Urban Cycling Developments

[KevinFromTexas]

2% is pathetic, but it's still the highest percentage in Texas.

This list below lists College Station has having 2.1% of its commuters commuting by bicycle, which at number 49, is the only Texas city on the top 50 list. College Station is an anomaly, though, because of Texas A&M University being there. A large percentage of College Station's population is made up of college students, most of which commute by either walking or biking. It's similar to UT in Austin, except it's exaggerated because of College Station's smaller native population compared to the student population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ycle_commuters

List of U.S. cities with most bicycle commuters

The following is a list of United States cities of 65,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of bicycle commuting, according to data from the 2011 American Community Survey. The Census Bureau measured the percentage of commuters who bike to work, as opposed to walking, taking public transit, driving an automobile, boat, or some other means. College towns and cities often rank high on this list, as students and faculty of universities often live very close to their place of employment if on-campus or close to campus.

1. Davis, California 16.6%
2. Palo Alto, California 10.1%
3. Boulder, Colorado 9.6%
4. Berkeley, California 8.9%
5. Eugene, Oregon 7.3%
6. Fort Collins, Colorado 6.6%
7. Santa Barbara, California 6.6%
8. Chico, California 6.4%
9. Flagstaff, Arizona 6.3%
10. Miami Beach, Florida 6.3%
11. Portland, Oregon 6.3%
12. Mountain View, California 6.2%
13. Gainesville, Florida 6.2%
14. Missoula, Montana 5.7%
15. Cambridge, Massachusetts 5.7%
16. Bloomington, Indiana 5.2%
17. Ann Arbor, Michigan 4.9%
18. Madison, Wisconsin 4.7%
19. Tempe, Arizona 4.2%
20. Iowa City, Iowa 4.1%
21. Bellingham, Washington 4.0%
22. Somerville, Massachusetts 4.0%
23. Provo, Utah 3.8%
24. Santa Fe, New Mexico 3.6%
25. Seattle, Washington 3.5%
26. San Francisco, California 3.4%
27. Minneapolis, Minnesota 3.4%
28. Muncie, Indiana 3.2%
29. Washington, District of Columbia 3.2%
30. Oakland, California 3.1%
31. Athens-Clarke County, Georgia 2.9%
32. Champaign, Illinois 2.9%
33. Costa Mesa, California 2.8%
34. San Mateo, California 2.8%
35. Greeley, Colorado 2.8%
36. Tustin, California 2.8%
37. Tucson, Arizona 2.8%
38. Santa Monica, California 2.8%
39. New Haven, Connecticut 2.7%
40. Evanston, Illinois 2.5%
41. Passaic, New Jersey 2.5%
42. Burbank, California 2.5%
43. Denver, Colorado 2.4%
44. Boise City, Idaho 2.4%
45. New Orleans, Louisiana 2.3%
46. Salt Lake City, Utah 2.3%
47. Newton, Massachusetts 2.2%
48. Sacramento, California 2.2%
49. College Station, Texas 2.1%
50. Pompano Beach, Florida 2.1%

[JiminyCricket II]

^Of course, 9 of the top 10 are primarily college towns, and several of the others are too.

[fflint]

http://www.gjel.com/blog/rei-lists-s...=Google+Reader

[Kingofthehill]

Very informative links, fflint. Impressive that Portland's numbers are higher than SF's. What % of Portland commutes to work via bicycle?

[audiomuse]

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

Very informative links, fflint. Impressive that Portland's numbers are higher than SF's. What % of Portland commutes to work via bicycle?

Yep Portland is the bicycle capital of the USA! The 2011 American Community Survey said that 6.3% of Portlanders commuted by bicycle in 2011. I've read in other places that a more accurate number is around 7-8%. This seems like a small percentage but it's extremely high by U.S. standards (average for the country is 0.5%). Also, keep in mind that this is the percentage of the whole city of Portland. Neighborhoods closer to downtown are in a much higher mode share range.

Bicycle use to commute as well as get around is exploding in the U.S. I'm relatively new to bicycle use. I started bicycling a year ago and within the past few months I have gained the confidence to bike all around Austin. I'm never alone when biking... I always see plenty of people on bicycles around and the numbers are growing fast. It's such a sight to see. It's truly a no-brainer form of transportation.

I would love to see our cities filled with bicycles like in Amsterdam and Copenhagen

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Riise

Even in megacities where most drivers do not even know the rules of the road (i.e. they don't have licenses) there is an understanding between road users with do's and don'ts. For instance, in Vietnam pedestrians are expected to walk across the streets and drivers will navigate around them. With cycling becoming more and more popular, even in cities where it was already popular, old point of views, especially those of drivers, are being challenged. I find it hard to believe Chicago is some sort of exception.

As mostly a pedestrian in Chicago, but sometimes driver and sometimes cyclist, I think the point is that the motivation for drivers who rage against cyclist isn't so much "moral order" as either a) anything that slows a driver down is going to be the subject of his/her rage or b) a cyclist that ignores actual laws that would get a driver ticketed will cause jealous rage, not out of some sense of "moral order" but out of some sense of fairness. Of the two causes, I think the "f*** you for slowing me down" motivation is, by a wide margin, the biggest in Chicago.

And while I've never set foot in the U.K., I suspect that's the actual reality in London, too. Phrases like "moral order" might sound nicer, but the root of that is really defending one's sense of privilege and right to a certain speed, not some lofty abstract morality, not in 2013.

[audiomuse]

Great analysis Emathias, I agree.

I think it lends to the notion that drivers feel ownership over the roads. They feel as though the roads were made solely for the automobile which stems from our car obsessed culture.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by emathias

As mostly a pedestrian in Chicago, but sometimes driver and sometimes cyclist, I think the point is that the motivation for drivers who rage against cyclist isn't so much "moral order" as either a) anything that slows a driver down is going to be the subject of his/her rage or b) a cyclist that ignores actual laws that would get a driver ticketed will cause jealous rage, not out of some sense of "moral order" but out of some sense of fairness. Of the two causes, I think the "f*** you for slowing me down" motivation is, by a wide margin, the biggest in Chicago.

And while I've never set foot in the U.K., I suspect that's the actual reality in London, too. Phrases like "moral order" might sound nicer, but the root of that is really defending one's sense of privilege and right to a certain speed, not some lofty abstract morality, not in 2013.

I think this 'battle of the modes' game is a bit overdone. In the past five years, I have never had more than a dozen drivers who have been rude to me as a cyclist in that entire time. Perhaps clueless but very rarely rude. This isn't to say more bike lanes and other bike infrastructure isn't needed but lat least here in Washington, I have very rarely encountered drivers who are rude.

I also think that the same improvements that would improve drivers interaction with cyclists would make them safer for their fellow drivers as well. If drivers just put down their cell phones, used their turn signals, and cut out the illegal u-turns, I would have very few complaints about drivers.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

In the past five years, I have never had more than a dozen drivers who have been rude to me as a cyclist in that entire time.

Yeah, you'd encounter at least a dozen rude drivers on a single 10-mile bike ride in San Francisco. Guaranteed. I've noticed the difference in every other state in which I have ridden a bike--Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii. California is the worst.

[skyfan]

Bicycling popularity surges in Metro Detroit




Metro Detroit's bicycle culture is shifting into high gear.

While places like Hines Drive, Stony Creek Metropark and Belle Isle have drawn cyclists for years, a wave of new businesses and bike-friendly initiatives are helping make the Motor City more mobile than ever.

New bicycle retailers have moved into the region. Repair shops, such as The Hub of Detroit, have popped up near well-traveled paths.

Wayne State University is exploring a citywide bike-sharing program, and Detroit plans to add 100 miles of bike routes this year. There's even talk of adding bike lanes to the entire 27-mile length of Woodward Avenue from Detroit to Pontiac.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...6#ixzz2T8VFBFu

[Cirrus]

Fort Collins becomes 4th platinum level bike-friendly community

Originally Posted by bikeleague.org

Kicking off National Bike to Work Week, the League has announced its latest round of Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFC), including a new Platinum-level community. Fort Collins, Colo., moved from Gold to Platinum this round, joining the ranks of Portland, Ore.; Boulder, Colo.; and Davis, Calif., as the country’s very best for bicycling.

[zilfondel]

Hilarious short video documenting how humans despise any change in their physical environment. Includes lots of gratuitous shots of long, stylish bike racks arrayed along the curbs of NYC streets.

Bike Sharing? Sure. The Racks? No Way.

Bike share was easy for New York City to love in the abstract. It was not about adding bike lanes at the expense of something else; it was about sharing something that did not yet exist.

But with the program two weeks away, many New Yorkers have turned against bike share, and for one simple reason: They did not expect it to look like this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/ny...ram-nears.html

[SHiRO]

[M II A II R II K]

Bloomberg’s Banana Republic

Read More: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenf...nana-republic/

Spring is in the air, which in New York means that it’s time to launch the bike-share program. The bike-share program, which stacks racks of bikes out in the street in the hope that everyone will stop driving cars and rent bikes instead, failed in Paris, Melbourne and Montreal. But Mr. Bloomberg is not about to stop his wars on obesity and global warming long enough to let the failure of a senseless program everywhere else slow down his bid to implement it. In Paris, 80 percent of the bicycles were stolen. Some ended up in Africa and Eastern Europe. But surely that won’t happen in a law-abiding place like Gotham.

- Bicycles are one of the obsessions of Mayor Bloomberg and his transportation secretary Janette Sadik-Khan. Khan is the granddaughter of Imam Alimjan Idris, a Nazi collaborator and principle teacher at an SS school for Imams under Hitler’s Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The bio of his son, Wall Street executive Orhan Sadik-Khan, frequently mentions the bombing of the family home in Dresden and surviving trying times after World War II. It neglects to mention that the times were only trying because their side was losing.

- In 1933, Idris wrote a letter asking why Allah would have chosen the Jews, whom he described as, “the most despicable, repulsive and corrupting nation on earth.” It’s hard to say what Imam Idris would have made of his granddaughter marrying a Jewish law professor and peddling bikes that no one wants from a nearly bankrupt Montreal government company. But considering that Imam Idris was at times accused of being a Soviet agent and did some work for Imperial Japan, it seems likely that he would have understood.

- In partial revenge, Khan has made many New York streets nearly as impassable as those of her grandfather’s wartime Dresden. Bike lanes have turned two lane streets into one lane streets. Infidels sit in their cars and honk while bike lanes go unused and midtown bus lanes sit empty except for the occasional daring taxi driver braving the bus lane camera and the 150 dollar fine.

- Of such strange alliances is the technocratic banana republic on the Hudson woven. A Muslim Nazi collaborator’s granddaughter oversees the de-car-ing of a city after a plan based around a plan from the tenure of a modern collaborator with Muslim Nazis falls through. Imam Idris might have called it the providence of Allah. But more likely he would have found a way to get his piece of the pie.

.....

[initiald]

Raleigh recently installed North Carolina's first real bike corral.


Source

Also, a growing trend here is bike racks other than the boring loop kind. There are new ones in Raleigh:








Source

And of course some new pics of the 28 mile Neuse River Greenway. Construction is under way on two different segments that will connect it to downtown.





Ten foot wide paved trails that will run the entire length of the county, around the 440 beltway, and into downtown. The two segments connecting Neuse to Crabtree Creek and Walnut Creek will be compete by early 2014:


Source

[Cirrus]

Love that bridge.

[fflint]

This is contemptibly stupid, agenda-addled tripe. Why in the fuck would you think this bile is worthy of a reality-based discussion forum? Mark, what is wrong with you?

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Bloomberg’s Banana Republic

Read More: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenf...nana-republic/

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

I'm hoping he meant it as a joke?

[M II A II R II K]

Toronto’s first dedicated bike lanes on Sherbourne start of bigger network

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013...r_network.html

Cyclists use the new Sherbourne St. dedicated bike lanes Sunday afternoon near Gerrard St. E. The lanes officially open Monday and will be the first in a series of dedicated bike lanes for a network in the downtown core.

- However, as part of $4.1 million upgrades along the street, the $2.5 million bike lanes will provide a necessary dedicated north-south route for the growing number of cyclists in the downtown area. “We use them all the time,” said Meldon Lobo, 27. “Sherbourne is in much better condition than it used to be before.”

- Curbs and a painted buffer strip will be employed to separate bikes from cars. Street parking will be lost, but delivery zones will be provided. Lobo said the city should have educated drivers and cyclists better on how the lanes work. Living on Sherbourne, just north of Gerrard St., Lobo said he hears squealing tires all the time from drivers not aware of the new lanes and the four-inch curbstones that separate them from the roadway on the northern stretch of the lanes.

- The Sherbourne lanes are the east route in what Minnan-Wong said will be a square network of dedicated lanes in the downtown core. Designs for Wellesley St. have been completed and he said construction will begin later this year. Richmond St. and Adelaide St. bike lanes, entering an environmental assessment in the future, will be constructed next year. The west side route to complete the square network, he said, has been the biggest challenge.

.....

[emathias]

While New York is getting all the press lately, Chicago is also rolling out its new bike-sharing system this month.

It's branded as "Divvy" and aims to have 4,000 bikes and 400 stations across the city this summer, 2013.

Their official launch date is June 14th, but as far as I can tell they're doing a piss-poor job of actually getting anything done. Their installation of racks is behind schedule (even behind their most recent schedule - and their original schedule had them opening last year, which they obviously didn't manage to accomplish).

My alderman sent out a list today of locations he'd been told were "installed" in the ward I live in - it was about 10 locations. I checked three of them on my way to work and none had been installed yet. It's quite annoying to see their performance on this to be so mediocre. Maybe once it's installed it will run great, but their execution on getting things started is so poor that I'm pretty worried.