Further evidence on the difficulty of implementing avant-garde treatments for bicycle treatments; the NYTimes is now offering editorials on how to react to and “read” different treatments.
New York City “Mixing Zones”
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cycling environment
Heated paths — which first and what of salt?
Snow season is coming (at least in northern places in the northern hemisphere). I have read two accounts in the past week calling for heated bike paths and heated sidewalks.
Heating coils are one option. Retaining summer heat is the other. Both seem pretty expensive. But it does beg two questions, assuming it can be done and paid for,
1. Is it best to start with the sidewalks, bike paths or roads? I am less convinced the roads need it. The cars are relatively stable in moderate snow.
2. Can we really kick the salt habit?
Bicycle Urbanism Symposium
Here is another unique opportunity to advance bicycle planning on a national/international stage. I am on the International Program Committee for this event and it looks to be good. Late June in Seattle is not quite as good as September, but its not bad…
The International Bicycle Urbanism Symposium will take place at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle from June 19-22, 2013.
You are invited to submit abstracts for papers dealings with:
- Ways that cities can best encourage and accommodate bicycle use 20-30 years in the future
- Leading research that addresses bicycle use and effects of innovation in infrastructure and programs
- Best practices and how these can inform long-term planning for bicycle use.
Intended participants include planning and design professionals, researchers, bicycle advocates, and public officials. Selected papers will be edited for one or more referred books.
A fuller description of the Symposium and its program can be found at www.be.washington.edu/
Uptick in cycling research
Over the past few years, I’ve mentione
d how there seems to be more than a general uptick in cycling-related “activity” out there. More coverage in the NY Times; more cities paying attention to cycling; more sales for bikes that allow us to get around town; more politicians mentioning bicycling as a platform; and, more academics studying elements of cycling. The list can go on.
2012 National Creating Whole Communities Think Tank
This coming Monday, July 9, I will be speaking at the 2012 National Creating Whole Communities Think Tank (Think Tank schedule) on the topic of: “The Role of Active Transportation Design in Building Whole Communities.”
This is how we ride….quite a rousing endorsement from Byrne
In case you missed it, the NYTimes gave David Byrne (yes, of the Talking Heads) some prime real estate in the Sunday Review section (May 27) writing about bikes and the NY bike sharing system.
He was pretty emphatic. It was good to read.
He claims that bicycling provides “emotional gratification” and this is the primary reason for riding (I suppose that is true if you are not really time constrained and have most of your destinations within a few miles; how many people does this apply to?).
In the end he writes: “Look around you. Bikes are everywhere: in glamorous ads and fashionable neighborhoods, parked outside art galleries, clubs, office buildings. More and more city workers arrive for work on bikes. The future is visible in the increasing number of bikes you see all over the urban landscape. This simple form of transportation is about to make our city more livable, more human and better connected; New Yorkers are going to love the bike-share program; culturally and physically, our city is perfectly suited for it.”
With big-time celebrity endorsements like this, he might be right.
Mineta report on promoting bicycle safety
The research reports keep coming in. Here is another one with lots of secondary data and sources, prepared in a manner that crosses between advocacy and research, and is pretty accessible. The focus in the title suggests safety but it is a bit broader in its coverage. Warning: it is a big long. Just released: The Mineta Transportation Institute recently published a report that leverages literature review and case studies in the San Francisco Bay area and Portland OR to recommend ways to improve safety for bicycle commuters. Promoting Bicycle Commuter Safety includes chapters on risks, application of social psychology to bike safety, dimensions of effective practices, and more. The report also includes illustrative tables and photos. Principal investigator was Asbjorn Osland, PhD, with several chapter contributors. The 157-page report is available for free PDF download from transweb.sjsu.edu/project/
Cycling – transit integration
The whole enterprise of integrating cycling with transit is a remarkably understudied issue, lacking a solid knowledge base. Yet, it might have high potential.
Abstract: Cycling continues to increase in popularity and garner attention for the ability to achieve environmental, health, and congestion-mitigation benefits for communities. Although the growth in both cycling and transit may be in small part attributed to bicycle and transit integration, the growth is difficult to measure. Which of the variety of available strategies for bicycle and transit integration—such as increased bicycle parking at stops, increased bicycle capacity on transit vehicles, and shared bicycle
infrastructure—is more cost-effective? Which strategies will yield the highest number of cycle transit users? To fill a void in the literature about integrating bicycling and transit, four common bicycle and transit integration strategies were described and assessed. A framework was developed for evaluating strategies, and a preliminary cost-effectiveness assessment was conducted. Cost-effectiveness comprises costs and cyclists’ preferences for each strategy. Preferences were gathered through stated preference surveys from focus groups in five case study communities and calculated according to the analytic hierarchy process, a multicriterion decision-making tool. Transit with a bicycle aboard was most preferred by cyclists, whereas results of the cost-effectiveness measure suggest that enhancing bicycle parking at a transit stop proved most cost-effective when compared with the most common bicycle onboard transit configuration: front-mounted bicycle racks on buses. The limited growth potential for bicycles aboard transit requires consideration of alternatives. The overall importance that cyclists assigned to security suggested considerable room for creative solutions to improve the favorability of the other strategies while addressing some inherent capacity limitations of the most popular strategy: transporting the bicycle with the rider on transit.
Arms race for most bicycle-friendly city; we have more than 10 aspirers
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.
It’s not easy being green, especially for a bike lane
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?
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