Congressman Talks Cycling

I've been a little heavy with the videos this week, but I just came across this great Politico video of Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) talking about his favorite mode of transportation: cycling. Blumenauer is beloved in the cycling and livable streets communities for his consistent and outspoken support of cycling as a serious mode of transportation. He founded the Congressional Bike Caucus, after all. As this video is evidence, clearly he doesn't just talk the talk, but, um, pedals the pedal?

Here's the takeaway message that everyone considering tuning up their bike should hear:

Over the course of 15 years in Congress, I have burned hundreds of thousands of calories. As I run my errands around Washington D.C., I’ve never been stuck in traffic, I’ve never had to look for a parking place, and I’ve saved thousands of dollars. It’s kind of a win-win-win, burning calories instead of fossil fuel.

I love how the reporter is dressed like he's ready for Le Tour and Blumenauer looks like a normal commuter you'd see on the subway. (Well, you can decide for yourself whether his trademark bow-tie is "normal.") I always argue to friends that the best change cycling has of being taken seriously as a mode of transportation is for cyclists to look normal doing it. In other words: screw the spandex.

London's Bikeshare Patterns in Animated Video

Boris Bikes redux from Sociable Physics on Vimeo.
Dr. Martin Austwick created this animation of bike-share usage in London on October 4, 2010, when transit workers were on strike. It’s totally spellbinding.

Amazing Mountain Bike Videos

Pipeline on Fromme, North Vancouver BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
Motion Sickness Warning! But if You're Okay, Go Fullscreen!
You seem to have really liked the crazy rider-perspective bike videos from Chile that I posted a few weeks ago (you can see them here: Valparaiso Chile Urban Downhill Bike Race). Well, here are some more for you! These 8 videos are from British Columbia, Canada, and they show all kinds of amazing rides; some slower and very technical, others really fast (the one above is slower, while the A-Line below is fast) with lots of jumps, and some are in wet dirt or snow. Crazy stuff that requires lots of skill and is way more exciting than any motor sport (at least to me)! Check out the videos below!

A-line, Whistler BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
These videos were shot around North Vancouver, Canada. Mount Fromme is a popular mountain bicycling destination, and while Whistler is best known for skiing, it's also pretty great for mountain biking.

Ladies Only on Fromme, North Vancouver BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.

Natural High on Fromme, North Vancouver BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
Mount Fromme, where this trail is located, has an elevation of almost 4,000 feet. "The mountain is populated with mountain bike trails that are known for their difficult and dangerous and treacherously slippery mountain terrain. These trails have natural challenges like fallen logs, giant boulders to drop off and gap jumps. Most of the trails have man-made obstacles like skinny bridges, large boulders, winding ladder bridges, road gaps, and other large gaps and jump features. Mt. Fromme has been featured in many mountain bike films such as seasons, follow me, and many NWD and Kranked series." (source)

Crank It Up, Whistler BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.

Corkscrew and Salvation on Seymour, North Vancouver BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
A wet run on the Dirt Merchant trail in Whistler:

Dirt Merchant, Whistler BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
And this one is with powdery snow on the ground:

Snow Ride on Cypress, Vancouver BC from Barry Duncan on Vimeo.
Before small video cameras existed, few people ever could see what these skilled mountain bikers see when they go down a technical trail. Very cool, and one more reason to love bikes!

Velib Plans on Getting Bigger and Better

Vélib',Paris' bike-share system, has come a long way sing it was first introduced in July of 2007. From 10,000 bikes to 17,000, and 750 rental stations to 1,202 (that's one every 300 meters), Vélib' has become the largest system of its kind in the world. With its fourth birthday approaching, the City of Paris is proposing a series of improvements and new rental plans that will ensure the system keeps getting bigger and better.

Currently, you can sign up for a yearly subscription, for 29€, for a single day, for 1€, or for a week, for 5€. Whichever you choose, when you take out a bike, the first 30 minutes are free, the second half hour costs 1€, the third costs 2€. It's a system designed to encourage short-term use, for getting from Point A to Point B. The proposed changes are efforts to make using a Vélib' even more convenient and quicker, as well as more practical.

New internet and smartphone services and ways to sign up will eliminate the waiting time between signing up and hopping on a bike, and if you can't return a bike because the nearest station is full, you won't be penalized for the extra time it takes to find another.


Also, that free first half hour is bumping up to 45 minutes, if you sign up for a Vélib' Passion year-long subscription. It's a bit pricier, at 39€ (with 10-20€ reductions for those 14-26), but will make the bike-share a better solution for those whose commutes are longer take longer than 30 minutes, providing big savings over time.


Not all of the changes will be cheered, however: the price of a daily ticket will rise to 1.70€ (the price of a metro ticket), and the weekly will go up to 8€. The upside of those increases may be that they will push Parisians to sign up for yearly subscriptions- which, the City argues, are the most cost-efficient choice, even if you only take out a bike once every three weeks.

Next week, the changes will be submitted to the City Council for approval. We'll have to wait and see if they're adopted, and then what effect they actually have on people's daily use of the system. But no matter what, it's good to see that Paris is committed to the Vélib', and that it's doing all it can to make it a better and more popular way to get around.

Bike Sharing in the Netherlands

On the "bike sharing world map" there is one strikingly blank country...the Netherlands. You could think that in a country of 16 million who possess 18 million bikes there would be no need for sharing bikes. But that would be wrong: the Dutch do share bikes and on a large scale.

Since 2007 when Paris first started bike sharing, every self-respecting modern city seems to have bike share. Milan, Brussels, Bogota, London, Melbourne: some 200 cities worldwide. Most of these schemes call itself 'free'. Meaning the first half hour is free, but keep the bike 2 hours and it will cost you 7 euros (Paris) or 6 pounds (London). Keep it even longer and Paris charges you a ridiculous 151 euros for 20 hours! Clearly these programs are designed for short use. For single trips, not round trips. If you have a meeting somewhere in town you can only hope the meeting place has a nearby bike-station too, for the rental fee would cost you dearly after a two hour meeting.

The Dutch have –like so many things to do with cycling- a different approach. Their nation wide program started in 2003. What the Dutch started was not so much new, it was modernizing what had existed in the country for decades. Almost every train station in the Netherlands has manned bike parking facilities and in most of those it has always been possible to hire a bike.

In 2008 the national OV-fiets program was taken over by the Dutch Railways. Literally the name means 'Public Transport bicycle'. That is exactly what it is: an extension of public transportation. Trains go almost everywhere in the Netherlands, but they do not get you entirely from A to B. To bridge that final part of your journey this bike scheme is perfect.

How it works

You become a member for 10 euros per year. You get a subscription card with a pin-code or the subscription is directly connected to the card you already possess for train travel. That way you don’t end up with multiple cards in your wallet and it is once more underlining the fact that this is an extension of your train travel. In a manned station you simply present the card. The person manning the bikes scans your card,the bike you take with you, and you are on your way. Takes about 5 seconds. The hire fee is always for a 24 hour period and costs you just 3 euros which is less than a round trip by bus in any Dutch city. You can go where ever you want to go with the bike and you can even take it overnight. It has a lock so you can also park it. This scheme is designed for (longer) round-trips. It expects you to return to the train station to get back to where you initially started your journey.

When you return, the bike gets scanned again and you can continue home by train. If you kept the bike longer, the next 24 hour period costs you 5 euros extra.

There are also un-manned stations where the system works just like any other electronic bike scheme. You swipe your card and enter your pin-code. A bike is electronically released and you take it with you.

The fee for the bike hire is automatically withdrawn from your bank account. A standard payment procedure in the Netherlands and this is arranged when you become a member. You can keep track of your journeys on-line.

The scheme is a success. About 85,000 people are member now. They made 835,000 trips in 2010 alone from one of the 230 bike hire stations that can be found all over the country. The bright yellow/blue bikes (the colors of the Dutch Railways) are very visible in the streets of the Netherlands.

This bike hire scheme is really designed for residents, as it involves a membership that has to be arranged in advance. But for tourists other bikes can be rented from almost every train station too.

Year	Locations	Subscriptions	Bikes	Rides
2004	70	11,000	800	100,000
2005	84	20,000	1,300	189,000
2006	101	30,000	2,500	250,000
2007	140	43,000	3,000	335,000
2008	182	51,000	?	480,000
2009	200	67,000	4,500	670,000
2010	230	85,000	5,000	835,000

New Poll Finds That New Yorkers Like Their New Bike Infrastructure

According to a poll released on Friday by Quinnipiac University,New York City’s new bicycle lanes, the subject of one of the more heated civic controversies in recent memory, are supported by a majority of New Yorkers.

More than half of registered voters — 54 percent — said they believed the expansion of bicycle lanes had been a positive development for the city. The only demographic groups opposed were Republican voters and, by a smaller margin, residents of Queens. Over all, 39 percent of respondents said they were unhappy with the lanes, and 6 percent said they had no opinion on the matter (or did not answer).

The survey question was fairly stark: either that the bike lanes are “a good thing because it’s greener and healthier for people to ride,” or “a bad thing because it leaves less room for cars, which increases traffic.” The poll asked which statement was closer to the respondent’s point of view. Support for the lanes was strongest in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Voters in Queens disapproved of the lanes, but by 48 to 45 percent. Only 35 percent of Republicans supported the lane, while 59 percent of Democrats approved.

Support for the bike lanes seemed to wane with age. Voters between ages 18 and 49 supported the lanes by wide margins, but support fell below 50 percent among voters older than 50. Still, supporters outnumbered opponents in each age group. The poll, which surveyed 1,115 registered voters earlier this month, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Hundreds of new bicycle lanes have been installed since 2007, part of the administration’s plan to encourage environmentally friendly modes of transportation that cut down on traffic congestion. Arguments for and against the bike lanes typically go into more detail than the survey’s questions. The city’s Department of Transportation, led by its commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, argues that carving out street space for bicycles has resulted in slower car traffic and, in turn, fewer accidents.

Critics of the lanes complain about lost parking spots, additional difficulty in driving in the city, and the risk to pedestrians from bicyclists who disobey traffic laws. Some opponents have also faulted the Transportation Department for installing the lanes without sufficient community outreach, and not disclosing all the relevant data related to the lanes. Those are among the arguments in a lawsuit filed last week by a group of well-connected Brooklyn residents who have called on the city to remove a two-way bike lane along Prospect Park West.

Biking advocates cited Friday’s poll as evidence that the city should continue expanding its bicycle network.

“Whether they drive a car, ride a bike or get around by train, this poll shows that New Yorkers understand that bike lanes make our streets better for everyone,” Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, wrote in a statement.

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Congestion Pricing

In the fifth chapter of "Moving Beyond the Automobile," they demystify the concept of congestion pricing in just five short minutes. Here you'll learn why putting a price on scarce road space makes economic sense and how it benefits many different modes of surface transportation.

In London, which successfully implemented congestion pricing in 2003, drivers now get to their jobs faster, transit users have improved service, cyclists have better infrastructure, and pedestrians have more public space. More people have access to the central city, and when they get there, the streets are safer and more enjoyable. While the politics of implementing congestion pricing are difficult, cities looking to tame traffic and compete in the 21st century can't afford to ignore a transportation solution that addresses so many problems at once.