This might be considered by some to be less germane to core notions of bicycle planning. It is interesting and related to active communities and active transport, nonetheless
People love their bikes. In a recent survey of 5000 Bicycling magazine readers, 50% of men and 58% of women said that—if pressed to choose between sex or bikes—they’d pick the bikes. Draw your own implications about the future of our cities, society in general or even the nature of relationships.
A PhD student at the University of Maryland, Rahul Nair, did an operations based dissertation on vehicle sharing. He is now fortunately sharing his skills to the bicycle planning world. Check out the 1.4 million trips he graphically analyzed from the capital bicycle share system in Washington, D.C. spread across 140 stations. Edward Tufte would be proud. But moreso, it is great to see this bikesharing data now being analyzed. This is the first step to having better informed conversations about the degree to which these systems are worth it and to whom. 
As part of the arms race to become the most bicycle friendly city in the US, we are apparently up to at least 10 cities vying for top honors. I am sure there are still a few missing. But, as the article suggests, “this is a great development for the U.S. bike scene. Nothing motivates Americans (and our elected officials) quite like the race to appear in a magazine as the “best” at something. This is true. But, the Big Easy? …really? Wow, congrats on getting to bronze level.
There are at least two rankings in the US, one by the League of American Bicyclists and the other by Bicycling Magazine. Is it possible to be a bit more transparent with the criteria for each? In my limited search, nothing popped out.
One of my favorite Van Morrison cover songs is Bein’ Green (originally by Kermit), expressing that green “blends in with so many ordinary things” and how he wishes to be some other color. Apparently this is not the case for bike lanes (which is a good thing)–especially in LA. They stand out too much!
While it is a shame, I guess I can understand why the movie people think that the streets with bike lanes do not represent anytown USA. ….YET?
…or maybe I have it mostly wrong: cycling in cities is less about city planning efforts and more about “selling it” from a PR standpoint.
The whole issue of cycling, safety, and helmet use is pretty vast–too vast to go into all the various dimensions here and now. But, a pretty thorough report on bicycle helmet research recently came across my desk. It covers a lot of ground, albeit with a Queensland Australia focus, and is pretty detailed in the later chapters. It was commissioned by the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads to review the national and international
literature regarding the health outcomes of cycling and bicycle helmets and examine crash and hospital data. It is the closest one-stop shopping for helmet research that is of high quality I have come across.
