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Austin to pilot delivery robots that will travel in bike lanes

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/aust...in-bike-lanes/

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- The Austin Transportation Department wants you to know you might spot these three-wheeled delivery robots along South Congress. The plan is for the robots to operate in the bike lanes. They’ll move into the road if there’s no bike lane, so be aware. The city said a person will ride nearby to monitor and make sure nothing happens.

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E-scooter fees help fund protected bike lanes in downtown Miami

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news...-miami/601411/

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- Miami will add about three miles of protected bike and scooter lanes on busy downtown corridors as part of a new program partially funded by fees on electric scooters. --- Under a plan approved by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners last week, the city will install concrete barriers along the new lanes and add pedestrian ramps to adjacent sidewalks. All pedestrian crossings in the affected area will also be upgraded to maximize visibility. --- The roughly $2 million upgrades, construction of which has already started, will be partially funded by $1 million from the city of Miami's micromobility fund. The remainder will be paid for with road impact fees.

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https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/user...febb3ec4a4.jpg

STUDY: New Bike Lanes Aren’t Associated With Displacement of BIPOC, Low-Income People

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/06/...income-people/

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- The installation of new protected infrastructure for bicyclists does not cause the displacement of people of color or of low-income residents of U.S. cities, a new study finds but that doesn’t mean transportation leaders always do a good job of advancing comprehensive mobility justice for underserved groups when they improve cycling infrastructure. — In what is perhaps the most comprehensive longitudinal study on the topic to date, researchers at the University of New Mexico analyzed socioeconomic and demographic changes in predominantly residential neighborhoods in 29 cities across America that had made investments into bike facilities between 2000 and 2019. — Unlike previous analyses, the UNM team painstakingly scrutinized thousands of satellite images on Google Earth to catalogue exactly what kinds of cycling infrastructure each city had installed and when, offering a more insightful glimpse into the displacement impacts of different forms of investment into sustainable transportation than offered by previous researchers.

- What they found may surprise advocates: aside from statistically insignificant decreases in the rates of new rich and White residents moving into neighborhoods with new bike facilities, there was no correlation between the installation of new bike facilities and major shifts in the socioeconomic makeup of those neighborhoods. Or to put it more simply: bike lanes, trails, and even sharrows were not found to be associated with residential displacement, either along racial or economic lines. — Of course, displacement rates are far from the only measure of mobility justice, and study author Nick Ferenchak was careful to note that the finding did not mean that U.S. transportation planners are necessarily doing a great job at using cycling as a tool for broader mobility justice. — In particular, the data revealed that transportation leaders aren’t delivering equal access to new bicycle infrastructure for people of color and in the context of a quantitative analysis, they couldn’t determine whether transportation leaders were delivering equitable access to the transportation infrastructure for which those communities are actually asking, if leaders are even asking at all.

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https://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-conte...g?w=1155&h=730

Boston to Break Ground On Mass. Ave. South Bikeway Later This Year

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2021/06...ter-this-year/

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- A mile-long, two-way protected bike path along the western edge of Massachusetts Avenue between Melnea Cass Boulevard and Columbia Road in Dorchester will go under construction later this year, according to the Boston Transportation Department. In an email to stakeholders this morning, city officials invited stakeholders to review the final design plans for the project, which was identified as a priority “Better Bike Corridor” in the city’s Go Boston 2030 transportation plan. According to that email, the city has already secured “a contractor ready to begin construction later this year, 2021.” The project will repurpose the westernmost lane of Mass. Ave. from Melnea Cass Blvd. to Columbia Rd. into a two-way cycletrack – essentially a protected bicycle path, separated from traffic with low concrete barriers – along the western curb of the street.

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https://mass.streetsblog.org/wp-cont...415.jpeg?w=800

https://i1.wp.com/mass.streetsblog.o...g?w=1280&h=630

Alexandria eyes bus rapid transit and bike lanes for Duke Street

https://www.alxnow.com/2021/06/30/al...r-duke-street/

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- As Alexandria works through the first stages of its Duke Street transit overhaul, city staff are laying out expectations for what’s being considered for the corridor. In a public meeting last week, staff presented early plans for a transit-focused overhaul of Duke Street and fielded both questions and some early concerns from residents. Bike lanes on Alexandria streets have been contentious in the past, but staff said they remain on-the-table for Duke Street, along with “micromobility” options like shared-bicycles. --- Mack Schnaufer, the city’s bus-rapid transit (BRT) manager, said a BRT route is being considered for Duke Street and would run from the King Street Metro station to Landmark Mall. Beyong that point lies Fairfax County, which is outside of the project’s jurisdiction. Schnaufer said he has long-term hopes for more BRT connectivity, and defended the Metroway project after a meeting participant asked why the city is moving forward with BRT when the Metroway never met its ridership goals. Schnaufer said that, Pre-COVID, Metroway has been exceeding its early projections and no ridership goals have been set yet for Duke Street.

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https://www.alxnow.com/files/2020/01...05-600x400.jpg

Chicago’s 30 mph speed limit, lack of connectivity again lead to low People for Bikes rating

https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/07/...-bikes-rating/

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- People for Bikes ranked Chicago 16 places behind, Jacksonville, Florida, population 890,467, a city with no rapid transit and the second-lowest population density of any large U.S. city. It’s basically a worst-case scenario of car-centric sprawl, with relatively few bikeways. In 2016, Chicago’s bike mode share was 1.7%. Jacksonville’s was less than half that, at 0.7%. In 2018 & 2019, Chicago saw six and four bike deaths, respectively. Jacksonville, with about a third of the population of Chicago, saw 10 deaths both years, which means it had about six times the bike fatality rate as our city. Clearly, People for Bikes ranking Chicago far below Jacksonville and many other similarly car-centric, bike-hostile cities, is off-base.

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https://i.imgur.com/MrwQIdx.png

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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 9350434)

Chicago’s 30 mph speed limit, lack of connectivity again lead to low People for Bikes rating

https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/07/...-bikes-rating/
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That rating is nonsense. I've ridden all over Chicago, from the Baha'i Temple to Hammond, Indiana, from the Lakefront to Berwyn, Oak Park, and Forest Part, From Gage Park to Jefferson Park. And not just quiet side streets - at least one of those trips between the western suburbs and River North included riding Fullerton most of the way in a snowstorm.

Can it be safer? Of course. Is it terrifying in places? Absolutely. Is Chicago a good biking city? 99% yes.

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Originally Posted by emathias (Post 9351160)

Detroit is the #1 bike city. It's flat and there is no traffic.

No clickbait bike ranking list is ever going to arrive at that conclusion, however. There needs to be a lot of bike-specific infrastructure for a city to achieve a high ranking, since the whole point of bike advocacy is to build things rather than just ride your damn bike.

I've ridden twice in Chicago. It's pretty easy. I remember riding north on Ashland for several miles and someone at my destination remarking that I was a daredevil, or some such. No, it's not that big of a deal, folks. Do some real mountain biking and tell me riding in any U.S. city presents any sort of technical challenge.

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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg (Post 9351223)

Ok, you're right it can be done, but until there is better infrastructure that prioritizes biking and makes it less stressful and high stakes the percentage of people biking is going to stay low. I used to bike everywhere in Chicago in my 20s and then eventually burned out. It's not just more physically demanding to have to be constantly vigilant on the streets, it's also mentally exhausting. I would bike all the time if there was better infrastructure and I still often do because driving is also stressful, but biking is at least twice as stressful especially for the average Chicagoan to use as a practical means of transportation. Sure it's fine for leisure especially in the touristy areas.

^biking as real transportation is going to stay low until there is an oil crisis. People don't even bike much around Santa Monica, where the weather is perfect 99.999% of the time, and the residential roads are wide and have very little traffic.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0267...7i16384!8i8192

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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg (Post 9351341)

Did a quick search for you...

https://nacto.org/2016/07/20/high-qu...-biking-safer/

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Most people are “interested but concerned” about biking and would bike with higher-comfort facilities. 60% of the total population are “interested but concerned” about biking. Of those, 80% would be willing to ride on streets with a separated or protected bike lane.

I wouldn't call those low numbers. And if there is a critical mass of people biking it will become more appealing even to the people who wouldn't have considered it before.

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Originally Posted by Klippenstein (Post 9351433)

Did a quick search for you...

https://nacto.org/2016/07/20/high-qu...-biking-safer/

Nope. Do you really think all of the office hens who have space heaters under their cubicles during the summer because the AC is too cold are going to start walking or riding a bike or riding the bus unless they absolutely, positively have to? Like the electric is knocked out, there is no gas, and phone service is knocked out?

^ 60% isn't everyone. But it's a decisive majority despite not being overwhelming. Metro Chicago has around 10 million people, so even if 90% were open to cycling there'd still be a good million who weren't. A million people makes for a lot of potential anecdotes to use as counter examples.

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Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse (Post 9351616)

The prevailing street design differs from one city to the next. Some, by chance, are very well-suited to functional bike riding without any modification needed. It's generally very easy to ride in most Eastern and Great Lakes cities because of the prevailing street design and generally slow-speed traffic, even on suburban arterials.

My point is that their is a differing "prevailing character" to each city, but the bike advocates are top-down. They see something that looks good on Twitter and immediately want to apply it to their own city, irrespective of a need. The flip side is that people buy bikes they think look cool irrespective of what is best for where they live.

I mentioned Detroit in my previous post but New Orleans is another fantastic city for functional bike riding. Similarly, it is flat and has a dense network of side streets where traffic can be completely avoided. Also, people ride their bikes between the streetcar tracks in the St. Charles median, which puts them in the center of each intersection, where they have full visibility of the intersection and everyone can see them. You hardly see any bike advocates argue for lanes in the center of major arterials, but it works extremely well on these de-facto lanes in New Orleans.

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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg (Post 9351341)

You link to a random bucolic residential side street, but any cyclist in Santa Monica who isn't merely traveling within a single neighborhood will likely have to cross and/or ride on one or more of the boulevards, where distracted Angelenos compulsively drive too fast and pull all sorts of sketchy maneuvers.

Away from the beachfront, biking in Santa Monica is just like biking anywhere in Los Angeles--harrowing and oftentimes dangerous. That's why relatively few people bother.

Most Bike Friendly Cities in the World

https://www.ispo.com/en/markets/thes...y-cities-world

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10. Helsinki: More than 1,300 kilometres of cycling infrastructure, plus the bike-first reorientation of the lively Hämeentie boulevard and survey results showing that 74 percent of residents feel safe cycling in the city. Helsinki has been doing a lot right in terms of bike-friendliness for several years. For example, since 2018 bicycles can travel free of charge on public trains. And especially useful for a Scandinavian city, bike infrastructure is also getting more attention when it comes to snow removal.

9. Vienna: Whether through the free rental of cargo bikes, thousands of new bike parking spaces, the comfortable new bike lanes at Getreidemarkt or the ubiquitous marketing campaign #warumfärhstDUnicht? for more cycling - Austria's capital has done a lot right in recent years. What prevents an even higher ranking: Bicycles still too often share the bike lanes with buses or taxis.

8. Paris: Thanks to the ambitious greening projects of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the French capital has repeatedly been in the media for years as a role model for mobility change. Paris is also climbing steadily up the rankings from 13th to eighth. This is partly due to the successful urban bike-sharing service "Vélib", but also to the incentive system for cargo bikes, car-free days and the constant expansion of cycle paths in the city. On the other hand, there is still a need to catch up in terms of bicycle parking facilities and sometimes unclear bicycle lanes into which both directions of travel have to divide.

7. Oslo: The Norwegian capital is the big winner of the latest Copenhagenize Index: From 19th place it went up to 7th place - the biggest jump of all cities. The upswing is a consequence of the city's 2015-2025 Bicycle Plan, which sets new mobility priorities with several measures: Cars have been banned from the 1.3 square miles around the city center since 2017, and thousands of car parking spaces have given way to bikes and pedestrians in recent years. There are financial incentives for individuals and businesses to buy cargo bikes, and even the snowy winter becomes less of a problem thanks to 400 urban bikes with winter wheels.

6. Bordeaux: Whether it's the closure of the historic Pont de Pierre bridge, the offer of 200 e-bikes for city employees or 100 new parking spaces for cargo bikes - Bordeaux is constantly investing in a growing share of cycling in public life. However, the proportion of only 35 kilometres of cycle lanes that are impassable for cars compared to over 100 kilometres of only colour-coded cycle lanes still offers room for improvement.

5. Strasbourg: The most bike-friendly city in France is located in Alsace. In Strasbourg, 16 percent of the population commute to work by bike. Residents' initiatives have also ensured that space is taken away from cars and given to bikes, for example on the historic Grande Ile and the docks "Les Quais". The obstacle to even more bicycle-friendliness is money: projects are still too often underfunded.

4. Antwerp: Antwerp is also diligently expanding its bike parking facilities and building a network of cycle paths into the surrounding countryside. In addition, the speed limit of 30 km/h in 95 percent of the city's streets increases safety for bike fans. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement: Serious accidents between cyclists and trucks and cars are still evidence that further investment in infrastructure is needed.

3. Utrecht: Bicycles are ubiquitous in Utrecht - but that's not enough for the city: by 2030, the number of trips to work by bicycle is to be doubled. To achieve this, the Dutch city is investing in "fast lanes" for e-bikes, smart traffic guidance systems and record-breaking bicycle parking spaces: the world's largest bicycle parking garage is being built in Utrecht, with space for 22,000 bikes. Around the central station there are now 33,000 bicycle parking spaces. This is also because private investors are also putting money into bicycle infrastructure. One point of criticism in the Copenhagenize Index is the lack of clarity in the cycling infrastructure for newcomers.

2. Amsterdam: With an action plan, Amsterdam wants to further improve the parking situation for bicycles and existing infrastructure by 2022. One of the measures in view of the steadily increasing number of cyclists: The widening of existing bike lanes for safe overtaking. In addition, a total of 11,000 parking spaces for cars are to be converted into standing spaces for cyclists by 2025. And: a new bridge for pedestrian and bicycle traffic is being built, and the city plans to banish mopeds from downtown bike lanes back to the street. The payoff for all the effort: Reclaiming second place in the Copenhagenize Index after ranking third in the previous ranking.

1. Copenhagen: The most bike-friendly city in the world is and remains Copenhagen. The Danish capital has been at the top of the ranking since 2015. 62 percent of work and school journeys here are made by bike. On average, the city invests 40 euros per inhabitant in cycling infrastructure, including new cycle bridges, 167 kilometers of new cycle paths into the surrounding countryside, as well as lighting, signage and repair stations. But the lead over the pursuers is melting away. Also because the Danish state government is making investment in infrastructure more difficult by imposing spending restrictions on local authorities.

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City council adds money to capital projects for Omaha's protected bike lane, future plans
August 18, 2021
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OMAHA, Neb. (FOX 42 KPTM) — Omaha's city council approved Mayor Jean Stothert's 2022 budget Tuesday, but there were a few changes.

Increase for Community Alliance's Family Education Services for $90,000
Increase for Keep Omaha Beautiful for $15,000
Increase for Small Business Facilitator Consultant for $40,000
Increase for a website consultant for $15,000
Increase for Nebraska Center for Workforce Development and Education for $40,000
Increase for North Saddle Creek Business District Improvements such as parking, a pedestrian bridge over Northwest Radial Highway, and other public infrastructure for $300,000 from transportation bonds and $1.5 million from "other local assistance"
Increase for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan for $1.25 million in transportation bonds for 2023 through 2027
Increase for Harney Street Protected Bikeway for $500,000 funded from transportation bonds and $2.5 million from other local assistance for 2023
The last two caught the attention of bike advocates around Omaha, especially after they raised their voices during the budget's first public pass.

Omaha's city council voted 4-2 for both the funds for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and the added funds for the Harney Street Protected Bikeway.

Local bike advocates say the funds for the project are a long time coming.

“We need to really just put these things toward the forefront. So that’s a lot of times we say shift your thinking, Because yes, it is all about funding and maintenance and all that but it really needs to just come down to the way we are looking at ways to get around Omaha,” said Sarah Johnson, founder of ModeShift, an active transportation advocacy group based in Omaha.

More : https://fox42kptm.com/news/local/cit...e-future-plans

E-bikes and E-scooters seem to be a vast clientele for bike lanes as well as on-street use. That seems to be the case in Seattle, especially because we're hilly and fairly touristy.

When workers return to offices and the tourists are fully back that'll be an added boost. Others might return to transit when service is back to normal frequencies.

E-tech will make bike infrastructure an expectation in many cities, not a nice-to-have.

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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 9320197)

STUDY: New Bike Lanes Aren’t Associated With Displacement of BIPOC, Low-Income People

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/06/...income-people/

https://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-conte...g?w=1155&h=730

Duh. A bike lane doesn't change the world, contrary to what the most anti-bike lane and most anti-gentrification folks want you to think.

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Originally Posted by mhays (Post 9370285)

That's my hope. My Ebike has made biking way more convenient.

For fun, I rode the normal Divvy bike the other day and then docked it and got an electric one out. Holy crap. I went from being annoyed and having to constantly change gears to flying.

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