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zilfondel Jun 11, 2013 2:06 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 6155284)
That was perhaps the worst POS trash "news" article I have ever read in my life. I stopped less than a third of the way through it. It makes Fox News look fair and balanced by comparison.

I quote:

Quote:
A Muslim Nazi collaborator’s granddaughter oversees the de-car-ing of a city after a plan based around a plan from the tenure of a modern collaborator with Muslim Nazis falls through. Imam Idris might have called it the providence of Allah.
I cannot even fathom where such bigoted hatred and stupidity can come from. :???:

M II A II R II K Jun 11, 2013 2:47 AM
Some people actually make this stuff up in their head to convince themselves of a sinister plot by people that they paint them to epitomize everything they stand against.

Muji Jun 12, 2013 11:26 PM
Streetfilms has a very cool feature on Indianapolis' Cultural Trail, which is surely the best cycling infrastructure project I've heard of in the US. I wish I could directly embed this in the post, it's truly worth seeing.

http://www.streetfilms.org/the-india...ultural-trail/

fflint Jun 13, 2013 4:45 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Muji (Post 6162481)
Streetfilms has a very cool feature on Indianapolis' Cultural Trail, which is surely the best cycling infrastructure project I've heard of in the US. I wish I could directly embed this in the post, it's truly worth seeing.

http://www.streetfilms.org/the-india...ultural-trail/
Very impressive piece of infrastructure serving multiple "livable" purposes.

M II A II R II K Jun 14, 2013 7:45 PM
How Chicago Hopes To Avoid New York's Bike Sharing Mistakes

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelin...ring-mistakes/

Quote:
.....

This week, Divvy Bikes told its members that it’s pushing off its launch for two weeks. Divvy was supposed to start on Friday, wrapping up Bike To Work Week in Chicago. Instead, it will open for business on June 28. Getting Divvy right is a high stakes proposition for the city, since the program is run by Chicago’s Department of Transportation.

- City Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein told the Chicago Tribune that some of the bikes arrived late, which kept the city from testing them. But a major reason is that Chicago doesn’t want Divvy to run into the same problems that are plaguing Citi Bikes in New York. Software problems have meant an estimated 10 percent of Citi Bikes docks aren’t working properly, according to WNYC, meaning commuters have to go elsewhere to return their bikes, or else face big fees for keeping the bikes too long. The issues are threatening to earn the system the nickname of “Glitchy Bikes.”

- In Chicago, Divvy plans to show off its first bike docking station at Daley Plaza on Friday. About 75 stations are set to be in operation by the end of the month, with 400 by a year from now. Thus far, Divvy has sold about 1,200 memberships, which range in price from $75 to $125. The Chicago organizers told members in an email this week that they should get their bike keys soon, and to wait to activate them until the program kicks off.

.....



http://i.imgur.com/rR1YhHn.jpg?1?4077




In California Cities, Drivers Want More Bike Lanes. Here’s Why.

Read More: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/06/13...nes-heres-why/

Quote:
Whenever street space is allocated for bicycling, someone will inevitably level the accusation that the city is waging a “war on cars.” But it turns out the people in those cars want separate space for bicycles too, according to surveys conducted in two major California metropolitan areas. Bike lanes make everyone feel safer — even drivers.

- It’s no shock that cyclists asked for dedicated street space in overwhelming numbers, and it stands to reason that pedestrians want bicycles off the sidewalk. Perhaps it should be just as obvious that drivers would welcome dedicated bike infrastructure, too. They find that bike lanes help them be aware of cyclists and make cyclists’ behavior more predictable, according to Sanders’ research. In general, there’s less potential for conflict between drivers and cyclists when they each have their own space.

- Drivers who don’t bike said they would rather have no treatment at all than sharrows, which they find confusing, while drivers who bike daily would rather have something than nothing, but only narrowly prefer sharrows over nothing at all. By and large, support grows with increased separation. Drivers prefer protected bike lanes to painted bike lanes, and painted bike lanes to sharrows. And they don’t want those bike lanes to be in the door zone of a line of parked cars.

.....



http://dc.streetsblog.org/wp-content...ph_Sanders.png

CCs77 Jun 15, 2013 7:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by zilfondel (Post 6160250)
That was perhaps the worst POS trash "news" article I have ever read in my life. I stopped less than a third of the way through it. It makes Fox News look fair and balanced by comparison.

I quote:



I cannot even fathom where such bigoted hatred and stupidity can come from. :???:
Indeed, that article is almost unveleibable. But what else we can expect of an article in a magazine whose motto is "Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out" :shrug::yuck::koko::uhh::runaway: :haha:


Anyway, what unfortunately seems to be true, is that the NYC bike share system still has a faulty software, that causes that more often that it should be, the docking stations don't let the people get the bicycles out or in, some research say that the faulty stations goes to about 10% of the total, making the system less reliable than it should be. Hope they'll fix that soon.

The site of Citibike has a detailed daily report of ridership.
http://citibikenyc.com/blog/2013/06

Since its launch until yesterday (19 days) the system has had a total of 224526 trips (an average of 11817 per day) and 39272 have purchased an annual membership.
Last sunday had the more trips so far, with 22399

M II A II R II K Jun 18, 2013 1:09 AM
It Is Crystal Clear, Chicago Cyclists May Pass Slower Traffic On The Right Thanks To New City Ordinance

Read More: http://www.mybikeadvocate.com/2013/0...-cyclists.html

Quote:
It is now crystal clear that in Chicago bicyclists may pass slowed or standing motor vehicles on the right. A section of the 2013 Bicycle Safety Ordinance proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel on May 8th and passed by the City Council on June 5th clarifies the matter. It will become law when signed by the Mayor, which is expected to happen soon.

- This amendment to the Code clears up some confusion over whether a section of the Illinois Motor Vehicle Code, allowing for right-sided passing only when eight feet of space was available in which to do so, applied to bicyclists. Some Chicago police officers were ticketing cyclists for passing cars and trucks on the right in the absence of eight feet of space, rarely available in our congested city streets. I noted in a previous blog post that the state vehicle code's eight foot rule only applied to two-wheeled motor vehicles such as motorcycles and scooters. Nevertheless, confusion persisted until the Mayor's office, with assistance from the Active Transportation Alliance, stepped in to offer more definition to the law.

- Though the eight foot rule is a controversy no more, it is important to note that cyclists do not have carte blanche to pass vehicles on the right. They must, "exercise due care when doing so." This is legalese for, you can do it only when it is safe. Just because you have the ends of your handlebars shaved down to nubs to thread the tightest spaces between cars does not mean that you may do so legally. Also, Chicago bicyclists must yield to pedestrians who have exited vehicles which have not pulled to the curb. The second sentence of 9-52-040(d) states:

When approaching a vehicle which has discharged passengers from its right side, a bicyclist must either yield to those pedestrians or pass on the left.

- In order to understand what a cyclist's responsibility is when a vehicle discharges a passenger from the vehicle's right side it is important to know how the language passed by the City Council came to be. When the Mayor's office originally proposed the amendment, section 9-52-040(d) stated:

Any bicyclist upon a roadway is permitted to pass on the right side of a slower-moving or standing vehicle or bicycle, but must exercise due care when doing so. When approaching a vehicle discharging passengers from its right side, a bicyclist must either yield to the pedestrians or pass on the left.

.....

sopas ej Jun 20, 2013 2:08 AM
L.A. Breaks Driving Addiction as Bike-Train Commutes Grow
 
L.A. Breaks Driving Addiction as Bike-Train Commutes Grow

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iG4rU0O6nRLA.jpg
Los Angeles has doubled its network of bike lanes to 292 miles. Photographer: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

By James Nash, from Bloomberg Businessweek
June 19, 2013


Los Angeles embodied America’s love affair with the automobile in the last century. In this one it’s trying to kick the car to the curb.

The city that put drive-thru restaurants on the map has doubled its network of bike lanes to 292 miles (470 kilometers) and expanded light rail by 26 percent in the past eight years, with another 18 miles of track coming by 2015. Bus and train ridership is on the rise, while the total number of passenger cars registered has declined in Los Angeles County -- evidence more commuters are breaking their dependence.

“I feel pretty spoiled by the transit system in L.A.,” said Madeline Brozen, a 26-year-old transplant from New Orleans who uses a bicycle and buses to make a 12-mile trek from the Los Feliz neighborhood to the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, where she researches urban transportation.

The one-family car Americans grew up with, combustion-engined and gasoline-powered, is under assault from an array of options: electric cars, hybrids and alternatives like bikes, light-rail and car-sharing plans such as the one operated by Avis Budget Group Inc. (CAR)’s Zipcar Inc. (ZIP) Los Angeles, the largest market in the biggest U.S. state for vehicle sales, could be the ultimate test of the conventional car’s future.

Shrinking Allegiance

“The next 10 years will be as important to the auto industry and transportation literally as the invention of the Model T,” Scott Griffith, former chief executive officer of Zipcar and a strategic adviser to the company, said at the Bloomberg Link Next Big Thing Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, on June 17. “We’re now on the edge of all these new business models coming along and the intersection of information and the car and transportation. If you look out 10 years, I think we’re going to see a huge change, particularly in cities.”

While the new-car market has rebounded from the recession, Los Angeles County had 28,000 fewer passenger cars registered in 2012 than five years earlier, according to California Department of Motor Vehicles data. Boardings on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s buses and trains increased 4.7 percent to 41.3 million in May 2013, compared with May 2011.

Authority officials plan to spend $14 billion to accelerate that shift. A shrinking allegiance to cars in the region, where a two-car garage and freeway gridlock are a given for many commuters, would present challenges to automakers if it took hold.

Toyota, Honda

Americans are on pace to buy at least 15 million new cars and light trucks this year for the first time since 2007, led by General Motors Co. (GM), Ford Motor Co. (F) and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)

Toyota, Honda Motor Co. (7267) and Ford have the most at risk if drivers in Los Angeles decide to park their cars. Combined, the three accounted for almost half the new cars and trucks sold in California in the first quarter, led by Toyota, with 21.4 percent and its top-selling Prius hybrid, according to the California New Car Dealers Association.

Honda’s sales are rising in Los Angeles County, Robyn Eagles, a spokeswoman for the automaker’s Torrance, California-based U.S. unit, said in a phone interview. The company offers alternative-fuel and fuel-efficient cars including the natural gas Civic, plug-in Accord and Fit EV, she said.

“We want to provide Angelenos with a range of options,” Eagles said. “There will always be a need for cars here.”

Traffic Jams

Angelenos have been among the most car-dependent U.S. commuters, with 67 percent getting to their jobs driving alone in 2009, compared with 24 percent for New York and 51 percent for Chicago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In Detroit, home of the U.S. auto industry, the figure was 71 percent.

The region’s notorious traffic endures. Los Angeles had the longest congestion-related delays in the U.S. in April, according to Inrix Inc.’s scorecard, with the average driver wasting 5.2 hours, up from 4.5 hours in April 2012.

Los Angeles’ aim is go partway back to the future, 50 years after transit authorities ripped out the last line of the Red Car network of electrified streetcars that once rolled along more than 1,000 miles of tracks in four counties. A mass transit system that comprehensive would be prohibitively expensive today in a city that covers 469 square miles (1,215 square kilometers), about 55 percent more than New York’s five boroughs.

[...]

Read the rest here: Source

KevinFromTexas Jun 20, 2013 5:07 AM
I can't believe LA hasn't been a mecca for it already. They have the climate, the natural beauty and the sense of physical health about them to encourage it. And LA isn't very hilly is it for most of the urban areas?

LosAngelesSportsFan Jun 20, 2013 6:25 AM
Well we are late to the game so to speak, but are making up for it in a big way. By 2020, the way people move about the core of LA (Santa Monica, Westside, Hollywood, Downtown, Mid City, East LA) will be vastly different than 1990 or so.

In regards to hills.... yes a lot of LA, especially Northeast LA, Hollywood and parts of Mid city are hilly

KevinFromTexas Jun 22, 2013 8:31 AM
Austin is getting closer to becoming the 4th Texas city with a bikeshare program.

http://www.kvue.com/news/Austin-City...212538381.html
Quote:
Austin City Council gets bike share program rolling

by QUITA CULPEPPER / KVUE News and Photojournalist DENNIS THOMAS

kvue.com
Posted on June 21, 2013 at 6:01 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:21 PM

AUSTIN -- The car2go program is popular in Austin. You can rent one of the cars, drive it around, and then leave it parked in a special spot for the next customer. Now imagine a program like that with bicycles. It will soon become a reality, as the city's new bike sharing program gets ready to roll.

Austin is a bike-friendly town, and it's about to get even more friendly.

Thursday Austin City Council members approved a contract with equipment vender B-Cycle to move ahead with the bike share program. It's being funded with a $1.5 million federal grant.

Austin will be the fourth Texas city to put a bike share program in place. San Antonio was the first.

M II A II R II K Jun 25, 2013 5:31 PM
The Pan Am Path: Proposal Unveiled for an 80-Kilometre Multi-Use Trail

Read More: http://torontoist.com/2013/06/the-pa...lti-use-trail/

Quote:
A group of local residents is proposing one major Pan Am legacy project: a multi-use trail that would link Toronto neighbourhoods, and connect up some currently fragmented trails into a continuous path throughout the city.

- A set of proposed legacy projects for the 2015 Pan Am Games has just been unveiled. Among those proposals: one for an 80-kilometre continuous multi-use trail that would run throughout the city, with hubs along the way to host art, local events, food carts, and just about anything else bordering communities can think of.

- “The Pan Am Path is a multi-use path that connects the city from Brampton, down along the Humber River, along to the waterfront, up the Lower Don, and then up to Scarborough through the hydro corridor,” explains James Gen Meers, one of the founders of Friends of the Pan Am Path, the non-profit that’s formed to champion this project. “It is a trail system that already kind of exists in the city of Toronto, but is missing certain pieces that are required to make it a non-stop continuous path, and that’s what the path is about: leveraging some of the political capital in time for the Pan Am Games to invest in the infrastructure required to make a continuous path.”

- Essentially, the idea is to use a small amount of money—the infrastructure costs and initial programming are estimated at $1.9 million—to create a much greater benefit by linking together a bunch of trails that, right now, come close to each other, but are not part of a single travel route. Of the 80-kilometre total, only 5–10 per cent would be new construction. It’s a small number, but filling in those blanks will remake the trails into an entirely new experience for the city, Friends of the Pan Am Path thinks.

.....



http://torontoist.com/wp-content/upl...an-am-path.jpg

LMich Jun 26, 2013 8:01 AM
My little city is putting together a bike share program. It'll start out rather small, and as a pilot program, no less, but I guess it's better than nothing. It's also interesting, in that it'll use a small, in-state start-up to start it off.

Quote:
Group to launch bike share program in Lansing in August

By Ken Palmer | Lansing State Journal

June 25, 2013

After two years of planning, a group will roll out a service this summer for people who want to rent bicycles for short commutes around the Lansing area.

The nonprofit Capital Community Bike Share said it will lease 20 “smart” bikes from an Ann Arbor-based start-up that riders can pick up and drop off at racks stationed around the area.

“Everybody is kind of anxious to see how the city will like this,” said Lynne Martinez, a Lansing consultant who has served as the program’s development manager. “We’re pretty confident because we’ve been getting such great responses from the community.”

...

The Lansing program will begin as a demonstration pilot project for A2B Bikeshare, a new venture started by two engineering students at the University of Michigan.

The students developed a system in which “smart” bikes equipped with solar panels are locked into “dumb” racks. Users can rent the bikes by swiping a credit card through a reader on the bike. The solar panels power the consoles on the bikes, which allow credit card payments and GPS tracking functions.

Most systems operating around the country rely on vending kiosks and standard bicycles, said Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing, who began pursuing the bike share idea about two years ago.

The smart-bike system lowers the cost of starting a program from about $6,000 per bike to about $2,000 per bike, Schertzing said.

...
Apparently, this is the first bike share in the state.

M II A II R II K Jun 27, 2013 7:22 PM
Developers capitalize on the rise of cycling's popularity

Read More: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/n....html?page=all

Quote:
If there really is a War on Cars, more and more employers and commercial developers are siding with the bicyclists. That’s clear when you look over building plans and hear developers talk about their projects.

Amazon.com is building cycle tracks at its three-block office complex under construction in downtown Seattle. Plans show traffic signals for cyclists, complete with “leaning rails” on which riders can rest their feet while waiting for the green light. Once these cyclists arrive, they’ll pedal to indoor bike parking. Another developer, Harbor Urban, is building an entire apartment building for bicyclists. Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, the project is called Velo, which means bicycle in French. The 171-unit project’s doors, lobby floors and elevator walls are designed to be bike-friendly, and the apartments will have bike-storage “niches.”

Even Kemper Development, which touts the 10,000 free vehicle parking spaces at its Bellevue Collection, is building a bike commuter “lounge” in the 4-million-square-foot retail, office, residential and hotel complex. “We’re not just putting a rack over in the corner and bolting it to the floor and calling it good,” said Kemper President Jim Melby, whose bike lounge will brim with $300,000 worth of racks, lockers, shower rooms and a vending machine that dispenses energy bars and spare tire tubes.

These are just a few of the many Seattle-area businesses and developers trying to capitalize on the popularity of bicycling — and to save lots of money, too. That $300,000 that Kemper is spending to handle dozens of cyclists, for example, is dwarfed by the $40,000 it can cost a landlord to build just one car stall in a parking structure. Nevertheless, developers’ increasing investment in bike commuting is generating work for a wide variety of businesses, from plumbers who install office showers, to makers of bike racks, to designers and consultants in the burgeoning bike arena.

.....



L.A. bike-sharing program hits a snag

Read More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...0,294356.story

Quote:
In spring 2012, Tustin company Bike Nation predicted the first phase of its L.A. bike-share program would be up and running by summer 2013. Soon after, officials said, as many as 4,000 bikes would be available to rent by the hour, the day or the week — similar to CitiBike, the program that launched in New York City last month to much fanfare.

To make money, the company planned to sell advertising on the 400 sleek, silver rental kiosks that it would place around Los Angeles. But a contract between the city and two media firms will almost certainly prevent that from happening, the company recently learned. Bike Nation has delayed the bike-share launch while it reconfigures its business model and searches for corporate sponsors. Bike Nation's executives say the earliest the program will roll out is sometime next year. "Our business has to make financial sense," said Bike Nation Chief Operating Officer Derek Fretheim.

The company expects to launch initially without ads but possibly add them later. Executives wouldn't say how much ad revenue they had expected. Bike Nation pitched the bike-sharing program to the mayor's office in March 2012 and said it would cost the city nothing. It planned to put kiosks downtown and in Hollywood, Venice and Westwood. Cyclists would be able to rent bikes for $6 a day or $75 a year. The city has since developed a permitting process for bike-sharing, which is available to any company. Each kiosk would be reviewed separately. So far, Bike Nation is proposing kiosks at Union Station, City Hall, the county Hall of Administration and Los Angeles Police Department headquarters.

In the U.S., where bike-sharing has proliferated in the last five years, cities use grants and corporate sponsors (CitiBank is helping fund New York's CitiBike) to shore up systems that can't be sustained on membership and usage fees alone. Some European bike-shares are run by companies that hold exclusive rights to the advertising space on the rental kiosks. But in the U.S., Bike Nation reasoned, advertising would be a new twist. But advertising on a bicycle kiosk in Los Angeles falls under a city contract with CBS Outdoor and JCDecaux, which jointly hold the rights through 2021 to sell advertising on "street furniture," which includes bus stops, public toilets and newsstands.

Bike Nation executives knew about the contract and had hoped to find wiggle room because it does not specifically mention bicycle kiosks. But any item placed in the public right of way, even if it isn't listed in the contract, is in CBS' and JCDecaux's purview, according to a spokeswoman for the city's Bureau of Street Services. That includes sponsorship messages.

.....
http://www.trbimg.com/img-51cbac27/t...--20130626/600




10 Brilliant Pieces of Bike Infrastructure

Pics & Vids: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...tructure/6009/

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img...12.24%20PM.png

SpawnOfVulcan Jun 28, 2013 6:51 PM
Downtown Birmingham may start bike-share program

LINK: http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingha...ring-plan.html

By Ryan Poe
Birmingham Biz Journal

Quote:
Kicking the tires, spinning the wheels, shifting into high gear – whatever pun you want to use, Birmingham could get a bike sharing program in early 2014.

The Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham confirmed a story on Alabama Power's NewsCenter today that it has commissioned Toole Design Group to work up a bike sharing feasibility study for our downtown.

RPCGB's Lindsey West told me Toole will get $42,000 to begin Oct. 1 compiling information for the study, which will include cost estimates, potential hub locations, street safety improvement suggestions, and public hearings.

The study should be ready by the end of December, she said.

If a Birmingham program gets the thumbs-up, the RPCGB will give Toole another $18,000 or so to come up with an implementation plan by early February 2014. After that, the RPCGB will take bids for the bikes and hubs.

A few cities in the Southeast have bike-share programs – Chattanooga, for example. But Birmingham would be among the first, which could further energize its growing downtown, West said.

.........
Here's a LINK to the Alabama Power News Center article that the BBJ cited.

animatedmartian Jun 30, 2013 5:03 PM
Quote:
The Motor City, now 'built for bikes'
Donna Terrek / The Detroit News

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5972/f26g.jpg
Monday night Slow Roll attracts hundreds, one of many bicycle group rides in Detroit

"Everybody rides a bike. Who doesn't ride a bike? Why wouldn't you ride a bike?" asked Mike MacKool. "If you don't ride a bike I feel like you're missing a major part of what's fun in Detroit right now."

The cycling entrepreneur and advocate of all things bike in Detroit states what's obvious to the growing numbers of bicycle riders in the city. Bike riding is (mac)cool.

MacKool says Detroit is a perfect storm of conditions for an expanding bike riding culture. The population loss that's a negative for the city in so many ways is a big plus for cyclists. The infrastructure of wide, flat boulevards meant for over twice the traffic we have now makes cycling safer and more enjoyable than it is in the car-choked streets of a New York or Chicago.

"We're the Motor City; the streets are huge. It's hard to find something that doesn't have four lanes in the city of Detroit," he said. "It makes for a really bike-able city.

"This city was built for cars," MacKool said. "Now that there aren't as many cars, we feel it's built for bikes."

....
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2Xig64wYQ

Rizzo Jun 30, 2013 10:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by animatedmartian (Post 6182549)
Michigan also has more bike friendly laws. They aren't complicated like other states. Especially here in Chicago, I am not granted a full lane here like bicyclists in Michigan. As a result, you are always inches away from passing traffic.

Before I moved to Chicago I spent a full summer riding around the streets of Detroit. It was pleasant having all that space, and ironically the streets of Detroit were in much better condition because the city isn't on a swamp like Chicago. The only problem was people drove faster which means the risk of fatalities are way higher if drivers aren't looking. New York and Chicago have much slower speed limits and congestion, so the chance of death is low, but you do tend to get a lot of minor collisions.


In another note, I've been seeing tons of riders on Divvy bikes around Chicago. Not just a few, but dozens every hour on streets all over the city. I'm actually surprised since I thought the service would start slow. We are reaching a point in American cities where just a single bike lane is unacceptable infrastructure. We need more cycle tracks and separate signaling.

http://divvybikes.com/

M II A II R II K Jul 3, 2013 3:23 PM
Bixi: Trading $450,000 toilets for bikes? Toronto discusses unique plan to save bike share company

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hal...e_company.html

Quote:
The chair of Toronto council’s public works committee has come up with a way to prevent the Bixi bike-sharing company from swirling down the drain: let another company build fewer toilets.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong’s toilets-for-bikes brainwave was tentatively endorsed by the city’s transportation chief, Stephen Buckley, in a confidential report obtained by the Star. The proposal, Buckley says, could eliminate Bixi’s $3.9 million debt and put the company “on solid financial footing” for the government takeover he is recommending. “A few months ago, it looked like Bixi was on the ropes. But I found a solution that will sustain an important city program that seems to be very popular,” said Minnan-Wong.

How do you pay off a bike company’s debt by allowing a non-bike company to avoid building toilets? Follow along here. Bixi is close to breaking even on its day-to-day operations. But it cannot afford its debt payments, and the city is on the hook for the $3.9 million loan under a previous council guarantee. The city has an unrelated street furniture and advertising contract with Astral Media. Under that 2007 contract, Astral is supposed to build 20 self-cleaning public toilets. But the large, high-tech facilities are both difficult to place and expensive to build: they cost $450,000 each, Astral says. Only two have opened so far.

The 20-year Astral contract allows the city to “cash out” of the toilets after 10 years — that is, force Astral to pay the city a certain amount of money in exchange for the right to not build the majestic thrones. Minnan-Wong’s proposal: persuade the company to allow the city to cash out now, four years early, and funnel the proceeds to the Bixi debt.

.....


http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/t...arge.promo.jpg

M II A II R II K Jul 8, 2013 11:08 PM
Cargo Bikes: The New Station Wagon

Read More: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...valettop_email

Quote:
ON A RECENT SUNDAY, Brandon Jones, a 44-year-old fund manager at 9W Capital Management, traveled from his home in downtown Manhattan with his wife and two children to meet friends for brunch in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They were heading to Reynard, the popular restaurant in the neighborhood's fashionable Wythe Hotel, where Manhattan-bound Town Cars regularly idle on the street outside.

But Mr. Jones did not drive. Nor did he take the subway. Instead, he piloted his two children via the deck of his Yuba Mundo, a so-called "longtail" cargo bike. (His wife rode her own bike.) Picture a mountain bike, but with a stouter frame and smaller wheels, stretched out and lowered in the back. "We actually beat our friends who drove back to TriBeCa," Mr. Jones said. While Mr. Jones does garage a BMW SUV, his car rarely sees daylight within the city limits. Rather, for daily trips like the mile-and-a-half commute from TriBeCa to his children's school in Greenwich Village, he simply hops on another kind of SUV—one that actually includes a bit of sport.

Mr. Jones's choice is becoming an increasingly popular one in the U.S. The country's biggest seller of the Yuba Mundo is Joe Bike, a Portland, Ore., store specializing in "high-performance urban, utility and touring bikes." The owner, Joe Doebele, said that when he began carrying cargo bikes—a catchall term covering a variety of bike styles built for functional hauling—five years ago, he thought they would be for just that, cargo. "But parents, mostly moms, were the ones who were buying them," he said. "It quickly became a family bike." Mr. Doebele attributes the interest to Portland's "mini baby boom" and the fact that many young families are choosing to stay in cities like Portland instead of moving to the suburbs—not to mention higher gas prices.

.....



Video Link

musiclvr Jul 9, 2013 1:49 AM
Downtown Milwaukee bike share program kicks off
 
By Jesse Ritka of TMJ4
CREATED 5:17 PM - UPDATED: 8:28 PM

Quote:
MILWAUKEE – New York City, Chicago and Madison all have one and today, a bicycle sharing program kicked off on Milwaukee’s lakefront.

“You’re going to start seeing the bikes all over!” Bruce Keyes, President of Midwest Bike Share, tells TODAY’S TMJ4’s Jesse Ritka.

The program is just in the pilot stage in Milwaukee. The only kiosk to check out a bike is located at Discovery World.

The program will expand to 24 kiosks around downtown by next year.
From WTMJ4: http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/214672761.htm


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