Bicycling In Your City

[castermaild55]

Bike escalators in Tokyo and Kyoto



Japanese Mamachari


bike for old guys or hill side

[Clone]

Originally Posted by joshsam

Underground parking for bikes in Leuven:
I think this si considered 'normal in the NEtherlands, but I only now a few in Belgium

There is one at the Antwerp central station too.

[erka]

Yes, for example in Groningen a big underground parking:



This one in Amsterdam is also quite impressive:

[NCT]

In most Chinese cities cycling is still quite common and relatively well provided for. On most roads there is a decent cycle lane, segragated on main roads, but it's always a bit of a bother at junctions with right-turning traffic.

[brazilteen]

SÃO PAULO-BRAZIL

image hosted on flickr

Bike 6 por Fabiano Accorsi, no Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Bike 4 por Fabiano Accorsi, no Flickr

[desertpunk]

Biking in B'klyn

[Suburbanist]

What a waste of space. They should reduce the sidewalk width instead of stealing one parking lane from cars to build that probably underused bike lane.

[trainrover]

Originally Posted by castermaild55

Bike escalators in Tokyo and Kyoto

[memph]

I think Toronto's drivers are a bit more respectful than Aukland's. :P

Biking through Toronto drivers would almost always allow you to take up one lane on the road if there were bike lanes, although in the suburb of Mississauga they aren't as good, especially on the busy thoroughfares so sometimes I feel that I have to go on the gravel shoulder which is not so nice with a racing bike. In my suburb of Oakville I found it was usually better. If you go on small streets or roads with bike lanes, drivers will typically give you about 1-1.5m of space when they overtake you.

In Toronto the modal split for biking and pedestrians is 1.7%, although inner city neighbourhoods like Leslieville or Trinity Bellwoods are quite a bit better (20-30% I think), but yeah, that includes pedestrians.

Here's the bike path map.
http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/map/index.htm
It's relatively extensive, with lots of trails in ravines and sometimes hydro (power line) corridors, but there are quite a few gaps, and somewhat of a lack of lanes in the downtown core. There aren't a lot of bike lanes that are physically separated from the street (but still next to it) either, mostly just painted on the road.

You have to wear a helmet, and I think you're not supposed to go on sidewalks, but I still do it sometimes and it's not really enforced. I'm pretty sure there isn't any law about lights or vests.

[Skyscrappy]

Bogotá, Colombia

[trainrover]

Bixi plagued by irregularities

The Gazette June 21, 2011

Administrative irregularities, an illegal organizational structure, incomplete planning and a lack of oversight are among the problems the city's auditor-general finds with Montreal's bike-sharing program. How did Bixi - such a success at home it was exported around the world - become a financial liability?

[desertpunk]

[Wuppeltje]

[DarkLoki]

Cool video

It's fun to see examples of bike infrastructure from other parts of the world. It seems more and more places are trying to implement bike infrastructure. The greenways in Portland look pretty advanced.

A good read-up on bicycle infrastructure is this blog: http://hembrow.blogspot.com/. The author moved to the Netherlands and looks at our infrastructure in a way I never looked at before since it was so normal for me.

[georgescifo]

I am from Kerala in India and here most of the people feels ashamed to travel in a bicycle. They usually prefer motor bikes or scooters. They consider bicycle riding as an act of the people having no money to afford a motorbike, a scooter or a car..

[erka]

We now have electronic displays at the central station bike park. You can see how many bikes are stalled in each section of the 10,000 bike-park, and where there is still room for your bike

[desertpunk]

[gabrielbabb]

Mexico City
The government is trying to expang the usage of bicycles by applying the program Ecobici where you can rent bicycles, and opening bicycle lanes in some points of the city, they started in the touristic zones and some central middle-high class zones, but they are expanding more and more specially to the south, in Coyoacan and Periférico you can see a lot of space for bicycles, many people is starting to use them and it has good results but there is still a lot of stupid eople who can't understand that there is a special lane for bicycles even with divisions.

Also some avenues get closed during Sundays so that people can go and walk or drive by bicycle.

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by Skyscrappy

Bogotá, Colombia

Is that one of Mockus' schemes?

[alserrod]

Maybe in the south of Europe, bike is not as usual as in the north, but there are some cities where bikes have been increased in the last years.

In the case of my city, Zaragoza, 700.000 people, the town government opened a new hire-a-bike service three years ago. They started with 30 terminals and every year is being increased. Nowadays there are 130 terminals. They are not enough for all city but citizens notice the service improves every year.


This is a "not updated" map of terminals and bike-lanes.
I say not updated because last 30 opened this year are missing and some bike-lanes recently opened are missing too.




The system works as this:

- Anyone can ask for the service. Fare is 25 EUR/year and it allows to ask for a bike at any time. There are some fares for visitors while some days only.

- You can ask for a bike at any terminal and leave in another terminal. This has a "competitive reason". You can go to city centre for shopping with nothing by bike and come back on tramway or bus with some bags (should you go with your own bike, you may come back with it). No return journey is required.

- The only request is no more than 30 minutes journey. This is because it is planned for moving and not for "sunday's walks".



Some pics about service and terminals: