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Bicycling In Your City

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#1 · (Edited)
Bicycling In Your City

How is it to bicycle in your city? Does your city accomodate bicycles? Funny anecdotes? Terrible anecdotes? Post 'em here!





Here's a taste of New York:

 
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#168 ·
If you do that conequently, you'd need much more space than in a more balanced approach which balances mobility needs and the quality of public spaces and urban layout. Consequently things would be spread out much more and far less attractive to walk. You can't cater all forms of mobility equally. By opting for your criterions you make automatically a choice for motorized traffic and against an energy efficient city layout.
 
#165 · (Edited)
CitiBike

With Citibank Sponsoring NYC Bikeshare, The Hunt For Locations Is On!


http://www.treehugger.com/corporate...ed-map-nycs-bike-share-stations-unveiled.html

Will One of Those 10,000 Citi Bikes Be on Your Block? DOT Unveils Preliminary Bike Share Map



Despite nascent fears of out-of-control teens and flying Dutchmen, New Yorkers are eagerly awaiting the city’s bike share program according to a new Quinnipiac poll, which found that 64 percent of city dweller favor bike share compared to 30 percent opposed.

Now, Gothamites can find out if there will be a Citi Bike station on their corner, as the city’s Department of Transportation has just unveiled the preliminary map for its new 600-station, 10,000-bike strong bike sharing network.

The Observer cannot quite walk out our door and hop on one of the new bright blue rigs, but there is a station one block north and south of our offices, an arrangement that seems to be the norm for a system stretching from 60th Street to Atlantic Avenue. These bikes will be everywhere.

Well, unless you’re a townhouse dweller.In the first phase of the project, set to go live this summer, there will be no bikes on the Upper East or West Sides, Harlem, or Brooklyn’s brownstone belt, as DOT’s map shows. Sorry Park Slope, there will be no rides through Prospect Park. These neighborhoods will have to wait until the spring, when a full roll out of the system commences.

The first phase will consist of 420 locations, which the Department of Transportation stresses were created in close consultation with local community boards. Queens sees a number of stations, as well as Manhattan and Brooklyn, which was not initially part of the plan, but local demand led to the Long Island City and Astoria being included. The project will cost nothing to tax payers, thanks to a sponsorship through Citibank (that is, if you ignore the multi-billion-dollar bailout of the Wall Street firm).

“I’m extremely proud to release this plan for the Citi Bike network,” Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said in an email. “New Yorkers created this plan during the past six months, contributing time and expertise in workshops, on-line and in dozens of meetings to discuss and plan the City’s newest transportation system.”

While New Yorkers may favor the new bikes, they do not want anymore lanes to convey themselves and others on. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 51 percent of New York City voters said they do not want any more bike lanes in their neighborhood, compared to 45 percent who do. Not suprisingly, Manhattan wants lanes more than any other borough, with 52 percent in favor and 42 percent against. The Bronx follows 51 percent to 46 percent in favor.

Brooklyn, despite it’s burgeoning bohemian character, comes in last, behind Queens and Staten Island, with 54 percent against and 42 percent for. Maybe this is just because hipsters never register to vote, and that is the base upon which the Q-poll was conducted. Whatever the case, not only will they hurt the president’s chances but also those who want to see Citi Bikes in their neighborhood, no doubt. Talk about irony!

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Here's a heatmap of bikeshare support in NYC:


http://www.observer.com/2011/09/look-everybody-wants-bike-share-where-dot-wants-bike-share/

Basically, where the automobile reigns, interest in bikeshare drops dramatically.

-----

Here's a cycling map of NYC


http://majorleaguewins.blogspot.com/2012/05/nyc-bike-expo.html
 
#166 · (Edited)
Singapore is a good city to do biking - biking paths are everywhere and are like 95% well-paved and continuous. Foldable-type bikes are also allowed inside the MRT coaches. Many residents also own bikes which they use in getting to neighborhood shops and markets; though they don't normally bring their bikes to work.

I myself have a bike and I cycle to nearby parks when I'm free on weekends.

Anyway, I just want to share this article I found on the web:

According to VirtualTourist.com
World's Top 10 Cycling Destinations

1. Montréal, Québec, Canada
2. Paris, France
3. Portland, Oregon
4. Seville, Spain
5. Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya
6. Prague, Czech Republic
7. Vietnam and Thailand
8. Austin, Texas
9. Bruges, Belgium
10. Kyoto, Japan
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/11/uk-travel-picks-cycling-idUSLNE84A01Q20120511
 
#167 · (Edited)
Queen's Day - Bogotá - Colombia

Thanks to the Netherlands embassy and the local government:




Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (52 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr

Nederlandse ambassadeur en burgemeester van Bogotá


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (49 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (43 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (42 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (28 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (15 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr


Ciclovia Naranja 2012_ (18 of 79) by Hans Schuurmans, on Flickr

 
#169 ·
^^ Government has no business picking winners and losers in mobility, but that is not the case here.

Though cars are usually vilified, when you have a lot of cyclist traffic as in Netherlands, bike x pedestrian, or moped x bike, are quite common and non-trivial. A cyclist pushing his bike at 25km/h can still produce A LOT of injury to pedestrians.

Indeed, I'd say that here in The Netherlands bike x pedestrian conflicts are much more serious for the average pedestrian than that with cars, because the sheer size difference between a car and a walking person mean that the person can easily avoid the car and the car will just not go in a pedestrianized plaza or the sidewalk/curbside. However, many cyclists ignore restrictions and will just bike everywhere.

To be used efficiently, bikes must have their own ROWs, which are not necessarily wide, and physically separated from BOTH car and pedestrian traffic. That way, cyclists can develop higher speeds without worrying about someone just popping up in the bike path, and they also avoid dangerous interactions with road traffic (cars, trucks, buses etc).

The whole "shared space" is just chaos, which imposes on everyone (not only cars) loss of efficiency on their movements and impose stress by requiring everyone to be ultra attentive of other conflicting traffic. So it makes pedestrians uneasy with bikes, car drivers uneasy with bikes and so on. Suddenly a pedestrian never knows if some crazy cyclist will come ramming through the plaza, and the car driver needs to drive with unreasonable expectations of attention as a cyclist might just run across a crossing.

So it's better that each traffic category has its own ROW and that they interfere the least with other traffic. Things like segregated bike paths, streets with small fences to prevent pedestrians crossing out of signaled zebra crossings etc.
 
#173 ·
^^ Government has no business picking winners and losers in mobility, but that is not the case here.

Though cars are usually vilified, when you have a lot of cyclist traffic as in Netherlands, bike x pedestrian, or moped x bike, are quite common and non-trivial. A cyclist pushing his bike at 25km/h can still produce A LOT of injury to pedestrians.
I haven't witnessed cyclists going 25km/h while being in a pedestrian zone with looming collision risks when I was in the Netherlands (nor anywhere else). Of course accidents are not trivial if they happen but the share (or also number) of lethal accidents is nowhere near the one you have in car vs pedestrian situation. If you disagree with that I'd like to see some stats proving otherwise.

A very essential difference between cyclists and car drivers is that the car driver does not risk a lot of damage to his own body when he is hitting a pedestrian (especially at typical urban traffic speeds on city streets and at crossings) but a cyclist will probably be hit as hard as the pedestrian he hits or maybe even worse. That is an entirely different kind of motivation to avoid potentially dangerous situation.

Cyclists are regular traffic partners. The largest risk for cyclists is a car driver mind set that negates this. The accident risk is actually substantially reduced once car drivers start to respect cyclists as part of the traffic rather than seeing them as sort of jay-walkers on wheels.

The point with cycling lanes is that they often leave the cyclists often in the rain at the one point where you'd really need them: at crossings. That is the case in Vienna at least. On other occasions they are just a bad joke with forcing cyclists to wait three times in front of red lights at one single crossing while cars only have to wait a fracture of that time to get beyond it, no matter which direction. First you are forced onto a cycling lane to being forced to wait multiple the time of what car drivers have to wait at some crossings. In short, it is the crossings where you loose your time as cyclist. Roads are perfectly ok for cyclists, unless they are extremely busy.

So it's better that each traffic category has its own ROW and that they interfere the least with other traffic. Things like segregated bike paths, streets with small fences to prevent pedestrians crossing out of signaled zebra crossings etc.
Back to my argument. If you give everyone his own space and probably the car drivers sufficient space for good traffic flow and few or no obstacles, you'll end up with creating an unattractive spread out space for pedestrians. You made your choice then already: against pedestrians.
 
#171 ·
I think this is the problem with you libertarians. You have this deliberate concept of reality in your head that doesn't correspond to the real world.
It's true that cyclist take traffic rules far less serious than other modes of transport (though even though this is true in the Netherlands as well, it's much less so than in other countries where cycling is not the norm). You take this empirical fact and then inject some weak theory to arrive at a completely ridiculous conclusion.
Namely that bikes cause much more serious injuries to pedestrians here in the Netherlands. This is such a ridiculous notion that has no basis in facts or the real world that I really don't understand where you get the balls to post such drivel.
 
#185 ·
No, not at all. I am not sure if you do it deliberately but you deny with this analogy that a bike is a regular and completely legal means of transportation on all regular roads (exceptions might exist where in parallel special bike lanes exist), which is simply incorrect, as it is. Cars are not a legal form of transportation in pedestrian precincts safe a few very specific exceptions (delivery traffic etc).

Therefore the correct analogy would be a bunch of people deciding to drive on one piece of road without actually wanting to get anywhere. This is called cruising and in some places brings the entire traffic to a complete halt. And you know what, this is perfectly legal as well.
 
#184 ·
There must be some sort of cycling competition on here in Birmingham this week, I've seen hundreds of people today from countries all over the world riding around the pedestrianised areas (which is much of the city centre) on bmx-type bikes with numbers on the front...
 
#189 ·
Just sharing this net find...Wonder how much this thing costs.

Audi e-bike: A bicycle that runs at 80 kmph



Audi unveiled an extremely emotion-inspiring sports machine, the Audi e-bike Wörthersee at Wörthersee in Carinthia, Austria. The prototype cycle combines an electric drive and muscle power. Head of Design Wolfgang Egger comments: “As a high-performance e-bike for sports and trick cycling, it features the Audi core competences of design, ultra, e-tron and connect.” The Audi e-bike Wörthersee puts in its first major appearance at this year’s Wörthersee Tour, the 31st meet for Audi, VW, Seat and Skoda fans; trial biker Julien Dupont and downhill specialist Petra Bernhard will demonstrate their stunts and streetbike skills.
Source:
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/photos/audi-e-bike-a-bicycle-that-runs-at-80-kmph-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Faudi-e-bike-a-bicycle-that-runs-at-80-kmph-slideshow%252Faudi-e-bike-photo-1337663034.html
 
#198 ·
^^ I'm all for having SEPARETED infrastructure for each of these modes of transportation. I always wrote that on the infrastructure sub-forum.

The problem is that most cyclist advocates see themselves as "do-gooders, better than 'thou" who think they are being heroes by using bikes, and wanting to slow/reduce efficiency of everybody else (from cars which should have to slow down and share road space to pedestrians who should be actively on the lookout for bikes on plazas including train passengers who should lose seats to allow bike space in trains).
 
#199 ·
Urban biking info board

Here is a set of photos on Flickr I took when cycling around town (London). It is from a noticeboard at a self help bike workshop established by the local community.

Very interesting to see an old leaflet of Muenster Planning Office statistics on road usage. That was 20 years ago. How much has changed there I wonder?

I like this website very much by the way. Well done to the instigators.

:ancient:
 
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