Portland had zero cyclist fatalities in 2013, again!

A transportation network is a complex thing. Millions of people walking,biking, and driving in all directions, brushing past each other in various weather and light conditions. Even if everyone is doing their very best, and sadly, they aren't always, there's bound to be some serious accidents. Making things worse is that most cities, especially in North-America, are way too car-centric and treat pedestrians and cyclists are second-class citizens. This makes things more dangerous than they have to be...

But it's not the case everywhere.

Portland is one of the shining examples of what can be done to make the streets as safe as possible for everyone. One notable fact is that in 2013, there hasn't been a single cyclist fatality in the city. Michael Andersen at Bike Portlandwrites:

There were several serious collisions, covered here on the site, including one major hit-and-run that remains unsolved. But the number-one reason Portland is the country’s best big city for biking is that this is, compared to any other large U.S. city and lots of the smaller ones, an extremely safe place to ride a bicycle.

This isn’t a new feat for Portland: the city also avoided any bike-related fatalities in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008 and 2010.

In a perfect world this wouldn't be impressive, it would just be normal. But we aren't there yet, so kudos to Portland and all the urban planners, activists, and every day commuters who have worked hard day in and day out to make the streets safer for everyone.

Elected officials and urban planners everywhere need to study success stories like Portland, but also Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Groningen, Houten, etc, and import these best practices to their cities.

To celebrate a great 2013, check out some of the great things that Portland has been doing to improve the city:

The full list of bike corral locations in Portland is available here.

Via Bike Portland, Grist

Montreal Ranked #11 Best Bike City in the World (Top Western Hemisphere City)

This year the Copenhagen Index evaluated 150 cities for qualities including bicycle advocacy, gender split, and infrastructure. Beating many other top contenders, Montreal was ranked the most bike friendly city in North America. It was also the only city in Canada and the USA that made it into the top 14, coming in at #11 internationally.

Montreal saw it’s first bike paths as early as 1980, and now boasts 589 km of paths. Cyclo-toursim plays a role in the local economy as outfits like Fitz & Follwell give tourists a chance to experience Montreal bike culture through guided biking tours.

In 2008 Montreal pioneered a new public bike sharing system known as Bixi. The model has worked so well that it’s now being adopted by cities all over the world including Boston, Melbourne, London, Toronto, New York and Washington, D.C.. The systems are all fabricated in Montreal and then sold worldwide, making it simple for other cities to become bike friendly as well.

Additionally, city residents don’t just use their bikes to get to work and back, biking is part of a broader culture. Events like Friction Montreal showcase bike friendly artists creating instruments from bike parts, and the annual Tour de l’Île race features a 100km ride, opening many main roads to cyclists for the event. Artisans like Rose Pedals create earrings out of used bike parts, and community bicycle Co-ops throughout the city allow cyclists to share tools and resources to keep their bikes in tune. Montrealers like to have their fun as well; this year they participated in the World Naked Bike Ride for the 9th time.

Perhaps next year the city will climb even higher in the ranks. For now it’s amazing to be featured so close to the top! Here’s how the rest of the world stacked up:

Awesome Bike Friendly City to Learn From

Every time I look at the bike culture and infrastructure in Copenhagen or Amsterdam, I feel inspired and hope that people around the world will learn from these great examples. There are many other great bike cities, but those two are generally at the top of most people's list, including mine. Well, thanks to this video (below) I've just added Groningen to the top of my list.

They do amazing things that must be seen to be believed. Sit back and enjoy a look into what most dense cities should look like:

Clarence's remark about how quiet the city is reminds us that we don't have to live with noisy cities. As long as there are lots of people, some noise is impossible to avoid, but it could all be made much more pleasant if bicycles were central to how people get around in cities.

What must be highlighted here, as with Amsterdam and Copenhagen and all other great bike cities, is that this didn't all happen by accident. There was a time when these weren't such great bike cities, and people decided to transform them. That's what we've started to see in some US cities like New York, Washington DC, and Portland which is encouraging. But we could do so much more.

Via Streetfilms

Riding a Bike to School Will Make You Smarter

Teen girls who walked or biked to school in a Spanish study performed better at school in verbal and math skills that their peers who rode the bus or got to school in a car, according to a 2011 research study funded by the Spanish National Research Council. More recently, the results of a large Danish study from 2012 show that driving kids to school in a car is doing them a disservice. This large study by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University followed 20,000 school kids aged 5-19 in some of their daily activities. The researchers were interested to see whether a good breakfast made a difference in concentration levels - an idea that is fairly well accepted in the U.S.

The group of kids walking or biking to school concentrated better than those driven to school or taking public transport, and the effect lasted throughout the morning hours. On average, active students scored 8.2 - 8.4 on a concentration test (of a possible 10) while non-active students scored an average of 7.6 - 7.8. This was more than the concentration difference shown between students who did eat breakfast (8 - 8.15) and those who didn't (8.1 - 8.25).

Unfortunately, in the Nordic nations and in the U.S., the trend for how children get to school is going in the opposite direction - more children are getting driven to school than ever before. Parents perceive walking and biking to be dangerous, while actually things have gotten safer for cyclists in many, many places, and overall fatalities are trending downward.

Of course, correlation is not causality, so it can't be said with certainty that riding a bike to school will make you smarter, anymore than it can be said that driving in cars will make you fat. With biking, there are so many other benefits, real and perceived, that it certainly seems worth a try to get parents off the driving-the-kids-to-school frenzy.

Via: Ecoprofil (Swedish)

Bicycle Commuting Data on Bike to Work Day

Today is the National Bike to Work Day and with this holiday, the League of American Bicyclists released some great data that shows the progress of bicycle commuting in the US. The number of bicyclists is growing rapidly from coast to coast. The National Household Travel Survey showed that the number of trips made by bicycle in the U.S. more than doubled from 1.7 billion in 2001 to 4 billion in 2009. Thanks, in part, to encouragement efforts like Bike to Work Day, the number of bike commuters is on the rise, as well -- especially in Bicycle Friendly Communities.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, from 2000 to 2011, the 39 Bicycle Friendly Communities among the 70 largest U.S. cities saw a 80% increase in bicycle commuting. In contrast, the bike commuter rate in the 31 largest non-Bicycle Friendly Communities grew only 32%, while the national average grew 47%.

Click here to download the PDF of the infographic.

In some Bicycle Friendly Communities, bicycle commuting rates have skyrocketed by more than 400% since 1990, including cities as diverse as Portland, Ore., and Lexington, Ky. Meanwhile, cities like Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Denver have more than doubled their bike commuter share since 2000.

Click here to download the PDF of the infographic.

Find Commuter Data for your Area

Click here to download 2010 bicycle commuting data for all 375 cities included in the American Community Survey

Click here to download bicycle commute data from 1990 to 2011 for the 70 largest U.S. cities, including percentage of bicycle commuters and percent change

Click here for 2011 state commute rates, including bicycle commuting by gender

Idaho Stop Debate Rolls On

Rolling Stops for Cyclists May Be Coming to Utah  is one of my favorite posts that touched on a state law that passed in Idaho, and is brought up every year or so by others. I admittedly have rolled through empty stop signs and hate sitting at a stale red light, but try to keep safety and setting a good example in mind when riding, so that drivers and others that may see me riding will respect me. My thoughts are that stop signs exist primarily as a form of speed control for cars rather than a right-of-way system; that's why they have converted most of them to four way stops that don't actually work as well for right-of-way as the old two way stops. Idaho is still the only state to legalize this action, but others are still mulling it.

Now Ruben Anderson joins the fray with Three Cheers for the Idaho Stop!! (or, the Insanity of Over-regulating Parakeets.)

The Idaho Stop is defined by Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland:

This law would make it legal for bicyclists to treat stop signs like yield signs. A cyclist approaching an intersection controlled by a stop sign, would be permitted to roll through the stop sign after yielding the right of way if there are other vehicles at the intersection.

It makes sense; a different kind of vehicle needs a different kind of regulation and control. Ruben writes:

Road laws are solely designed to reduce the carnage caused by 2,000 lb. bullets hurtling around at high speeds. And that is all the laws should be applied to.
We have laws for pig farmers. Should tomato farmers have to build giant manure management systems?

We have laws for dog licensing. Should parakeets have to wear a little collar with a tiny tag?

We have laws for new drivers. Should experienced drivers be forbidden from carrying passengers or driving on the highway?

My favorite bit of hilarity though: Imagine if we applied road laws to everyone who was commuting. Should pedestrians walking down the sidewalk shoulder check twice, extend their arm to signal the direction they intend to walk, then sharply turn?

Ruben concludes:

So, calls for cyclists to obey car laws are as misguided as suggesting cars should obey bike laws, or that parakeets should obey dog laws.

Read it all in A small and delicious life

London Congestion Pricing Creates Positive Results On All Accounts

Streetsblog, used the occasion of the 10th anniversary of London’s congestion pricing system to review its effectiveness. As you probably know, congestion pricing is a tool by which cities limit automobile and other traffic to certain areas by charging a fee for access. In London, that fee is £10, or about $15.


Has it worked? Streetsblog says yes — or, it did for a bit.

In its first few years, the London charging scheme was heralded as a solid traffic-buster, with 15-20 percent boosts in auto and bus speeds and 30 percent reductions in congestion delays. Most of those gains appear to have disappeared in recent years, however. Transport for London (TfL), which combines the functions of our NYCDOT and MTA and which created and operates the charging system, attributes the fallback in speeds to other changes in the streetscape and traffic management …

The congestion charge also raised millions in revenue, some $435 million in 2008 alone.
But the benefit over the past decade can be seen most clearly in the three maps Streetsblog provides.

Car traffic declines.

Bicycle usage rises.

 
Public transit use increases. 


Less traffic, less congestion, more public transit use, more money for government investment. All the sorts of things that drive right-wing Americans insane. So I wouldn’t hold my breath for implementation in a U.S. city any time soon. 

Green Lane Project Spreads

The Green Lane Project is a partnership between bike advocacy groups and six U.S. cities (Austin, Chicago, Memphis, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, DC.) that aims to "catalyze the creation of world-class protected bicycling networks on American streets". Each of the six cities has done great things, but the beauty of the partnership is that they can all learn from each others and share best practice. During the fall, representatives from the project met in New York City to do exactly that, and Streetfilms were in attendance with their trusty video camera.
Below is a video made by the Green Lane Project to explain its efforts:

These bike activists and city officials are doing extremely important work and they deserve our support. Bicycling infrastructure is always a bit of a chicken & egg problem, so it's really important to have hard-working people who can break the log-jam and get things moving; once there's a critical mass of safe bike lanes and convenient infrastructure (bike parking garages, workplace showers, bike-sharing stations, etc), the masses usually join in (it's the Field of Dreams principle: "Build it and they will come.").

Via Streetfilms, Green Lane Project

Bikes For Guns

Uruguay, under the current administration, has garnered a reputation for its "thinking outside the box" approach to leadership, and it's gotten results. Now, in a quirky effort to reduce the number of firearms in circulation, the government is again trying something new, offering citizens to turn in their unregistered guns in exchange for -- a shiny new bike.

Or, as Uruguay's Interior Ministry puts it, the tradeoff is "Weapons for Life".

This creative initiative, which launched this week, is in response to the prevalence of illegal firearms and rising rates of homicides. The small South American nation, known for its quaintness, ranks 9th in number of guns per capita in the world. More than a million firearms are in the hands of the country's 3.3 million residents, and half of those are unregistered.

"These are the same weapons that, sometimes and for various reasons (sale, theft, etc.), can be prevented from entering the market for use by criminals," says the Interior Ministry.

But instead of following the 'gun buyback' model that's been implemented in the United States and Australia as a way of getting guns off the street, Uruguay's "Weapons for Life" program is taking a different approach that might improve society even more. Instead of getting cash, residents turning in their unregistered weapons will each receive either a new bicycle or a low-end computer. So far, the program has received praise for being an win-win, potentially reducing gun crime while improving the lives of those in illegal possession of weapons, as well as the nation as a whole.

Via TeleSur

NYC Bike Advocacy Getting Stronger

Local Spokes is a New York City-based coalition of nine different local organizations that does bike advocacy in the Lower East Side and Chinatown (you can see a list of the nine at the bottom of this page). They do a great job, working particularly hard to reach low income people, immigrants, young people, etc. Elizabeth Press has a great video providing an overview of the work they do:

To understand the transportation needs of the neighborhoods, Local Spokes conducted an extensive survey in 2010 and 2011 and held a series of workshops in Chinese, English, and Spanish.

Last summer Local Spokes synthesized everything the coalition had gathered from this process into a neighborhood action plan for bicycling [PDF]. The goal of the action plan is to ensure that residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown will have a role guiding decisions about bike-related policies and initiatives for their streets, and to create a model for community-based bike plans in other neighborhoods. (source)

The action plan has been published here (pdf).
Via Streetfilms

Bikescore Now Available From Walkscore

There are many great organization working on promoting alternatives to car-centric transportation in the U.S., and Walkscore is one of them. If knowledge is power, that's exactly what they provide: Knowledge about how walkable and bikeable various cities and neighborhoods are, empowering people make informed choices about where they want to live and, hopefully, helping policymakers improve infrastructure.

The great thing is, they keep improving their service! Last Spring they started ranking cities by how bike-friendly they are, and now they've already made that data more granular. You can now see bikeability info on an address-by-address basis for 25 cities in the U.S. and 11 in Canada.

So you can now type an address and get the bike score for that particular location, but you can also look at those cities' maps (full list here) and see overlaid 'heat maps' that show which areas are better than others, either for overall bike score or for things like bike lanes or topography. It's very cool!
They've also incorporated bike-sharing data:

Bonus: Walk Score Now Has Bike Shares
We have also mapped nearly 1,600 locations of bike shares across North America. Search for any address in these cities and find bike share locations listed as one of the main categories: Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Houston, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Broward, Charlotte, Des Moines, Kailua, Kansas City, Madison, Nashville, Omaha, San Antonio and Spartanburg.

Keep up the good work, Walkscore!

Via Walkscore

Separated Bike Lanes Hit Harlem

Elizabeth from Streetfilms has created a great video on how East Harlem had to fight to get the safe streets it deserves. In 2010, New York City's Department of Transportation originally had planned separated bike lanes that went all the way up to East Harlem only to later change its plans. But thanks to the local community putting pressure on elected officials, East Harlem has finally gotten 'complete streets' that are safer and more convenient for cyclists.

This is exactly the type of action that should take places in all cities and neighborhoods that aren't getting proper transportation infrastructure. Separated bike lanes are very much a "build it and they will come" type of proposition, and if city officials don't have the vision to go all the way, they should be reminded by citizens that this type of infrastructure is crucial to a healthy, green modern city.

Reasons to Start Riding a Bike to Work

Though U.S. has seen 40 percent growth in bicycle commuters since 2000, their numbers have yet to surpass 1 million. In contrast, there are 204 million personal vehicles on the road on a given day. Not only does biking to work have the potential to improve individuals' health, wealth and standard of living, but the combination of more cyclists and fewer cars on the road could give the entire country a much-needed boost. Here's why:

It is vastly cheaper than driving. Due to rising fuel costs and tire upkeep, the cost of owning a car increased nearly 2 percent in 2012 to $8,946, according to AAA. It costs just $308 per year to keep bikes in shape––nearly 30 times less than cars, according to the Sierra Club: "If American drivers were to make just one four-mile round trip each week with a bicycle instead of a car, they would save nearly 2 billion gallons of gas. At $4 per gallon, total savings would be $7.3 billion a year."

It's a free gym on wheels. Unlike taking an extra two hours per day (and a chunk of your paycheck) to hit the gym, cycling can be a seamless way to weave a workout into your daily routine. On average, bicycle commuters lose 13 pounds in their first year of cycling alone.

"[Bike commuting] can be a very effective cardiovascular benefit," says Lisa Callahan, MD, of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.  "If you're overweight and start an exercise program, sometimes it's harder on your joints because you are overweight ... so something like swimming or biking that's not pounding on the joints can be a good thing." 

You won't miss morning traffic jams. Americans spend more than 25 minutes driving to work each day, according to the latest U.S. Census data, and trips can take nearly twice as long in populous cities like New York and Atlanta.  Cycling could help you get there faster. 

"Half of the working population in the U.S. commutes five miles or less to work, with bike trips of three to five miles taking less time or the same amount of time as commuting by car," writes Kiplinger editor Amanda Lilly.

You don't even have to own a bike. There's been a wave of new bike share programs in major cities like Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago and Miami, which typically allow riders 30 to 45 minutes of free transportation for a small annual fee. When New York City's bike share launches in Spring 2013, annual memberships will cost $95 –– about $10 less than subway commuters spend per month.

We could save hundreds of millions on healthcare expenses. "The most important socio-economic impact of cycling lies in the area of health care," says Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. Nowhere is that more clear than in Portland, Ore. A study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that "during the next 30 years, Portland’s residents could save as much as $594 million in health care costs because of an investment into biking culture" and "fuel savings of $143 to $218 million."

Businesses will save millions in lost productivity. A recent study by Dutch economic think tank TNO found people who commuted to work by bike were less likely to call in sick.  "Commuting to work by bicycle by just 1 percent could save [Denmark’s] employers approximately $34 million in lost productivity from absenteeism," Oregon state rep. Earl Blumenhauer writes in American Bicyclist.  "That’s assuming a workforce of 7.1 million people. The U.S. has more than 154 million people in its workforce."

It would make cycling safer for everyone. Much unlike cars, the more bicycles on the road, the safer it becomes for cyclists, research shows. "It's a virtuous cycle," Dr. Julie Hatfield, an injury expert from UNSW, says. "The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community. And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared to cycle."

You're way more likely to get sick taking the bus. Fresh air does a body good. A recent study by the University of Nottingham found public transit riders were "six times more likely to suffer from acute respiratory infections," the New York Daily News reports. Supposedly, occasional riders were even more at risk. Another study found a host of illness-causing viruses lurking in passenger vehicles, including  E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter, according to Safetyissues.com.

Uncle Sam will pay you to bike. Since January 2012, cyclist commuters have been entitled to a $20 per month tax-free reimbursement for bike-related expenses.  This applies to workers who bike at least three days per week to the office. Qualifying expenses include bike repairs and storage expenses, according to the National Center for Transit Research.

Women could use the extra bone support. As women age, they become increasingly susceptible to bone deterioration through osteoporosis.  A team of researchers from a Swedish university found middle-aged women were less likely to sustain wrist fractures if they commuted by bike or participated in other physical activities like walking.

You inhale more harmful exhaust in your car than on a bike.  While fuel emissions are bad news for any set of lungs, drivers are actually more susceptible to harmful air than bicyclists. "Studies show you get the biggest hit of the nasties when you’re inside a car," notes the Grist's Umbra Frisk. "Sure, a personal Mobile Emissions Source [ie: cars] appears hermetic, but it’s an illusion: MES occupants are very close to sucking on the tailpipe of the MES just ahead of them. In a bus, riders’ lungs are a bit above these sources. And bikers and pedestrians are on the outskirts."

You'll never have to worry about a parking spot again. Hundreds of major companies have entered the American League of Bicyclists' "Bicycle Friendly Business"  program and cities like New York require commercial office buildings by law to offer some sort of bike storage. Otherwise, invest in a sturdy bike lock and all you need is a spare bike rack or street sign to park your ride. Folding bikes are another useful option, as they can be packed into a bag and stashed easily under a desk or a closet.

Our economy could use a boost. Cyclists in cities like Copenhagen have become the poster children for the benefits of cycling, both at the micro- and macroeconomic level.  In its 2012 Bicycle Account, the city says bike commuters generated savings ($0.42 for each mile biked) in just about every way imaginable: lowered transportation costs, security, branding/tourism, traffic infrastructure and public health.

Good Proof That Bike Lanes and Separated Bike Lanes are Safer

Finally there is real evidence, from a study done in Vancouver and Toronto, that bike lanes reduce the chance of injury by 50%. Separated bike lanes reduce it by 90%. Emily Badger at the Atlantic Cities reviews the study, Route Infrastructure and the Risk of Injuries to Bicyclists: A Case-Crossover Study and notes:

The research will provide weighty evidence for advocates of dedicated bike infrastructure precisely because transportation engineers have long believed the exact opposite to be true. For years, they’ve counter-intuitively argued that you’re actually better off learning to ride alongside cars than having your own bike lane.

It has also been assumed that cyclists, particularly experienced riders prefer to ride on major streets. Fortunately, study author Key Teschke had earlier research on rider preferences, and cross-referenced the two studies. She tells Badger:

We were told in advance that young males and people who are experienced riders would tell you they’d rather ride on major streets without bike infrastructure," she recalls. "It turned out not to be true. Everyone had the same order or preferences.

So not only is there conclusive proof now that bike lanes significantly reduce injuries, but if you build them, they will come. More in the Atlantic Cities

Canadian Study Finds That Riding Without Helmets Could Kill You

A newly published study shows that cyclists who don't wear helmets are three times as likely to die of a head injury than those that do wear helmets. The lead researcher is quoted in the Globe and Mail:

“Helmets save lives,” said Dr. Nav Persaud, a family physician and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, who led the study. "There are about 70 cycling deaths in Canada every year,” Persaud said. “And based on our study, we estimate we could prevent about 20 of them with helmets.”

He does get that there is more to the problem than helmets.

"Helmets only prevent injuries after a collision takes place,” he said. “It would be better to prevent the collision from taking place at all. And infrastructure changes like building separated cycle lanes prevent collisions from taking place

There are a lot of others who note that helmet promotion creates a climate of fear, telling people that cycling is dangerous, and that mandatory helmet rules would take cyclists off the road, and that this would lead to worse overall health outcomes. Even helmet supporters note that all the responsibility should not fall entirely on the heads of the cyclists.

If I were going to wave my magic wand and make biking safer, I wouldn’t pick helmet legislation as the No. 1 thing to do,” [Alison] Macpherson [of York University] said. “I think it can be a part of a comprehensive approach to safe cycling that promotes cycling."

Indeed, this study shows that 77% of those deaths occurred because of interactions with automobiles. Another Canadian study shows that cyclists are responsible for only 10% of the bike-car accidents. No doubt there will be yet another call for mandatory helmet use, while at the same time the idea of reducing speed limits for cars is rejected. 

Not wearing a helmet might increase the risk of death in an accident; that's why I wear one. But surely the best way to reduce deaths is by preventing those accidents in the first place, instead of once again blaming the victim.

$1555 Ticket for Blowing Lights in NYC

Here is a mail truck in a bike lane in New York. I wonder if he got a ticket.
Aaron @Naparstek tweets that "the NYPD has completely lost its mind." You have to think he's right, when they slapped a cyclist with $1,555 in fines in one stop. The cyclist was caught going through three red lights while wearing headphones; New York has tough new fines that increase with each offense.

The fines are $190 for the first offense, $375 for the second, $940 for the third, the same as for a transport truck. The cyclist told Gothamist:

I was guilty for sure of going through the lights and wearing headphones so naively I pleaded guilty and sent in the tickets. A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail, it contained my 4 tickets stapled to a piece of paper that indicated I owed $1555. It didn't itemize the cost of each ticket so I have no idea what each one is worth.

The real question is, what is the point of having an increasing fine? To stop serial offenders. Stopping a cyclist once after going through three lights is not really three separate offences. As a lawyer told Gothamist:

The point [of the increase in fines] is to harshly punish recidivists," attorney Steve Vaccaro says. "But a person who goes through three reds in a row is not really a recidivist.

Neither running red lights or wearing headphones while cycling are smart moves, and there are stiff fines for both in New York. But is $ 1,555 in fines reasonable for what is really a first offense? I was stopped once back in college for blowing a stop sign. I too paid my fine, but it wasn't as stiff as this one. Sounds like abuse to me.

People Hate Driving, but How Do We Break Their Addiction?

Earlier this summer, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) used a bi-partisan polling team to pose questions about transportation to 800 Americans. Those polled seemed to agree that our current transportation system needs change. According to NRDC, of those 800 polled:
59 percent feel the transportation system is “outdated, unreliable and inefficient”
55 percent prefer to drive less, but 74 percent say they have no choice
58 percent would like to use public transportation more often, but it is not convenient or available from their home or work
68 percent support more local investment in improvements to public transportation (including 63 percent of those who do not use transit), with 39 percent supporting it “strongly”
And, amazingly:
59 percent would like more transportation options so they have the freedom to travel other than by driving.

To a dedicated bicycle activist like me, these poll results are only a surprise in that a majority of Americans want (like me), to drive less. And it seems, they are willing to pay for improvements needed in the public transport system in order to do so.

"Many believe Americans are in love with their cars, but most are frustrated with the lack of options for adequate, reliable public transit service," said Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the largest labor organization representing transit workers in North America. "This poll clearly shows that taxpayers are willing to put their money where their mouth is – backing increased spending to make better public transportation a reality."

Interestingly, NRDC's poll didn't include attitudes on using biking to help fill in the gaps of public transportation. And, if the percentage of people using a bicycle for daily commuting (less than one percent) is any indication, it doesn't seem like many believe bikes are their ticket to less driving.
But bike activists (including myself) know that, as far as most cities are concerned, not only can biking be faster, more fun, and healthier than driving or transport, it's also a lot cheaper.

Obviously, lack of infrastructure is one big reason people don't switch to biking. But I'd say there's more to it than that. It's also lack of support. Biking, back in 1890, was what the cool people did. These days, if you tell people you bike to work, and enjoy it, skepticism is high.

The gender divide is also a big biking issue. In 2009, according to the League of American Bicyclists (which started life as the League of American Wheelmen), women took just 24 percent of bicycle trips in the United States. In communities across the nation, LAB says, women are underrepresented in all aspects of the bicycle movement — from retail to politics, from advocacy to engineering.
It’s time, LAB maintains, to encourage, engage, and elevate more women bicyclists in the United States. LAB plants to undertake the following actions in its new 'Women Bike' initiative:
* Women Bike will bring together women cyclists at key meetings like the National Bike Summit and Interbike.
* Women Bike will encourage, educate and demonstrate how women can take leadership roles in bicycle advocacy.
* Women Bike will help women become bicycle educators and thought leaders in their communities.

Within the space of about a dozen years, LAB said it hopes American women will "ride their bikes at the same rates as American men for transportation, recreation and fitness". That's a tall order and probably needs a bit of magic to fulfill. Unfortunately LAB hasn't suggested how to get non-bikers to understand the fun factor in biking, nor how to make cycling cool.

Time for Bikestorming

The United Nations-sponsored Rio+20 meetings were reportedly a pretty big letdown. In spite of the huge problems our planet and its inhabitants face, we humans seem unable to move together collectively to implement world-changing goals. Yet if there ever was an ambition that had the power to make all nations' people happier, healthier, and by extension, more prosperous, it is biking. Besides cutting carbon dioxide and air pollutants, biking is just fun.

That's why Mati Kalwell decided to try to proselytize biking to the whole, wide world. The creator of the Buenos Aires culture and activism group La Vida en Bici (Life on a Bike), Kalwell decided a big dream - bicycles for everyone - required a big goal. He christened his new group Bikestorming, and it's modus operandi is: "a collaboration platform to make bicycles the most popular form of urban transportation on the planet."


Kalwell considers that "most popular" just means that people ride bikes more (51% of the time) than the use other forms of transport. The idea, launched at Rio+20, isn't easy to implement. Kalwell's main tools are art and culture. In Buenos Aires, a city without any real bike culture historically, La Vida en Bici works on making it cool to cycle. And it seems to be working.

As Kalwell told Caitlin Donohue in an interview:

"[Bikes] are on every politician’s radar now. In the last year we’ve seen bicycle policy and infrastructure initiatives emerge in very diverse cities such as Mendoza, Rosario, Posadas, and Córdoba –- as well as growing attention paid to bicycles in Buenos Aires’ transportation policy and infrastructure."

Bike activism, Kalwell says, must be as much about aesthetic as it is about actual infrastructure.

I read a tweet recently from a TED conference saying that “in order to be a successful advocate you need to act as an entertainer.” I think that totally applies to our work. In order to get your message across, today you are competing for people’s attention on an (almost) level playground with huge brands that hire a lot of talent. TV is not the main form of media anymore -- it’s social networks. For the first time in history, our generation has the same chance to connect with people emotionally, with catchy phrases and attractive visuals, as any major brand. This is huge. And we need to make the best of it. So if we are ever going to succeed in changing the game, whether it’s in transportation, climate change, or intergenerational justice, we need to make change irresistible.

Of course, Kalwell must know his goal won't be easy, but his idea that culture is the key to making biking cool (in additional to practical, and fun, which it already is) seems smart.

After Olympic Park Bike Crash, Are Helmets the Problem?

There is some solid evidence that mandatory helmet laws can save lives, don't impact the number of cyclists on the roads, and that many of the other arguments against helmet laws are not true.

Still, bicycle activists like Ashok Sinha have been angered by Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins' call for helmets following a tragic accident outside Olympic Park.

In this instance, I have to agree with them.

Sinha writes over at The Guardian that Wiggins' suggestion that cyclists should always wear helmets, not wear iPods, and that a mandatory helmet law should be considered, are distractions from the real issues around bike safety:

It's deeply unpleasant to have to report the details of an accident where a young person has died, but it's extremely relevant to this collision that (as yet unverified) eyewitness reports suggest the bus actually drove over the cyclist. The suggestion that helmet compulsion could prevent this type of fatality is clearly wrong. Around half the cyclist fatalities in the capital involve large vehicles (lorries and coaches), so this type of crash is by no means unusual.

Of course, all things being equal, we'd be better off if cyclists wore helmets AND if infrastructure was designed with cyclists' safety in mind. But to focus on helmets and iPods suggests bike safety is all about personal responsibility, not collective planning and an inclusive approach to road safety. By all means, let's consider mandatory helmet laws. But when a cyclist is killed by a gigantic bus, we might first consider how we can avoid that happening in the future.

Montreal's Separated Bike Lanes vs. Streets

"If it was safe, I would ride." This is what you hear from those who are bike-curious and not yet converted to using two-wheels. Both inexperienced and experienced riders can agree that the risk of injury for a cyclist who is sharing the road with motor vehicles is always a concern. One solution to increase the ridership and safety of cyclists is to build and invest in bike infrastructure.

A recent study published in the international peer-reviewed journal for health professionals, Injury Prevention, brings good news to separated bike lanes. The study is entitled Risk of Injury for Bicycling on Cycle Tracks Versus in the Street, and was conducted in Montreal where there is a longstanding network of separated bike lanes. Bicyclist injury rates on separated bike lanes were compared to injury rates on the street. The use of six separated bike lanes and comparable Montreal streets were analyzed, as well as the crash and injury counts to determine the relative risks.

The study concludes that separated bike lanes (physically separated bicycle-exclusive paths along roads) lessen, or at least do not increase, crash and injury rates compared to cycling on the street. They found that the risk of injury for cyclists using Montreal's separated bike lanes was about 28 percent lower than cyclists riding on Montreal roads that are unprotected from traffic. Additionally, overall, 2.5 times as many cyclists used the cycle track streets compared to the reference streets. In the end, these researchers believe that the construction of separated bike lanes should not be discouraged.

The fact that riding in a separated bike lane is safer than not, may seem like a no-brainer to most readers. Nevertheless, it lessens the counter-argument that bike lanes provide a false sense of security. As well, these recent findings can be useful for those advocating for the increase in bike infrastructure, bike safety, bike promotion and bike ridership in their cities.

Read the recently published study here.