Honk! Cycling your mind

One of the main strategic underpinnings of New Mobility Agenda, and certainly of everything that appears here in World Streets, is that if we are ever to reinvent transportation in our cities, as we so badly need to do, we must in the process free ourselves from our old ways of seeing, thinking and doing things. For example, when you think "bicycle" . . .

For example, you and I think we know exactly what a bicycle is: and while that may apply 99 times out of 100, if we look more closely we are going to see quite a few variations which also need to be taken into consideration. And ditto by the way for what constitutes "safe cycling".

The Conference Bike takes all this from a different angle, so what about a quick visit to their video which you can access directly by clicking here.


You will also find a contribution with some background information on how it works here in World Streets by the inventor of the conference bike, Eric Staller. If you click here you will see his full text.

We like Conference Bikes because once you are on one of them and talking to others about cycling in cites as you all peddle away together on the city streets, you per force have a different view of the whole thing. A useful step to what we need to get going with better policies.

Enjoy the ride.

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Velo-City Global 2010 Conference opens in Copenhagen

From Morten Lange, Reykjavík on his way to VeloCity 2010.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 22 June, the 2010 Velo-City Global Conference opens in Copenhagen, and will last for 4 days. I can warmly recommend taking a look at the program and abstracts available at the web-site, www.velo-city2010.com I trust that also for people not attending the conference, the programme and abstracts can supply useful pointers to people working in interesting fields, regarding cycling and the South.

There are several workshops focusing on the Global South's experience in cycle-promotion, as this is supposed to be the first Global Velo-City conference. ( But there have been some "predecessors", arranged by "another tribe" : VeloMondial.net )

Vandana Shiva, from India will deliver a plenary talk. Shiva holds a PhD in Physics, is an activist and receiver of the Right Livelihood Award ( the "Alternative Nobel price" ) for work for Indian farmers and biodiversity, amongst other things. In the programme presentation we are told : "Dr Shiva sees the bicycle as an instrument of democracy and as an essential element of green mobility."

Other plenary speakers include former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, that helped transform transportation in that city.

In a workshop titled "Developing countries collaborating for the future", there will be presentations from ITDP Mexico and UNDP Kenya.

The conference has 940 registered participants, in spite of the fact that only one year has passed since the Velo-City 2009 conference in Brussels. The participant come from about 50 countries, the largest numbers coming from northern Europe and then the rest of the OECD, but also including from South-East Asia, India, China, Africa and Latin America.

The strongest presence of the international press at the conference is French. Journalists from Le Monde and Radio France International are on the list of participants.

Regards / Kvedja
Morten Lange, Reykjavík

P.S. One serious threat to effective and really successful bicycle promotion and uptake in the South is scaremongering, victim blaming, and false helmet promotion ( the dangerisation of cycling ).

And of course when you get helmet compulsion the situation gets even more difficult. All this on the background that no helmet compulsion or promotion regime to date can show any benefit for cyclists, even where helmet usage rose sharply and detailed data are available. ( See e.g. articles by Dorothy L. Robinson and links from the helmet policy area of the ECF web, linked below )

The ECF helmet group will distribute flyers and buttons at Velo-City Global 2010 titled "Ask me why I cycle without a helmet?". See : http://ecf.com/3675_1

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About the author:
Morten Lange describes himself as "as advocate for cycling and other health transport (in my spare time and then some)". He lives, works and pedals in Reykjavik Iceland

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No Accident! Traffic and Pedestrians in the Modern City

As most of our regular readers are well aware, World Streets is no friend of speed in cities. To the contrary, it is our firm position that a considerable number of the basic objectives associated with sustainable mobility and sustainable cities can be achieved if we do no more than to reduce top speeds in and around our cities in a strategic and carefully thought-out way. The great technological virtuosity of traffic engineers and technical planners permit us to do this, while at the same time retaining a well working transportation system, a healthier city, and a viable local economy. Listen to what John Rennie Short and Luis Mauricio Pinet-Peralta have to tell us on the subject.

No Accident: Traffic and Pedestrians in the Modern City

Authors: John Rennie Short and Luis Mauricio Pinet-Peralta. Department of Public Policy, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

Abstract
This paper considers the rise of traffic accidents in the creation of the modern city. The notion of accidents is deconstructed. There is a brief review of current literature on mobilities and then evidence is presented of the shifting configuration of vehicle-pedestrian accidents. The epidemic of traffic accidents of cities in developing world is noted and explained. The incidence of pedestrian traffic accidents is shown to reflect socio-economic characteristics such as age, class and status. A review of the literature provides evidence of the ways to ameliorate pedestrian injuries. Walksheds are suggested as a focus of concern. The creation of a more pedestrian-friendly city is proposed.

The Modern City

At the heart of modernity is the connection between speed, the machine and the city. In his 1909 manifesto of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) glorified the man at the wheel and the beauty of speed. He associated speed with courage in action and slowness with stagnant prudence. His glorification of the speeding automobile in the city prefigures its subsequent centrality to urban development.

Cities were reimagined and then reengineered to promote high speed. Virilo (1986; 1995; 2005) tells a story of the destruction of the sociability of the city by the logic of acceleration. In a more nuanced interpretation, Latham and McCormack (2008) explore the ways in which the speed and the 'countervailing eddies of slowness' define the experience of the city. However, in terms of urban traffic and the marginalization and displacement of the self-propelled human body, Virilio's image of the city as a site of acceleration seems closer to the mark. In this paper, we will explore one of the little discussed consequences of this transformation, the risk of bodily accidents in what are described as 'traffic accidents'.

The modern city is designed largely around the use of motor vehicles despite the inherent risks in machine-body coexistence, part of the brisk pace of city life. Indeed, in the immediate prehistory of automotive ascendancy, the Futurists downplayed any risks and celebrated machine-body meshing as a means to a high-speed, dynamic superhumanity.

Such eventual transformation was made possible, according to the Futurism's founding myth, when poet Filippo Marinetti emerged from a ditch after crashing his beloved Fiat, spewing mud and apparently, the Manifesto of Futurism, which begins 'We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness' and famously continues 'We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace' (Flint, 1972, p. 41).

By the early 1930s, Le Corbusier further enshrined swift automobility, proposing his 'autostrades' as concrete ribbons threading skyscrapers' canopies, elevated above mere city streets and devoid of pedestrians for optimum vehicular velocity. Speed and the fantasy of infinite mobility were at the heart of modernism and its physical embodiment in urban modernity. Norton (2008), for example, tells the story of American cities; at the beginning of the twentieth century, city streets had a variety of users, people as well as cars, and multiple users, a place for children playing, people walking, neighbors chatting.



From the 1900s to the early 1930s, a battle was fought between, on the one hand, the multiple users and interests decrying the onslaught of cars on streets and the growing dominance of auto traffic, the term 'death cars' was frequently used, and on the other hand, automotive interests which continually invoked freedom as a rallying cry. The automotive interests won. From our perspective today it seems a foregone conclusion but the 25-year period in the early twentieth century reminds us of the battle for alternative conceptions of the primary purpose of city streets.

This urban restructuring of the city streets as pathways for automobiles with pedestrians shunted to the sidewalks has a high human cost. High-speed machines mangle bodies and kill pedestrians and yet these costs are largely absent from urban studies and discussions of urban safety.

A recent book with the title The Safe City (Berg et al., 2006) makes for interesting reading, as much for what it does not include as for what it does include. While issues of terrorism and crime abound in the book, one issue receives scant attention despite the book's title, which is the risk of bodily injury and fatality from traffic accidents. Such neglect is not uncommon in the recent urban literature where terrorist campaigns and crime waves dominate safety issues, yet there is a huge silence on the issue of traffic safety and especially pedestrian injuries and fatalities.

There have been a number of commentators who have drawn attention to the issue of traffic and pedestrian safety (Hass-Klau, 1990), numerous empirical studies (e.g., Chapman et al., 1982; Graham & Glaister, 2003) as well as the continuing concern of such commentators as Mayer Hillman (Hillman, 1993; Karpf, 2002). However, the issue has failed to gain traction in the wider and broader urban studies literature. And yet the issue is of some importance.

Across the world almost over 10 million people are crippled or injured each year, and approximately 1.2 million people are killed every year due to road accidents, approximately 3,250 people every day, (Peden et al. 2004). That is the equivalent of a World Trade Center disaster on the world's roads each and every day. One writer even refers to a global epidemic of road deaths (Dahl, 2004). The total economic cost is estimated at 1 percent of the GNP of low-income countries and 2 percent in high-income countries (Jacobs et al., 2000).

No Accident

Even the quickest review of recent and classic urban texts reveals little consideration of this issue. Why the silence? Two reasons stand out. First, there is the notion of the accidental, of random events that are to be endured rather than explained.

The term 'accident' is revealing; it initially meant an event, anything that happens. Now the word commonly refers to an unforeseen event, a mishap. But the predictable covariance of road deaths with social phenomena belies this connotation of 'accident'. The young and the vulnerable and the poor and the marginal are more likely to be hit by a car than the rich and the powerful. While road deaths have declined among rich countries, they have increased among poor countries.

These statistics suggest an ordered causation rather than random occurrences. Road traffic accidents are not mishaps but events that are both explainable and preventable. The relative silence shrouding this serious issue is itself a political act. The incidence of pedestrian fatalities and injuries is skewed toward the more marginal and vulnerable members of society. Yet this consistent finding has failed to capture the attention of most critical theorists.

Most pedestrian fatalities occur in poor countries and have greater impact on the poor, the young and the old. Pedestrian injuries are just one strand in webs of multiple deprivations that bind people in disadvantaged positions. To see traffic fatalities and injuries through the lens of marginalization theory is to offer a very different perspective on them as accidents (see Cutler & Malone, 2005).

Second, there is the silence accorded to all events that have a constant background quality. The fact that road traffic accidents happen all the time makes them blend into the fabric of the taken for granted.

Too regular to generate much notice, they become mere white noise rather than events to be analyzed. Their very consistency and regularity allows them to fade into an unexamined, rarely discussed space. The urban spectaculars such as the collapse of the World Trade Center, overwhelms and ultimately silences the murderous regularity of road traffic fatalities and injuries.

Road traffic 'accidents' are taken for granted cost of contemporary urban living, a seeming inevitability that allows attention to be drawn to the more unusual, rare events; they are just too mundane, too anonymous, too ordinary to generate much interest. However, the rising concern with the everyday ordinary nature of the lived urban experience should prompt a reconsideration of road safety and risk.

The 'ordinary' quality assigned to road traffic accidents is, if you excuse the unintended pun, no accident: there is also a vast array of interests concerned with making them ordinary. These interests include the motor vehicle manufacturers, road builders, construction companies as well as a society that does not want to question the fatal costs of a culture and cities dominated by fast moving vehicles. The current usage of the term 'accidents' to refer to fatal and damaging machine-body interactions in the city is incorrect, misleading and deceptive in shifting the phenomenon from social outcome to random event.

Perrow (1999) introduced the notion of 'normal accidents' that may be unforeseeable yet are inevitable. Perrow based his initial work on the near meltdown of Three Mile Island. Drawing a wider perspective on high-risk technologies, he argues that accidents occur when systems become more complex and interconnected. These conditions are increasingly met in cities where traffic patterns are more complex and a variety of users share busier roads. The ubiquitous nature of motorized transport in many cities, in comparison to the obvious singularity of nuclear power station renders it, in the minds of many, as safe or relatively innocuous.

Yet a heavy piece of metal - the average weight of a US car in 2006 was 4142 lbs. (1878 kg) - traveling at even 30 miles per hour, operated by someone, perhaps listening to the radio, drinking coffee or using his cell phone, times the thousands of other drivers on a road in the average city constitutes a complex technological system with lots of room for human error. The result is a relatively high risk of being involved in a car crash. Our need for urban vehicular traffic has in part blinded us to its inherent and inevitable risks to health and safety. Popular perceptions of risks, in general and in relation to traffic accident risk in particular, are based more on intuition and judgment, rather than objective assessments (Slovic, 2002).

In this paper, after reviewing some mobilities literature and presenting some general background data, we will concentrate on pedestrian injuries, because they are marginalized by recent urban safety scholarship: there is no rush to publish or comment on everyday traffic accidents involving pedestrians as there is to pontificate in the wake of 9/11. Then we will review a range of recent papers that explore the causal connections between urban design and traffic 'accidents'. We will introduce the notion of 'walkshed' as a unit of analysis and conclude with intimations of more progressive changes.

The paper is part review and part an attempt to right the balance in discussions of urban traffic. As the more affluent move around by car and limousine, the pedestrian becomes the minor player in transport discussions, and as cities are restructured to fit the needs of the car, the needs of the pedestrian are even less considered. But even the car driver has to step out of the car at times.

While not everyone drives a car, most of us are pedestrians at some time. However, as soon you step out of your car in many if not most cities, you become a second-class citizen: it is as if your full rights only exist when you drive a car.

Walk in the city, and you are pushed to the sides of the road, a telling phrase and metaphor. When a car hits a child it is often treated as an accident, when a child hits a car it is considered vandalism. When Short (1989) writes in The Humane City of cities designed as if only some people matter, he references specifically car drivers in contrast with pedestrians. Cities are biased toward the needs of the drivers rather than the rights of the pedestrians, despite the obvious inequality. A heavy metal object traveling at even relatively low speeds does more damage to a human body than the body does to the car. People get killed and maimed; cars merely get scratched and dented.

. . . (Body of paper follows here. We jump for now to the authors' conclusions. See below for links to full article.) . . .

Conclusion

Across the globe there is an epidemic of traffic injuries and fatalities that is particularly marked in low- and middle-income countries. Almost 90 percent of traffic fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries. The most vulnerable are pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. The poor, the young and the old are at especially high risk.

Injury control and prevention strategies as part of a broader and deeper reorientation of cities away from a car-dominated culture toward a vehicle-pedestrian sharing culture can have significant impacts on morbidity, mortality, risk of injury and population health. These strategies include:

* Limiting and controlling speed through active and passive measures that target drivers' decisions on how fast to drive and road conditions that indirectly force drivers to reduce their average speeds;

* Organizing traffic away from residential areas, limiting inner city and business area traffic flow, and encouraging alternative modes of transportation that focus more on health benefits and non-motorized road users;

* Continuing public information programs targeting high-risk groups and vulnerable urban populations;

* Integrating urban planning and development and public health to design built environments that promote healthier lifestyles rather than safer behaviors.

Pedestrian injuries are not accidents. They are preventable. If the vulnerability of the human body was the determining factor, then it is unlikely we would design our transport system the way we have.

'Accidents' reflect and reinforce social differences: they are less accidents and more manifestations of wider and deeper inequalities in society that reflect the relative power of a vehicle-dominated as opposed to a pedestrian-dominated culture.

We need an anti-Marinetti to write a program for the future in which the city reflects the needs of the pedestrians and the frailties of the human body rather than the needs of the drivers and the power of their vehicles. It is perhaps fitting then that the same country that produced Mainetti is also home to the CittaSlow movement.

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For the full text, referencess and graphics of this thought-provoking twenty page paper, please click here to : http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a917906422&fulltext=713240928

Contents:
- The Modern City
- No Accident
- A Wider Context
- Urban Design and Road Safety
- The City as Urban Walkshed
- Conclusion
- References
- List of Tables

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Source: The full text of this article was published in: the journal Mobilities, Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2010 , pages 41 - 59. It is reprinted here with the kind permision of the authors.

The authors:

John Rennie Short is an expert on urban issues, environmental concerns, globalization, political geography and the history of cartography. He has studied cities around the world, and lectured around the world to a variety of audiences. He is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland (UMBC). He can be contacted via jrs@umbc.edu.

Luis Mauricio Pinet Peralta holds a Ph.D in Public Policy, Health Specialty, with a background in Emergency Health Services, Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine. He is a Research Associate of the Department of Public Policy, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD. He can be contacted via lpinet1@umbc.edu.

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Why Women Bike . . . and Why They Don't

To follow up on yesterday's piece by Janice Turner on "dull cycling" in the UK, the ever-stylish biker April Streeter reports from Portland on a survey of why women in the US cycle, and why they do not. (And if you are a female cyclist and have views on why women cycle, or perhaps do not, in your country, let us hear from you too.)

Sporty cyclists few in Amsterdam but individualized and stylish cycle gear abounds. Photo A. Streeter.

In Amsterdam, they say, cycling is like breathing - everyone does it and nobody really thinks too much about it. Kids learn to cycle before they are of school age - push cycles abound - and ride (without helmets) to school with or without parent supervision. But we're not in Amsterdam, and women especially have myriad reasons why they don't ride a bike.

To get to the heart of the reasons women do and don't cycle, The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals has created a web-based survey around attitudes toward cycling. By word of social networking, 7,300 women have already responded to the survey, which will run through May 15. Some insights have already emerged, and what is startling is that the top reason (90% of respondents) women do cycle is because of the health benefits.

Wide separated bike paths in Amsterdam make biking a pleasure for women of all ages. Photo A. Streeter.

Health benefits are definitely important - it's just amazing that it is the top respondent reason for cycling. And what's even more amazing is that (at least in these NYC numbers), it doesn't take all that much cycling or walking to have a positive effect.

"If more women and girls bicycled more places more often, they could achieve better health while having a very positive impact on their community and the environment." - Kit Keller, APBP executive director of the APBP.

The second most important reason women purported to cycle is to be in the outdoors (88% of respondents). This is also great reason, and while not knocking it, I found it a bit ironic, because among many non-riding women that I have spoken with, the outdoors (i.e. the weather) is a huge reason women say they don't ride. I'm not a competitive cyclist and instead consider myself a transport cyclist, and I don't like rotten weather or being miserable. But over time I've also realized I'd rather be out in weather on my bike (properly attired) than using any other means of transportation, including walking.

If the outfit, the bike, the gear, and the route are all good, then cycling is too. Photo of a woman cycling in Taiwan by Richard Masoner via flickr.
And that's probably due to the fact that I (along with 73% of respondents) feel that cycling is a real tension and stress reliever. I have far more mental freedom on a bike than driving a car, and it is exactly the right type of freedom, for while my body and the part of my brain controlling my reflexes are active, there's still a bit of the unconscious mindspace left over to generate new ideas and solve old problems.

The last two most popular reasons women cycle, according to the APBP survey were; "It saves me money" (72%), and, "It's very green and I'm doing my bit" (70%). Having taken the survey myself, I realize that these are choices that I likely put an "X" next to when thinking about the question of why I bike. Yet looking at them now, they seem quite abstract, and secondary to the joy of cycling (which in its own way may seem abstract to non-cyclists) and the fact that for me it's the most fun to be had while achieving transport. "Fun transport" was not one of the choices on the survey, however.

It's a job - this young Amsterdamer rides all day, every day, taking tourists on "yellow bike" tours. Photo A. Streeter.

I felt that it is a pity that the survey (a final report will issued in May) also didn't include a category choice for "I can show off my sense of style" as one reason for cycling. To men, this choice might seem absurd - perhaps to competitive and sports cycling women, too. To me, however, what was once a big hassle - choosing what to wear that is bike appropriate - has now become an interesting challenge and also a form of community with other urban women cyclists in other cities. When I see a great and practical outfit on a great and practical bike on a stylish woman, I really like it.

The future of urban biking is important to the quality of life of cities. APBP's survey is an important document to overcoming the hurdles of getting and keeping women cycling, so it will be very interesting next month to see the data and analysis of why women don't ride. Safety, we know, is a big hurdle. Here, for example, are urban issues' blogger Mary Newsom's top necessary conditions for her to cycle to work in Charlotte, N.C.:

"1. First, safe bike lanes wide enough so I didn't feel I'd put my life in danger.
2. Second, a chain guard to keep the grease from getting onto my office clothes.
3. Third, a good place to shower at the office."

What are your pre-conditions?

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About the author:
In this slot at the end of contributed articles, we generally try to place a few sober words that will permit our readers to know a bit about the author. But this time the temptation is too great, so now you have a short bio note in April's own words. "April is a former bilingual cocktail waitress who left the warm beaches of Hawaii to pursue an upstanding career as reporter on the new and exciting digital world for MacWEEK magazine in San Francisco. When she finally couldn't stand the thought of writing about one more wireless local area network router, she recast herself as an environmental and sustainability journalist for Tomorrow magazine in Stockholm, Sweden. A few years later, she escaped the Scandinavian chill to become editor of Sustainable Industries magazine in Portland, Oregon, where she today is a freelance writer forever on the lookout for a good/local/organic/sustainable/fair trade Swedish burrito."

Source: April wrote this piece for Treehugger yesterday and sent this to us at the same time with permission. You can find her original at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/why-women-bike-and-why-they-dont.php?campaign=daily_nl. Thanks for sharing April.

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Cycling should be dull

" (Government) policy is not to make cycling safer but to encourage more people to be brave." The author, Janice Turner writing for the Times, puts her finger on one of the greater truths of public policy and cycling, which every city and every New Mobility activist will do well to bear in mind. In her words: "Cycling. . . should be banal. Because it is safe"
Cycling should be dull, not an extreme sport

- Janice Turner, The Times, London, UK

"We must overthrow the cult of the car and the Lycra-clad vanguard of aggressive men, if more of us are to take to our bikes"

Source: Cycling should be dull, not an extreme sport

I cycled to the Treasury on Tuesday to interview the Chancellor. All along Horse Guards the railings were plastered in police notices: bicycles chained to them would be removed, detonated possibly, since the fear is bike bombs, which crop up in conflicts from Vietnam through to Ireland and Iraq. In the end, my foldable was carried inside by a kind civil servant, trying not to get oil on his suit.

Cyclists are not welcome visitors to any public offices: Parliament, Portcullis House, Downing Street. You’d think someone would set up a token rack beyond where ministers might be vaporised by bombs. But whatever the political posturing inside, outside it’s still two wheels bad. And one wonders if things will change if/when George Osborne, who every morning can be spied freewheeling through Hyde Park, finally dismounts at the Treasury.

The pedalling Tories — George, Dave and Boris — are often mocked by Labour as poseurs, snapping on green credentials like cycle clips. But they merely reflect their class and generation. In the past two years, with Tube strikes and terror threats, the number of London cyclists has doubled: clustered at every intersection is a mob of professional, affluent, under-40, Georgie-boys.

Indeed, to cycle in Britain today you must embody Tory philosophy: be a rugged fearless individual, wholly responsible for your destiny, battling against the collectivism of bendy buses and the red tape of illogical one-way systems. Norman Tebbit, after all, instructed the jobless to get on their bikes, not the train


The trouble is, to judge by that microcosm of our blue future, the London mayoralty, Tory policy is not to make cycling safer but to encourage more people to be brave. Transport for London bangs on about Boris’s 12 new “cycle superhighways”, which will sweep into the centre from disparate suburbs. Will these routes have barriers so the two-wheeled are finally safe from being squished beneath Land Cruisers? Er, no. For the main part, we will still be playing dodgems with buses and now motorcycles — yes, cheers Boris, for adding veering Vespas to our worries. The mayor’s cycle superhighways, it turns out, are just lines on a map.

And yet last Sunday, from St Paul’s to Buck House, cars were banned from London streets for the mayor’s Skyride. Around 65,000 people gloried in our city, rode beside our pink-cheeked children without, for once, picturing the wobble that would land them under a truck. Oh, if only it were like this every day, we all cried, as if ordinary citizens — oldsters on uprights, little girls on pink Barbie trikes, hipsters in unfeasibly high heels, tweed suits on rusty butcher’s bikes — just getting around safely on two wheels was a fantasy.

Because elsewhere cyclists are just that: a random cross-section of humanity. Not a Lycra-clad male vanguard pumped with aggression and self-righteousness. In Europe’s top three cycling nations — Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands — timorous old people cycle, women as often as men, children bike off unaccompanied to school. Cycling is not a moral manifesto or a carbon offset. It does not require DayGlo or £500 alloy wheels or attitude. Cycling is, as it should be, banal. Because it is safe


Yes, you might say, those countries have always cycled, just like their women have never shaved their armpits: it’s their way, not ours. Actually, a fascinating report, Making Cycling Irresistible, by the American academics John Puchera and Ralph Buehler, reveals that in the early 1950s cycling in Britain and Denmark started tailing off as car ownership increased. Indeed, for some years, we were keener bikers than were the Danes. The difference was, in the mid-1970s, the governments of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands resolved to stop the car’s dominance of the streets and championed the bike and pedestrian while the British allowed our townscapes to be ground beneath the wheels of the car. And yet these three continental countries own just as many cars per head as we do — the Germans more — it’s just that, unlike us, they aren’t glued into their driving seats.

Now only 1 per cent of our journeys are on bikes, in the Netherlands it is 27 per cent. And the reason is simple: a British cyclist is three times more likely than a Dutch one to die per miles travelled — even though only 3 per cent of Dutch cyclists wear a helmet. In Britain safety is seen as a matter for the individual, not government policy: yet it is highways, not helmets, that save lives.

And with quite extraordinary far-sightedness, these three countries built endless miles of barriered lanes along major roads but, more importantly, in many residential streets cars were slowed to a crawl and compelled to give way to bikes. And to enforce this, the law assumed, unless otherwise proved, that in an accident between a vehicle and a cyclist, the driver was at fault. Last week when that very principle was suggested here by Cycling England, there was a predictable furore about a (snore) Lycra louts’ charter.

But maybe it would make the idiot motorists who pelt down my 20mph street obey the law. Maybe it would have encouraged the left-turning HGV lorries who in London this year killed six female cyclists (women being vulnerable because we tend to ride defensively, hugging the kerb) to check their mirrors. Two fitness instructors, a film producer, a Goldsmiths’ graduate, a City director and an architect: those women were not loutish at all.

The answer to so many intractable modern problems — obesity, urban congestion, global warming — is cycling. What now feels like an extreme sport should be the default mode of transport. But it has dawned on me only recently that the big fat flaw at the heart of democracy is that politicians will never invest in the long term if voters’ initial inconvenience and expense are not rewarded with results before an election. And it will take years and billions to chip away at the cult of the car, to erect multistorey bicycle parks in every mainline station, to build genuinely super highways for bikes through our towns and reverse years of destructive urban planning.

Only when the fear is gone will big jessies stop riding on pavements, maniacs stop charging red lights, the streets be reclaimed from cars, and cycling from angry men with tiny bums. Do the Tories have the cojones to do it? Or is that just padding I see in their cycle shorts?

####

The author
Janice Turner joined The Times in 2003 from The Guardian, and writes mainly, but not exclusively, on family matters and women's issues. Her column appears on Saturdays.

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En Vélib’ dans les éco-quartiers By Vélib’ in Paris "eco-neighborhoods"

Okay, dear reader. If you want to get to the bottom of this update on how Paris's famous Vélib's are being integrated into the city's mobility and land use plan at a fair level of detail, you will have to make your way through this largely untouched machine translation of an article just published by the Vélib team here in Paris. Courage!

(If you want to know you will know. If you don't, you won't.. .)

Vélib’ in Paris "eco-neighborhoods"

Source: http://velib.centraldoc.com/newsletter/

The month of April puts sustainable development in the spotlight for a week. On this occasion, you can learn about eco-neighborhoods with Vélib'. How do they favor motorized traffic? What is the mobility of tomorrow? Eco-neighborhoods are part of the climate plan of the City of Paris, which aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas emissions.

What is an eco-neighborhood?"

While Vélib 'has participated in the increase in cycling in the city, sustainable neighborhoods begin to bloom in the capital. The users of Vélib 'could well be among the first to borrow the bike paths of sustainable neighborhoods, which are biased to motorized traffic and public transportation. The construction of an eco-neighborhood based inter alia on the best life and living together. The urban setting has to be warm and alive and for this, sustainable mobility, natural heritage, security is taken into account, as well as biodiversity, water management, noise and air pollution. Building a sustainable community based mainly on the HQE (High Environmental Quality) rewarding the preservation of the planet and a better quality of life (noise, air quality, water ...).

A sustainable community is thought of as environmental and energy challenges, but also by economic and social criteria. Eco-building, renewable energy, revegetation techniques are widely used in the context of eco-neighborhoods.

* Click here for more information on eco-neighborhoods

Vélib', soft modes and sustainable neighborhoods: what is the mobility of tomorrow? Anne

According to Anne Faure planner present at the conference on mobility and eco-neighborhoods, organized last February 16 by the association Zukunftstrasse in partnership with the Club of cities and territories bicycle, motorized traffic is a fundamental criteria in the construction of an eco-neighborhood. For her, Vélib 'has given visibility to cyclists.

The concept of eco-neighborhood was first developed in the countries of northern Europe. According to Anne Faure, the Grenelle Environment has encouraged its development in France where the projects sustainable neighborhoods are still very recent. "One can cite the examples of the BIA Good Grenoble or Lyon Confluence, these neighborhoods are close to the center and well served by public transport, the soft modes are also very present. Meanwhile, there is a proliferation of small projects in France, "she said.

According to Anne Faure, so that these new neighborhoods are truly eco-neighborhoods, it is necessary that they be served by public transport and car traffic and parking are limited. It is a difficult objective to implement but the view is changing. "Indeed, we must know that 40% of average emissions of greenhouse gases are produced by the building and 40% from transport. Other sectors, which include industry, only 20% "she adds. The BIA of Rungis and the Batignolles district in Paris trying to develop such soft methods. The Confluence area in Saint-Denis and the reconquest of warehouses in the Ile-Saint-Denis also take into account the overall problems of displacement. "But in France the focus is on the building with techniques such as thermal insulation, while in Germany the first experiments in the primary endpoint was a city without a car," said Anne Faure.

The planner said that the construction of an eco-neighborhood refers to the principles of sustainable development based on economic issues (including development of commercial and non-polluting activities), social (including construction of housing and utilities) and environmental (focus attention on managing energy, water and waste). She said the principle of eco-quartier is a first step towards a new vision of the city: "This is of course to shatter the limits of eco-districts across the territory of the city. For this, we need these neighborhoods is easily accessible to everyone, so they serve as a model.

The eco-city tour of Paris's Vélib'

Beyond the planned actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the City of Paris acts on the environment: adaptation of buildings, revegetation of Paris, creating green spaces, roofs, shared gardens ... Sustainable Neighbourhoods part of this process. They are emerging especially in the outskirts of the city, on vacant urban land or concerted development zones (CAZ). Gare de Rungis (13th), Boucicault (15th) and Claude Bernard (19th) ... Velib 'invites you to visit the eco-neighborhoods of tomorrow, Cycling. Browse a few of them with iVélib '.

* The district Fréquel Hondarribia in the 20th district was awarded in November 2009 by the Department of Ecology to support eco-district, in the Category Sobriety energy. Station Vélib 'No. 20016

* 1st eco-neighborhood in the capital, the Batignolles in the 17th district will be divided into three sectors: BIA-Cardinet Chalabre BIA Clichy Batignolles area Saussure. Station Vélib 'No. 17110

* Planned for 2012, the BIA Pajot, located in the heart of the 18th district, will pilot an eco-neighborhood in Paris, where the architectural heritage will retain his place. Station Vélib 'No. 18010

* Launched December 6, 2009, Macdonald warehouse, located Porte d'Aubervilliers, is the largest geothermal project of its kind in Paris and covers an area of 200 hectares. Station Vélib 'No. 19032

Examples from abroad

In Europe, there are many sustainable neighborhoods, including the Netherlands,
Ava-Lanxmeer in Culemborg, Sweden, B001 in Malmo Hammarby in Stockholm, and Finland, Helsinki Vikki.

In the UK, BedZED is a neighborhood built in south London, between 2001 and 2002. Covering an area of 1.7 hectares, it accommodates 100 apartments, 2 500 m² of offices and shops, green spaces, an auditorium, a health center, a sports complex and a creche. Since its establishment, and compared to conventional homes, this eco-district has reduced its energy consumption for heating by 88% and electricity by 25%.

In Germany, the Vauban district in Freiburg im Breisgau was rehabilitated in 1996 according to strict standards QEH. Nearly 3 000 homes and 600 jobs have been created. The homes are powered by solar energy and produce more energy than they consume. The area has been developed for an optimal sun exposure, with environmentally friendly materials and roofs are vegetated. Automobile traffic is reduced and the space reserved for outdoor games and soft travel.

Switzerland also has many eco-neighborhoods, Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, Bern.

Projects are underway in Austin, Texas, United States, and Wuhan, China.

Green Neighbourhoods (Quartiers verts)

The City of Paris has been engaged for several years a new policy of sharing public space. Green neighborhoods have been created.

The first of them, completed in 2003, Alesia Tombe Issoire, covers an area of 65 hectares and was built to improve safety and comfort of residents. The continuity of bike routes has been optimized, and speed of traffic has been limited. Much has also been devoted to the greening of the area, with the planting of 45 trees and 14 planters.

In the 12th district, the district Aligre favors soft travel with a velocity at 30 km / h, parking reorganized, or the creation of bike paths. Shrubs and planters were installed to revegetate the area.

* For more click http://www.paris.fr/portail/deplacements/Portal.lut?page_id=7414

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Americans want alternatives.

Fair enough. We all want choices. That is no more than human nature, But when it comes to transport policy and practice in the United States at the highest level, the idea of real choices is no less than a revolutionary statement. Right from the mouth of President Obama's Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, who continues to surprise and delight. (But now, vigilant citizens, let's see where the $$$ go. There is no such thing as passive democracy.)

US Transportation Secretary on Biking, Walking and ‘What Americans Want’

By Leora Broydo Vestel, as printed in the Green Inc. -- blog of the New York Times.
We propose that you check into their site from time to time. The Times has become a leading international voice for sustainable transportation. (We need more of them.)

The United States transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, recently caused a stir when he proclaimed that bicycling and walking should be given the same consideration as motorized transport in state and local transit projects.

“It’s what Americans want to do,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, of his emphasis on the role of bicycles and walking in good transportation policy.

Supporters, who continue to post notes of adulation and thanks on Mr. LaHood’s Facebook page, say the acknowledgment of biking and walking as legitimate modes of transportation is long overdue.

Critics, conversely, believe the secretary is taking the country in the wrong direction.

Mr. LaHood, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois, spoke with Green Inc. about his reasons for introducing the new policy, the impact it will have on transportation financing, and why bike paths are a good bang for the buck.

Q. Bicycling and walking advocates had a very positive reaction to the policy change. But here at Green Inc., we heard mostly from critics who said it showed you were “delusional” or reflective of some sort of “Maoist” bent. What’s your response to the response?

A. My response is that this is what Americans want. Americans want alternatives. People are always going to drive cars. We’re always going to have highways. We’ve made a huge investment in our interstate highway system. We’ll always continue to make sure that those investments in the highways are maintained.

But, what Americans want is to get out of their cars, and get out of congestion, and have opportunities for more transit, more light rail, more buses, and some communities are going to street cars. But many communities want the opportunity on the weekends and during the week to have the chance to bike to work, to bike to the store, to spend time with their family on a bike.

So, this is not just Ray LaHood’s agenda, this is the American agenda that the American people want for alternatives to the automobile.

What’s happened around America is people are buying bikes and they’re using them for recreational purposes on the weekend and there’s no better family way for people to spend a weekend than riding their bikes on these biking trails.

This is what Americans want and we’re accommodating their needs to really find places to recreate. And what could be healthier than taking a 30-minute walk, which is recommended by every doctor in America, or hopping on your bike and riding four, five or six miles and enjoying the great outdoors?

Look, this is a win-win. This is a way for people to get out of their cars, a way for people to recreate, a way for people to get good exercise, and it’s what Americans want to do.


Q.In announcing the new policy, you used pretty forceful language, saying it was a “sea change” and “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.” The actual policy, however, is more benign in tone, saying, “well-connected walking and bicycling networks is an important component for livable communities, and their design should be a part of federal-aid project developments.”

Do you stand by your initial characterization of the policy?

A. I think that livable and sustainable communities is a game changer. It’s a game changer because it’s what Americans want. It’s a game changer because people do want to get out of congestion, they want to get out of their cars, they want to be able to enjoy the outdoors, they want to be able to recreate with their families.

And so it’s a game changer from the point of view that it’s a major component of livable and sustainable communities that provide alternatives to automobiles. And some of it is transit, some of it is light rail, some of it is street cars, some of it is good buses. But certainly a big part of it is the opportunity to bike or walk to the grocery store, to work, to the drug store or just spending time with the family and getting some good exercise.

Q. In terms of the way federal transportation dollars will be spent on the ground, is this a zero sum game? Does more money for biking and walking mean less money for motorways?

A. We’re always going to take care of our highways. As I said, we have a state-of-the-art interstate system that’s been developed over three or four decades. We’re not going to give up on our roads. We know people are always going to drive cars. They’re going to use their cars for long distances.

But as we develop our livable and sustainable communities program, biking and walking paths will be a major component of it. And they will get some significant dollars.

Q. In response to the policy change, a member of Congress said he didn’t understand how you get a bang for the buck out of a bicycle project. Why do you think they’re a good investment?

A. You don’t have to get a bang for the buck in every form of transportation. Certainly, transit, it provides a good bus or light rail or other kinds of transportation services. But, they don’t make money doing it.

This is a good bang for the buck because it provides alternatives to people, and good exercise, and for people who are very health conscious and for people who want to spend time with their families.

This is a win, win, win. It incorporates a lot of different opportunities for people and it’s a good bang for good health, and a good bang for a different form of transportation, and it’s what the American people want.

Q. Was there any particular reason you wanted to introduce the new policy now?

A. It has more to do with the fact that we’re rolling out our livable and sustainable communities as we travel around the country and I also was at a huge bikers’ conference in Washington, D.C., and we wanted to give them the chance to really understand that all of their hard work over a long period of time has finally paid off. There’s an administration in place now that has taken to heart their request for more walking and biking paths.

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Editor's note:

Let us see if we can put this into perspective. Now, while it is very good to hear America's Transportation Secretary taking an active, even enthusiastic stance in favor of bicycling and walking, and while it is great if not entirely unexpected news that the cyclists and pedestrians groups are strongly and vocally supporting this policy change (because it is indeed an important policy change), we also need to bear in mind that this is a small step.

What we need is for the Secretary to embrace the full range of the options which are opened up by the New Mobility Agenda, all of which need to be understood individually and, now comes the hard part, orchestrated in each place into a fully tailored unique mobility package so as to provide fair transportation for all the people who live and work in that place.

I ask myself this: what is it that we can do, you and I and others who care, in order to broaden the palate of transportation options which are needed in order to provide full and fair service for the entire population, bearing in mind that in most places more than 50% of the people who live there cannot or should not be driving their own car. I guess we just have to keep working on it. (We will !)

Eric Britton
Editor

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Musing: Chopin, sustainable transport and sustainable lives

All of us who show up here, well most of us anyway, have come to understand that we can't simply cut matters of "transport" with one snip away from the rest of the fabric of our daily lives. Which is why we continually keep repeating phrases like "sustainable cities and sustainable lives" (perhaps much to your annoyance, eh?). Which brings us on this early and cold Sunday morning in Paris to the perhaps surprising link between World Streets and Frédéric Chopin. That's right, Frédéric Chopin.

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Is this too much of a weekend stretch? You tell me.

For starters, Chopin and World Streets were born on the same day but one, March 1st for the great composer, March 2nd for your favorite (and the planet's only) sustainable transport daily. One day and one hundred ninety nine years, that is.

Still too much of a stretch? Admitted. So let's try this. But first, let me invite you to listen to this Nocturne (Opus 15, No. 1, in F) while I give this my last late Sunday morning try.



Chopin reminds us -- you can hear it right here, can't you? -- of the importance of quiet and reflection in our daily lives. Quiet and reflection yes but with plenty of ideas, drive and passion -- not at all a "sit back and wait for it to happen to you" life.

Here in this spirit are three quiet and to me really quite thrilling moments in the life of sustainable ways of getting around (which of course and exactly is why we are all here and what I want for you and all our children).

- On any day in any city in the world, being able to walk quietly and safely on an ordinary street holding the hand of someone you love

- On a visit to Ludwigsburg in southern Germany, on a chilly autumn afternoon as school is just getting out, hearing a distant flutter of almost bird like noises which soon materialize into a gaggle of chaotically peddling schoolchildren, girls and boys, large and small, chatting and laughing as they safely and joyfully make their way home on a reserved bike path. (Shouldn't those be your children?)

- Warmly ensconced in a seat on a clean train getting where we wish to go while comfortably reading a big fat book as the wheels turn beneath us.

Then, and finally for this end of a long week musing, there is the concept of shared space, so important to the composer, writer, painter, playwright and film maker – the vital shared space they seek and create by means of our eyes, ears and minds. No one can listen to Chopin, or Chekov or Molière or or . . . without being drawn into the special space they first create and then draw us in.

We now know this. This concept of shared space is critical for us as well. It's an indisputable fact. There can be no sustainable development, no sustainable cities, nor real well-being for all without deeper and wiser sharing. We have a lot to learn about this.

Yes, the young Pole was telling us something very important, so we really need to listen and learn. And then do.

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Reinventing the Wheel: "Why Cycling Saves Lives" Message from Iceland

The freezing, windswept roads of Iceland don’t sound like the best place for avid cyclists. Morten Lange, head of the Icelandic Cyclists' Federation in an interview with the editor of the Allianz Knowledge Partnership, disagrees, arguing that cycling could save your life.

"There is virtually no difference between the danger in cycling and going by car." - Morten Lange, Director, Icelandic Cycling Foundation

Reporter: Thilo Kunzemann, Editor, Allianz Knowledge Partnership
Isn’t it difficult to convince people to cycle in a country with so much rain and cold?

Morten Lange
People talk about the difficult weather, the distances, and so on. But even though there are some problems, there are so many positive things people don’t realize about cycling, like saving money, saving time, more freedom and substantial health benefits. There are many myths about cycling that aren’t true anymore.

Number 1: Let us go through these myths: Firstly, cycling is hard work. How would you tackle this statement?

This can be true when you start but most people will find that they gain strength when they have done it for some weeks. You can simply begin with a lighter gear and can have an enjoyable trip.

Number 2: The distance to my job is too far to cycle.
Many people think that five kilometers is very far. But when we ran our ‘cycle to work’ campaign here in Iceland, many people were surprised that it was no problem to cycle those five kilometers every day, and the time spent was less than they anticipated.

Number 3: Cycling is dangerous.
People often think that the traffic is intimidating and loud, and they have heard about accidents. But statistics that claim cycling is more dangerous than driving a car are looking at a per kilometer basis, which is not a fair comparison.

People will not go as far by bike as by car, so what you should compare is the danger on a per hour basis or per trip. And then there is virtually no difference between the danger in cycling and going by car. And of course cyclists pose much less danger to others. If cycling replaces car driving for short and medium distances, we get calmer traffic and we will all be safer.

Number 4: It takes too much time.
You are quicker on a bicycle than you think. In many cities around the world, there have been mock competitions during the rush hour between different modes of transport and it is very uncommon that the cyclist doesn’t win.

We did a contest here in Reykjavik in the morning rush hour, and the cyclist was substantially faster than the car driver and the person that went by bus.

How else do you convince people to cycle?
Parking in Iceland is mostly free, and this leads to many problems. Someone has to pay the costs of an under-priced service. So instead of paying to expand their parking lot, two companies in Reykjavik decided to reduce the demand for parking by offering people some money for not using the parking spaces.

They pay people the equivalent of a month's pass on the bus. Everybody who doesn’t use the parking lot gets this payment, regardless of whether they walk, cycle, use public transport or get a lift with a co-worker.

We should follow the British example. Cycling England receives applications from schools to hold bikeability courses for their pupils to promote cycling and teach skills that improve safety. Children are taught how to cycle in "normal" traffic. They feel more confident and their parents are less afraid. Such lessons can be helpful even for seasoned adult cyclists.

What else would have to change so that cycling becomes more attractive?
I think we need a change in perspective and how politicians and public servants talk about traffic safety, health and cycling. The most visible message on cycling from many governments, insurance companies and NGO's has been to stress that pedestrians and cyclists should lookout for cars and behave “responsibly”.

This often means fencing cyclists off from other traffic; make them wear bright clothes, high-visibility gadgets and helmets. This is all logical in a way, but it’s not the cyclist but speeding cars that are dangerous.

These negative messages also overshadow the positive message that cycling and walking is healthy, cost-effective, and fast. This should be changed; cars are the elephant in the china shop not the other way around.

If less people go by bike it generally means less safety for all cyclists, less physical activity and thus poorer public health, more pollution from cars. Politicians and public should rather promote cycling with positive means and introduce lower speed limits. 30 km/h should be the norm for cities and towns.

Now it’s hard to find a route that feels safe. Either you cycle on a busy freeway to work or you can use a map and explore your way. That way you probably end up with a route that is 30 percent longer than the routes cars use.

So you think that it is a question of public policy rather than being up to the individual?

Policy could help. Car users, for example, get many things for free; cyclists do not get similar favors. There are subsidies for driving, like free parking. Cyclists have seldom received subsidies. And for some people its part of their salary to get a car, it’s like a pay raise. If you’re using a bicycle, you don’t get such benefits. This is changing though, for instance in the UK, Norway, and indeed Iceland.

You mentioned the health benefits of cycling; does it really make such an impact?
The World Health Organization has published a tool called HEAT for Cycling that allows governments to assess the economic savings from cycling, savings resulting from reduced mortality or less obesity. It’s available on the web.

Various diseases like heart diseases and several types of cancer are less prevalent among those that cycle. In a study done in Denmark where 30,000 people were followed over 14 years, amongst those that cycled the chance of dying during that period was 30 percent lower than amongst those that did not cycle.

At least two towns, Odense in Denmark and Grimstad in Norway, have seen immediate savings in the health system, as a result of successful promotion of cycling lasting a few years.



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About the author:
Morten Lange describes himself as "as advocate for cycling and other health transport (in my spare time and then some)". He lives, works and pedals in Reykjavik Iceland

About this article:

Morten Lange: "The editor of this greenish website of the German insurance company Allianz, noticed some comments from me criticizing the safety messages on the site, as well as (via twitter) pointing out bicycling as a viable alternative when his article pointed out the many pitfalls of biological fuel replacements. He then contacted me via twitter and conducted the interview above by email. I am telling you this as an example of advocacy taking strange paths ... and of course some of the ideas and knowledge I feel need more exposure, transpire in the interview."

* This interview originally appeared in the Allianz Knowledge Partnership on 4 March.

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America, it’s time to meet the Sharrow. (Be brave)

After five years of sanctioned experimentation in American cities—large and small--the Federal Highway Administration has officially adopted Shared Use Lane Markings, or “Sharrows,” into the latest version of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

America Codifies Shared Use Lane Markings (Sharrows)

While the MUTCD is not everyday reading for many livable streets advocates, its contents largely dictate how America’s roadways are detailed, signed, and controlled, and therefore controls the widespread application of sustainable transport innovations.
Image Credit, Mike Lydon

Sharrows are comprised of a bicycle and chevron symbol, which communicate that bicycles and automobiles must share travel lanes equally. First used in the City of Denver, sharrows became more widely recognized following a 2004 study demonstrating that their application in San Francisco improved lane positioning for bicyclists and increased the amount of passing distance given by motorists overtaking bicyclists.

The study also reported that the marking helped cut down on the number of sidewalk bicyclists and reduced the number of people traveling illegally against traffic.

To be sure, Sharrows are no substitute for more substantial bicycle infrastructure, yet may be used in specific contexts where more robust bikeways are difficult to implement.

According to the National Associations of Transportation Officials (NACTO) and their Cycling for Cities initiative, more than 76 American municipalities are now utilizing Shared Use Lane Markings to accomplish the following:

- Help bicyclists position themselves safely in lanes too narrow for a motor vehicle and a bicycle to travel side by side within the same traffic lane

- Mimics the effect of bicycle lanes on streets with constrained rights of way and alerts road users of the lateral location bicyclists may occupy

- Move bicyclists out of the “door zone” of parked cars

- Encourage safe passing by motorists

- Require no additional roadway space

- Alert all road users to the presence of bicycles

Sharrows may also improve the overall visibility of the bikeway network, especially along those thoroughfares where bicycle lanes end abruptly, but the need for visible bicycle accommodation surely continues.

Image credit, Peter Furth

In general, Sharrows should be applied to streets with moderate motor vehicle traffic volume, and where right-of-way space is constrained as to not allow the necessary width for bicycle lanes. Some locations, such as Long Beach, CA and Salt Lake City, UT have taken the concept further by experimenting with a type of marking that may be best described as a hybrid between a sharrow and bicycle lane.

With such markings now fully included in the MUTCD, it is likely that those American cities that tentatively experimented with the marking will now expand their use. Likewise, those municipalities who have either been waiting for their official inclusion in the MUTCD, or who are not familiar with facility type can now pursue sharrows as an inexpensive means of improving the overall safety ad visibility of the bicycle network.

For car-happy American, this indicates a step in the right direction.

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About the author:
Mike Lydon is the founding Principal of The Street Plans Collaborative. Before launching TSPC in 2009, Lydon worked for Smart Growth Vermont, the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, and Ann Arbor’s GetDowntown Program. From 2006 - 2009 Lydon worked for Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, an international leader in the practice of smart growth planning, design, and research techniques. Along with Andres Duany and Jeff Speck, Mike co-authored The Smart Growth Manual.

The Street Plans Collaborative
279 Henry Street #9
Brooklyn, NY 11201
917-767-9850
www.streetplans.org

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You, me, technology, pattern breaks and unleashing the power of the market: Think Copenhagen Wheel

World Streets rarely gives in to "technical fix" solutions to our dual challenges of wrecking the planet and our cities staying stuck in hopelessly outmoded 20th century patterns and actions - because we know for sure that the answer lies not in the deus ex machine of technology but above all within ourselves. But hold on for a minute - let's have a look and give some thought to . . . the Copenhagen Wheel (nice name!).

Anything that works.

As we look around the mournful Nordic battlefield this morning, at the strewn bodies, broken hopes, and hastily retreating figures and CO2 streams that will soon have been all that remain of COP15, we have every reason to be ready to look hard at any and all ideas that may hold out promise for the future, for the near future, no matter how few, no matter how strange at first glance.

So today let's relax a bit and ponder something developed by a group of technology heads at MIT, which, surprise!, brings us right up before the necessary path to behavioral change -- a most obdurate challenge as we have been seeing in Copenhagen these weeks. Still there are times when technology can help us, not only do things differently but also to do them better. To help us make, one by one, more sustainable choices. That after all is what sustainability is all about.

So let's have a gander at the Copenhagen Wheel, an interesting playful, and idea-ful, example of how this can work. And oh yes!, let's not stop there.

MIT’s big wheel in Copenhagen

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —Dec. 15, at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, MIT researchers debut the Copenhagen Wheel — a revolutionary new bicycle wheel that not only boosts power, but can keep track of friends, fitness, smog and traffic. Though it looks like an ordinary bicycle wheel with an oversized center, the Wheel's bright red hub is a veritable Swiss army knife's worth of electronic gadgets and novel functions.

"Over the past few years we have seen a kind of biking renaissance, which started in Copenhagen and has spread from Paris to Barcelona to Montreal," says Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT SENSEable City Laboratory and the Copenhagen Wheel project. "It's sort of like 'Biking 2.0' — whereby cheap electronics allow us to augment bikes and convert them into a more flexible, on-demand system."

The first goal of the Copenhagen Wheel project is to promote cycling by extending the range of distance people can cover and by making the whole riding experience smoother so that even steep inclines are no longer a barrier to comfortable cycling.

Toward this end, the Wheel can store energy every time the rider puts on the brakes, and then give that power back to provide a boost when riding uphill or to add a burst of speed in traffic.

"The Wheel uses a technology similar to the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which has radically changed Formula One racing over the past couple of years,” says Ratti. "When you brake, your kinetic energy is recuperated by an electric motor and then stored by batteries within the wheel, so that you can have it back to you when you need it. The bike wheel contains all you need so that no sensors or additional electronics need to be added to the frame and an existing bike can be retrofitted with the blink of an eye."

"Our city's ambition is that 50 percent of the citizens will take their bike to work or school every day," says Ritt Bjerregaard, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. "So for us, this project is part of the answer to how can we make using a bike even more attractive."

But there are also a variety of extra functions hidden within the hub of the Copenhagen Wheel. By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, which can be mounted on the handlebars, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends.

"One of the applications that we have discussed with the City of Copenhagen is that of an incentive scheme whereby citizens collect Green Miles — something similar to frequent flyer miles, but good for the environment," says Christine Outram, who led the team of MIT researchers.

The project also aims to create a platform for individual behavioral change.

"The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life," says Assaf Biderman, associate director of the project. “For example, the Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike."

The initial prototypes of the Copenhagen Wheel were developed along with company Ducati Energia and the Italian Ministry of the Environment. It is expected that the wheel will go into production next year, with a tag price competitive with that of a standard electric bike. According to Claus Juhl, CEO of Copenhagen, the city might place the first order and use bicycles retrofitted with the Copenhagen Wheel as a substitution for city employee cars as part of the city's goal to become the world's first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.


* Click here to play video

The Copenhagen Wheel team at MIT is composed of Christine Outram, Project Leader, Rex Britter, Andrea Cassi, Xiaoji Chen, Jennifer Dunnam, Paula Echeverri, Myshkin Ingawale, Ari Kardasis, E Roon Kang, Sey Min, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti. The project was developed for the City of Copenhagen in cooperation with Ducati Energia and with the support of the Italian Ministry for the Environment.

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Now what happens?

What about this? Let's assume this is something that really can be developed into a serious sustainability tool, so now what?

Let's assume that the goal – I am correct in this? – is to make the strongest possible contribution to a sustainable planet and more livable cities – what is the best, the fastest, the most powerful way in which this idea can be put to work.

Have no doubt about it, if the product really does fill a market niche, there will be industrial groups that will reverse engineer it in a few days and be able to put their own versions on the market before our MIT colleagues figure out what they are going to do next September. This brave new world, the global economy, and the forces of the market will see to that.

So, now what?

The editor

PS. Is there anyone who is brave enough to explain to our MIT friends about the perils of weird CaptALIZation? We need to save the planet AND preserve our languages. ;-)

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Cycling your brain (It really could use a bit of fresh air)

Have you noticed? Just about all of the planning and decision making in our underperforming, all too often dysfunctional sector is terribly familiar. Priorities are set, terms of references written up, responsibilities defined, teams created, schedules posted, instructions issued, tools identified and applied, observations made, meetings arranged, reports written, recommendations communicated and the whole process grinds ahead to its inevitable destination – more often than not, bingo: old mobility! But if you look closely, the very mechanism, the process, is pretty much the same we were seeing back in the middle of the last century when we were planning and implementing many of the messes we now find ourselves in. Hmm.

So the moral of the story is that we need to take some very different approaches to identifying and then to starting to resolve the most pressing of our problems.

There are some out there, fortunately, and here is one you might wish to spend at least a few minutes with. They call it the NewMasterdam Bike Slam, and back in mid August as it was forming up we announced it here .



Well the Slam has been run, and the ocean spanning organizers have just completed a small illustrated booklet that sets out some of the process, as well as some of the recommendations they came up with. Here is more on that, together with the link so that you can review their results.

Their announcement, just in today:

Booklet on the New Amsterdam Bike Slam
While the Bike Slam teams were hard at work, leading experts from urban planning and design, transportation policy, cultural anthropology, and advocacy gathered on September 11 at the Center for Architecture to discuss “Global Trends in Sustainable Transportation Policy,” especially as they pertain to New York City.

Throughout the day, the primarily American audience was treated to perspectives from a multitude of exceptional speakers who offered opinions wide and varied, including how Dutch cities integrate economic benefits with the planning of space; population groups who are harbingers for significant mode shift (women and elderly); and the strong connections between growing cycling and lowering carbon emissions. Perhaps most inspiring is the consistent theme that benchmarks are not indications for achievement and mark the end of the project, but are markers for improvements and going further.

Special guests of the day included Christopher Ward, Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Janette Sadik- Khan, New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner.

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Download the booklet here. - http://www.aimsterdam.nl/bestanden/AIM-NABS

Keep on peddling. It will only do you good.

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