmering cultural conflict between competing notions of urban transportation. Many New Yorkers object to bicycle lanes as sudden, drastic changes to their coveted concrete front yards. “He’s taking away my rights as a driver,” Leslie Sicklick, 45, said of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Ms. Sicklick, a dog walker and substitute teacher, grew up driving with her father around the Lower East Side, where she still lives.

She organized a protest in the East Village last month, and she and at least two groups of opponents are planning new rallies against local bicycle lanes. They have discussed joining up for one large protest, though none has been planned. “To me, Union Square is a perfect place to do the protest,” Ms. Sicklick said, “because it’s one of the worst areas created by the new bike lanes.”

Cycling advocates have taken notice. They have begun to mobilize more — seeking to undercut any anti-bicycle rally by their own presence — and have increased pressure on city officials to continue the pro-bicycle agenda. On Nov. 10, for example, advocates and bike riders massed in front of City Hall to protest the Transportation Department’s decision to scale back on parking-protected lanes along First and Second Avenues.




Michael O’Connor, 63, from the East Village, argues against the new bike lanes in his neighborhood with a pro bike-lane protestor.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ticleLarge.jpg

Okstate Nov 24, 2010 6:49 PM
Bicycle trips on the rise in Portland
http://djcoregon.com/news/2010/11/23...e-in-portland/
Quote:
POSTED: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 04:00 PM PT
BY: Sue Vorenberg
Tags: bikes, Portland Bureau of Transportation

The throngs of bicyclists pedaling out across the streets and bridges of the Rose City grew once again in 2010, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

The agency today announced the release of the Portland Bicycle Count Report for 2010, which showed a 12 percent increase of bicycle traffic on bridges and a 7 percent increase in bicycle trips on non-bridges over the past year.

“One of the goals of the city of Portland is to increase the number of people getting around on foot, on public transit, in carpools and on bicycles,” said Dan Anderson, a city spokesman. “Traveling those ways increases the health of the city, reduces congestion and saves money.”

Officials view growing ridership as a sign the agency has been successful in making bicycling in the city easier, more comfortable and more accessible, he said.

Overall, the total number of trips increased 8 percent in 2010 compared with 2009 counts, according to the report.

The bureau has counted bicycle traffic at various spots in the city since the early 1990s, and almost every year it has noted steady increases, Anderson said.

“Population growth is a part of that, but we’ve seen huge increases in the past 20 to 30 years that have risen much more than could be accounted for by just population growth,” Anderson said.

In the past 10 years, bicycle traffic across the city has risen about 190 percent.

That said, 2009 was a different story - and a bit of an anomaly. That year, agency saw a dip in traffic, likely because of layoffs and the bad economy, he said.

“People just didn’t have the same places to go to when unemployment doubled,” Anderson said.

The 2010 numbers are back where they should be, and show traffic rising once again, he said.

Southwest Portland had the highest increase in number of cyclists, with an increase of 19 percent. East Portland also had a strong increase of 9.4 percent, according to the report.

Counts are done manually by volunteers and bureau officials standing at street corners or on bridges during different time periods throughout the day. They collect data several times a year, Anderson added.

The full report is available online at www.portlandonline.com.

sciguy0504 Nov 24, 2010 7:23 PM
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.

Steely Dan Nov 24, 2010 7:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
bicycles already have the right to share the roads with cars in all 50 states. if you don't like it, that's too bad. you are not the arbiter of which types of vehicles get to use the roads. that job belongs to the government, not some dude on the internet.

Nowhereman1280 Nov 24, 2010 8:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
Bicycles existed before cars and had a right to the road before cars, therefore its bikes who are sharing the road with cars, not the other way around.

Also, why the hell should a bicyclist have to pay a gas tax? How would that even work? Would they have to pull over at every gas station and just pour fuel on the ground so that they contribute to the tax? That's probably one of the dumbest comments I've seen on SSP in a while.

If anything bicyclists should get a negative tax (subsidy) for not using gas and not putting more wear and tear on our roads by using a 3000 lbs device instead of 15 lbs one... Oh wait, they do get a tax credit. You get like $20 a month tax credit if you bike to work more than 80% of the time.

PS, the gas tax pays almost exclusively for the upkeep and construction of the Interstate system which, in most states, is off limits to bicycles...

mhays Nov 24, 2010 8:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
I pay more in taxes than most people, even though I don't drive. Shall we talk about the preferential treatment I would deserve if your logic made sense?

awholeparade Nov 24, 2010 9:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
apparently, i needed a comment this stupid to pull me out of lurker mode.

i'm 27 years old, i've never had a license, i have always been a cyclist, and i have been working since 15; i've paid taxes the entire time. i've put forth more than enough to "buy my right to the road." also, as someone else mentioned, this isn't a "chicken or the egg" situation. bikes were clearly around first, therefore, we have just as much of a right to SAFELY share the road with other vehicles. it's obvious that neither of us (cyclists or drivers) or going away anytime soon, so something's gotta give.

M II A II R II K Nov 25, 2010 1:14 AM
WANTED: Bike Share in New York City!


http://thecityfix.com/wanted-bike-sh...new-york-city/

Quote:
New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) for private companies to provide a bike share system for the city with hopes of implementation by the spring of 2012. The bike share system would follow such cities as Montreal, Washington, D.C., and Paris and augment Sadik-Khan’s suncess in installing 250 miles of additional bikes lanes in the five boroughs.

The key features of the new “public transportation system” will include: durable bicycles and docking stations “to provide convenient and inexpensive mobility twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year,” according to the press release. DOT sees bike sharing as useful for trips under three miles and as a congestion-reducing, green transit option.

The RFP calls for a private company to “bear all the cost and responsibilities for the system during an initial five-year period while sharing revenues with the city, and with no taxpayer funds being used for the system’s implementation, upkeep or maintenance.”

Sadik-Khan says the high number of short trips in New York City (50 percent are under two miles), the city’s residential and commercial density, and its relatively flat geography make it an ideal place for a bike share system. The RFP does not state the number of bikes nor the location of stations New Yorkers and visitors can expect, but the press release does say:

“. . . preliminary City research indicates that a financially self-sustaining program could include Manhattan south of 60th Street and surrounding neighborhoods. DOT is particularly interested in systems that span more than one borough and that make the best use of the city’s growing bicycle network.”



http://thecityfix.com/files/2010/11/...ets-2008-3.jpg

M II A II R II K Nov 26, 2010 4:38 PM
Janette Sadik-Khan on NYC’s Proposed Bike Share Program


http://transportationnation.org/2010...share-program/

Quote:
Richard Hake: New York City today takes the first step toward launching the largest bike-share program in the country. New Yorkers will be able to rent bikes one-way for short term rides all over Manhattan. The idea is that the program will be entirely privately run, but the city will share the revenues. Joining us now is the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.

Tell me how this program would work. If I get off work today, I’m here on Varick Street and I want to take a bike up to Union Square, would that be possible?

Janette Sadik-Khan: The system would be similar to the bike share format we’ve seen in Paris and London and Washington where heavy-duty bikes would be located at docking stations every few blocks throughout the system, and they can be ridden and dropped off at any other docking station in the system. So we’re asking for companies to come in and give us their ideas where the best place would be to site a bike share system.

RH: So where would these docking stations be? Would they be in major sections like Union Square? Would there be one in Times Square? Have you investigated how that would work?

JSK: Well, the RFP does not specify the number of bicycles or the precise geographic area to be covered. But we do have preliminary research that says south of 60th Street in Manhattan in the central business district would be an ideal match for New York’s geography because we’ve got high density and a growing bike infrastructure there.

RH: Now are you looking at this more for tourists, for people who just want to leisurely go around the city or could this be done for people who want to go to work and get some errands done?

JSK: We expect it to serve bothgroups. Bike share would give New Yorkers many more transportation choices as the city’s population continues to grow and as traffic congestion increases. And it would be privately funded, so taxpayers will not be on the hook for coming up with dollars to support this, but they would share in any profits. And we think this is really the best deal in town for on-demand travel and a nice complement to our transit system.

RH: So when you say privately run, does that mean, there would be different companies or maybe one large company would actually purchase the bikes, maintain those bikes and actually rent the bikes out to people that want them?

JSK: Yes, the RFP specifies that a private company would bear all the costs and responsibilities with the system during the initial five-year period while sharing revenues with the city. No taxpayer funds would be used for the system’s implementation or for the upkeep or for the maintenance of it. And in fact, we expect significant revenues from user fees and sponsorship and we will negotiate a city share of that revenue.

............................

M II A II R II K Nov 29, 2010 9:48 PM
Theft and Vandalism Just Not a Problem For American Bike-Sharing


http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/11/2...-bike-sharing/

Quote:
Even as bike-sharing spreads across the United States, it remains dogged by one persistent doubt. Critics, and even some boosters, fear that the bikes will be routinely stolen and vandalized. It’s time to stop worrying about crime, however. In America’s new bike-sharing systems, there have been essentially no such problems.

Fears that public bikes will be abused can be traced to Paris’s Vélib system, which while wildly popular has struggled with high levels of theft and vandalism. Take Michael Grynbaum’s write-up last week of New York City’s bike-share plans in the Times, where crime is portrayed as the only downside:

In Paris, the pioneer of bike-sharing, the bikes are used up to 150,000 times a day. But there has also been widespread theft and vandalism; bicycles have ended up tossed in the Seine, dangling from lampposts and shipped off to northern Africa for illegal sale.

The scenes of Vélib bike abuse replicate descriptions widely circulated in a 2009 BBC story about the system’s troubles. The problems with Vélib are real, if overhyped by the media. In 2009, JCDecaux, the advertising agency that runs Vélib, estimated that over 8,000 bikes were stolen and another 8,000 rendered unrideable and irreparable. It was a problem that had to be addressed.

Luckily for the rest of the world, it seems to have been an easy fix for other cities. Many now believe that the locking mechanism at Vélib’s stations was poorly designed. Systems that use a different method have successfully controlled theft to the point where the cost is negligible.

Vélib bikes lock on the side of the frame, as seen here. Other operators, including ClearChannel, B-cycle and the Public Bike System, have had dramatically lower rates of theft and use a different locking method, explained Bill Dossett, who runs Minneapolis’s new NiceRide bike-sharing system. “The ClearChannel systems had the locking mechanism built into the headset,” where the handlebars meet the bicycle frame, “and just has never had the same problems,” he said.

For example, Barcelona’s Bicing system, run by ClearChannel, has had about one-fifth the rate of stolen public bikes as Vélib, despite higher theft rates citywide, according to the New York Department of City Planning.

Stateside, the problems with crime have been smaller still.

“Theft and vandalism hasn’t been a big problem with either of our two systems,” said Jim Sebastian, who runs Washington D.C.’s bike and pedestrian programs. Under D.C.’s old SmartBike system, which opened in 2008, only one bike was ever stolen, and that was when a rider left it unsecured. Under the new and larger Capital Bikeshare system, which launched in September with about 1,100 bikes, they’ve lost fewer than five bikes, Sebastian said.



http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-conten...de-300x225.jpg

M II A II R II K Dec 1, 2010 5:37 PM
Expanding Pedestrian and Bike Safety to the Whole District Won’t Be Easy


Posted by Lydia DePillis on Nov. 17, 2010

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/b...0%99t-be-easy/

Quote:
On Monday morning, District Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein sat at a dais at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments boardroom, next to the Dutch ambassador and other Netherlandish dignitaries. They were there to talk about how their country makes it easy to bicycle, before mobile workshops that would assess D.C.’s bike friendliness.

- Although the Dutch could brag about their capacious bike parking facilities and dedicated cycle tracks, it wasn’t wholly an instructor-student dynamic. In many instances, the foreigners ended up praising D.C.’s bicycling infrastructure, from signage to new bike lanes to high usage of helmets. Klein tapped away at his Android phone for parts of the presentation–he’s familiar with the Dutch innovations, having brought a few of them to D.C. already–and looked up to smile at photos of children cycling to school. When his turn at the mic came, Klein delivered a stirring encomium to bold action for a bike-centric city.

- Aside from a few high-profile reversals–like the wide Pennsylvania Avenue NW bike lanes that later had to be slimmed down–he’s mostly gotten his way. DDOT is now retrofitting so many streets for bikes that the agency is trying to figure out how to contract out the work, rather than doing it all in-house. One need: More paint stripers, to keep up with all the traffic flow revisions the agency wants.

- What’s stopping the DDOT director now? It’s true that Klein could be replaced in a Vince Gray administration, though his position is considered to be safer than those of some other cabinet members. Assuming he stays on, the biggest obstacle to the development of a walkable, bikeable city is, in many parts of the city, a dearth of places to walk and bike to.

- There’s not much point in putting down a bike lane that runs for miles before getting to a grocery store, after all, or putting in stoplights when there aren’t enough pedestrians to use them. Places like Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle were only waiting to be connected by bike paths; drivers there are already used to dealing with foot traffic. But in the suburban expanses of Wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, where parking is plentiful and amenities scarce, Klein’s DDOT could find itself waiting for development to catch up.

- The challenges to making D.C. foot-friendly are baked into the street design. The long, grand avenues that give the center city its vistas turn into speedways to the suburbs on the outskirts. When they intersect downtown, they create irregular traffic patterns that confuse drivers. Those oddities might be why D.C. has a higher pedestrian accident rate than comparable cities. In 2008, the latest year for which the Federal Highway Administration keeps data, 26.5 percent of people killed in traffic accidents here were pedestriansªthe highest rate in the country.

M II A II R II K Dec 2, 2010 4:28 PM
How Portland plans to become the first world-class bike city in America


by Jay Walljasper

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/cycle-city-usa

Quote:
It’s become a cliché that Portland is America’s most livable city, a hotbed for innovative ways to support green policies, public spaces, pedestrian amenities, transit, and, of course, bicycles. In fact some people are growing weary (and the rest of us envious) of hearing about how great things are in Oregon’s largest city. When it comes to bicycling, at least, the cliché is true. Today Portland sports the highest share of bicycle commuters (6-8 percent) of any large U.S. city. It’s also the only large city to earn the League of American Bicyclists’ coveted platinum status as a bicycle-friendly city.

- Earlier this year, the city council unanimously approved the 2030 Bicycle Master Plan, which envisions Portland as “a world-class bicycling city” with three times the bikeways it has now.

- Meanwhile, Metro, a government body elected by the entire metropolitan area, is enacting a plan to triple the number of people who bike over the next 30 years. Their goal is for 40 percent of all city and suburban trips of three miles or less to be done atop a bicycle by 2040. “In some neighborhoods in Portland, 10-15 percent of people already bike each day,” notes Lake McTighe, manager of Metro’s Active Transportation Partnership, “which means that we could be making parts of Portland into a mini-Amsterdam or Copenhagen.”

- The best way to get more people on bikes, according to Portland officials, is to make biking seem less scary. The new Bicycle Master Plan will augment the city’s established network of bike lanes—where a white line is all that separates riders from cars and trucks—with new routes that better protect cyclists. Currently, about two-thirds of Portland’s 314 miles of bikeways are simple bike lanes, but the city is designing more bike boulevards (residential streets optimized for bike, rather than car, traffic), bike paths (off-street trails through parks or old rail lines), and cycle tracks (bike-only spaces separated from busy streets by a median, grade separation, or wide strip of painted pavement).

Portland’s plans also involve ways to increase the safety and comfort of bicyclists when they do come face-to-face with traffic at in intersection. Among these innovations, most of which have been proven to work elsewhere in the world, are:

* Bike boxes, a designated area in busy intersections where bicyclists can gather in plain view of cars at the stoplight, increasing visibility and reducing the risk of being struck by right-turning cars and trucks.

* Colorized bike lanes, which offer a clear visual reminder to motorists and bicyclists that they share space on the roadway. These can be particularly helpful for bicyclists making left turns at an intersection or to command extra attention at key locations.

* Traffic signals for bikes, which better inform cyclists of the safest time to cross, and sometimes gives them a head start to reduce turning conflicts with motorized traffic.

* Traffic calming, an entire toolkit of roadway techniques that remind drivers to heed speed limits and look out for bikers and pedestrians. These include everything from the familiar traffic humps and median strips to elevated crosswalks and traffic diverters, which give bicycles priority on some streets.

M II A II R II K Dec 2, 2010 7:20 PM
Cyclists Pedal Faster On Wednesdays, Reveals Smart Bike Data


http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26092/

Quote:
In 2005, the French city of Lyon introduced a shared bicycle system called Velo'v that has since inspired numerous other schemes around the world.

Velo'v differed from earlier schemes in its innovative technology, such as electronic locks, onboard computers and access via smart cards. The system now offers some 4000 bikes at almost 350 stations around the city. Most residents agree that the system has transformed the city from a grid-locked nightmare to a cyclists dream, with some 16,000 journeys now being completed each day.

All this presents researchers with an interesting opportunity. Since its introduction, the system has kept track of the start and finishing location plus travel time of every journey. Today, we get a detailed analysis of this data from Pablo Jensen at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and a few amis.

They looked at 11.6 million bicycle trips in Lyon between May 2005 and December 2007. The result is the first robust characterisation of urban bikers' behaviour, they say.

Some of what they found is unsurprising. Over an average trip, cyclists travel 2.49 km in 14.7 minutes so their average speed is about 10 km/h. That compares well with the average car speed in inner cities across Europe.

During the rush hour, however, the average speed rises to almost 15 km/h, a speed which outstrips the average car speed. And that's not including the time it takes to find a place to park which is much easier for a Velo'v bike than a car.



http://www.technologyreview.com/blog...0/Velo%27v.png

big T Dec 2, 2010 7:41 PM
^ interesting. It is rare enough to see Lyon (accurately) presented as the bike sharing pioneer in France, especially in foreign press.
As far as the findings they do confirm what all urban cyclists already know -- that a bike will beat a car in rush hour traffic just about every time.

zilfondel Dec 3, 2010 2:38 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
So, I own 2 cars and 5 bicycles. I drive ~6,000 miles a year, and cycle another 1-2,000 miles a year.

I already pay my taxes. Your comment sounds more a rant than anything.

M II A II R II K Dec 9, 2010 7:31 PM
New PPW Results: More New Yorkers Use It, Without Clogging the Street


Read More: http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/12/0...ng-the-street/

Report: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/download...ppw_update.pdf

Quote:
On the heels of Brad Lander’s survey showing that a whopping 78 percent of interested Brooklyn residents want to keep the traffic calming Prospect Park West bike lane, DOT has released still more data showing that the new street design keeps New Yorkers safer and helps them get where they’re going.

With two more months of data collection since DOT last released its Prospect Park West numbers, the fundamental facts about the redesign remain. As DOT found in October, while three-quarters of cars were measured speeding before the redesign, now only one in six drive over the speed limit. The number of cyclists roughly tripled on weekdays, and doubled on weekends. There are some slight variations in the December numbers — the more recent data show slightly higher speeds in the morning and slower speeds in the evening, for example — but these effects are looking like they’re here to stay.

The December numbers add new evidence that, contrary to opponents’ claims, the narrower Prospect Park West has not caused congestion. Looking at travel times, DOT shows that even though speeding is down, a trip down Prospect Park West actually takes a few seconds under the new design. Travel times are slightly down on Eighth and Sixth Avenues as well, though a bit up on Seventh. Even during rush hour, the effects on vehicle speeds are negligible, with morning peak car trips taking a few seconds longer and evening peak trips taking a few seconds shorter.



http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-conten...uterCounts.jpg

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-conten...ravelTimes.jpg

M II A II R II K Dec 21, 2010 5:24 PM
More bicycling means safer streets


http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opin...-safer-streets

Quote:
- When many bicyclists are on the road, cycling safety improves substantially. This observation is consistent with data from other countries. Cycling is far safer in countries where bicycles are used more often — such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Now comes data from Portland, Oregon, that suggests encouraging bicycle use leads to greater traffic safety in general.

- Bicycle crashes citywide have risen little since 1991 — despite the dramatic increase in cycling. There was a noticable rise in reported crashes in 2008 and 2009, but that was mostly due to changes in policy that have required even minor bicycle accidents to be recorded.

- The cycling increase has largely resulted from Portland’s aggressive policy to increase bicycle use. The city has installed 300 miles of bicycle trails, lanes, boulevards (bicycle-friendly streets), and other facilities in that time period. This 300-mile network cost approximately the same as the construction of a mile of urban freeway, according to Mia Birk, a planning consultant and the former director of Portland’s bicycle program.

- Of course, this can’t all be attributed to Portland’s bicycle policies. The city and the Metro area have invested heavily in mass transit, encouraged transit-oriented development, limited the availability of parking downtown, and have taken other measures that have likely reduced automobile use. But the bicycle program has been unusual and significant. It has slowed down traffic on many streets and generally taken asphalt away from the exclusive use of fast-moving cars. When drivers are aware of many bicyclists on the road, they drive with more care. That tendency benefits everyone on the road.



http://newurbannetwork.com/sites/def...nt-crashes.jpg




http://newurbannetwork.com/sites/def...ikeNetwork.jpg




http://newurbannetwork.com/sites/def...alInjuries.jpg




http://newurbannetwork.com/sites/def...Fatalities.jpg




http://newurbannetwork.com/sites/def...Fatalities.jpg

pdxtex Dec 22, 2010 1:08 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
also genius, so few people ride bikes anyway that the revenue generated from a bike tax would probably not cover the administrative costs of collecting it. fail.

Beta_Magellan Dec 22, 2010 6:55 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sciguy0504 (Post 5068293)
When you pay registration fees for your bike, obtain a license to ride your bike and pay "gas" taxes, you can share the road with my car.
I like the idea of a bike “gas” tax—at restaurants everyone will have to show your bicyclist’s license when ordering high-carbohydrate foods in order to make sure they’re not evading the 15¢/Calorie surcharge.

M II A II R II K Dec 22, 2010 3:54 PM
Ballard shows high potential for creating a strong, high quality biking community


http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/20...ng-strong-high

Quote:
Earlier this year, Adam Parast, a transportation planner and regular contributor to the Seattle Transit Blog, released a GIS study in which he compared the bikeability of Seattle to that of Portland (the second most bike-friendly city in the US according to Bicycle Magazine). What he found was that Ballard has the most potential to become a great biking neighborhood for families and athletes alike.

“What people can take away from the study is that Seatte is bikeable and that Ballard specifically, is one of the better areas in Seattle because it’s relatively flat, has great connectivity, and offers lots of destination that can be reached by bike,” Parast said. Parast decided to do a Seattle bicycle analysis after seeing the 2008 Cycle Zone Analysis of Portland. Using the same factors that we’re observed in the Portland analysis, Parast anaylized Seattle and compared it to Portland, a city that has made progressive changes to support bicycle commuting.

“I took a look at factors that are important for a bikeable, high quality area,” Parast said. These factors include street connectivity, land use, bicycle facilities, slope, and barriers such as a high density of cars. The factors were weighted and neighborhoods received a score. The analysis shows that while Portland is already very bikeable, Seattle has a long way to go.

Parast said his analysis should not be taken as fact, but should rather be viewed as the starting point of a discussion about how best to model bikeability based on strengths and weaknesses of each city. “I think [my findings] are accurate enough to draw some conclusions and to also raise some questions,” Parast stated. The report states that the most bikeable areas of Seattle are those located near multi-use paths like the Burke-Gilman and the Elliot Bay trails.



The numbers represent the score. The higher the score, the higher the bikeability. Seattle has a long way to go before reaching those higher scores.

http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/si...ikeability.jpg


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