Livin In The Bike Lane

Transportation Bill Cuts Bicycle and Pedestrian Funding - Take Action Now!

2012-02-01T20:12:00.002-05:00

Top 10 Reasons the House’s Proposed Transportation Bill is

Bad for Biking and Walking

10. No traffic calming.
Under current law, traffic calming and bicycle/pedestrian safety are eligible for funding from the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP). The House’s proposed bill would make traffic calming and bike/ped safety ineligible for funding, encouraging faster, more dangerous streets.
TAKE ACTION
9. More unsafe rumble strips.
Current law requires that rumble strips on roads “do no adversely affect the safety and mobility of bicyclists, pedestrians or the disabled.” The proposed House bill eliminates this language, allowing for unsafe placement of rumble strips that create deadly safety hazards for people riding bicycles.
TAKE ACTION
8. No bike/ped technical assistance.
Currently, when a state or local community is interested in making their streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, they can turn to clearinghouses for information about funding sources, best practices, and other technical assistance. The House’s transportation bill would eliminate bicycle/pedestrian and Safe Routes to School clearinghouses, making it harder for states and local communities to find technical assistance.
TAKE ACTION
7. No state-level staff support.
Today’s federal transportation laws require states to keep Bicycle/Pedestrian specialists and Safe Routes to School Coordinators on staff. As huge agencies with thousands of employees, state Departments of Transportation benefit from having one or two people familiar with biking and walking issues. The House bill would eliminate these positions, effectively making state DOTs less familiar with bicycling and walking safety.
TAKE ACTION
6. No transit funds for bicycling.
Under current law, transit funds can be used for projects that make it safer and easier to ride a bike to and from bus stops, subway stations, and train stations. Even though bicycle parking at transit stations, bike access to transit, and bike-sharing are cost-effective fixes that improve safety, the proposed House bill would eliminate federal support for these projects.
TAKE ACTION
5. No rail trails.
Current transportation laws allows for the use of federal funding in converting abandoned railroad corridors into walking and biking trails. The House’s proposed transportation bill makes rail trails ineligible for federal funding.
TAKE ACTION
4. No safe access on bridges.
Under current law, when states do work on a bridge that has bicycle or pedestrian access on either side, they are required to build safe bicycle or pedestrian access across the bridge itself. Even though it’s only logical that people on traveling by bicycle or by foot should be able to cross bridges safely, the proposed House bill eliminates the requirement that states provide bridge access for walkers and bicyclists when it makes the most sense.
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3. CMAQ is gutted.
Under current law, states can receive Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funding to support projects that reduce transportation-related pollution. Currently, states use CMAQ dollars to support bicycling and walking infrastructure, which are proven to help reduce air pollutants by encouraging people to walk or bike instead of drive.

No longer. The House bill would change CMAQ by making congestion reduction, not air quality, the operative measure for eligibility. In other words, in order to qualify for CMAQ funding, a project doesn’t need to reduce air pollution; it just needs to be “likely” to reduce congestion. Under this new definition, the construction of new highway lanes qualifies for CMAQ funding. If the House bill were to become law, states would likely allocate CMAQ funds for highway construction at the expense of bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly projects.
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2. Safe Routes to School is eliminated.
In the House bill’s own words, the Safe Routes to School Program is “repealed.” This wildly successful program helped communities fund transportation infrastructure and education to keep kids safe on their bike rides and walks to school and encourage healthy activity.
Despite the program’s success and very low cost, the House bill would completely eliminate the program, reversing years of progress in making streets safer for kids.
TAKE ACTION
…And the number one problem with the House transportation bill is…

1. Transportation Enhancements is gone.
For the past twenty years, Transportation Enhancements has helped communities build the sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways that keep people safe on the streets. As less than 1% of all federal transportation spending, this tiny yet effective program financed projects that made it easier, more convenient, and much safer to walk or ride a bike.

The proposed House transportation bill eliminates bicycling’s most significant funding source by making Transportation Enhancements optional. Rather than finding new ways for towns and cities to keep bicycle riders and pedestrians safe on the streets, states will be encouraged to use these dollars to build wider, faster, more dangerous arterials and highways.

Please TAKE ACTION today to save cycling!
In addition to BikeLeague.org, please visit AmericaBikes.org for more on the transportation bill.

NYC Let Your Voice Be Heard-Help Improve the New Bike-Share Program

2012-01-31T08:14:00.000-05:00

You can see a timeline of workshops here. There's one tomorrow, January 31st, for Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea and Clinton. The next one is on February 6th for the West Village, Tribeca and and SoHo, and so on. If you are in NYC, I encourage you to attend. This is what democracy is all about, and it'll make for a better and more successful bike-share program!

10,000 new bikes will appear in New York City next summer when the new bike-sharing program is launched. The bikes will be located in 600 stations sprinkled around Manhattan and Brooklyn, but the exact location of each station still needs to be determined. That's where citizens of NYC come in! The NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) will be holding community planning workshops in various areas of the city to allow local citizens to help determine what the best spots are for stations, and what the "hell no" locations are.

Via NYC DOT, Streetsblog

Where People are Biking and Walking in the US in 2012

2012-01-30T13:30:00.001-05:00

The Alliance for Biking and Walking just released its biannual benchmark report, and the results may surprise you. The state with the greatest percentage of cyclists and walkers? Alaska. Among cities, Boston takes the crown.

If those results seem a little bit off—Isn’t Portland the country’s biking mecca? Or, if you trust Bicycling Magazine, Minneapolis?—consider another figure from the Alliance’s report: Americans choose to walk for 10.5 percent of all their trips, and bike just 1 percent of the time. While Bostonians aren’t known for their bike culture, 13.9 percent of the city’s commuters walk to work.
“All those cities we have at the top of the list, they were all cities that were built around human beings first,” says Alliance president Jeffrey Miller. These cities have grids, or in the case of Boston, a web of streets designed for pedestrians that tend to make drivers crazy. “It’s easier to walk and bike in parts of these cities than to drive,” Miller says.

And Alaska? “We know that people will vote with their wallet,” he says. “Gasoline is like $10 a gallon there. It's expensive to drive.”

The Alliance’s benchmark report does confirm deeply held notions about America’s bike revolution. Of the country’s 50 largest cities (plus New Orleans), Portland is home to the greatest percentage of people commuting to work by bike. It’s also the only city listed in which more commuters choose to bike than choose to walk. But the report also shows that while bike culture might be booming, most people who choose to get around without cars still hoof it. Given the importance of walking to car-free living, the cities that best represent an alternative vision of the country’s transportation future may not be Portland or Boston, but Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle—all of which rank highly for both biking and walking and which hold the number two, three, and four slots on the combined list.

There are several similarities that make those three cities successful: All three have "complete streets" policies; D.C.'s took effect in the past couple of years. They all fine drivers for not yielding to bikes and have bike-parking requirements in new buildings. D.C. and San Francisco also require bike parking in buildings or garages, while San Francisco requires it at public events. San Francisco has more miles of bike lanes, multi-use paths and signed bike routes per square mile than any other city in the country; Seattle and San Francisco have innovative bike infrastructure, like shared lane markings, home zones, colored bike lanes, bike boxes, contra flow bike lanes, and bike traffic lights. D.C. has some, but not all, of those features, plus cycle tracks, which are physically separated from car traffic but still on the road.

“What it seems we need is for communities to engage as many options as they can to encourage biking and walking,” Miller says.

Cities and states are doing something right: the Alliance found that Americans make 12 percent of all trips by foot or bike despite the fact that these transportation modes receive just 1.6 percent of federal transportation dollars. And cities across the country are moving toward ever-bigger infrastructure projects, particularly for biking: The list of planned bike facilities shows that Nashville will have more than 850 additional miles of bike infrastructure by 2027; Los Angeles will have added more than 1,600 miles by 2041; by 2032, New Orleans will have an additional 1,002 miles of bike facilities and New York an additional 1,800 miles.

State of the Union for Bikes?

2012-01-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

Beyond bikes, music, and home brewing, politics is my other big hobby. So like most political junkies, I was glued to my TV last night to see the President's State of the Union. When the president of the executive branch of the U.S. government talks about something, it gets on a lot of people's radar. It doesn't mean that things will immediately start happening, but it does give legitimacy to any issue. That's why my biggest wish for this speech was for bikes and bike infrastructure to be mentioned.

Not surprisingly, it didn't happen. But I believe it deserved a mention, if only to increase visibility for the issue. Politicians always talk about how the roads are crumbling, bridges are almost falling down and rail needs big bucks, but in many places, bike lanes don't even get to be in disrepair because they don't exist yet. That seems like the lowest-hanging fruit out there. I think it would show great vision for the president to link bike infrastructure with other things like rail, bridges, roads, etc, and mention them together in the future.
I understand that protected bike lanes, bike boulevards, bike parkings, etc, are more of a city issue. But the federal government can still play a big role (Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has taken many steps in the right direction), both in setting a national agenda and by creating broad incentives that will encourage cities and states to do more and do it faster.
So how about it, Mr. President? Are you looking for a relatively cheap way to improve the U.S. infrastructure base? To improve public health, quality of life in cities, reduce air pollution and oil imports? Save money by reducing wear & tear on roads and reducing lost productivity due to congestion?

Sounds like a good deal to me.

You can read the text of the SOTU speech here.

Shit Cyclists Say

2012-01-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

On-Street Bike Parking is a Win-Win

2012-01-20T13:27:00.002-05:00

Making Streets Safer With On-Street Bike Parking from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
The number of cyclists is growing rapidly in many cities - NYC's bike count is up 289% since 2001, for example - but in many places, including NYC, the number of accessible bike parkings is not keeping up. If this problem is not solved, it could slow down bike ridership rates. But how should the problem be solved? Should we just add a bunch of bike racks all over sidewalks? There might be a better way: on-street bike parking near intersections provide more parking spaces for cyclists, they don't clutter up the sidewalks, and they improves visibility for drivers, making everybody safer. The video above by Streetfilms shows exactly how they work and why they are so good.

Richmond Gets 80 Miles of Sharrows

2012-01-20T12:29:00.001-05:00

In mid November, the city of Richmond, VA began installing the first of approximately 80 lane miles of bike sharrows that will be placed along specific corridors in the city. The pilot corridors where the sharrows are being installed include Meadow Street from Broad Street to Cary Street and Harrison Street from Broad Street to Idlewood, representing about three lanes miles of bike sharrows thus far.

Sharrows consist of a large chevron and bicycle symbol. From start to finish the project will cost about $775,000, with most of the funds coming from the Federal Government grant for “congestion mitigation air quality” projects.

Shared lane pavement markings (or “sharrows”) are bicycle symbols carefully placed to guide bicyclists to the best place to ride on the road, avoid car doors and remind drivers to share the road with cyclists. Unlike bicycle lanes, sharrows do not designate a particular part of the street for the exclusive use of bicyclists.

They are simply a marking to guide bicyclists to the best place to ride and help motorists expect to see and share the lane with bicyclists.

Motorists: Expect to see bicyclists on the street. Remember to give bicyclists three feet of space when passing Follow the rules of the road as if there were no sharrows.

Bicyclists: Use the sharrow to guide where you ride within the lane. Remember not to ride too close to parked cars. Follow the rules of the road as if there were no sharrows.

Purpose of sharrows:

To indicate a cyclist’s right to the lane. (It does not confer the right, it just informs road users to it.)
Reduce bicycling on sidewalks
Assist bicyclists with lateral positioning in a shared lane with on-street parallel parking in order to reduce the chance of a bicyclist’s impacting the open door of a parked vehicle
Encourage safe passing of bicyclists by motorists
Reduce the incidence of wrong-way bicycling

Bike Sharing is Becoming a gateway Drug to Urban Cycling

2012-01-19T14:38:00.000-05:00

Washington D.C.'s Capitol Bikeshare started small in 2010, and with little fanfare. It wasn't as large as Paris' Vélib bike share system, or as immediately popular as Barcelona's Bici. It didn't have especially bells-and-whistles bikes like Denver's B-cycle program, nor was it as comprehensive as the Chinese city of Hangzhou's bike sharing scheme.

Never mind. Capital Bikeshare has become copy editor Bill Walsh's (and a lot of other DC commuters') gateway cycling drug of choice anyway. Walsh, who lives and works in the nation's capitol, has over the last eight months become a dedicated cycle commuter, using Capitol Bikeshare for more than 90% of his commutes - causing him to christen the service a "gateway" transportation drug. In other words, once you use it, you are hooked on city cycling.

And that's good for cities. Bike sharing systems are an investment, and frequently one that is hard to find the money for in cash-strapped cities (such as Portland, Oregon), but bike sharing is far cheaper than building subways, paving new freeways, or adding bus services, and it pays off not only in reducing car traffic but also in making citizens just a bit more conditioned.

The next wave in bike sharing is to make systems friendlier - making it easier for users (tourists and city dwellers) to get on other forms of public transport when they are done cycling. In Berlin and Paris, passes can be used for different transport, and in the case of Berlin, for car parking and taxis, too. In another experiment in Munich, Mo! combines car sharing and bike sharing in a single system.

In Denver, B-Cycle is making its system accessible to members of Boulder's B-Cycle and vice versa.
And Wuhan, China (with the largest bike sharing system in the world, according to the Bike Sharing Blog), plans to open its system to users of the Haikou city system hundreds of miles south.

Over 450 bike sharing systems exist or in the planning stages around the world, clustered most intensively in southern Asia, Europe, and the United States. Wouldn't it be nice if one card and one membership would give you access to any city around the globe? Now that would boost the concept of a global community of city cyclists tremendously.

Sweden Is Getting the Next Bike Superhighway

2012-01-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

If you want to find an unassuming place where bicycling is a way of life and nobody makes a big deal about it, head south. The south of Sweden, that is, where the small university town of Lund has a big bicycle habit. They just don't advertise it.

In Lund, 60% of the populace bikes or takes public transport to go about their daily tasks. And then there's Malmö, Sweden's third largest city - only 20 miles southwest of Lund. Malmö also doesn't have a reputation for fantastic biking. But some say it is the country's best biking city - ahead of both Stockholm, the capital; Gothenburg, the second largest Swedish metropolitan area, and a host of smaller bike-friendly burgs.

Just across the Øresund sound from Copenhagen, Malmö has always lived a bit in the shadow of the Danish capital. But in the last few years it has done a lot to take a place among the great biking cities of Northern Europe, mostly by its investment in infrastructure and pure commitment to get people on their bikes. That has paid off - cycling has increased 30% each year for the last four years, while car trips under five kilometers have dropped.

Now Malmö is upping the stakes by putting up 30 million Swedish crowns (about US$4.1 million) toward the building of a four-lane super cycling highway between it and its bike-happy northern neighbor city Lund.

The Swedish Traffic Authority (Trafikverket) has already studied the feasibility of building the bicycle superhighway between the two cities. What remains is for the central government (and Lund and the smaller towns between the two areas) to put their money down. Trafikverket has planned a route for the superhighway running roughly parallel to railway tracks, which makes it easier and less expensive to build, as right of ways are already in place.

The proposed bicycle superhighway would, in addition to four lanes (2 in each direction) have exits but no intersections, two types of wind protection (low bushes as well as solid fencing) periodic bicycle service stations, and would take eight years to complete. Total cost of the superhighway is estimated to be about 50 million Swedish crowns (US$ 7.1 million).

We already know that building bicycle infrastructure is magnitudes cheaper than building new car roads, and better for our health and our air quality. So, what will the first U.S. cities be to build this type ofsystem?

Flexible Bike Rack Makes Locking Up Easy

2012-01-10T12:15:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how many times I've been frustrated trying to lock up my bike, making the lock fit through the frame, the front wheel and the rack itself, but it's a high number. The Tulip Fun Fun is a bike rack created to alleviate that problem. The work of Margus Triibmann of Estonian design firm KEHA3, it bends to fit bikes of different sizes and shapes, so you lock your bike however you want.

The rack is made from metal cable surrounded by rubber, attached to a hot galvanized metal plate that is bolted to the ground. It's simple and smart, and I'd love the see it wherever I ride.

KEHA3 has a couple of other interesting bike rack designs, notably the Grazz, with stalk-like metal cables with looped ends, and the eye-catching Typo.

Top 10 Bike Books for the New Year

2012-01-09T12:41:00.001-05:00

I just got a new Kindle for Christmas and have started a new e-reading list that I thought I would share. It's never too late to start transportation cycling, so if the depths of winter generate some legitimate excuses not to start or refine your cycling career right this minute, this is a great time to get inspired. Here are some of the stellar bike books published in 2011 (and a few from 2010), in order to start out or build up your biking bookshelves.

If Bike Snob author Eban Weiss didn't invent snark, he certainly perfected it -- first in his BikeSnob NYC blog, and later in this best-selling book. Weiss is super-snarky, dead-on observant, and sometimes very, very funny. He stereotypes the bike world to within an inch of its bike pedals, and it makes for an amusing and informative read.

Bike Snob is a great way for new cyclists to understand the politics of what goes on in the bike lane, and maybe, just maybe, have a little compassion for the different types of cyclists that pedal there. Maybe.
If you want more of the mercilessness, Weiss continues on with the BikeSnob NYC blog. Or, if your snark bones are tired, read David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries instead.

Despite being a children's book, Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, A Sewing Needle, and A Bicycle Change History will give all cyclists a wonderful taste of cycling back during Biking 1.0.

Tillie Anderson, the book's heroine, was a real-life amazing athlete who broke numerous records and won scores of bicycle races during her short career in the mid to late 1890s. Anderson was part of a group of women cyclists who flaunted Victorian social constraints and moral codes in order to race their bicycles.
Author Sue Stauffacher became entranced with Anderson's story back in 2005, and succeeds in telling a sweet tale of Tillie's rise to short-lived fame -- from Swedish immigrant seamstress, to world-class athlete, to contented housewife.

The 50 individual essays in On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life make sure to cover all aspects of Biking 2.0, including sex, safety, bike shops, and sharing the road. Chapters from famous bicycling advocates such as Jeff Mapes, John Pucher, and Elly Blue help enliven this 'Whole Earth Catalog' of bicycle culture.

Edited by Amy Walker, co-founder of Momentum Magazine, On Bicycles definitely has something for everyone, and yields up its bounty without being overly preachy. Especially welcome to the non-technical transportation cyclist are chapters such as "The Case for Internally Geared Bicycle Hubs" by Aaron Goss, and "Ergonomic Evolution: The Advantages of Riding Reclined" by Vincent Tourdonnet.

Sue Macy's book Wheels of Change: How Women rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) is supposed to be a young adult title, but readers of almost any age will find lots to love in this history of how women used the bicycle to gain new-found freedom. Macy details the history of the cycling innovations that helped women throw off the cumbersome skirts of the Victorian era and get on two-wheeled "safety' cycles and out into the world.

She includes some of the historical cycling heroines, from Tillie Anderson to Louise Armaindo, and she sprinkles historical narrative with features -- cycling slang, for instance, and the rich vein of cycling songs that came out at the height of the bicycle boom in the late 1890's. Wheels of Change is fun, and the archival photos alone will keep you absorbed for hours.

David L. Herlihy is well-known as one of American cycling's historians. While researching his classic Bicycle: The History, Herlihy time and again came upon old clippings referring to Frank Lenz, a reporter and touring cyclist who disappeared in 1894 while attempting to bike around the world. Intrigued, Herlihy further delved into Lenz's fascinating story, and eventually wrote a book specifically about his journey, disappearance, and fellow cyclist William Sachtleben's quest to find him, called The Lost Cyclist.

Rich in period detail, The Lost Cyclist is an enjoyable, if sometimes slightly plodding read. It is those few slow moments when the gallery of vintage photos of Lenz during various stages of his short and semi-famous life help tide the reader over. Though Herlihy does a painstaking job of trying to clear up the mystery of Lenz's disappearance, readers might remain somewhat unsatisfied. There are plenty of clues as to who killed Lenz, but the exact reasons why are never completely established.

Evan P. Schneider's novel A Simple Machine, Like the Lever, is an ongoing stream-of-consciousness journal detailing the joys of cycling in a complex, sometimes heartbreaking world. Schneider, through his alter ego Nick, manages to find some universal cycling truths -- not just the big ones, but the ongoing day-to-day ones.

Nick is trying to come of age in a very complicated society, and though his struggle is by no means unusual, the sweet observations of why we are cyclists keep you reading. Schneider, the founding editor of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, gives a lovely portrait of the simplicity and joys of cycling.
A new sub-genre of books has sprung up with tips and techniques for the urban cyclist, and this Urban Cyclist's Survival Guide by James Rubin and Scott Rowan covers many of the basics. The approach is safety and survival oriented, and advocates defensive cycling. If you are a style-over-speed cyclist, you might grow alarmed at how many times "survival" pops up in this book, and at how the tone is one of competition, speed, and natural selection rather than cooperation and community.

Never mind, just take from this guide the tips that will help you, wherever you are in your cycling journey. For even more cycling urban cycling philosophy, follow up this book with The Art of Cycling by Robert Hurst.

Much of the interesting commentary on urban cycling is to be found not in so-called mainstream publishing but in the blogging world, so it's hardly surprising that some of the best recent titles on biking aren't mainstream books at all, but e-zines.

Our Bodies, Our Bikes is the latest in a series of 'zines by Grist blogger Elly Blue. Blue likes to write about bike policy, bike politics, and bike economics, and Our Bodies, Our Bikes mixes those together. Blue mostly plays editor on this compilation of essays, though she does a turn with Caroline Paquette on the essay "Your Vulva."

There's no bike porn in Our Bodies, however. Instead, there's a lot of practical advice mixed with a healthy dash of feminist encouragement. After all, men outnumber women in the bike lanes by at least 2 to 1.
Blue has a number of great e-zines, including a great long essay on bike economics -- all available at takingthelane.com.

Also check out both Boneshaker e-zines, the UK and the US versions.

Robert Penn's paean to bicycles, It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels, is another title looking for the essence of why humans love bikes. Luckily, Penn's book is easy to read, and full of the quirky bike history that the cycle-obsessed just love to know. He's also bike obsessed, and dreams of a perfect bike, then describes it in full detail. It also includes some great background on the bike business and its development, plus lots of personal anecdotes.

Mostly, the book is good because Penn is a fluid, graceful writer. That's important as sometimes the going gets technical. The book will also teach you to know your bike intricately.

Helen Pidd, a journalist for The Guardian, released Bicycle -- Love Your Bike: The Complete Guide to Everyday Cycling in 2010, and it really is a complete guide. Packed with facts and written in a sassy, smart style, Bicycle is a great guide for both new and experienced urban cyclists.

Though the layout is cheerful and the illustrations of bike parts and procedures are welcome, the book does suffer from a bit of an overstuffed, overdesigned lack of readability -- the small orange san serif text on a black background can lead to a headache. Still, Pidd does the bike world a great service in tackling many of the issues facing urban cyclists every day, as well as providing the type of basics every cyclist needs, at one point or another, to know. It deserves a solid space on the bike bookshelf.

Cycling Fines In Copenhagen Are Increased to Help Discourage Breaking Traffic Laws

2012-01-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

Some of the biggest dangers to cyclists occur when they are riding improperly or breaking traffic laws. On any given day, it is difficult to not come accross a rider that is riding against flow of traffic, jumping curbs, and running stop lights/signs. If the US would adopt some of the new fines being implemented in Copenhagen, maybe it would start to detour these dangerous actions, make the streets safer for riders, and create a better perseption of riders from motorists. Mind you that I have converted the fines to US dollars, and that these infractions would be occurring on Copenhagen's protected bike paths.

Beginning in the new year, riding no-handed, cycling through a red light, or forgetting to signal a turn will cost bicyclists dearly in Copenhagen. The traffic law changes will result in fines for a variety of bicycling infractions jumping from $85-$100, and in some cases to $175. It is the first increase in biking fines in 12 years.

Cycling on the pavement, riding without lights, and cycling through a pedestrian crossing are among the acts that will net a $100+ fine, while cycling against the traffic, running a red light and using a mobile phone will result in a $175 fine.

According to a Konservative MP, Tom Behnke, the fine increases are meant to discourage cyclists from breaking traffic laws.

“A $175 fine will hurt more, so that most people will think: ‘Oh, that sucked,'” Behnke told Politiken newspaper.

But a 100 percent jump in the cost of cycling infractions overshoots the mark, argued the cyclists’ union, Cyklistforbundet.

“Parliament is using a bazooka to shoot a butterfly in this case,” the union’s head, Jens Loft Rasmussen, said in a statement. “It cannot be right that it should cost [the equivalent of] one fourth of the cost of a bicycle to talk on a mobile phone while on a deserted bicycle path.”

Rasmussen, however, was not against the notion of fining cyclists.

“We don’t think cyclists should have free rein,” he told Politiken. “But we know that it is primarily motorists who cause the serious accidents - it’s not cyclists who kill others. Cyclists can be irritating, but I believe that smaller fines would be more appropriate.”

A Copenhagen Police spokesperson, John Sckaletz, told Politiken that while he hoped the fines would help to decrease traffic chaos, he questioned the higher fines’ preventative effect.

The traffic laws not only affect cyclists, but motorists as well. Registered traffic infractions that used to cost between $85 and $200 will after January 1 cost $335, while speeding tickets will increase by between $100-$200.

Biking fines, effective Jan 1

Cycling without lights in the dark: $115
Using a hand-held mobile phone while biking: $170
Missing or defective brakes or reflectors: $115
Cycling through a red light: $170
Cycling against traffic: $170
Cycling across a pedestrian crossing: $115
Cycling on the cycle path on the left side of the street: $115
Not respecting traffic signs or arrows: $115
Violating the right of way: $170
Failure to signal a turn or stop:$115
Cycling no-handed: $115
Cycling on the pavement: $115
Holding onto a vehicle: $115
Having two or more people on a regular bicycle: $115 per person
Wrong position while/before turning: $115
Non-functioning bell: Warning

Milk Crate Basket/Bike Seat

2012-01-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

I love bikes and I love when designers reuse materials to make bikes more functional and efficient. So what's not to like about "Two Go" by Israeli designer Yael Livneh?

Using a reclaimed milk crate, the piece acts as an additional bike seat for carrying a passenger or it can be converted back into a crate for carting your groceries home. Very neat, very low tech, and a great way to add capacity and adaptability to that greenest of machines—the bicycle.

Head over to designboom for more pictures and a detailed description of the Two Go concept.

NYC Bike Counts Up 298% In Last 10 Years

2012-01-03T13:11:00.002-05:00

New York City has become much more bike-friendly over the past decade, and despite some bumps in the road, momentum seems to have increased over 2011. StreetFilms point out in the video montage above, the bike count in NYC is up almost 3X since 2001, and it has doubled since 2007. Public opinion surveys show that support by New Yorkers for more bike lanes is increasing, and the data shows that pedestrians are safer where there are bike lanes. All of this is worth celebrating! Let's keep going and make even more progress in 2012!

Top 10 Bike Sharing Programs

2011-12-29T10:47:00.001-05:00

With bike share programs popping up all over the world, it's easier than ever to skip the rental car and see a new city on two wheels -- or cut your carbon footprint by riding around town instead of driving. And as each city puts its program together, the focus is on one very important aesthetic: The bikes themselves.

From the all-American red of Capital Bike Share to the sophisticated muted tones of Italy's BikeMi, here's some of my favorite bike share bikes around the world. The patriotic red of Washington, D.C's Capital Bikeshare bikes is just part of what turned this 2008 upstart into the biggest bike-sharing program in the country: Though it already boasts more than 1,000 cycles at 114 stations around town, the group announced plans to add nearly 300 more bikes in the fall of 2011.

Paris launched its bike share program, Velib, in July 2007 with more than 10,000 bicycles placed around the City of Lights; by its fourth birthday in 2011, the program was offering more than 17,000 bikes at 1,202 rental stations. But who wouldn't want to pick up one of the sleek gray bikes -- complete with a front basket -- to avoid the traffic while picking up a baguette from your favorite boulangerie?

Istanbul isn't a city that's known for its friendliness to bicyclists -- one rider quoted in a piece on EurasiaNet said, "Other drivers on the motorway act as if they don't see you. You are a ghost." -- but if you're willing to brave the steep terrain and the vehicles, you can grab one of these royal blue bikes from Ispark.

Melbourne also chose a vibrant blue for its shared bike program, which launched in 2010 but didn't get rolling quite as quickly as organizers had hoped. A year after the program's beginning, Australia's The Age reported that riders were still making about 2,000 fewer trips each month than needed to subsidize the cost of the program, but that plans for additional bike parking locations could improve the ridership.

Hubway, the bike share program for Boston, Massachusetts, debuted in the city in July, 2011, with more than 600 cycles installed at 61 stations from Seaport Boulevard to Harvard Stadium. The city has also installed or has plans for a total of 12 more miles of bike paths to make it easier for residents to get from Point A to Point B on these metallic gray cycles with Green Monster-inspired detailing.

There's no missing these bright green, red, and yellow bikes from the Taipei bike sharing program Youbike which began in March 2009 with a pilot program of 500 cycles that were used by 20,000 customers in the first six weeks.

Following the success of the Parisian Velib program, Montreal also jumped into the world of bike sharing.
They started what the New York Times called "the continent's most ambitious" program, Bixi, in May 2009, with 3,000 cycles.

Not sure you want to brave a rental car -- complete with driving on the wrong side of the road -- in London? Use the Barclay's Cycle Hire instead, where you can rent an appropriately sedate navy blue bike (and still feel like you're traveling like a local thanks to the Underground-inspired logo on the side).

Nice Ride, the Minneapolis, Minnesota bike sharing program, has been offering up these flashy fluorescent bikes since 2010 -- with more than 100,000 riders hitting the streets in the first season alone. But don't expect to get a bike if you're visiting in the winter: The snowy season means the bikes are only out from April to November.

BikeMi, the bike sharing service that provides residents and guests of Milan, Italy, with their own two wheels, plans to fill the city with about 5,000 cycles -- making it easy to go from art museums and coffee shops to the Duomo and the flea markets sans car.

Look at the Asshole in the Bike Lane

2011-12-19T12:33:00.000-05:00

The Speakeasy Tattoo establishment is on one of Toronto's busiest bike lanes, right next door to the Sam James Coffee Bar, said to be the best in town. People dash in for a coffee, but they take their time pulling a latte. The Sam James people try to encourage good behaviour among their customers with a sign outside their door,

And the Tattoo parlour put up their own sign:

But that didn't work either; people still parked their Hummers in the bike lane, as in this photo. So they set up a camera in their shop and started a website, logically called Look at the Asshole in the Bike Lane. It is quite festive, as they shoot their photos through the Christmas decorations.

Some retailers and stores hate bike lanes, and complain constantly that they reduce their business. Here's a shoutout for two businesses that do the opposite, they recognize that there are a whole lot of people who rely on bike lanes every day.

Bike Storage Getting Smaller and Better

2011-12-16T14:47:00.000-05:00

More and more of us are riding bikes, and more and more of us are living in small spaces. This creates a problem of where you put the bikes, and what kind of bike you ride. In London, Quarterre Studios have developed a line of bicycle accessories.

Quarterre is looking to bridge the divide between furniture and interior design and the reality of everyday life on two wheels. They have used their backgrounds in the automotive industry to create design solutions that are functional, efficient and stylish.

The Shadow is a bent piece of steel with a bit of leather, not much to it at all.

The freestanding, cantilevered form needs no mounting and can accommodate most wheel sizes. Crafted in steel, it is finished with leather trim for hanging a helmet and a high friction base to aid bike stability.

The Hood is a wall-mounted hanger.

The architecturally inspired form is made from folded sheet steel that will support a bike securely by its top tube and can be mounted easily to any solid wall. It is trimmed in high quality leather to protect the bikes frame.

It's unusual in that it can hold two bikes, and just leans against the wall. It is all FSC sourced woods with leather trim.

Sculpted with wood and metal, its adjustable arms can be tailored to fit each bike frame’s geometry. The stand can be leant against any wall or inverted to clear floor area in smaller spaces.

None of these are cheap, but if you are living in small spaces it helps to have stuff that is nice to look at. It's also nice to see that designers are giving serious thought to how to deal with the problem.
More at Quarterre Products, via Book of Joe

Infographics Comparing CO2 and Transportation Modes

2011-12-14T08:43:00.001-05:00

A new study by the European Cyclists Federation (ECF) looked at the CO2 impact of biking, driving cars, taking the bus, and found - not too surprisingly, but it's good to have the hard data to back up any claims - that if the countries of the EU-27 reached a level of biking similar to Denmark's, that reductions of CO2 emissions of between 63 and 142 million tons per year could be possible by 2050. This would be 12 to 26% of the target reduction set for the transport sector by the European 2050 targets.

This isn't some pipe dream. 2050 is far enough in the future that there's time to make infrastructure investments to bring up the level of "bike-friendliness" in cities where it is lagging, and it's long enough for smart incentives to work their magic and discourage car usage (especially in cities and for commuting).
As you can see in the picture above, bike LCA came to 21g of CO2 per kilometer, electric-assist bikes were 22g, buses scored 101g of CO2/km, and passenger cars got an average of 271g CO2/km (and that's just for short trips that could be replaced by bikes, which is what the study focused on).
Another thing to keep in mind when looking at the pictures in this post and in reading the numbers in the study (PDF) is that the ECF has been extremely conservative in its estimates, trying to avoid any accusations of being biased in favor of bikes. They went as far as not including infrastructure for cars, or things like parking and maintenance, in their calculations. This means that with a more realistic set of assumptions, bikes would come even more ahead.

Another thing of note in the study is the part where they discuss the life-cycle impact of cars (page 12 of the study). They found that 77% of the impact came from what they call 'tank to wheels', or the burning of the fuel. This means that fuel efficiency makes a big difference; while it isn't nearly as green as biking, if you have to drive a car, make sure it is the most fuel-efficient model that fits your needs and drive it sanely to keep MPG as high as possible.

Via ECF (pdf), BikePortland

Proof of If You Build it, They will Ride

2011-12-12T13:38:00.000-05:00

Felix Salmon at Reuters notes that since Janette Sadik-Khan was appointed and started installing bike lanes, the number of cyclists on the road has more than doubled. This is good news for cyclists, but also for drivers; if they are on bikes, they are not in cars or trains. Salmon writes:

The lesson of this chart, then, is that if you build bike lanes, cyclists will appear to fill them. That’s fantastic news, since cities with lots of cyclists are always the most pleasant cities to live and work in — even for people who don’t bike themselves.

Cool New Bike Rack with a Message

2011-12-10T13:11:00.001-05:00

This hot pink bicycle stand occupies a space the size of one parking bay and holds 10 bicycles. Originally commissioned by the London Festival of Architecture, the Car Bike Rack is designed by Cyclehoop and popping up all over east London as a way to determine where the demand for bicycle parking exists and promote cycling.

The stand is an ironic take with a serious message. Cars cause pollution and congestion, and their parking spaces could be dedicated to bikes, not cars. The "car" bike rack is made out of steel and anchored into the ground with bolts so it is good and sturdy. At the same time, it is a flat pack design, so that it is simple to transport and set up at events. It can also include a bike pump and be used for branding.

The bike rack has been spotted in many places, and for fun the creators have inserted a QR tag so that users can scan it and find out more about the project, and leave their comments. This is cool, providing practical bike infrastructure, and a message and urban art, all at the same time.

Cyclehoop is a young, award-winning company launched by a designer who had his bike stolen, and started to think about how he could make a more secure lock. From those roots, the company grew to include designers and architects who specialise in producing innovative and original indoor and outdoor bicycle parking products.
Another of their ideas is the communal Bike Hangar, where local residents can safely store their bicycles. The local council has now placed four of them in housing projects in the area.
They can be parked on the street--it takes up half a parking space--or outside a building. The lockers hold five bicycles and each resident pays an annual fee and gets a key to secure the bicycle in the spot. The lockers are easily transportable and secure.

The Bicycle: It's That Simple

2011-12-07T08:19:00.001-05:00

This is a beautiful video that makes you want to get on 2 wheels and ride around the city for an afternoon.

Chicago's First Protected Bike Lane Opened

2011-12-05T15:01:00.001-05:00

Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has said that he wants to make his city more bike-friendly, and to help with that he has pledge that 100 miles of protected bike lanes would be built during his first term. The first of those is now open to the public, and as far as I can tell, it has been a great success so far! StreetFilms has shot the video below about it. It's great and should be shown to the mayor and urban planners of all cities around North-America.

Ever Wonder What Road Fatalities Look Like On A Map

2011-12-01T20:21:00.001-05:00

A group of transportation specialists from the UK, ITO World, has taken US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and overlaid it on OpenStreetMap interactive maps to create a stark reminder of the importance of road safety. It also doesn't require a huge leap of the imagination to think that if our transportation system was greener - more mass transit, more separated bike lanes, more walkable neighborhoods - that a lot of those deaths wouldn't have occurred.
The data shows fatalities for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, etc, between 2001 and 2009.

For each incident you can see the person's age, sex and the year in which the crash took place. Where information is not available fields are left blank. (that's what the little colored squares show) Follow this link to check out the ITO map of road fatalities. There's also a similar map for the UK, and they want to create one for Canada.

Cycling Explained

2011-12-01T12:26:00.001-05:00

This is awesome and so true!

UK Report Studies Infrastructure and Cycling Safety

2011-11-30T12:12:00.001-05:00

Britain's Transportation Department just released a report which brings together all the existing data on cycliing infrastructure in the UK. It also says that it will take decades of sustained investment to achieve a functional urban cycle network across the country and a willingness to prioritise cycle traffic. The report also warns that piecemeal implementation of cycling infrastructure "is unlikely to be satisfactory".

Slowing down traffic, particularly at intersections, is identified as having the biggest likely impact on reducing cycling casualties with vehicle collisions, and also points out that this would also reduce casualties for all road users. Suggested methods of achieving this include physical traffic calming, redesigning urban streets in both their appearance and the way they are designed to be used by pedestrians and the wider use of 20mph speed limits.

However it is what the report has to say about other aspects of Britain's cycling infrastructure that will give food for thought to all sides in the debate on how best to provide the right environment for cycling in Britain and around the world. According to the report's authors there is little evidence for the safety benefits of cycle lanes, or advanced stop lines; and while segregated cycle lanes can offer greater safety to cyclists the points at which they connect with the road network can be so dangerous that they negate the safety benefit of segregation.

ASL - limited data, but limited evidence of benefit particularly associated with junctions. Notwithstanding this lack of evidence, ASLs may provide a priority for cyclists and might be applicable where there are heavy flows of right-turning cyclists.
Cycle lanes - There is little evidence in the UK that marked cycle lanes provide a safety benefit, although they may achieve other objectives. This lack of evident benefit may, however, represent a lack of quality and continuity in implementation. There is also extremely limited experimentation with, and no reported studies of, kerbed cycle lanes in the UK.
Segregated Cycle lanes – Providing segregated networks may reduce risk to cyclists in general, although evidence suggests that the points at which segregated networks intersect with highways can be relatively high-risk, sometimes of sufficient magnitude to offset any safety benefits of removing cyclists from the carriageway. However may be applicable particularly in rural settings.

Measures suggested as effective for improving safety at junctions include cycle pre-signals, continuing cycling lanes across junctions, raised cycle lanes at intersections, installing traffic signals at major roundabouts, and changing the design of roundabouts to slow traffic and to change the turning geometry to a sharper angle as on European roundabouts (thus eliminating the driver's blindspot). All of these measures have says the report had a measureable effect on improving safety for cyclists in other European countries most notably the Netherlands.

Interestingly while the report can seemingly find evidence for the safety benefits for cycle lanes in other European countries it finds little evidence for their effectiveness in Britain - as the report notes "a lack of quality" may be a factor in that. Perhaps Britain's best know network of urban cycle lanes London's Barclays Cycle Superhighways is currently the focus of much criticism with poor implementation and the failure to heed safety advice.

The report also has interesting things to say about the design and implementation of both traffic calming measures and cycling infrastructure. While the authors say that traffic calming in general is beneficial to cyclists, they also advise road designers to be aware that features such as road narrowing and speed bumps have the potential for creating additional conflict between cyclists and other road users. Those designing infrastructure for cyclists also need to ensure that it meets cyclists needs otherwise warns the report it risks making a problem worse not better.

The report can be downloaded from here on the Department for Transport website.