It’s long been a debate between “hard-core” American bicyclists and European-style American (and European) bicyclists: protected bike lanes (and even bike lanes, in general) vs on-road bicycling mixed with automobile traffic. But the masses clearly prefer protected bike lanes, and plenty of research (including my own) has shown that protected bike lanes are safer and encourage …
CicLAvia celebrated their 4th year by taking us on a 10 mile journey spanning Echo Park, downtown LA, and East LA. The first CicLAvia was on 10/10/10, the global day of action against climate change. As always, the weather was perfect and the route was fun. The best thing about CicLAvia is that it gets …
Amsterdam is perhaps the best large city in the world for bicycling and bicyclists. It probably is, but Copenhagen is also always in the running. Furthermore, there are better bicycling cities than Amsterdam in the Netherlands, but they are smaller, so I’m not sure if they are in the same class. Anywho, if you haven’t …
One of the challenges of adding bike lanes to cities can be the challenge that arises when a bus stop sits where a bike lane should go. But separated, protected bike lanes that step back from the roadway and bus stop work excellently, as can be seen in this video from San Francisco: Appreciations for …
San Francisco Protected Bicycle Lane Meshes Well With Transit Stop Read More »
BMW Cruise e-Bike 2014 is a “pedelec,” suggesting that, as you pedal, the Bosch electric motor also puts out 48 Newton meters of torque (35.4 pound-feet) to help you along. The added momentum comes with any tiny amount of action. This is a BMW — good to remember if you are leaving a position of …
Did you know that General Motors slowly took over mass transit in the LA area and then all but eliminated it? Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten informs us in his latest documentary, Bikes vs Cars — We Are Many, about this and much more. He creates a fascinating, educational study revealing more about bicycle culture …
Bikes vs Cars — New Documentary From Award-Winning Swedish Filmaker Fredrik Gertten Read More »
Treehouses have been one of my favorite things in the world for about as long as I remember. And, for that matter, bikes have held a position up amongst the best of the best for a long time as well. Combining the two almost makes me drool. Ethan Schlussler has done just that (combine bikes & …
LA Bike Trains is changing the personality of LA. LA Bike Trains, a group bubbling up from the profound roots of the city, is looking to make LA a friendlier place, and a nicer place for bicyclists. LA has been named one of the unfriendliest cities in the US. This unfriendly aura is not simply …
LA Bike Trains — Transforming The Mean Streets Of LA Read More »
A simple holistic concept is that everything is connected. One’s interrelationship with daily activity, transit, and infrastructure is a key relationship to holistic connectedness. News from the United States Department of [Active] Transportation supports this. Cultivating refreshing spots of activity in the day and night of our lives is a key way to stay in …
Obviously, we’re big fans of bikes here. I realized several years ago that the common line and piece of advice “stop to smell the roses” matched bicycle transportation excellently. You see and smell and appreciate so much more on bike than in a car. I’d say that you do less so than on foot, but …
New York City (NYC) has finally rolled out the beginnings of its large bicycle-sharing program, Citi Bike, with 6,000 bikes and 330 bike-sharing stations hitting the streets on Monday. The stations are initially located in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It’s far from the largest such project at the moment, but it’s the largest in the US, …
NYC Bike Share Launches — Thoughts From NYC & The Interwebs Read More »
The League of American Bicyclists recently created some cool infographics about bicycle commuter growth across the country. In general, bike commuting has skyrocketed, doubling from 1.7 billion in 2001 to 4 billion in 2009. However, the growth has occurred to a much greater degree in cities and towns that have been designated as Bicycle-Friendly Communities by …
Where Bike Commuting Grows Fastest (Infographics) Read More »
More or less, bicycle infrastructure policy and its relationship to riderships was the topic of my 2007 master’s thesis. It’s been obvious to some of us for a long time that bicycle infrastructure policy needs to change in order to give bicycle ridership a big boost, and public health would of course improve from that, …
Better Bicycle Facilities, Off-Road Bike Paths = More Bicycling Read More »
Several years ago, I was the director of an organization in the Charlottesville, Virginia region that got Charlottesville designated as a Bicycle Friendly Community (BFA). There were great guiding documents that the League of American Bicyclists supplied as part of the application process, but it certainly would have been nice to have this infographic* below …
How Bicycle Friendly Communities Are Evaluated (Infographic) Read More »
If you like clean air and water, face it, this makes you an environmentalist. Bike-friendly businesses are an encouraging face of environmental support — for employees and customers alike. Our country is redefining ethics in transportation and energy sources. Rich and poor alike are affected by toxic fumes, bad water, dirty air, and dirty oil. So, …
New Bike Friendly Businesses — Texas Instruments, The World Bank Group, & More Read More »
In just a month, Chicago will finally have its own large-scale bike-sharing program, providing thousand of bikes to residents via hundreds of solar-powered stations spread throughout the city. The system, dubbed Divvy, will debut in June with a few hundred bikes spread throughout 75 solar-powered docking stations. It is supposed to rapidly expand after that, …
Divvy — Bike-Sharing System Debuting In Chicago In June Read More »
This is certainly the most bike-friendly cafe I’ve ever seen: Using Google Translate, here’s the description under the video (translated from German): The city of Zurich presents the first Velokafi under the program Urban Transport 2025. The bicycle drive-in allows the coffee enjoyment, without getting off the bike. Idea, design, implementation: Serranetga AG Pretty cool. …
The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) recently announced new “Bicycle-Friendly Universities.” 14 universities were added, bringing the total up to 58. These 58 universities are located in 30 states across the country. Of these 58 universities, just one is rated Platinum, and 3 are rated Gold. Check out the LAB blog post for a bit …
A bicycle road safety activist group in Seattle, called the Reasonably Polite Seattleites has struck again. The very polite group has turned the painted Cherry Street bike lane located under I-5 in Seattle into a protected bike lane. The group used around $350 worth of reflective plastic pylons to transform the bike lane in the middle of …
Bicycle Road Safety Activist Group Installs Illegal Bike Lane Protectors Read More »
After several years of planning, the Figueroa Corridor Streetscape project (MyFigueroa) is coming even closer to reality. Soon, the Figueroa Corridor in Downtown and South Los Angeles will accommodate a bus-only lane and cycle tracks, while still maintaining vehicle access. When completed, Figueroa Corridor will provide a safer, sustainable, more comfortable local environment for pedestrians, …
New Streetscape Project (MyFigueroa) Coming To Downtown L.A. Read More »
After overcoming several obstacles, the San Francisco Bay Area will begin a pilot bike sharing program that will be the first regional bike sharing program in the country. The pilot program, which will be run by Alta Bike Share, is set to launch this summer with 70 locations and 700 bikes from San Jose to …
Bay Area Bike Sharing Program Launching This Summer Read More »
Copenhagenize’s recent article The Arrogance of Space brings to the surface something bicyclists, modern urban planners, and many common people find simmering in their minds all the time. Mikael Colville-Andersen, the Northern European author of this article cuts through the simmer: “I’ve been working a lot in North America the past year, and I’ve become quite obsessed with …
Appreciating Copenhaganize’s Thoughts On “The Arrogance of Space” Read More »
Think Sweden’s too far north to be bike friendly? Think again. Here’s a new video featuring the quite bike-friendly Malmö, Sweden:
I get lost in a time warp playing with this bike score map. What a pleasant diversion and a bit of fun after being outside on my bike for hours this evening. The map is interesting and useful. Especially diverse and informative are the comments at the side of the scoring of a city. Those …
Bikeability Of 36 Cities — Walk Score Rates Every Address In Each City Read More »
Mikael Colville-Andersen is a world-leading urban planning / transportation planning consultant. His focus is on human-powered transport, especially the bicycle, and humanizing cities (at least, that’s how I would summarize it). His blog, Copenhagenize, is one of the few urban planning blogs I follow, and I am pretty much always eager to check out his …
Here’s a cool idea/image I just ran across on reddit. We can dream. Source: someone on blogger
The time is nearly upon us, Fall will become Spring as fast as we cycle down our streets, and the time to gather together to show lawmakers and Washington how much we really do love to bike will be here. As many of us as possible need to show up at the National Bike Summit, the …
National Bike Summit, March 4-7 In Washington, DC Read More »
Here’s a completely counterintuitive finding — bike-friendly communities are seeing a greater increase in bicycling! Who would’ve thought? Bike-Friendly Communities Increase Biking (Infographic) (via Clean Technica) Data from the latest American Community Survey shows that more people are riding their bikes in communities that make strategic investments for bicycles. No real surprise there. The …
Bike-Friendly Communities See Bigger Increase In Bicycling (Infographic) Read More »
The League of American Bicyclists has announced another list of “Bicycle Friendly Communities.” Here’s more from Charis Michelsen of CleanTechnica: More Bicycle Friendly Communities for the U.S. — Los Angeles, Miami, and Nashville (via Clean Technica) Bicycle friendly communities are exactly what it says on the tin — communities taking steps to make cycling …
More Bike-Friendly Communities Announced, Including LA, Nashville, and Miami Read More »
Colored bike lanes are one of my favorite things in the world. They make the greenest form of transportation (bicycling, of course) safer and more attractive. They grant bikers much more respect on the road. In Florida, I’ve been yelled at to get out of the road while I was biking in a bike lane …
