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LMich Sep 26, 2013 9:28 AM
So, here I talking up one of the few benefits of Detroit's Wild West, DIY street culture, and the city government finally notices Detroit Bike City's weekly Slow Roll. But, not in a positive way, but because they are being personally inconvenienced:

Quote:
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Khalil AlHajal

Slow Roll noticed: Massive Detroit bike ride raises questions from city officials

By Khalil AlHajal | kalhajal@mlive.com

September 25, 2013

DETROIT, MI -- It started with about 10 bikes rolling slowly through the city.

They multiplied over the last three years, and some 1,600 bicyclists rode through Detroit's neighborhoods Monday night in the extraordinarily diverse weekly gathering.

But the Slow Roll has gotten so big that city officials have taken notice after hearing some complaints about clogged roads.

The attention could threaten to complicate the free, informal gathering.

"I have nothing against bike riders, but... They're blocking the traffic quite a bit," said City Council member Brenda Jones on Tuesday.

"I don't want to see them stop, but they need to know that there needs to be something in place."

She said she was stuck in traffic herself Monday as the bicycle horde rolled through
an intersection and that other drivers were turning to her for intervention.

Council President Saunteel Jenkins directed administrative liaisons to inquire about permitting requirements related to the Slow Roll and a similar monthly event called Critical Mass.

"Every week it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and they're still conducting it as if they're 20 or 30 riders," Jenkins said. "They need to be notified of what the requirements are."

Mike MacKool, the Detroiter who founded the Slow Roll along with fellow bike hound Jason Hall, is hoping to keep the event informal at least through the end of the season.

"As of right now, we are trying to go under the radar," MacKool said. "I don't know if that's working. We actually are looking to try to work with the city. We're just trying to keep it rolling through this year without having to go through the permit process quite yet."

The last Slow Roll gathering of the year is scheduled for Oct. 28, a Halloween-themed ride.

"There's no way you're going to ticket all of those participants," Jones said. "I'm not saying ticket them... but traffic was really, really backed up."

...
I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, the last thing the city should want to do is to encourage the more anti-social and negative aspects that come along with the pseudo-anarchy of the city. The kind of lassez faire culture of the city can cut in both directions. Reasonable rules need to be followed, and the city council has a role in that. On the other hand, I can see a section of the city council unfamiliar with the biking culture in the city over-regulating things acting out of annoyance or anger, which could have some pretty negative consequences on this undeniably positive street culture.

Given Detroit's problems, I air more on the side of the cyclist on this one so long as they don't get too out of hand. Detroiter's need to take back their streets, literally, and not just from the cars, but from all kinds of anti-social things that happen along them more than probably any major city in the country. This does just that. I see these kind of movements as much a political statement as a cultural one, and Detroit needs more of this. People needs to take more positive ownership of the city, and quite literally use it more. This is the kind of cultural revitalization that needs to be built up along side with the brick-and-mortor reconstruction of the city.

The rest of the article does go on to state they have allies on the council, and the neighbors along these streets are largely supportive of the emerging culture. The city council should take this into mind when deciding how they want to respond to things like Critical Mass, Slow Roll, and Tour de Troit.

M II A II R II K Sep 27, 2013 12:17 AM
Census: Portland biking stalls for fifth year while other cities climb

Read More: http://bikeportland.org/2013/09/19/c...es-climb-94248

Quote:
Portland's hard-won status as "America's bike capital" hasn't looked less secure since it claimed the title in 2005. The number of Portlanders who get to work primarily by bike was statistically unchanged in 2012, ticking from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent of the city's working population. Across the whole Portland metro area, bike use held at 2.3 percent.

Of the 25,000 net new workers in the metro area last year, the number of bike commuters only grew by 376, according to Census estimates. Inside city limits, the estimated number of bike commuters actually fell by 65, to 18,912. Those figures are far within the Census survey's margin of error. But the rises in biking last year in Minneapolis and Seattle, the country's No. 2 and No. 3 large bike cities, weren't.

Minneapolis' bike mode share jumped from 3.4 to 4.5 percent, the sort of increase Portland hasn't seen since the 2007 gas spike. Seattle's rose from 3.5 to 4.1 percent. In each of those cities, the bike-commuting population grew by about 3,000 workers. If that absolute growth continued this year, Seattle — a somewhat larger city — may already have more total bike commuters than Portland does.

Some details: The Census' American Community Survey measures self-reported commuting modes in April of each year. People are asked only to select only the mode with which they traveled the furthest distance in the previous week. And none of these figures reflects how people get around for non-work trips. That said, Census figures are the best available measure of how well our city is performing compared to others, and there's no question that work trips and non-work trips tend to move in concert.

Public transit use in Portland dropped relatively sharply last year, from 13 percent to 11.1 percent of workers in the city limits. These figures didn't yet reflect the impact of TriMet's big fall 2012 fare hike on most Portland-to-Portland trips, including the end of its downtown Free Rail Zone. It's the lowest Census-estimated public transit mode share since at least 2000.

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Bixi to continue despite financial problems

Read More: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...lems-1.1866037

Quote:
A member of Montreal's city executive committee says he cannot guarantee the municipal administration will put more money into Bixi if it requires financial assistance. The bike-sharing program has struggled to make ends meet since it first hit Montreal streets in 2008.

- Yesterday, a letter from Montreal's auditor general to the city was released. In it, auditor Jacques Bergeron said he had serious doubts as to whether Bixi could continue its Montreal and Toronto operations. ​In the letter, dated Sept. 11, Bergeron said the evidence he saw while compiling his annual report on Bixi's operations led him to believe the programs in those two cities were in serious trouble. Réal Ménard, the executive committee member responsible for the transportation dossier, told Daybreak Tuesday that he didn't know whether Montreal could continue to fund Bixi.

- Ménard said that he is concerned about Bixi's current cash flow problems, but that the program is not facing bankruptcy, and added that bikes will be back on the streets next season. Ménard said these financial difficulties are due to outstanding payments from U.S. cities that use the bike-sharing program. "We're expecting to have money. When the money will be there, Bixi will be in a better situation," said Ménard. "We are optimistic that the crisis we are talking about will be solved."

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fflint Sep 27, 2013 2:12 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by LMich (Post 6280142)
So, here I talking up one of the few benefits of Detroit's Wild West, DIY street culture, and the city government finally notices Detroit Bike City's weekly Slow Roll. But, not in a positive way, but because they are being personally inconvenienced:

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, the last thing the city should want to do is to encourage the more anti-social and negative aspects that come along with the pseudo-anarchy of the city. The kind of lassez faire culture of the city can cut in both directions. Reasonable rules need to be followed, and the city council has a role in that. On the other hand, I can see a section of the city council unfamiliar with the biking culture in the city over-regulating things acting out of annoyance or anger, which could have some pretty negative consequences on this undeniably positive street culture.

Given Detroit's problems, I air more on the side of the cyclist on this one so long as they don't get too out of hand. Detroiter's need to take back their streets, literally, and not just from the cars, but from all kinds of anti-social things that happen along them more than probably any major city in the country. This does just that. I see these kind of movements as much a political statement as a cultural one, and Detroit needs more of this. People needs to take more positive ownership of the city, and quite literally use it more. This is the kind of cultural revitalization that needs to be built up along side with the brick-and-mortor reconstruction of the city.

The rest of the article does go on to state they have allies on the council, and the neighbors along these streets are largely supportive of the emerging culture. The city council should take this into mind when deciding how they want to respond to things like Critical Mass, Slow Roll, and Tour de Troit.
Large unpermitted rides like this roll every month in cities across America and the world, many of them being much larger than 1,600 riders, and yet somehow these cities endure without the kind of government interference Detroit city seems to be pondering. Is congestion such a foreign concept that there's no natural tolerance for it, even in small doses?

Rizzo Sep 27, 2013 2:45 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by LMich (Post 6280142)
I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, the last thing the city should want to do is to encourage the more anti-social and negative aspects that come along with the pseudo-anarchy of the city. The kind of lassez faire culture of the city can cut in both directions. Reasonable rules need to be followed, and the city council has a role in that. On the other hand, I can see a section of the city council unfamiliar with the biking culture in the city over-regulating things acting out of annoyance or anger, which could have some pretty negative consequences on this undeniably positive street culture.
These events happen everywhere. Municipal governments and law enforcement see critical mass and just go "oh yeah...oh well." And let it happen. Yes people will cause some mayhem but the police will only show up if a fight breaks out. Otherwise, the attitude is "welcome to the city, by the way it's sometimes hard to drive around here."

I accidentally merged into a critical mass ride. Didn't care for it all. Most people were nice, but some were jerks. Only time I saw any sort of police activity is when they set up barriers to channel bicyclists over train tracks at a 90 degree angle. I think the city of Chicago was scared there would be some mass pileup of cyclists on Cermak. The event seemed to work okay in downtown and the residential neighborhoods. It caused friction where it got near freeways and caused backups on the offramps....not surprisingly the most auto intensive areas.


My biggest concern about bicyclists breaking laws is general day to day commuting. If it isn't the red light running, it's the aggressive speeds in the bike lanes or cycle tracks. When I ride, I'm less scared about car traffic and more concerned about other riders. And shoaling should be made illegal in cities. If there's anything more annoying, it's a slow rider that feels they can jump the whole queue and move up into the road, only to go extremely slow.

LMich Sep 27, 2013 8:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayward (Post 6281224)
These events happen everywhere. Municipal governments and law enforcement see critical mass and just go "oh yeah...oh well." And let it happen. Yes people will cause some mayhem but the police will only show up if a fight breaks out. Otherwise, the attitude is "welcome to the city, by the way it's sometimes hard to drive around here."
I'm aware these things happen everywhere. Though, I'd argue that seeing police push riders off bikes and harass them in other ways doesn't lend me to believe that other cities don't take these things seriously. This is exactly what I don't want to see happen in Detroit, so I hope the city council will be too distracted by the other issues of the city to get too involved in this.

So far, they are just displaying mild annoyance and inconvenience. Even Councilwoman Jones - who is likely to win re-election in a few weeks - mentions in the article that there is no way they can or should ticket hundreds of people. I just hope this is as heightened as the emotions get, because they set the tone for the city government, and if they get adversarial, then the police will get adversarial. I wonder what Mike Duggan - who is looking to cruise to the mayor's office - thinks about this?

M II A II R II K Sep 28, 2013 7:56 PM
CDOT Reveals Plans for Chicago’s First Raised Bike Lane on Roosevelt Road

Read More: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/09/2...log+Chicago%29

Quote:
At a community meeting Tuesday at Columbia College, Chicago Department of Transportation Project Director Janet Attarian outlined plans for the new Roosevelt Road streetscape from State Street to Columbus Drive.

The project will include a groundbreaking new segment of sidewalk-level, two-way bicycle lane, part of a bike-friendly route to and from the lakefront. The info session, hosted by aldermen Pat Dowell (3rd) and Will Burns (4th), also covered CDOT’s proposal for a new protected bike lane on State Street from 18th Street to 26th Street in Bronzeville – we’ll have a report on that project soon.

The new sidewalk bikeway, which Attarian referred to as a “sidepath,” will be built on the north side of Roosevelt between Wabash Street and Indiana Avenue, connecting with multiuse paths through Grant Park. The streetscape project will also include pedestrian improvements and high-capacity bus shelters.

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In Paris, Thefts and Vandalism Could Force Bike-Share to Shrink

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...e-shrink/7014/

Quote:
While North America has been buzzing with enthusiasm over the relatively recent introduction of bike-share, there’s been some sobering news recently from a city that's had its system in place since 2007. Home to the largest bike-share program outside China, it turns out Paris has been losing its bikes to theft and vandalism. A lot of bikes.

According to figures unearthed by Le Monde last week, 9,000 bikes from Paris' Vélib' bike-share system were damaged or stolen last year. As of this summer, 35 bike stations across the city had been shut down for repairs or due to bike shortages, leaving gaps in availability that can’t be fixed even by the usual daily redistribution of bicycles back to outlying stations. The costs incurred by this wave of theft and vandalism are huge. A new bike costs €650, while repairs to damaged or vandalized bikes cost €450 on average. The Paris City Hall official responsible for monitoring the scheme reckons thefts and repairs cost €1 million last year.

Even with ongoing repairs and replacements making up some of the shortfall, Paris bike-share numbers have dwindled sharply. Of the 23,800 bikes that have been provided or promised since it launched, only 14,000 will now remain in service. What makes this crime wave more striking is that by contrast, London's bike-share system has seen only 143 thefts since it began in 2010. So why are Paris's figures so terrible compared to its northern neighbor?

The answer lies partly in the sheer ambition of Vélib'. With 12,000 docking stations, it extends beyond the boundaries of Paris Intramuros and out into the suburbs of the Petite Couronne area of greater Paris. This means that, unlike London’s scheme, which limits itself to a central area, 8,000 bikes and a meager but more easily monitored 570 docking stations, it’s of real use to suburban commuters.

Unfortunately, it's in Paris's outlying districts where most theft and vandalism is taking place, with incidents clustering in the relatively lower-income 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements that form a crescent around northeast Paris. There’s also far less video surveillance in Paris. While London's public spaces are all but saturated with CCTV cameras, many of Paris's bike-share stations are not monitored, directly or remotely.

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animatedmartian Oct 1, 2013 8:22 PM
European offers observation of differences between US and European cycling conditions. Pretty insightful video actually.

• Video Link

M II A II R II K Oct 3, 2013 4:20 PM
Bikes-On-Trains Campaigns Seeing Traction

Read More: http://www.bikeleague.org/content/bi...eeing-traction

Quote:
Campaigns to get bicycles on commuter trains are cropping up across the country. We've seen recent success in the Bay Area, and there's been a national push to get Amtrak on board with increased bicycle services.

This week, we're seeing more positive movement in Chicago, where the South Shore Line rail is planning to announce a bike program by next spring, according to the Chicago Tribune. Last week, a number of local groups, including the Active Transportation Alliance, sent a letter to the rail line operator's board, requesting bikes be allowed on the trains beginning next summer, with a pilot program phase in spring.

"We're talking about allowing bikes on their trains, not landing them on the moon, and we hope they will have a final policy allowing bikes in time for peak riding season next summer," Max Muller, director of government relations and advocacy at the Active Transportation Alliance, told the Tribune. The League did some research into the issue to help Active Trans make the case in Chicago. We looked into all of the major commuter rail lines across the country, and examined their policies regarding bicycles on board.

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ThinkBike Challenges Chicagoans to Think Beyond Bike Lanes

Read More: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/10/0...nd-bike-lanes/

Quote:
Last Thursday, Dutch “mobility advisor” Sjors van Duren stood by the Lakefront Trail, pointed to the block of Monroe Street between Columbus and Lake Shore Drive, and asked, ”What is the function of this street?” The answer, it was agreed, is to distribute automobiles between the Loop and Lake Shore Drive.

Van Duren works for the Arnhem Nijmegen City Region in the Netherlands, and he was brought to Chicago last week by the Dutch Cycling Embassy (a public/private program that aims to export Dutch cycling policies) to lead a group of local advocates, planners, engineers, and neighbors to find a way to make Monroe Street better for cycling between the Loop and Lakefront Trail. Van Duren pointed out that Monroe near Lake Shore Drive is no different than Roosevelt, Balbo, Jackson, and Randolph. Why should there be five streets for driving to and from Lake Shore Drive but none that work especially well for biking or walking to the Lakefront Trail?

The real Dutch embassy sponsored ThinkBike to teach and inspire new ways of providing for cycling. At the public workshop on Thursday morning, the ThinkBike leaders said that getting more people to cycle is about more than bike lanes, or even safety for that matter. A good city for bicycling needs coherence, directness, attractiveness, and comfort, too. They achieve this in the Netherlands by making bikeways out of red asphalt, allowing bicyclists to travel in both directions on one-way streets, optimizing traffic lights for bike speeds, and other methods that help make cycling an easy transportation choice for most people. Additionally, they pay attention to details like shade and lighting, fixing potholes, and reducing the number of stops bicyclists need to make.

Chicago has started to implement designs like protected bike lanes and raised bike lanes, but “thinking Dutch” isn’t the norm here yet. Ryan Lakes, a board member of West Town Bikes, worked with a ThinkBike group on Milwaukee Avenue between Division and North in Wicker Park. He told me his concerns “are about Chicago’s resistance to truly effective designs because of the popularly held conceptions that protected bike lanes are almost already too much to ask for.”

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M II A II R II K Oct 10, 2013 10:31 PM
More than 50% of city freight could shift from truck to bike

Read More: http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/50-p...k-to-bike.html

Quote:
The European Union is running a three-year project (ending next year) to try to move cities' freight deliveries from heavy, road-ripping, and dangerous and polluting freight trucks to lower-impact cargo bikes and delivery trikes.

- Cycle Logistics, the EU project, is not just about data collection. But part of the goal for the task force was to use mobility data from the TEMS database and input from 322 different cities to create a baseline report that estimates how much private and commercial goods need to actually be moved by fuel-guzzling trucks. Freight was considered 'bikeable' by the Cycle Logistics study team as long as the distance needed to move the freight was seven kilometers or less (4.6 miles); as long as the total payload was under 200 kilos (440 pounds); and finally, as long as the items to be moved weren't part of a complex travel chain.

- In addition, the Cycle Logistics team hypothesizes that 42% of private trips that involve cargo could be moved from car or truck to bike. With all this potential, what is Cycle Logistics doing to get freight movers to move to the bike? First off, Cycle Logistics set up a federation to unite the cycle-based delivery services already underway in European cities, as well as to proselytize the type of bikes and systems that work best for city deliveries.

- In addition, on the consumer side, Cycle Logistics is working with stores of all types to encourage them to provide some types of bike sharing for customers to get their purchases home without the need of a car. While IKEA has one of the most famous bike-based delivery options, forty French Intermarché supermarkets are trying out loaning bikes for home delivery in a service called Koursavelo.

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Parking spots make way for bike lanes

Read More: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parking-sp...004-2uzow.html

Quote:
For cyclists and would-be cyclists, the lines on the map look great. Where there are none, the O'Farrell government plans to build two east-west crossings of the CBD for dedicated bike paths. It plans at least two north-south routes from near Central to Sydney Harbour.

- But this sweeping expansion of Sydney's cycling infrastructure, committed to by the O'Farrell government in the face of shock-jock hostility, will not be without cost. For workers and trades people, one of the striking features of the city's new commitment to bike infrastructure will be the hundreds of parking places and loading zones likely to make way for bike lanes. Fairfax Media this week counted about 250 car spots and loading zone spots that could be removed on account of the plans included in the government's City Centre Access Strategy, released last month.

- ''There's a lot of tradies that work here,'' said Chan Vongsarath, an electrician on a contract at the nearby Downing Centre. ''It's not feasible to pay $50 an hour for off-street parking and carry our tools down from the top floor,'' he said. ''If they put a bike lane in here, they are just wasting their time.'' Further north on Castlereagh Street, Hussein Bazzi was delivering Lebanese cakes from a van driven by his boss. The delivery should be a one-person job, but the two do it together as a concession to the lack of parking. ''If you are by yourself you have to find the perfect spot, but if there's two one can just run out,'' said Mr Bazzi.

- To accommodate the lost spots, the government says it will encourage the use of off-street parking. A recent trend in the city is the lack of demand for off-street parking spots in privately-owned or council car parks. The government's estimate is 7000 to 21,000 spare spots daily. In one sign of the weakness of the private parking market, a 93-space car park at 1 Dixon Street, Chinatown, sold this month for about $8 million, more than a million less than it sold for six years ago. For the moment, the government and cyclists are on the same side. ''We all still want our coffees and shopping items but the current transport landscape by far too much prioritises the parking of cars,'' said David Borella, president of Bike Sydney.

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M II A II R II K Oct 24, 2013 7:44 PM
No, a Bike License Fee Doesn’t Make Any Sense

Read More: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/10/2...ake-any-sense/

Quote:
Alderman Patricia Dowell (3rd, Bronzeville, South Loop) floated the idea yesterday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s budget proposal to raise the cable television tax could be eliminated by charging a licensing fee to ride a bicycle instead. She pegged the fee at about $25 a year and said one would have to complete one hour of classroom education to receive the license to ride a bicycle.

- After returning from a trip to cities in Denmark — sponsored by Bikes Belong — she started a program with CDOT to teach young people bicycling safety. But Dowell’s bike license proposal doesn’t make any sense. There are a few reasons almost all major cities don’t license bikes: It would discourage people from using a healthy, affordable mode of transport, and it would cost more to administer and enforce than it would generate in fees.

- A bike license fee that’s actually enforced would strangle Chicago’s budding bike culture and be completely at odds with the city’s policy goals. The City Council adopted the Bike 2015 Plan seven years ago stating two overarching goals, to reduce the number of injuries by 50 percent from 2006 levels and to “increase bicycle use, so that 5 percent of all trips less than five miles are by bicycle.” Licensing would run counter to both. Anyone with a bike would have to visit a website, city clerk’s office, or police station to pay the fee and obtain a license. Enforcing the license requirement — stopping and fining people riding without one — would create another barrier to bicycling.

- Dowell also views her proposal in terms of fairness. “If we have to register our cars, bikes ought to be registered as well,” she said. But driver’s licenses and license plates are necessary because driving is complex and, all too often, deadly. Someone operating a multi-ton vehicle capable of high speeds needs a lot of training in how to use the machine, and given the scale of damage inflicted by cars and drivers, an elaborate system of licensing and insurance makes sense. Since a bicycle doesn’t kill people and in fact prolongs the rider’s life, a license is counterproductive.

- That’s not to say some form of education can’t help. Most residents in the Netherlands and Germany, where some cities have bike mode-share over 30 percent, receive bicycle training in elementary school. Those and other European countries also have much stricter driver and car roadworthiness testing than the United States, including detailed instruction on how to drive safely near people walking and bicycling, making them global leaders in road safety.

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Garcetti, Bonin, O’Connor, Zev, Knabe: It’s Time for Regional Bike Share

Read More: http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/10/15...al-bike-share/

Quote:
In April of 2012, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stood toe to toe with city staff and executives with Bike Nation and announced a city wide bike share system would be coming to Los Angeles within the next year. The system would rival New York’s now wildly-succesfull CitiBike system. Many cheered, many fretted and a few even steamed that announcing a deal with Bike Nation exploded the nascent discussions underway about a region-wide bike share system.

A year and a half later, Bike Nation is on the ropes and even Villaraigosa allies concede the agreement was a well-intentioned mistake. Los Angeles watched while its peer cities New York, Chicago and San Francisco/Bay Area launched their own bike share systems while Bike Nation was uprooting its partial pilot system in Anaheim. Perhaps the final indignity was when Santa Monica announced it was readying its own bike share “request for proposal” its Council Members sounded somewhat overjoyed to be moving faster than the behemoth to the east. But this time, Team Garcetti didn’t wait for the zombie to wreck the best-laid plans of his predecessor, this time he took action.

On Thursday, the Metro Executive Management and Audit Committee will hear a motion for staff to study best practices and recommend a plan of action for a regional bike share system. While Garcetti’s office authored the motion, they secured the support of Board Members who have worked on bike share issues in the recent past: Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee Chair Mike Bonin, Santa Monica Mayor Pam O’Connor, and County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe.

“Mayor Garcetti believes we need a regional approach to transportation.,” writes Vicki Curry, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office. “Pursuing a countywide bicycle share program through MTA is the best way to create a seamless system that crosses city boundaries so residents can easily travel from Venice to Santa Monica or Eagle Rock to Glendale.” The motion calls for Metro staff to report back at the January 2014 meeting, in just three months, with report to the Board at the with the results of a review of the bike share industry, including a business case analysis, and recommendations on proceeding with a Request for Proposals to implement a regional bicycle share program.

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Green Lane Project opens applications for 6 cities eager to improve biking

Read More: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/e...improve-biking

Quote:
After generations of being neglected in the United States, protected bike lanes have spread rapidly around the country in the last three years – to Atlanta, to Long Beach, to Lincoln, Neb.

But 43 percent of the growth since early 2012 has come from just six cities: Austin, Chicago, Memphis, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, the ones selected two years ago as focus cities for the first round of the PeopleForBikes Green Lane Project. Starting Friday, the Green Lane Project, a nonprofit program that helps cities design and build better bike lanes, is welcoming applications to join its second two-year round of focus cities.

For the six cities selected, the program is free. The selected cities will receive a swarm of professional and technical support from national and international experts, intended to catalyze and enable major improvements to a city's bike network. "It's really, in some ways, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with people who are on the cutting edge of an innovation," said Randy Neufeld of the SRAM Cycling Fund, one of the project's creators.

The project generally does not fund infrastructure projects directly – the idea is to make the work replicable in cities everywhere. But the Green Lane Project does award cities small grants of $20,000 to $25,000 that can be used for flexible purposes such as research or communications.

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mattb112885 Oct 24, 2013 11:45 PM
The Minneapolis bike sharing service Nice Ride has released its annual report. Although final numbers aren't out yet, they are projecting 305,000 rides over the year for the 170 stations and 1550 bikes (about 1 ride per bike per day of operation). There is a nice dot plot showing the number of rides per station (unfortunately with no key). The new stations in the southwest look to be very successful.

https://www.niceridemn.org/news/2013...al_report_2013

M II A II R II K Nov 16, 2013 9:13 PM
Lego-Like Bike Lanes That Snap Into Place Could Create Instant Biking Cities

Read More: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3021509/l...-biking-cities

Quote:
Ask any biking advocate what it takes to get a new bike lane in place, and you’ll hear stories about painful bureaucracy and skeptical neighbors. But what if a city could try out a pop-up lane that snaps together like a set of Lego--without any permanent commitment?

The Copenhagenize Flow, a set of tiles made from recycled plastic and wood, are designed to let a city easily and cheaply create separated bike lanes, says Mikael Colville-Anderson, an urban mobility expert and CEO of Copenhagenize Design Co., a consultancy and design company that specializes in exporting Copenhagen's expertise in urban biking to the rest of the world.

“Most of the cities we work with are aware that permanent solutions are necessary to increase ridership, but are reluctant to invest,” says Colville-Anderson. “Painted lanes are no solid solution for inspiring citizen cyclists to ride. Especially those goofy lanes on the left side of parked cars--I hope someone got fired for inventing those. And sharrows [those arrows that indicate there is a bike lane somewhere in the middle of the car lane] are the unloved, bastard children of bicycle urbanism. The Flow is the gateway drug we have been waiting for.”

One kilometer of The Flow is a tenth of the cost of a permanent, separated cycle track, Colville-Andersen says. After it's tested on one street, it can pop apart and be tested on another, and then another. The Flow is intended to help convince neighbors along with city officials: "It's hard to imagine a cycle track for many citizens in cities who have never seen them before. The Flow helps visualize the future of transport."

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London expands protected cycle lane scheme

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...e-lanes-scheme

Quote:
London is to get more protected cycle lanes after the mayor, Boris Johnson, announced a major expansion of the scheme. The move follows a spate of road deaths and criticism from a coroner that existing lanes give cyclists a false sense of security.

Johnson, formally opening the biggest segregated stretch so far of the capital's so-called "cycle superhighway system", acknowledged that the existing network, launched in 2010 and mainly marked by just blue paint, needed improvement after a series of accidents in which riders have been crushed by lorries; including a death the previous night.

A fortnight ago coroner Mary Hassall ordered Johnson and Transport for London to explain how they planned to make the system safer after conducting inquests into the deaths of two cyclists along the east-west cycle superhighway 2 (CS2), both crushed by lorries. Separately, a man was killed on the same route on Tuesday afternoon. Johnson said he would "take account of any comments and criticisms".

He said: "Those are interesting things the coroner said. The question is, what do we do about the blue strips? Do we need to radically review all those? I think the evidence is mixed, and what we're going to do is look at the unbounded blue strips and see if they need adjusting. I'm not saying necessarily that we're going to remove them, but we're going to see what improvements can be made to them."

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musiclvr Dec 6, 2013 3:23 AM
Final stage of bike trail will link Milwaukee and Sheboygan County
 
By Lee Bergquist of the Journal Sentinel
Dec. 3, 2013

Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwauk...234325711.html

Quote:

By next fall, bicyclists should be able to hop on their bikes at the Milwaukee lakefront and pedal over a paved trail to the southern reaches of Sheboygan County.

The idea has been in the planning stages for years: A bike and pedestrian path that would link 11 miles of Milwaukee's Oak Leaf Trail with 30 miles of Ozaukee County's Interurban Trail, which runs the entire length of that county.

The Interurban now extends another 7 miles into Sheboygan County as a bike and pedestrian trail that ends in Oostburg.

That makes it a 48-mile ride from Milwaukee's lakefront — or almost a century ride for those making the round trip.

amor de cosmos Dec 6, 2013 6:46 PM
Quote:
7 world-class cities riding tall in bike-share boom, solving 'the last mile' without cars

ITDP issues first-ever planning guide to shape the next wave of bike-share systems; More than 400 cities have now implemented this innovative transport mode

New York (December 5, 2013)—Seven cities can boast of world-class bike-share systems, according to a new publication by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) that identifies the best practices embraced by these cities. An estimated 400 cities on five continents have implemented bike share, according to ITDP, because it addresses pressing urban mobility issues that include traffic, air pollution, transit finance, and the "last mile" problem of getting commuters to and from rail and bus stops.

"Very few transport innovations have spread as quickly as bike share," said Walter Hook, ITDP's Chief Executive Officer. "The vast majority of bike-share systems have all been implemented in the last 10 years. As world-class cities increasingly strive to remain competitive, we wouldn't be surprised to see continued exponential growth in the next 10. Of course, some cities have done better than others, and The Bike Share Planning Guide presents best practices and case studies of successful systems that is essential reading for anyone planning a bike-share system anywhere in the world."

The new publication, The Bike Share Planning Guide, highlights two metrics for determining whether a bike-share system is efficient, reliable and cost-effective—the average number of daily uses for each public bicycle and the average daily trips per resident within the coverage area. Seven cities hit the mark with both high market penetration and high infrastructure usage:
  • Barcelona, which averages 10.8 trips per bike and 67.9 trips per 1,000 residents;
  • Lyon, which averages 8.3 trips per bike and 55.1 trips per 1,000 residents;
  • Mexico City, which averages 5.5 trips per bike and 158.2 trips per 1,000 residents;
  • Montreal, which averages 6.8 trips per bike and 113.8 trips per 1,000 residents;
  • New York City, which averages 8.3 trips per bike and 42.7 trips per 1,000 residents;
  • Paris, which averages 6.7 trips per bike and 38.4 trips per 1,000 residents; and
  • Rio de Janeiro, which averages 6.9 trips per bike and 44.2 trips per 1,000 residents.

"Some of the most cosmopolitan cities around the world have implemented bike-share systems that not only serve as a preferable transit option, but also help extend the brand of the cities themselves," said Colin Hughes, ITDP's Director of National Policy and Project Evaluation. "It's no longer true that a huge investment in a big new bridge or highway brings the most growth to a city—it is often smaller, more strategic investments in quality of life and sustainability that makes a city a desirable place to live and work."

"Many cities are dealing with crisis situations due to congestion, pollution, and health related to vehicle traffic," Hughes continued. "These cities want solutions. A great bike-share system indicates that the city is thinking progressively about transit, the environment, and quality of life."

The report identifies five elements of a bike share system that are critical for driving up the key metrics used to rate bike-share systems. These elements include:
  • Station Density: A quality system needs 10-16 stations for every square kilometer, providing an average spacing of approximately 300 meters between stations and a convenient walking distance from each station to any point in between. Lower station densities can reduce usage rates.
  • Bikes per Residents: 10-30 bikes should be available for every 1,000 residents within the coverage area. Larger, denser cities and metropolitan regions with an influx of commuters into the area served by the system should have more bikes available to meet the needs of both commuters and residents. Systems with a lower ratio of bikes to residents may not meet this need during peak demand periods, reducing system usage and reliability.
  • Coverage Area: The minimum area covered by a system should be 10 square kilometers, large enough to contain a significant number of user origins and destinations. Smaller areas may drive down system usage.
  • Quality Bikes: Bikes should be durable, attractive and practical (with a front basket to carry bags, packages or groceries). The bicycles should also have specially designed parts and sizes, which discourages theft and resale.
  • Easy-to-Use Stations: The process of checking out a bicycle should be simple. The payment and authorization technology utilized should have an easy-to-use interface, a fully automated locking system and real-time monitoring of occupancy rates (to track whether more or fewer bikes are needed for each station).
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M II A II R II K Dec 18, 2013 4:34 PM
San Francisco bicycle boom follows bike-friendly upgrades

Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...ly-5060338.php

Quote:
.....

The number of people riding bikes has increased 14 percent since 2011 and 96 percent since 2006. That's the conclusion of the 2013 bicycle count taken by the Municipal Transportation Agency in September and released Thursday.

- The sharp increase in transportation by bike coincides with a surge in improvements - from parking "corrals" to bike lanes, sometimes with green pavement and protective barriers - around the city. It's all part of an effort to boost the percentage of trips taken by bike to reduce driving, pollution and crowding on Muni.

- As part of the transportation agency's plan to get half of San Francisco's travelers to rely on something other than cars to get around, the city is counting on a continuing surge in cycling. A draft version of the bicycling strategy calls for increasing the 2012 estimate of bicycles accounting for 3.5 percent of all trips taken to a 2018 goal of 8 to 10 percent. A separate citywide survey is being conducted to calculate how people take trips around the city.

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Like Chicago Bicyclists, Divvy Will Soldier on Through the Winter

Read More: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/12/1...log+Chicago%29

Quote:
At last Wednesday’s Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting, assistant transportation commissioner Sean Wiedel shared Divvy’s cold-weather operating strategy.

To keep maintenance costs down and scale the bike-share fleet to anticipated demand, Divvy is aiming to reduce the number of available bikes during the winter by 65 percent, to about 1,200 bikes, Weidel said. All 300 Divvy stations will remain available for day-pass holders and annual members like Isaac Wilson and Abby Crisostomo, above.

The exception will be big winter storms. “If there’s a small storm,” Wiedel said, “we’ll leave all the bikes in place.” Depending on a storm’s severity, Divvy may either remove bikes from on-street stations, or, if the National Weather Service predicts six or more inches of snow, remove bikes from on-street stations and shut down the system. Members will find out through email, news media, and social media.

“Otherwise,” Weidel said, “we will be up and running because this is a transit system and we want it to be a reliable part of your commute.” --- Alta Planning staffer Gin Kilgore asked if the 30-minute deadline to return a bike (to avoid the overtime fee) would be “softened.” Wiedel said that it would, adding that members should call customer service if it’s a bad situation – say, you’re stranded. “We’re reasonable about it,” he said.

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Austin preps for rollout of bikesharing system; Houston use stays steady

Read More: http://blog.chron.com/thehighwayman/...-stays-steady/

Quote:
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Saturday, the same day Houston opens a new rail line and tentatively a new segment of the Grand Parkway, the first 11 Austin B-Cycle stations will open. The opening makes it the fourth Texas city to start a bicycle sharing system.

- Austin’s debut is also good news for Houston B-Cycle fans. Just like the systems in San Antonio and Fort Worth, those with a local B-Cycle membership can use their subscription to check out bikes in Austin, Houston B-Cycle program director Will Rub said.

- There are a few differences in the system rules from place to place, so make sure to check out the local regulations. In Austin, for example, riders only have 30 minutes of free use before they need to turn in the bike or incur charges of $4 per half-hour. Houston riders get 60 minutes free, and incur $2 per 30 minutes of use after that.

- While use of the Houston bikes has dipped during some of the hotter and rainier times of the year, Rub said officials generally have been pleased with the use. After the system’s quick expansion from three to 27 kiosks in less than a year, ridership jumped. Use peaked in July with 7,225 checkouts, but fell to 4,053 the following month, before rebounding slightly.

- “The heat in August had an impact on the leisure riders primarily and the cold and wet weather in late November had a similar impact,” Rub said in an email. “What has been very encouraging is how steady our core group of annual members have been, regardless of the conditions.”

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LouisVanDerWright Dec 18, 2013 7:07 PM
I've been very impressed with just how active Divvy has continued to be despite the snowy, cold, December we are having. I've seen a lot of people out on the bikes even when the roads are slick and even in moderately heavy snow. The bikes themselves appear to handle pretty well in the slick conditions which is impressive considering their fat tires. Speaking of tires, I am impressed by how infrequently I have seen flats on Divvy's. I think I've seen one flat tire on a bike parked at a station since the system rolled out.

Rizzo Dec 18, 2013 7:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 6314515)
No, a Bike License Fee Doesn’t Make Any Sense

Read More: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/10/2...ake-any-sense/



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Garcetti, Bonin, O’Connor, Zev, Knabe: It’s Time for Regional Bike Share

Read More: http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/10/15...al-bike-share/



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Green Lane Project opens applications for 6 cities eager to improve biking

Read More: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/e...improve-biking



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Sorry to go back to this from awhile ago. But in my opinion, the only way I'd support any fee for bicycling is if it would help finance and maintain a sort of trunk line expressway exclusive to bicyclists. Since I bike everyday, I've noticed the increase in cyclists commuting. It would be nice if there was a separate path only for bicyclists that would safely permit higher speeds of travel. That's something I'd be willing to pay for, and authorized cyclists would have a sticker on the handlebar stem.

LMich Dec 19, 2013 9:06 AM
I've noticed a really annoying trend happening in bike lanes in my city, this winter, and that's vehicles using the buffered lane as a right-hand turn lane. It seems to have happened after our snow, and I mostly see it at night, so I assume it's idiots that are forgetting the lanes are there because they can't really see them during snows if the streets aren't properly plowed, but it's still annoying.

M II A II R II K Dec 27, 2013 4:23 PM
As city cycling grows, so does bike tax temptation

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/city-cycling-g...162607878.html

Quote:
CHICAGO (AP) — Early blasts of snow, ice and below-zero temperatures haven't stopped a surprising number of Chicago cyclists from spinning through the slush this winter, thanks in part to a city so serious about accommodating them that it deploys mini-snow plows to clear bike lanes.

The snow-clearing operation is just the latest attention city leaders have lavished on cycling, from a growing web of bike lanes to the nation's second largest shared network of grab-and-go bicycles stationed all over town. But it also spotlights questions that have been raised here, a city wrestling with deep financial problems, and across the country. Who is paying for all this bicycle upkeep? And shouldn't bicyclists be kicking in themselves?

A city councilwoman's recent proposal to institute a $25 annual cycling tax set off a lively debate that eventually sputtered out after the city responded with a collective "Say what?" A number of gruff voices spoke in favor, feeding off motorists' antagonism toward what they deride as stop sign-running freeloaders. Bike-friendly bloggers retorted that maybe pedestrians ought to be charged a shoe tax to use the sidewalks.

"There'd be special bike cops pulling people over? Or cameras? What do you do (to enforce this)?" asked Mike Salvatore, owner of Heritage Bicycles, a new Chicago hangout that neatly blends a lively cafe with a custom bike-building workshop in a 19th-century building.

Chicago is by no means the only place across the U.S. tempted to see bicyclists as a possible new source of revenue, only to run into questions of fairness and enforceability. That is testing the vision of city leaders who are transforming urban expanses with bike lanes and other amenities in a quest for relevance, vitality and livability — with never enough funds.

Two or three states consider legislation each year for some type of cycling registration and tax — complete with decals or mini-license plates, National Conference of State Legislatures policy specialist Douglas Shinkle said. This year, it was Georgia, Oregon, Washington and Vermont. The Oregon legislation, which failed, would even have applied to children. --- "I really think that legislators are just trying to be as creative as possible and as open to any sort of possibilities to fill in any funding gaps. Everything is on the table," he said.

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SHiRO Dec 27, 2013 6:16 PM
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