Urban Cycling Developments

[M II A II R II K]

L.A. does have a bicycle highway network planned throughout the city.

[M II A II R II K]

Hunter Planners: Expand the Bike Program, Beat the Bikelash


May 16, 2011

By Noah Kazis

Read More: http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/05/1...-the-bikelash/

Beyond The Backlash PDF: http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-conten...cklash2011.pdf

DOT needs to accelerate the build-out of the city’s bike network in working-class neighborhoods outside the center city, say graduate students in the Hunter College urban planning department. They argue that expanding the geographic focus of the bike program would not only improve access to safe cycling for underserved neighborhoods, it might just help overcome the current backlash as well. Unless the city devises a successful strategy to build bikeways in neighborhoods where bike infrastructure is scarce, the Hunter team writes in “Beyond the Backlash”, many parts of the city may get left behind for years to come. “A lot of the city isn’t served as well by the bicycle network as the central business district and Downtown Brooklyn,” said group member Jennifer Harris-Hernandez in a presentation at NYU on May 6. “This has reinforced transportation inequalities around race and class.”

The Hunter team notes that the pattern of building the best cycling infrastructure near the city core may inadvertently give ammunition to opponents of bike infrastructure by overlooking the full breadth of New Yorkers. “Counting [working-class, outer borough] cyclists and planning with them in mind will create a more equitable and relevant network while countering recent claims that bicycling in New York City is for the privileged,” they write. To that end, the Hunter team proposes a geographic shift in focus for the DOT’s bike program, paired with more intensive public outreach at the local level. At a moment when the city’s tabloid press is launching weekly attacks on bike projects and local politicians seem to think they’re doing constituents a favor by blocking plans for bike lanes, the Hunter team’s report offers a thoughtful and constructive critique intended to strengthen the city’s bike program.

The accelerated expansion of the bike network has built new bikeways in every borough and brought safer conditions to some low-income neighborhoods, but overall the city’s bicycle planning has concentrated the most and best bike infrastructure in close-in, affluent neighborhoods. The bike network is at its densest and most interconnected in downtown Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn, and the overwhelming majority of the new protected lanes are located in high-income neighborhoods. While bike lanes serve many people who ride from outside the immediate vicinity, neighborhoods like Chelsea, the Upper West Side, and Park Slope are so far the primary beneficiaries of protected lanes and the robust pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements they produce. There are good reasons for the bike network to be expanded this way. The roll-out of new bike lanes has tended to follow the path of least political resistance, at least in the short run. The Hunter team notes that the neighborhoods that have received the most bike infrastructure are the same ones that already had bike-friendly community boards or strong local advocates.

.....

A high number of schools in Queens, outer Brooklyn, and Staten Island are inaccessible from existing bike lanes. A Hunter College
team recommends linking bike network expansions to a more robust Safe Routes to School program.






Cyclists in Flushing, Corona, and Elmhurst filled out surveys describing their daily routes. Roosevelt Avenue is widely used to get
from one neighborhood to another.

[M II A II R II K]

Portland Mayor Sam Adams boosts funding for bike projects, but now there's less for paving streets


May 16, 2011

By Joseph Rose



Read More: http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting...ams_boost.html

On a recent Saturday night, Portland Mayor Sam Adams took the stage at the "Oscars of the bike community" and boasted about what he had done for bicycles.

Every year, the city gets millions of dollars from gas taxes and parking revenue to spend as it sees fit on transportation construction. The portion going to bike projects, the mayor told the crowd at the Bicycle Transportation Alliance's Alice Awards, would jump from 4 to 17 percent in the next city budget. "Seventeen!" Adams said, repeating the percentage as the applause grew.

Rob Sadowsky, the BTA's executive director, was among those who thought the figure sounded too good to be true. "That's the first I'd heard of it," he said.

For bicycle advocates such as Sadowsky, it's better than true. Adams actually undersold things. Also, his timing was off. In fact, Portland quietly boosted the amount of uncommitted transportation funding it spends on bike projects from just 1 percent to 17 percent – or $2.8 million – in the budget adopted last June. Meanwhile, it slashed the amount allocated to motor vehicle projects by 22 percent.

.....

[M II A II R II K]

The EU Meets to Discuss How to Promote Cargo Cycling


May 17, 2011

By Tim Quijano

Read More: http://thecityfix.com/the-eu-meets-t...cargo-cycling/

This week, from May 16-20, representatives from NGOs, the government, private sector business and industry analysis firms will convene in Copenhagen, Denmark to share various opportunities for advancing the shift of goods and services transportation to non-motorized modes in European cities. The upcoming meeting will determine the routes that the CYCLE Logistics project will take in forwarding its ultimate 2014 goal of saving 1,300 tons (465,000 gallons) of fuel, putting 2,000 more cargo cycles into use in European Union (EU) cities, and shift 10,000 trips to intermodal transport chains (bicycles and tricycles used with other modes of transportation).

- First, the use of cargo cycling creates a marketable modern, green image of businesses for customers. Second, using cargo cycles to deliver goods without delay, particularly with adequate cycle infrastructure and traffic in motorized vehicle lanes, reduces logistical cost. Third, a cargo tricycle stand can reach locations shops cannot, for low-cost advertising and vending. Fourth, the use of cargo cycles in place of motorized transportation does not contribute to the environmental problems of air quality degradation and carbon emissions.

- The CYCLE Logistics project aims to increase the concentration of non-motorized service-oriented cargo cycling in the densest of European cities, as well as to spread this type of cargo transportation to smaller European towns. The project is a new EU-funded initiative working to reduce urban transportation energy use by shifting the transportation of goods and services from motorized vehicles to human-powered bicycles and tricycles.

- The project strives to promote behavioral change—pushing Europeans to transport goods and services with cargo cycles—among all individuals, organizations, businesses and levels of government. More specifically, individuals are encouraged to choose businesses that utilize cargo cycle delivery and use cargo cycles to transport their own goods and loved ones. Businesses are encouraged to offer more goods and services by cargo cycle, for instance, using cycles for take-out food and package delivery, or as cargo cycle snack vendors. The project also urges businesses offering services in the specialized trades, including workers like housing maintenance repairman and plumbers—to transport themselves and their tools on cargo cycles.

.....

An Amsterdam family takes the cargo bicycle instead of the minivan. Photo by Marc van Woudenberg.






A vendor in China sells produce from tricycles. Photo by Tim Quijano.






A man in Beijing taking garbage to a collection center. Photo by Yang Liping.






Garbage collecting by cargo cycle in China. Photo by Tim Quijano.

[miketoronto]

Toronto City Council is going to be taking off bike lanes on a downtown street that got bike lanes last year. The mayor can't wait to return the Jarvis Street bike lanes back to cars.
So that is the developments here . One of the councillors said that bikes have no place on streets. They should be in the ravine trails and side streets.

[M II A II R II K]

Park Or Ride: A Bike Lane Divides Brooklyn


http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136498...vides-brooklyn

.....

"The bike lane on Prospect Park West is introducing a lot of new people to the idea that it's possible to use a bike in New York City for transportation to run an errand," he says. "This is what 21st century New York City looks like." Prospect Park West looks like a grand 19th century boulevard — Brooklyn's answer to Central Park West. But where it used to have three lanes of car traffic, now it has two — plus a protected bike lane.

- Backers say that makes the road safer for everyone, including pedestrians, by slowing down cars and taking bikes off the sidewalk. But some longtime residents disagree. Lois Carswell, president of a group called Seniors for Safety, says the two-way bike lane is dangerous to older residents, who are used to one-way traffic. "We wanted a lane — the right kind of lane — that would keep everybody safe, that would keep the bikers safe," she says. "But we want it to be done the right way. And it has not been done the right way."

- Carswell has joined other prominent residents of Prospect Park West — including the wife of Sen. Charles Schumer — in suing the city over the bike lanes. They may be the most powerful opponents the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg has faced in its effort to add bike lanes. But they're not the only ones. Craig Palmer builds bars and restaurants in Manhattan. During an interview for a different story, he brought up the bike lanes all on his own. "I think the biggest problem is that Bloomberg put all these bike lanes in," he said. "You took what used to be a full street, and you're shrinking it."

.....

[fflint]

Brooklyn's not divided--the bike lane is actually popular with normal people. It's just the richest and most powerful who don't like it, because they want to continue to use that lane for illegally idling their hubris-powered limousines.

[fflint]

Muni to allow folding bikes on buses, streetcars

Rachel Gordon
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, May 26, 2011

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1NW4CPbOy


Muni, the Bay Area's busiest transit system, has reversed its long-standing policy that barred passengers from bringing bicycles aboard the buses and streetcars. But there's a catch: Only folding bikes will be allowed.

The policy shift, while not everything for which bike advocates have lobbied, is nonetheless welcome, they say.

"It's going to benefit a lot of people," said Bert Hill, chairman of the San Francisco Bicycle Advisory Committee.

One of those people will be Hill himself. The 63-year-old plans to take his folding bike on the Muni Metro rail system between the Castro Street and West Portal stations to avoid having to pedal up the approximately 650-foot incline over Twin Peaks on his frequent rides between downtown and his home in the Miraloma Park neighborhood on the city's west side.

Muni issued a bulletin to its operators Monday informing them of the change and outlining the new rules: Bicycles must be folded and kept with their owners. Also, they cannot be placed on a seat, block a seat, interfere with passenger movement, or get in the way of wheelchairs.

Muni buses already are equipped with exterior front racks that can hold two bikes, but until now the two-wheelers weren't allowed inside the vehicles. They still are banned on San Francisco's historic fleet of cable cars.

The new policy is another element of the city's transit-first policy, which aims to get people out of their cars to cut down on air pollution and traffic congestion. "It's important to provide cyclists with easy and efficient access to our transit system," said Paul Rose, spokesman for the Municipal Transportation Agency.
....

[SFUVancouver]

6th Avenue's brief two block-long cycle track, approaching Cambie Street.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

Another shot of the Dunsmuir cycle track.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

The intersection of the Dunsmuir and Hornby cycle tracks.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.


Some shots of the Cypress bike route, which is an important north-south corridor through Kitsilano. There is quite extensive traffic calming along this route since it is hilly, thus amplifying the risk at intersections if vehicles were to pick up speed and exercise undue care. In this photo the road has been closed off in one direction to motor vehicles with concrete curbing but is still permeable to bicycles.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

Roundabouts are lushly landscaped while still ably serving as traffic calming devices.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

This type of traffic calming has one direction of travel yield to oncoming traffic before continuing, however a bicycle shortcut is provided (if not always used) to allow cyclists an unimpeded route through.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

Cypress crossing Broadway with through traffic blocked except to bicycles.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.


Some photos of the intersections of the perennially busy 10th Avenue bike route. This is the intersection of 10th and Arbutus.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

10th Avenue at Burrard

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

10th Avenue at Oak Street.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

10th Avenue at Ontario

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

10th Avenue at Main Street.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

Carrall Street Greenway as seen from the Dunsmuir Viaduct cycle track. This route was the city's first attempt at a cycle track and it was very expensive, though very well executed. The route itself isn't especially well used yet since there is no bicycle route at the far end in Gastown and it also still travels through a dodgy part of the downtown east side; Vancouver's skid row. However it's complete, first rate, and ready for the neighbourhood to change and the long-desired connection between Gastown and the northern Seawall to be built.

Taken by SFUVancouver, May 18th 2011.

[M II A II R II K]

Bicycles as a Source of Income in Africa


http://thecityfix.com/blog/bicycles-...ome-in-africa/

Bicycles are quickly becoming a primary mode of transportation in rural Africa. More and more people are relying on bicycles to access sources of income, social services and clean water; and, local non-profit organizations are working to make bicycles affordable and accessible.

“Politicians may tell us that bicycles are a sign that we are not advancing,” says Patrick Kayemba, the managing director of the First African Bicycle Information Organization (FABIO), at the international cycling planning conference in Seville, Spain in March 2011. “We ourselves have seen that cycling is a socio-economic tool. It works now—we don’t have to wait for someone to rescue us with better public transport,” Kayemba adds.

For people who cycle as a means of transport in Africa, cycling is not a step backward but a step forward, IPS reports. “Gil Penalosa, an international liveable cities consultant, points out, Copenhagen and Amsterdam are among the wealthiest cities in the world, and they have the highest urban cycling rates. In these cities, bicycle transport has neither ‘loser’ nor ‘elite’ status; it’s simply the cheapest and most convenient way in which to get around.”

.....

Video Link

[M II A II R II K]

City To Set Up First Protected Bike Lane Downtown


June 6, 2011

By Chuck Sudo



Read More: http://chicagoist.com/2011/06/06/cit...ected_bike.php

In good news for cyclists commuting into and out of downtown, a half-mile stretch of Kinzie Street between Milwaukee Avenue and Wells Street will be used to test out the city's first protected bike lanes.

42nd Ward Ald. Brendan Reilly announced the pilot program in his newsletter Friday. The lane, called a cycle track, places all motorized traffic to the left of the cyclist, with the lane protected either via a construction barrier (like these lanes in New York), a raised median or other divider; the Kinzie pilot program will use flexible posts.

The program is being funded by a $3.2 million federal grant awarded to the Chicago Department of Transportation, who were originally going to test the program on a stretch of South Stony Island Avenue where bicycle traffic is infrequent before switching to Kinzie.

Bicycle transportation advocate Steven Vance is cautiously optimistic about the location. Others think it's a bad idea to place the cycle track in an area they feel won't attract new cyclists and, given some of the inclines along the route, may lead to a logjam of cyclists at points.

.....

Flushing Ave. in Brooklyn, NY.

[M II A II R II K]

Before Bike-Share Effort Starts, Concerns Are Raised About How It Will Work


June 3, 2011

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/ny...ions.html?_r=1

The Bloomberg administration is only months away from rolling out an ambitious bike-share program intended eventually to rival ones in London, Paris and Washington, yet the proposal has already been plagued by questions of its viability. Community board members have raised concerns about whether bike-share kiosks and racks would encroach on precious sidewalk areas, or swallow parking spaces. Some of the more seasoned bike-share companies did not bid on the project. And the equipment provider for Alta Bicycle Share, one of the two finalists vying to run the operation, has run into financial problems in Montreal.

- All things considered, it has been somewhat of a bumpy start for a program that could help shape Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s legacy of leaving a more environmentally friendly city. When the city issued its request for proposals last November, it called for “financially self-sustaining, 24-hour transportation that complements existing transit and transportation options.” The city called for a 30-station test program to start later this summer and for the official program, featuring 10,000 bicycles at 600 stations, to start on April 1, 2012. The city emphasized that not only would it not finance any part of the program, but it also expected the winning bidder to share its profits.

- Sean Sweeney, who runs the SoHo Alliance and is chairman of the landmarks committee for Community Board 2, said he liked the idea of a bike-share program. But he fears that the Transportation Department will just add the kiosks to the packed streets of SoHo with little feedback from the community. “We want our sidewalks back; the sidewalks in SoHo are not for sale,” Mr. Sweeney said. “Our sidewalks are precious to us because they are so narrow.”

- But while other cities have given advertising companies unlimited opportunities to use the bike-share program, New York specified there could be only one advertising sponsor per bicycle and on each station computer unit. Mr. Sosin said that when Worksman approached Cemusa, J. C. Decaux and Clear Channel to possibly team up with them on a proposal, they all declined and did not bid. Risa B. Heller, a spokeswoman for Cemusa, said the company passed it up because “right now we are focused on our street furniture contract in New York City.”

- In March, the city narrowed its field from six bidders to two: Alta and B-Cycle, which is affiliated with the manufacturer Trek, and has done programs in Chicago and Denver. Trek did not respond to requests for an interview. Roger Plamondon, the board chairman of Public Bike System, said his company had the financial resources to come to New York, despite its issues in Montreal. In 2009, Bixi’s first year, the program lost $5.5 million; last year, it lost $7 million, Mr. Plamondon said. The City of Montreal lent $37 million to Public Bike System to be repaid over 12 years and guaranteed a $71 million private loan to help finance the expansion of its programs.

.....

In Montreal, a kiosk operated by Bixi, the city's bike-share program.

[s.p.hansen]

By summer 2010, the expansion of bike lanes in NYC exposed a clash of long-standing bad habits — such as pedestrians jaywalking, cyclists running red lights, and motorists plowing through crosswalks.

By focusing on one intersection as a case study, my video aims to show our interconnection and shared role in improving the safety and usability of our streets.

By ronconcocacola
http://vimeo.com/24572222

Video Link

[Cirrus]

I moved the posts about the High Line to a new thread in City Discussions.

[Cirrus]

Damn you, Mayor Grey. I miss Gabe.

Originally Posted by Streetsblog

Chicago's New Mayor Wasting No Time
http://streetsblog.net/2011/06/08/lo...comes-chicago/

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is wasting no time making good on his campaign promise to make Chicago a world-class cycling city. Just 24 days after his swearing-in ceremony, Chicago has its first bike box.

The new mayor and his department of transportation head, Gabe Klein, formerly of DC, held a press conference Tuesday at the site of the Windy City’s first separated bike lane: Kinzie Street. There they announced plans to build 100 miles of separated lanes during Emanuel’s first term.

Emanuel had originally promised to install two separated bike lanes by the end of his first 100 days in office, but he appears to be on pace to meet that goal and then some.

[SFUVancouver]

We gathered at Second Beach in Stanley Park and then rode the Seawall to the Carrall Street Greenway cycle track and took that into Gastown.

Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.


Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.


Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.


Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.

We stumbled upon someone who had just wrapped up participating in the Velopalooza 2011 Cargo Ride and was inducted as an honourary member of the Tweed Ride.

Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.

In Gastown we happened upon celebrations for the 125th anniversary of the Great Fire of 1886 which in a few hours destroyed more than 90% of the Granville Townsite, predecessor to modern Vancouver. Today is also the 125th anniversary of the Vancouver Fire Service, which was hastily founded while the conflagration was raging so that it could be put out. The streets were closed and every model of fire engine the city has owned were lined up, including this working steam powered fire engine which was generating the water pressure to shoot the stream of water in the background. Very neat and appropriate, too, for our tweed ride.

Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.


Taken by SFUVancouver, June 12th 2011.

Group photo in front of the Steam Clock taken and Photoshopped by the ride organizer.

Taken by Clark Nikolai, June 12th 2011.

Good times were had by all.

[M II A II R II K]

From London to D.C., Bike-Sharing Is Safer Than Riding Your Own Bike


June 16, 2011

By Noah Kazis



Read More: http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/06/1...your-own-bike/

People riding shared public bicycles appear to be involved in fewer traffic crashes and receive fewer injuries than people riding their personal bicycles. In cities from Paris and London to Washington, D.C. and Mexico City, something about riding a shared bicycle appears to make cycling safer. Paris’s Vélib’ is perhaps the most iconic bike-sharing system in the world. Launched in 2007 with 20,000 bikes, its widespread popularity not only transformed how Parisians traveled across their city but set off an explosion of new bike-sharing systems worldwide. With a few years of practice at this point, the Parisian experience is particularly telling.

“The accident rate is lower on a Vélib’ than on ‘normal’ bikes,” a spokesperson for the office of Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë told Streetsblog. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, Vélib’ riders were responsible for one-third of all bike trips in Paris but were involved in only one-fourth of all traffic crashes involving a bicycle. The numbers are if anything more striking in London, where the Barclays Cycle Hire system — or “Boris Bikes,” to borrow the phrase locals have adopted in honor of their mayor, Boris Johnson — opened at the end of last July.

Though the London government didn’t track the relevant safety stats of bike-share users compared to other cyclists, they provided us with the data to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations. So far, after 4.5 million trips, no bike-sharing user in London has been seriously injured or killed in a traffic crash, according to Transport for London.

.....

[vid]

Tune ‘Em Up with Kindness
Architizer Blog News | June 16, 2011
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog...with-kindness/



Go ahead and file this under “things that may work in Europe and are unlikely to succeed in big, bad US metropolises,” but, this story on correcting illegal bicycle parking in Copenhagen is making us dizzy with swoon.

The so-called “charm offensive” started last year with the goal of making citizens use the bike racks around Copenhagen’s Metro stations instead of locking them up any old piece of vertical infrastructure. So here’s what happens if you park your bike illegally: City workers will move it over to the bike racks. “Instead of finger-wagging, they will then oil your chain, pump your tires and leave a little note on your bicycle asking to kindly use the bike racks in the future.”

Read more.

[mhays]

That reminds me of a Bill Bryson history note about the Luxembourgers(?) sending an army to fight in WWI I think. Not only did they not lose anyone during the war, but their army grew by one person, because they made a friend on the way.

Very cool for Copenhagen. I wonder if it's not too much incentive to park at the wrong spot. Of course in the US, there's probably some asinine liability interpretation against touching anyone's stuff other than as necessary to move it. But gotta love those Europeans.

[awholeparade]

wow, do that many people really not lock up their bikes?