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:

Bike Share Projected to Grow Even More in 2014

I have written a lot about bike-sharing, and I work at a company now that designs and studies these systems every day. I especially love when it's integrated into a larger multi-modal system (trains, buses, etc). But if you had been there when bike-sharing was born (probably in many places in parallel at different times...), you might not have believed that it would ever work, at least not at the scale that can be found in some cities (Hangzhou in China has about 65,000 bicycles, and Wuhan about 90,000!). That's because, while bikes are relatively low-tech, managing the memberships and stations without getting all your bikes stolen is a pretty high-tech endeavor, and we're still figuring out the best way to do things (no two bike-shares are exactly alike).

It took many iterations before bike-sharing became truly viable:

Bicycle-sharing has come a long way since the 1960s, when 50 white “free bikes” were scattered around Amsterdam, only to be promptly stolen. A second generation of coin-operated bicycles still got nicked. A third generation solved that problem with electronic docking stations and credit-card payments. (source)

And now a fourth-generation is emerging with technologies like mobile solar-powered docking stations, smart software handling the distribution of bikes, more mobiles apps, etc.

Growth in bike-sharing is strong, even in more difficult markets like the U.S.:

According to a study by the Earth Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, Europe accounts for most of the programs, but Asia has the largest number of shared bicycles, with over 350,000 in China alone. Even in often bike-hostile America, which in 2012 had 21 schemes with 8,500 bicycles, the EPI expects the fleet to more than quadruple by 2014, to 37,000. In London, which has 8,000 shared bikes, another 2,000 will be added later this year. In Paris the Vélib scheme, which opened in 2007, has already racked up 173m journeys. (source)

So if there's a bike-sharing program in your city but you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to! Go for a ride with family and friends!

If you're curious about bike-sharing around the world, there's a pretty complete list here with number of stations and bikes.

Via The Economist

100 BikeCorrals and Still Going

The city of Portland, Oregon, has reached the impressive milestone of 100 bike corrals. That's 9 years after the first one was installed, and the city expects to reach 150 within 5 years and has 98 additional applications under review. As far as I know, that's a lot more than any other city in the US, though I hope that others will give Portland some competition.

Why are bike corrals so great? Because in a dense urban environment, the are very space-efficient; where 1 or 2 cars could park, dozens of bikes might fit. The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) said that their bike corral program "has helped Portland businesses increase on-street customer parking ten-fold." That's 163 car parking spaces swapped for 1,644 bicycle parking spaces!

They also allow cyclists to park right in front of where they're going to eat or shop, making cycling more convenient. And in their own way, they're great marketing for bikes. People see these big clumps of bikes and get used to the idea that cycling is something normal.

Check out this great short-film by Streetfilms:

The full list of bike corral locations in Portland is available here, or on the interactive map below.

Via Streetfilms, BikePortland, PBOT

New Pedal-Assist E-Bike

FlyKly founder Nino Klansek seems to have internalized one of the great problems of city cycling and bike commuting - sometimes you just don't want to sweat. Along with a team, Klansek worked two years to develop an e-bike concept that would solve that problem, allowing cyclists to add pedal-assist electric power to their existing bikes easily via a wheel-based e-motor.

According to the company, when installed, the FlyKly Smart Wheel will be able to zip cyclists along at up to 20 miles per hour, with users able to actually choose a riding speed via the smart phone app. Additional features with the FlyKly system include a battery that recharges from pedaling and downhill coasting, GPS, and a security system that allows riders to lock their bikes' e-wheel as well as get tamper warnings from their iPhone or Android phone.

The FlyKly Smart Wheel adds approximately nine pounds of weight to the average bike, and can fit on any bike that accommodates a 26" or 29" wheel. The e-bike's speed is controlled via pedaling effort as well as setting top speed via the application. Once the Smart Wheel is installed, the bike's existing gear system is converted to FlyKly's single-speed, fixed gear setting. The battery recharges in about three hours and is expected to be good for 1,000 charging cycles.

Via the smart phone app, FlyKly will also store and track a rider’s biking stats, to allow the rider get feedback from the system on efficient routing and also to create and share routes.

The FlyKly's range will average 30 miles, and thus far the FlyKly Kickstarter has been a resounding success. A $550 pledge gets a rider one Smart Wheel and the dynamo-driven Smart Light. The company plans to make the hub motor in eight colors.

This could be the type of easy-install e-motor that brings e-biking to masses of new city cyclists.

Bike Rush Hour in NYC

Bike rush hour in NYC is still far from what it is in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Groningen, where torrents of cyclists seemingly take over the whole city. But the number of bike commuters certainly has been growing nicely in recent years.

This is what commuting should look like, at least in cities (I understand it's not practical everywhere, and that around half of the world population lives outside of big cities).

Via Streetfilms

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

US Bike Sharing On the Rise

The opening of the San Francisco Bay Area bike share on August 29, 2013, brings the combined fleet of shared bikes in the United States above 18,000, more than a doubling since the start of the year. The United States is now home to 34 modern bike-sharing programs that allow riders to easily make short trips on two wheels without having to own a bicycle. With a number of new programs in the works and planned expansions of existing programs, the U.S. fleet is set to double again by the end of 2014, at which point nearly 37,000 publicly shared bicycles will roll the streets.

The largest bike share in the United States is in New York City, where some 6,000 bicycles are available at 332 stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The program opened at the end of May 2013, and in less than 3 months hit 2 million trips. On busy days, each bike gets checked out seven times or more, a remarkably high borrowing rate. The city ultimately hopes to expand the program to other boroughs and grow to 10,000 bikes.The other large bike-sharing debut in 2013 was in Chicago, where 1,500 Divvy bikes now grace the streets. The program hopes to double to 3,000 cycles by the end of the year, ultimately growing to 4,000 strong—reinforcing the city’s efforts to dramatically boost biking. In addition to making shared bikes readily accessible transit, Chicago plans to extend the path and trail network to within a half-mile of all residences.
Before New York and Chicago came on the bike-sharing scene, Washington, DC, held America’s top spot. Its program has grown to over 2,000 bikes, spreading into neighboring communities. Transport planners from cities around the country have made the pilgrimage to Washington to ride one of the cherry-red Capital Bikeshare bikes and see firsthand how the popular program works. Since 2007, biking in the nation’s capital doubled to 3.5 percent of all commuter trips, and bike sharing has made it more convenient to travel the expanding web of marked cycle lanes. Other large bike shares include Nice Ride in Minneapolis and St. Paul (1,550 bikes), Hubway in the Boston area (1,100 bikes), and DecoBike Miami Beach (1,000 bikes). Aspen, Columbus, Fort Worth, and Salt Lake City are among the more than a dozen programs that opened in 2013, joining a list of cities that have enjoyed bike sharing for longer, including Denver, San Antonio, Chattanooga, Madison, and Fort Lauderdale.
On the international scene, the United States is just catching Europe and Asia’s bike-sharing tailwind. Worldwide, more than half a million cycles can be picked up in well over 500 cities in 51 countries. Italy and Spain have the greatest number of programs, while China is home to two thirds of the global shared bike fleet.

New York is the only American city to make it onto the list of the world’s 20 largest bike-sharing programs. In fact, five cities have more shared bikes than the entire U.S. fleet. Four of them are in China, where Wuhan reportedly has some 90,000 shared bikes for its 9 million people. Hangzhou has 69,750 bikes that are well integrated with that city’s mass transit.

The world’s third largest bike share is Vélib’ in Paris, the first large-scale program to gain worldwide attention. Since its 2007 launch, riders have taken 173 million trips. According to the program, one of the nearly 24,000 Vélib’ bikes gets checked out every second of the day. Vélib’ claims to have the highest bike density among the world’s top programs, with one bike available for every 97 city residents.
Within the next year, the U.S. bike-sharing fleet will have caught up with Paris. New entries in Florida could push the country past that mark, with launches expected in Miami (500 bikes, an expansion from Miami Beach), St. Petersburg (300 bikes), and Tampa (300 bikes). Phoenix is also hoping to launch a 500-bike program that will double in size as neighboring cities join in. Rollouts hoped for in 2014 include large offerings in Los Angeles (some 4,000 bikes) and San Diego (1,800 bikes), as well as 500+ bike programs in Portland (Oregon), Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Seattle, along with a number of smaller markets.

The new San Francisco Bay Area scheme is starting out relatively diffuse, with 700 bicycles split between San Francisco and other cities along the 50-mile rail line south to San Jose. Planners note that it ultimately could grow to a network of 10,000 bikes, better allowing rail riders to travel the first and last mile or so of their commute on two wheels. As communities continue to improve their biking infrastructure and as enthusiasm for an efficient, environmentally friendly, healthy, and enjoyable form of transportation grows, bike sharing has a bright future in the United States.