Urban Cycling Developments

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

europeans live way more compactly, hence why so many more of them ride bikes, and have the luxury to do so slowly.

True, but not the whole story. Southern Europeans live even more compactely but there's more biking in Northern Europe (even with the worse climate).

[FREKI]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

15 miles is a pretty common distance to live from work in an american city.

In bike happy Denmark the average distance to work is 24,4km

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

europeans live way more compactly

Copenhagen is technically more sprawly than LA ( lover pop density )

Los Angeles Metropolitan Area: 12.562 km² - 15,2mil - 1024/km²

Copenhagen Metropolitan Area: 2.923 km2 - 1,9mil - 650/km²

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

we'll never see anything remotely close to euro bike numbers in this country. never.

I think it's a matter of infrastructure - if the option is there people will use it.. just like with all other forms of transportation from trains to highways..

Biking is healthy, cheap and can be fast if going trough areas prone to gridlocks or with lacking car parking..
It's certainly not the perfect way to travel, but what is..

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

It would be ideal to take your bike onto commuter trains at least, since subways are too crowded during rush hour. And of course have decent commuter service available.

You can do that here. They have spaces for them.

But each train can only hold 8 bikes. Some of the stations also have bike storage for 24 bikes with a plan to expand storage facilities to more stations.

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/a...rorail-station

http://impactnews.com/articles/capit...station-aug.-6

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Tell me which part you disagree with.

i don't think i disagree with any of that.

my point is that american bike commuters, on average, are going to be more concerned with speed than euro bike commuters, on average, because americans, on average, live farther away from work than europeans, on average.

as i said before, 15 miles is a very common distance to live from work in this country. if we say that only people who live less than 5 miles from work are potential bike commuters, then we'll never see any significant bike culture grow (< 10%).

a big part of the overall picture is to convince the people who live a stone's throw away from their job to get on a bike, but another part of the picture is convincing some of the other people who live 8, 11, and 14 miles away from work that they too can also easily bike that distance if they get themselves into fit cycling shape.

there's room for both fast and slow utility cycling, and it ALL boils down to distance. if you've got a long way to go, you're gonna want to orient your riding style towards speed.

[202_Cyclist]

Steely Dan:

a big part of the overall picture is to convince the people who live a stone's throw away from their job to get on a bike, but another part of the picture is convincing some of the other people who live 8, 11, and 14 miles away from work that they too can also easily bike that distance if they get themselves into fit cycling shape.

This is exactly why a good network of multi-use trails (such as the W&OD and Capital Cresent trail here in DC) are every bit as important as sharrows, painted bike lanes, and other bicycle infrastructure that we need in more urban areas. These are the feeder routes to jobs and other destinations.

[M II A II R II K]

California Shifts Towards Bike Sharing

Read More: http://www.cp-dr.com/node/3267

Like so many a rider at the back of the peleton, California cities have long lagged behind their European counterparts in their embrace of bicycling. But they are now clipping in and gearing with the dramatic arrival of bike sharing. With zero major bike-sharing systems currently in the state, no fewer than five California cities will be adopting pilot projects by mid-2013.

Touted as an ideal amenity for tourists and a “first-mile, last-mile” solution for commuters, bike sharing is a short-term, high-tech twist on bike rentals. Automated stations are placed at close intervals – sometimes as few as two or three blocks – from one another, and users with a day pass or annual membership can check out bikes with the swipe of a card and then deliver them back to any other vending station upon arriving at their destination, all without ever getting into a car.

“Nobody is going to be commuting across the city on bike share,” said Eric Bruins, planning and policy director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. “It gives them mobility within the destination area for that first-mile, last-mile….it allows people to go out to lunch without having to worry about re-parking.” Long established overseas in Paris, Barcelona, and Vienna, and more recently introduced in American cities such as Denver, Boston, and Washington, D.C., bike sharing is scheduled to arrive soon in Anaheim, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, plus San Francisco and other cities along the Caltrain corridor.

Bike advocacy groups, which have long lobbied for making California’s streets more friendly to cyclists, are hailing bike sharing’s arrival—even if planned improvements to cities’ respective bicycle infrastructures remain years away. “I think the time is now to install these bike sharing systems even though we have a long way to go changing the streets to be safe enough for most people,” said David Snyder, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. “It’s like a gateway drug to practical bicycling.”

Promoters attribute the rapid deployment of bike sharing in California to the success that other cities have enjoyed. Enough test cases have succeeded—with expansion and steady increases in ridership—in more compact, bicycle-friendly cities that California cities are now willing to test the concept. As well, new state laws aimed at curbing climate change, such as Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375, give new weight to any program that encourages the use of alternative transportation.

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[M II A II R II K]

We'll take the high road: off the streets and into the sky could be the future for London bikes

Read More: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/...s-8206423.html

.....

This week Oli Clark and Sam Martin from the firm had a meeting scheduled with Boris about their idea to create commuter routes for cyclists into the city. Meanwhile, the Landscape Institute, the Garden Museum and the Mayor of London have been running a High Line for London competition, inspired by the New York High Line (a pedestrian park on an old elevated freight railway in Lower West Side Manhattan) and judged by its founders. While the New York High Line does not permit cyclists, several of the competition entries for the London versions proposed to do the opposite — and featured cycling provision as a key element.

- The winner of the competition, which was announced on Monday, may have been a disappointment to the bike-riding community of the capital (a veritable “low-line”, it is a mushroom garden in the disused rail tunnels under Oxford Street — clearly the designers of the New York High Line don’t have cyclists at heart), but a highly commended award went to Camden-based architect HTA and its Bridge-It proposal, which looked at using railway sidings as shared park space for pedestrians and cyclists alike. HTA and most of the other entrants intend to press on with their plans and look to secure interest from the Mayor and from the public.

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BRIDGE-IT

hta.co.uk

A new green network across the city which links transport hubs with parkland, for shared use by pedestrians and cyclists, by using the space over the top (by building concrete slabs over the tracks and topping them with vegetation) or the embankments and sidings. “There are huge sections of open space in London — they just have railway tracks on them and we can build over and beside this railway infrastructure,” says the project leader, James Lord. An initial proposal shows an example route from St Pancras to Hampstead Heath.

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LONDON CYCLE HIGHER

terrastudio.co.uk

One section of a six-part plan to add green infrastructure to London. The project includes plans to turn disused land next to railway lines (such Bishopsgate Goods Yard in the City) to create parks called “Air-rail” gardens. Cycle Higher would connect these gardens with cantilevered cycleways on the railway viaducts for slow-moving but safe bike transport.

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SKYCYCLE

spacehive.com/SkyCycle/exteriorarchitecture.com

To add elevated cycle lanes on land adjacent to railway tracks, over the top of the lines or clipped to existing bridges and viaducts. The proposal includes two main routes from Clapham Junction to Victoria and from Stratford to Liverpool Street. “It’s to get people into Zone One, for commuter use — relieving some of the pressure on the railway lines,” says Oli Clark, the architect behind the idea.

“We are not looking to take cyclists off the road in the centre of London or take away from the cycling experience in the city. While there may be future proposals to reduce car traffic in the centre of London, main routes in and through will always have lorries and taxis on them.” Clark’s company wants to improve on what is offered by the Cycle Superhighways, where safety is compromised because they are located on major lorry routes.

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KOLELINIA

kolelinia.com

More conceptual than an actual plan, Kolelinia involves constructing two-way steel cable bike lanes suspended two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half metres above the streets. Bike tyres slot into a steel groove while the handlebars are secured to another cable. Cyclists are clipped in to a safety harness. The idea is not to construct these across an entire city but just to implement them where bikes need a safe passage over congested zones and dangerous junctions.

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City eyes bicycle sharing downtown

Read More: http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2012/o...own-ar-528817/

TAMPA -- In 18 months, Mayor Bob Buckhorn has worked to energize Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, complete the Riverwalk and create a downtown where people want to live. Now, his administration has put out a call for the creation of a bike sharing program that would serve downtown and surrounding neighborhoods by next fall. The program, Buckhorn said, will help build on the urban experience.

- Buckhorn hopes to find a contractor to set up and run the program, which will let people check-out a bicycle from a kiosk and return it later at that location or another one. Such a program would allow people to get the benefits of bikes without needing to buy a bike, store one or bring it downtown. The city's call envisions a network of 30 solar-powered stations and 300 rugged, all-weather bikes stationed around downtown, Ybor City, Hyde Park, Harbour Island, the Channel District and Davis Islands. A second phase would include 20 stations and 200 bikes. Within years, a third phase would expand the program to the West Shore and University of South Florida areas.

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[mhays]

That bike wire looks cool, but it has precisely zero chance of happening in the US. The potential of someone falling off primarily.

[ardecila]

Yeah, I was surprised at the Italian cycling scene. Competitive cycling is obviously a big deal there, so they produce talented athletes and high-quality gear, but urban cycling is even more of a niche thing than it is in many American cities.

Partly, Italian cities suffer from the opposite problem: there's just not enough space in the city for bicycles or bike infrastructure. There are only a few roads that approach even a 2-lane American standard width, and they are dominated by buses and cars. On foot is the way to go, really, with transit for longer trips.

This points to a deficiency in the bikes-on-transit idea too: it only works because cycling is niche. If everybody brought their bikes on the train, space would run out quickly. I of course have no problem with generous bike parking and/or bike sharing at stations and bus stops, but there's just not enough room on transit vehicles.

[KevinFromTexas]

It says the rider would be strapped to the bike somehow. Still a bad idea. Given the slack in the cable and bounce it would hinder your momentum and ability to apply force. They'd be better off creating concrete "bike highways" instead.

[RaRaOmaha]

Harney Street Bikeway

http://movingomaha.org/priorities/7-...edestrian-lane

One lane of eastbound Harney Street through downtown and midtown will become a dedicated bike/pedestrian lane. First proposed as one of 266 possible street, trail or other transportation projects during the development of Omaha’s new Transportation Master Plan, (TMP) the Harney Street Bikeway ranked No. 1.

Current state is a 4 lane one way road that is way to wide for the demand:


After will be the first phase of a system that will run from Midtown to North Downtown:

[Cottonwood]

Boise Bike Share Program info.


http://www.cityofboise.org/city_cler...2/bikeplan.pdf

Funding is sought for capital expenses for the Boise Bike Share Program (BBSP), to install 14 bike stations and 140 bikes in the Greater Downtown Boise area and on the Boise State University (BSU) Campus.

Boise will be the first Northwest community of its size to launch a public bike share system, serving as a model for other cities in establishing a sustainable, cost‐effective transportation alternative for Boise residents, workers, and visitors alike. BBSP provides increased personal mobility, promotes multi‐modal transport, results in less pollution and congestion, and improved health.

With Boise’s already well‐established bike culture and improving infrastructure for bicycling, bike share seems like a good fit for a city that attracts an above average number of active citizens because of easy access to all forms of outdoor recreation.

[M II A II R II K]

How Not To Design A Separated Bike Lane

Read More: http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/how-...bike-lane.html

The City of Toronto is finally getting a separated bike lane. It's on Sherbourne Street, a block east of the soon to be painted out Jarvis Street bike lanes that keep city councillors from getting home in time for dinner. The separation is a rounded bump that is too big for a cyclist to cross easily and safely, but not too big for a UPS truck.

- Dan Egan, Toronto’s manager of cycling infrastructure, said the curbs had to be designed to allow police vehicles, ambulances and fire trucks to pull over them in emergencies. “It’s not an ideal situation,” said Egan. ‘If we had a lot wider street, it would have been a much simpler design. “This is the challenge of trying to do a separated bike lane on such a narrow two-way street.”

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L.A. County Bicycle Coalition Calls For Bikeway Along PCH

Read More: http://malibu.patch.com/articles/l-a...hway-in-malibu

Following the death of a bicyclist in Malibu over the weekend, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition called for safety improvements, including a dedicated bikeway, along Pacific Coast Highway.

- "Pacific Coast Highway is a notoriously dangerous street for all travelers, and particularly challenging for people on bicycles. Outdated road design, inconsistent shoulders, and high motor vehicle speeds are a perilous combination for people walking or riding along the highway," the statement read.

- "PCH is Malibu’s main street, yet it was built to rural highway standards that provide first and foremost for the fast movement of vehicles over local access to residences, businesses, and beaches. Bicyclists face increased risks when navigating such a complex traffic environment." LACBC has been working with the City of Malibu, Caltrans and other agencies since the 2005 death of Scott Bleifer and Stanislav Ionov on PCH. "Education, enforcement, and engineering strategies must be used in concert to reduce collision rates," according to LACBC.

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Cardboard bike is a 'game changer’ in Africa

Read More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...in-Africa.html

Izhar Gafni, 50, is an expert in designing automated mass-production lines. He is an amateur cycling enthusiast who for years toyed with an idea of making a bicycle from cardboard.

- Once the shape has been formed and cut, the cardboard is treated with a secret concoction made of organic materials to give it its waterproof and fireproof qualities. In the final stage, it is coated with lacquer paint for appearance. In testing the durability of the treated cardboard, Gafni said he immersed a cross-section in a water tank for several months and it retained all its hardened characteristics. Once ready for production, the bicycle will include no metal parts, even the brake mechanism and the wheel and pedal bearings will be made of recycled substances, although Gafni said he could not yet reveal those details due to pending patent issues.

- Gafni owns several top-of-the-range bicycles which he said are worth thousands of dollars each, but when his own creation reaches mass production, it should cost no more than about $20 (£12.50) to buy. The cost of materials used are estimated at $9 per unit. “When we started, a year and a half or two years ago, people laughed at us, but now we are getting at least a dozen emails every day asking where they can buy such a bicycle, so this really makes me hopeful that we will succeed,” he said.

- A ride of the prototype was quite stiff, but generally no different to other ordinary basic bikes. Nimrod Elmish, Gafni’s business partner, said cardboard and other recycled materials could bring a major change in current production norms because grants and rebates would only be given for local production and there would be no financial benefits by making bicycles in cheap labour markets. “This is a real game changer. It changes ... the way products are manufactured and shipped, it causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labour markets, everything that we have known in the production world can change,” he said.

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[M II A II R II K]

We Won’t Get More Women on Bikes Until We Have Environments That Cater to Them

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...ter-them/3590/

Last week, Genevieve Walker put forth a salvo for getting more women on bikes: Increase the number of bike shops catering to the ladies—an interview subject of Walker’s described such an environment as one in which there is "really good information," "good clothing options," and "a hot guy standing behind the counter"—and the gender gap in cycling just might magically disappear (presumably like one’s underwear in the presence of that hot guy behind the counter).

At best, this conclusion isn’t particularly helpful in addressing the very real gender disparity in the world of cycling, whether for transportation, recreation, or racing. At worst, it’s offensive to female cyclists, who are by and large smart enough to figure out what they want without being charmed by the good looks of a sales associate—if they’re even acquiring a bike from a bike shop, which is certainly not the only place to buy one.

Assuming that women, and only women, need to be coddled by bike retailers misses a larger truth about the weird world of bicycle retail: A bike shop that sells 10-speed carbon-fiber Campagnolos to amateur road racers is going to be intimidating to anyone, regardless of gender, who is looking for a solid commuter bike to carry their groceries. Big Bike is very slowly moving into the utility-biking business, but the industry still largely markets to those spandex-clad weekend warriors who want to inch down the seconds on their century or cyclocross time. Feeling run over, ignored, or misinterpreted by a bike-shop employee isn’t a problem for women, it’s a problem for anyone who doesn’t ride like they’re qualifying for the Tour de France.

Walker’s bike-shop thesis also skates over research that lays out some of the reasons why women stay off bikes. Women want things like more, better cycling infrastructure, supportive communities of cyclists that look like them, and for cycling for transportation overall to be a safer, more convenient experience. (Darren Buck at Bike Pedantic summarized a few of those reasons, too.)

A 2011 survey by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals draws similar conclusions: 22 percent of the 1,300 women surveyed said they would cycle more if it were more convenient and 14 percent said they would cycle more if there was better bike infrastructure. And 2006 study from Deakin University’s School of Health and Social Development concludes that men and women don’t even have radically different priorities when it comes to making cycling for transportation a better experience.

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[natiboy]

Cincinnati moving forward with Ohio's 1st bike sharing system

A new study, prepared by Alta Planning + Design, determined how and where a bicycle sharing system could be implemented in Cincinnati in a way that will compliment its expanding Bicycle Transportation Program.

The recently released report was called for by city leaders in May 2012, and identifies a 35-station, 350-bike system that would be built in two phases in Downtown, Over-the-Rhine, Pendleton, Clifton Heights, Corryville, Clifton, Avondale and the West End.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnat...ith-ohios.html

[M II A II R II K]

Chicago bike sharing suggestion map is now live, public meetings coming soon

http://gridchicago.com/2012/bike-sha...rid+Chicago%29

[Steely Dan]

A bike shop that sells 10-speed carbon-fiber Campagnolos to amateur road racers is going to be intimidating to anyone who is looking for a solid commuter bike to carry their groceries.

what an absurd statement. are car buyers intimidated away from buying chevy minivans because the chevy dealership also happens to have a corvette in the showroom?

all of the bike shops i regularly visit have practical hybrid style bikes front and center because these are their best sellers. just because they might have a $5,000 cervelo that they're willing to sell to anyone with a fat wallet doesn't mean that they're not gonna also be very willing to sell a $500 trek hybrid to john q. public who's just looking for a bike to "ride around town".

bike shops typically have very thin margins on the actual bikes they sell, the money is in all of the ancillary accessories and developing a long-term relationship with the customer for ongoing bicycle repair and maintenance.

[Cirrus]

It's not as absurd as you think. When I first became a cyclist I was using a hand-me-down bike that a friend gave me. I brought it to my neighborhood bike shop, which was chocked full of expensive racing bikes, and asked for a tune up. They told me that they didn't service "department store" bikes and that I needed to upgrade. 10 minutes on google when I got home taught me that store regularly turns away customers who are looking for something practical. They don't advertise as specifically racing store, btw. You don't know they're only interested in selling to one kind of cyclist until you're in the store being talked down to.

Another time I went to a different bike store. While I was there a woman came in and said she was going to start biking on her commute and needed to be set up with whatever was necessary. They sold the poor woman all sort of unnecessary crap like lycra pants and pedal straps that are most definitely not required, and which she didn't ask for, because they convinced her she had to have it to bike to work. She paid the several hundred dollars, but someone with less money (or more sense) might have simply given up there and gone home.

Luckily there are lots of good bike shops around, and bikesharing, but nonetheless bike stores that don't understand the needs of new riders is a problem that definitely does exist.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

but nonetheless bike stores that don't understand the needs of new riders is a problem that definitely does exist.

then i guess that i've just been lucky that i've never experienced that phenomenon in any of the dozen or so bike shops i've patronized over the course of my life here in chicagoland, which is why that phenomenon sounds absurd to me. all of the bike shops that i've ever gone to have been way into selling the customer whatever kind of bike they desire, and for the past 20 or so years, practical hybrids have been at the forefront of the casual cyclist market.

now, some bike stores will try to sell unnecessary accessories to the unknowing because, as i said before, that's where a big chunk of their profit margin lies, but again this is no different than the automobile dealership where sleazy salesmen try to sucker the gullible into ALL KINDS of unnecessary accessories onto a new car purchase. and yet the sleazy, intimidating nature of the automobile sales business hasn't kept americans from gobbling up new car purchases like a junkie getting his fix for the past half century.

uninformed consumers will always be taken advantage of by slick salesmen. that's as old as the concept of retail itself.

[202_Cyclist]

A New Model: Cycle Hire, for Hire

By JOSIE GARTHWAITE
October 18, 2012
NY Times


So far Zagster has set up its “bike fleet in a box” at about 55 locations. (Image courtesy of the New York Times)

"Municipal bike sharing has rolled into dozens of American cities, from Washington to Oklahoma City to San Francisco. Now a Massachusetts start-up called Zagster aims to take the idea of bicycles on demand and deliver it to university and corporate campuses, apartment complexes, hotels and resorts.

So far Zagster has set up its “bike fleet in a box” at about 55 locations.On Thursday, the company, formerly called CityRyde, announced a $1 million round of investment that will allow it to expand nationally. In essence, Zagster’s idea is to make access to bikes a coveted building amenity and corporate perk, right up there with pools, gyms, and cafeterias — at a relatively low cost.

Fontinalis Partners, a Detroit-based venture firm jointly founded by William Clay Ford Jr., and the venture capital firm LaunchCapital are among the lead investors in the expansion..."

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...hire-for-hire/