Urban Cycling Developments

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After 23 million rides, no deaths in U.S. bike share programs

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/23-million-rid...130952525.html

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There are now programs in 36 cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco, with new services planned in Tampa, Florida, Boise, Idaho, Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere.

- While there is no central reporting clearinghouse for bike share fatalities, the safety record was confirmed by three alternative transportation experts: Susan Shaheen, co-director of the University of California at Berkeley's Transportation Sustainability Research Center; Russell Meddin, founder of the Bike-sharing World Map; and Paul DeMaio, founder of MetroBike, the nation's oldest bike-share consultancy.

- Even the accident rate in the bike share program is impressive, with about 10.5 crashes with or without injury per 1 million trips, Meddin said. --- "I believe that to be a phenomenal safety record and, coupled with the no U.S.A. fatalities, bike share has a better record than bicycling," Meddin said. --- Still, cities with bike share programs have a higher proportion of head injuries among bicycle-related injuries than cities without such programs, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

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[M II A II R II K]

The Societal Costs and Benefits of Commuter Bicycling

Read More: http://www.infrastructureusa.org/the...ter-bicycling/

PDF Report: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/...hp.1307250.pdf

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Previous integrated health impact assessments, based on existing evidence, suggest that a shift to human-powered transport modes (bicycling, walking, running, wheelchair, skating) for short commute trips would be good for health, aside from the risk of road traffic injury.

- We used the principles above to develop a commuter cycling and public health model integrating physical, social, and environmental well-being. We used this model to identify cost-effective transport policies for improving public health. Auckland, New Zealand’s largest and fastest growing city (population ~ 1.5 million), was the case study.

- A program of motorway development and low-density urban growth in Auckland has led to exponential growth in car ownership and use, with a collapse in use of public transport and bicycling as modes of transport (Mees 2010). Private motor vehicles are used for > 75% of commutes, and bicycles 1%. Recently, Auckland’s regional government has been promoting bicycling for transport to reduce motor vehicle use.

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Put Cleveland bicycle expressway where streetcars once rolled down wide streets, planners say

Read More: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index...ressway_c.html

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The paved-over tracks of Cleveland's once-extensive streetcar network left some of its main avenues far broader than needed for the traffic they're handling. Bike and community advocates say that buried transit system can be transformed into "the Midway" -- a center-of-the-road, two-way bike lane protected on either side with boulevards, with a lane of traffic and a parking row on either side of that.

- As a start, the Midway team proposes a one-mile stretch of boulevard-buffered bikeway along St. Clair Avenue between East 55th Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard. That would put Cleveland in the ranks of a young but growing movement among U.S. cities to build protected lanes, also known as "green lanes" or "cycle tracks." There are about 200 protected lane projects nationwide. --- But the Cleveland design doesn't stop there. Far from it. Planners see a bicycle expressway fanning out across 50, 80, even 100 miles of roads that once were streetcar routes. If accomplished, it would put Cleveland at the very forefront of urban areas with non-car connections. --- "We would like to lead the country, not follow," said Jacob VanSickle, Bike Cleveland executive director.

- The mid-street path would be like a sidewalk for bikes --- a zone that is a practical way for more people, not just brave urban bike messengers, to make trips of a few miles. --- "There are all kinds of people who say, 'I'd like to bike, but I don't feel safe.' When you put in protected facilities there is really an uptick in use, especially among women and children," said Barb Clint, a board member at Bike Cleveland. Wide streets that have more room than needed for their flow of traffic encourage cars to speed, and leave pedestrians scurrying across before getting a blinking Do Not Walk signal, she said.

- The Midway proponents say cyclists wouldn't be the only beneficiaries of a Cleveland network. At eight feet wide in each direction, bike lanes would have room for runners and walkers. The buffer medians could have benches, gardens, planters and trees to make alluring linear parks on streets down which winds and cars now barrel. Some of the sections of the landscaped path would follow 19th and 20th century streetcar connections to the Cleveland Metroparks. Residents once rode streetcars out to the parks to escape smoggy city days.

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[Muji]

A nice look from Streetsblog at Seattle's excellent new two-way protected bike lane on Broadway.

Link:http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/08/1...ay-bike-lanes/

6 Things to Like About Seattle’s New Broadway Bike Lanes (And One to Fix)
by Michael Andersen

[202_Cyclist]

7.5 miles of bike lanes built this year in D.C.; Ward 8 gets first bike lanes

By Luz Lazo
August 20, 2014
Washington Post

"The D.C. Department of Transportation says it is making progress on expanding access to bikers on city roads.

So far this year, the agency has installed 7.5 miles of bike lanes, including the first bike lanes in Ward 8.

The agency is now halfway through its goal of 14 new miles of bike lane this year. It is unlikely that the goal will be met, transportation officials say, but they say they expect to install at least another 1.5 mile of bike lane by the end of the year..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...st-bike-lanes/

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City to get dedicated bike lane downtown

Read More: http://www.chron.com/news/politics/h...ne-5713324.php

Houston may get its first dedicated, on-street bike lane as early as October, as city officials prepare to convert one lane of Lamar Street downtown to a two-way cycling route connecting the popular Buffalo Bayou trails west of downtown to Discovery Green and points east.

The nearly three-quarter-mile path, from the edge of Sam Houston Park to the edge of Discovery Green, will be painted green and separated from the remaining three lanes of traffic by a barrier of striped plastic humps sometimes called "armadillos" or "zebras," said Laura Spanjian, the city's sustainability director. Signals will be added at intersections for cyclists headed east on one-way westbound Lamar.

Michael Payne, executive director of Bike Houston, said the dedicated lane will be a crucial link to safely get cyclists from the Buffalo Bayou trails to the well-used Columbia Tap Trail east of downtown that runs past Texas Southern University. Construction is underway on a federal grant-funded project to link that trail to the George R. Brown Convention Center across from Discovery Green.

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[M II A II R II K]

Balancing Bike-Share Stations Has Become a Serious Scientific Endeavor

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...deavor/379188/

If "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" were written today, bike-share stations would play the role of the porridge. A station that's too full is a bad thing, because that means riders can't return a bike there. A station that's too empty is also a bad thing, because that means potential riders can't rent from there. To keep members happy, you need to get the number of bikes at a station just right.

- Operators know this as the "rebalancing" problem, and it's not nearly as easy to resolve as it might seem. On the contrary, some of the world's top mathematicians and computer scientists are addressing the challenge right now. In this week's issue of Science, Vienna correspondent Chelsea Wald reports that as many as 30 researchers are devoting serious time to rebalancing—some in collaboration with bike-share operators in major cities.

- The goal of this research is to derive algorithms directing the vans and trucks that bike-share operators use to shuffle bikes from station to station within a city. Trouble is, rebalancing is a moving target with several layers of complexity. You not only need to predict how many bikes a station will need at a certain time, but you need to minimize the (costly and time-consuming) movement of these vans and trucks—and you need to do it all while the system is in use.

- Here's Wald on the work of Günther Raidl of the Vienna University of Technology, who's been assisting the operators of Citybike Wien: --- Raidl's approach, which he developed with colleagues at the Austrian Institute of Technology, resembles the "pickup and delivery vehicle routing" algorithms that package delivery services use to route their trucks most efficiently. His algorithm—which gives updated suggestions throughout the day—also takes into account a forecast of demand based mainly on season, day of the week, and weather. --- The problem is so complex, writes Wald, that Raidl's algorithms can't possibly come up with an "exact solution" and instead hope for "approximate" ones. If you still don't believe there's some serious math involved, check out one of the equations from one of Raidl's research papers on rebalancing.

- In New York, the trucks have such a hard time maneuvering at rush-hour that the operator of Citi Bike has employed riders to shuttle little trailers capable of holding three bikes at a time. Last week, Citi Bike officials told the blog Bowery Boogie that these trailers are "much more effective" at weaving through traffic, especially over short distances. And Citi Bike—which works with computer scientist David Shmoys of Cornell University, according to Wald—has done a better job on balance lately. --- The bikeshareNYC blog keeps a NotSpot index tracking how many Citi Bike stations are empty or full. In recent weeks, Citi Bike has been squarely in the rebalancing "green" zone, meaning only 20 to 33 stations were not usable at the time of the survey.

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[M II A II R II K]

China has 8 cities with bigger bike share systems than all of America

Read More: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/26/6069821...ina-world-data

The growth of bike share programs is gaining momentum in the US. But this growth is absolutely dwarfed by the explosion of bike share programs in China over the last couple of years.

- The country now has more than 400,000 bike share bikes in operation across dozens of cities with programs, with the vast majority installed since 2012. To put this in perspective, there are an estimated 822,00 bikes in operation around the world — so China has more bikes than all other countries combined. The individual country with the next-highest number of bikes, France, has just 45,000.

- Early on, most bike share programs were in Europe. The French town of Rennes pioneered the first computerized system in 1998, and as late as 2008, only a single system existed outside of Europe (Washington DC's). For years, Paris had the largest system. --- But over the last couple of years, China has lapped the field several times over. As its private bicycle fleet has declined — largely because more and more people can afford cars — officials have implemented bike share programs to give residents a transportation option that cuts down on traffic.

- It's not a huge mystery why China would want to invest so heavily in bike share: it has the world's largest population, is rapidly urbanizing, and is trying to cut down on traffic and pollution. What's impressive is how quickly the country has implemented enormous programs in so many different cities. --- But if you're a fan of bike share, what is a little disheartening is how many other places that are going through the same challenges of urbanization haven't even gotten started with the programs. Both India and the entire continent of Africa have only conducted a handful of pilot studies, with zero active systems in place.

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[M II A II R II K]

Plans unveiled for 18 mile cycling super highway across London

Read More: http://www.itv.com/news/london/updat...across-london/

Plans for two cycling super highways have been unveiled as part of a £913 million scheme to get more Londoners on their bikes. The continuous routes will cross central London from east to west and north to south and will be almost completely separated from traffic.

The north-south route will run for more than 3 miles from Elephant & Castle to King's Cross. The east-west route will run from Barking to Acton, a distance of over 18 miles, including a section on the Westway flyover, where one lane will be removed to create a segregated cycle track. Protected cycle routes will also be created through dangerous junctions, including Tower Hill, Blackfriars, Parliament Square and Lancaster Gate. Connections will be created to cycle routes servicing other parts of the City, West End and suburbs.

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[M II A II R II K]

Bike lanes have actually sped up car traffic in New York City

Read More: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/...affic-new-york

Since 2007, New York City has added 31 miles of protected bike lanes — that is, lanes protected by a physical barrier, such as a row of parked cars or a curb.

- The main point of building protected lanes was to make biking in the city safer. But when the NYC Department of Transportation recently studied the impact of the lanes, they found a secondary benefit: on several different avenues in Manhattan, the lanes actually helped speed up car traffic.

- So how did the bike lanes speed up traffic? It seems that two factors were important. One is that, for the most part, driving lanes weren't actually eliminated when they bike lanes were built — they were simply narrowed. Additionally, the design of the bike lanes included a dedicated left-turn lane at most intersections, allowing cars to wait to turn left without holding up traffic.

- You might imagine that these bike lanes decreased congestion by cutting down on the number of cars on the road. But if that played a role, it was very slight: on Columbus Ave., the DOT counted cars, and saw only a very slight drop in overall volume during morning rush hour, when travel times declined by 35 percent. Instead, it seems that a pair of design decisions are responsible.

- One is that, in most places, creating bike lanes didn't actually require the elimination of driving lanes — they just had to be narrowed a bit. Although narrower streets can slow traffic, that doesn't seem to have happened here — perhaps because traffic in this area was crawling at around 11 miles per hour to begin with. Instead, the narrower lanes were capable of handling just as much traffic, and one major improvement to intersection design helped them handle more, while also letting bikes travel more safely.

- This improvement was something called a pocket lane for left-hand turns: a devoted turning lane at most intersections that takes the place of the parking lane, which gets cars out of the way of moving traffic when they're making a left. Interestingly, the pocket lanes aren't primarily designed to speed up the flow of traffic — they're designed to let bikes and cars coexist more safely. Intersections with them include specialized turn signals that alternate between letting bikes ride straight or cars turn left, so there's little chance of a car turning into a bike.

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This chart shows the number of accidents and injuries in the three years since protected lanes were completed on Broadway, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th, and Columbus Avenues, compared to the three years beforehand:







For a rate, the DOT calculates a metric they call the New York City Cycling Risk Indicator: the number of deaths or serious injuries to cyclists divided by the total number of bikers estimated to be on the street. When you take the increase in bikers into account, the risk of death or serious injury has declined on 7 of the 8 avenues with new protected bike lanes installed:

[M II A II R II K]

New bike box offers cyclists their own spot in traffic

Read More: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news...ffic/14811783/

More than a dozen people on bicycles pedaled down Church Street in Nashville on Wednesday evening, rolling to a stop inside a large green painted square just ahead of a white minivan. The group was testing the city’s first bike box — a space at an intersection that allows cyclists to cut ahead of traffic and wait in their own specially designated area until the light turns green.

The boxes are growing in popularity across the country as communities search for ways to reduce accidents between cyclists and motorists and encourage more people to use bicycles to get around. More than 20 cities have painted them at intersections, according to Metro Public Works. --- “The new bike box is another step toward our continuing efforts to providing more, and more complete, street transportation options through roadway infrastructure improvements,” Randy Lovett, the acting director of Metro Public Works, said in a news release.

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[202_Cyclist]

Jerry Brown signs bill for bike lane fee

By Dan Smith
Sacramento Bee
Sept. 21, 2014

"Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that would allow local voters to consider a yearly fee on vehicle registrations to build bike lanes, bike lockers and other bicycle facilities..."

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/21/672...apitol%20Alert

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A Proposed Floating Cycleway on the Thames Is Hilarious—and Insulting

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...ulting/381235/

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London has just come up with what must be the silliest cycling infrastructure idea in the world. Put together by a motley group called the River Cycleway Consortium, London is fielding a new proposal for a new central cycle path that will stretch eight miles and cost £600 million ($965 million) to construct.

- The answer to London’s cycling problems, the consortium argues, is a bobbing pontoon strung along the Southern side of London’s river. This aquatic cycleway would stretch from Battersea, just west of Central London, to the newish business district to its east at Canary Wharf, protected by what appear to be waist-high walls. Given the construction cost of over $65,000 per yard of path, using the cycleway wouldn’t be free. Cyclists would need to pay a £1.50 ($2.40) toll before entering.

- The proposal isn’t just wrong. It’s a whole club sandwich of wrongness, made up of many delectable layers of stupid. For a start, there’s that cost. For that kind of money, London could create a whole network of properly protected cycle lanes on its streets; as things stand, the city already has some imperfect cycle routes covering the same stretch. It’s also arguable whether this project is needed. Certainly there’s still life in the aging saw that if you build it, they will come. Still, to build a path connecting two business centers to each other, rather than either of these centers to more heavily residential districts, is to ignore what many Londoners want to use their bikes for: commuting.

- The path would also rise and fall with the waterline. It would have to, of course, because the Thames is tidal—so tidal, in fact, that boats moored on the waterside are set into a perpetual jiggle by small waves. Boat wakes also lash the quayside, including those made by fast river ferries that dock at piers that the cycle path would need to thread past. This could turn a daily commute into a drunken cakewalk on a path wriggling like an eel—not to mention opening up the possibility of biking through the end result of cyclists' seasickness on rougher days.

- Not that the path would attract many people, of course. That toll would only push the idea that urban cycling is a fancy fad for the wealthy, designed for the sort of person who would look down on you for poisoning your kids with non-organic vegetables. If that sounds an extreme reaction to a few dollars’ outlay, bear in mind that the U.K. is a country almost entirely without tolls. They’re charged on a tiny clutch of bridges and on no roads. Given all these obvious flaws, why is anyone even trying to float this preposterous idea?

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[bobdreamz]

The First Station Map For Miami’s New Bike Share Program Is Here
By exMiami Staff on October 6, 2014

Bike sharing is coming to Miami in November 2014. Here’s what you need to know:

There will be about 75 stations in Miami with 750 bikes (see map below)
Miami’s Bike Sharing will be linked with the existing program in Miami Beach, which already has 100 stations and 1,000 bikes.

You will eventually be able to pick up in Miami and drop off in Miami beach, and vice versa.

The existing bikes on Miami Beach will be replaced with better three-speed models (currently one-speed) and new branding.

Citibank will be sponsoring the bikes, as they do in New York with the Citi Bike program.
Citibank will also be sponsoring Wallcasts and the SoundScape Cinema Series at the New World Symphony.





^ Bike Share station at the Miami Art Museum @ Museum Park.

http://www.exmiami.org/index.php/the...ogram-is-here/

[CCs77]

So, the Miami bike sharing will be called and branded just as the New York one. I think they at least change the color scheme, so each one has its own identity.


And speaking of New York's bike share, Citibike has announced its long awaited expansion. It is expected to double its size with 6000 new bikes and 375 new stations, totalizing 12000 bikes by 2017, with the first 1000 arriving by the end of next year to Long Island City, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant among other areas in Queens and Brooklyn.
The area colored yellow is where the first stations of Phase II will be installed next year. During the next two years they will cover the orange areas.

All that comes with a step increment of the yearly membeship, which has been raised from $95 to $149 a year. Dayly and weekly passes remain at the same price. There might be introduced monthly and seasonal passes in the future.


http://citibikeblog.tumblr.com/post/...ansion-woo-hoo



New Leader Will Drive Expansion of Citi Bike
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/ny...pany.html?_r=3

When the de Blasio administration took office, it had to confront a bankrupt and battered bike share program that was as problematic as it was popular. To help get the system back on track not just for stability but also for growth, the city has turned to a familiar face, heralded once before as a transportation turnaround artist: Jay Walder.

Mr. Walder, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, on Tuesday was named chief executive of Alta Bicycle Share, the company that has operated the Citi Bike program since its start in May 2013. He is relocating the company from Portland, Ore., to New York as part of a restructuring deal, and he is bringing about 6,000 new bikes with him.

That doubles the number of bikes in the Citi Bike system, and they will be available in dozens more neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. Yet only 1,000 bikes will hit the streets next year, with the remainder ready by 2017.

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The Netherlands Gets the World's First Solar-Powered Bike Lane

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...e-lane/382480/

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What's being billed as the world's first solar-powered bike path will officially open on November 12 in Krommenie, a town northwest of Amsterdam. Riders will be able to hop on at one end and then, after a few seconds of pedaling, dismount at the other. Being a pilot project, the lane is only 230 feet long (though it'll stretch to 328 feet when finished).

- The pilot road of just a hundred metres consists of concrete modules each of 2.5 by 3.5 metres. Solar cells are fitted in one travelling direction underneath a tempered glass top layer which is approximately 1-cm thick. There are no solar cells on the other side of the road and this is used to test various top layers. In time, the solar power from the road will be used for practical applications in street lighting, traffic systems, electric cars (which drive on the surface) and households.

- The green pathway has its drawbacks. Because it can't be angled toward the sun, it's less efficient than solar panels. And it's hugely expensive at an expected cost of $3.7 million. But as the technology advances these problems might diminish, allowing for some wild new uses to take center stage, reports the BBC: --- Dr. Sten de Wit from SolaRoad, the consortium behind the project, envisages that solar roads could eventually be used to power the electric vehicles that use them.

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[M II A II R II K]

Bike Louisville implementing Neighborways, a city-wide bike boulevard system

Read More: http://brokensidewalk.com/2014/neighborways/

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Louisville, like a lot of cities, has many options besides expressways and arterials, including secondary connector streets, low-traffic alleys, and quieter neighborhood streets which can provide a lower-stress transportation experience. If you can connect these secondary-street routes and provide innovative infrastructure improvements to calm traffic further, a new network of bike routes can take shape, a concept typically called a “bike boulevard” in many cities.

- Louisville is currently implementing such a system, what the city’s bike department, Bike Louisville, is calling “Neighborways.” The city hopes these new bike boulevards will encourage and enable bicyclists and pedestrians to take advantage of alternate-route options for moving safely around the city—and eventually lead to an uptick in biking overall. --- Rolf Eisinger, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator at Bike Louisville, told Broken Sidewalk that the idea for Neighborways came as a response to many citizens expressing concerns about motor vehicles dangerously speeding through their neighborhoods creating dangerous conditions.

- The Neighborways idea is to slow down traffic on neighborhood streets, creating a safer and quieter environment for all users of the neighborhood: kids who are playing in the front yard, residents who want to walk down to a nearby park, or cyclists moving through the city. According to the Bike Louisville website, “Louisville’s Neighborways will be optimized with streetscape design features such as street trees, green infrastructure, and other forms of design to reinforce slower speeds and a positive rider experience.”

- Bike Louisville is finishing the first phase of its Neighborways plan, which consists of painting “sharrow” markings on many neighborhood streets to guide cyclists to use those streets and remind motorists to share the road with cyclists. And already, sharrows are starting to show up all around town. When complete, there will be 100 miles of Neighborways marked with sharrows throughout the city.

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Consider a map of Louisville with the major streets and expressways highlighted. It looks a lot like a bicycle wheel: the Watterson and Snyder expressways form concentric circles around the city, and arterial roads







One of Louisville’s Neighborways routes, noted in red, connects the University of Louisville to the Highlands. (Courtesy Bike Louisville, Montage by Broken Sidewalk)







NACTO signage guidelines. (Courtesy NACTO)

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NACTO’s guide to traffic calming infrastructure. (Courtesy NACTO)

[M II A II R II K]

This Water Bottle for Bikes Generates H2O From the Air

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/11/...he-air/382653/

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Retezár's "Fontus" system, which is competing for a James Dyson Award, is a sleek, two-piece contraption that attaches to a bike's frame. When a cycle is in motion, air is funneled into the top holster and distributed over a "condensing structure." A solar-powered cooling element then turns it into moisture that drips down a pipe into a detachable water bottle.

- Under hot and humid conditions, "Fontus" can allegedly produce about 17 ounces of agua, just about enough to sustain a sweaty cyclist. But Retezár sees broader uses for his machine, wanting to put it to use in regions where fresh water is scarce. Those places are shown inside the circles on this map, which also shows in darker red where meteorological conditions make the device most efficient:

- Fontus can be applied in two different areas. Firstly, it may be interpreted as a sporty bicycle accessory. Useful on long bike tours, the constant search for freshwater sources such as rivers and gas stations can cease to be an issue since the bottle automatically fills itself up. Secondly, it might be a clever way of acquiring freshwater in regions of the world where groundwater is scarce but humidity is high. Experiments suggest that the bottle could harvest around 0.5 L water in one hour's time in regions with high temperature and humidity values.

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[M II A II R II K]

Do bike lanes gentrify neighborhoods?

Read More: http://urbanful.org/2014/11/17/do-bi...neighborhoods/

Bike lanes are meant to create a safe division between vehicular traffic and cycling traffic. But in many U.S. cities bike lanes may as well be a sign of socio-economic divisions: in some communities, they’re seen simply as a pathway for gentrification.

- There are a lot of white and wealthy people cycling these days. But they aren’t the only ones. In fact, the 2008-2012 American Community Survey found those U.S. respondents who identified as two or more races or “some other race,” along with Hispanic workers, had the highest rates of bicycle commuting at 0.8 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively. Black workers had the lowest rate of bike commuting at 0.3 percent.

- Across educational levels biking also varies: While the most highly-educated workers reported the highest rate of bicycle commuting at 0.9 percent, the next highest rate of bike commuting, 0.7 percent, was among the least educated workers. But here’s the thing: these numbers are for the entire country, not specific to urban areas where much of the debate over cycling and gentrification are taking place.

- Attracting this Creative Class is at the core of many economic development policies in U.S. cities. Conflicts arise when the policies and priorities aimed at this new demographic are applied to neighborhoods they don’t call home.

- Biking and bike lanes do not cause gentrification; blocking a bike lane will not change economic policies already underway in cities across the country. Yet many long-time and lower-income residents rightfully worry about policies aimed at luring new, younger or more affluent residents, which often overlook the impact those newcomers have on existing residents.

- “Bike lanes are not driving the wave of gentrification,” Martha Roskowski, Director of the Green Lane Project, said at The Equity Summit. “It’s a much broader economic and social trend. But much of the process of change is behind the scenes, as properties are bought and sold and new businesses open and new people move into an area. Then, when there’s a public meeting about bike lanes, people feel they finally have a chance to say something about the many changes in their neighborhood.”

- Gentrification comes from so many complex policy decisions and local economic factors that cannot be simply heaped upon bike lanes. But the real perception that bike lanes bring in a new group of people, or are meant to serve more recently-arrived residents, very much exists.

- The challenge for cities is to remove that perception. How? De-couple the association of bike lanes with wealthy newcomers. Bike lanes are a benefit for all residents regardless of status: They reduce congestion, create a safer road environment, incentive healthy behavior and create access to jobs and economic centers.

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