The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) recently announced new “Bicycle-Friendly Universities.” 14 universities were added, bringing the total up to 58. These 58 universities are located in 30 states across the country. Of these 58 universities, just one is rated Platinum, and 3 are rated Gold. Check out the LAB blog post for a bit …
I don’t recall where I first heard the argument that bicycle sharing programs were essentially public transit, just more tailored for individual freedom and need. But I certainly liked the concept. São Paulo is probably not the first, but it’s the first I can think of that takes that concept and runs with it. The Brazilian …
São Paulo — Single Transit Pass For All Public Transit (Including Bike Sharing) Read More »
The most efficient species/vehicle on the planet: I studied bicycle planning (and planning in general) for my graduate studies. I recall learning that Congress in 1970 declared the bicycle the most efficient vehicle on the planet. There may be some fringe vehicles that beat it, but as far as common transportation vehicles go, I think …
Computers Like Bicycles For The Mind (Steve Jobs) Read More »
A new-on-my-radar “community-building collective” called Red, Bike, & Green is aiming to get more black urban Americans on bikes, and embracing the many benefits that come with that. From the economic benefits to the personal financial benefits to the mental and physical health benefits, there are many reasons why people in every community should be …
Here’s a pretty wicked little DIY project: And the video before that one, with more info: For a quick text summary, Michael Graham Richard of TreeHugger has a good one written up already: [Matt Richardson] used an inexpensive Raspberry Pi credit-card-sized single-board computer to create a very special kind of bike headlight that can dynamically project information on …
Think Sweden’s too far north to be bike friendly? Think again. Here’s a new video featuring the quite bike-friendly Malmö, Sweden:
There are over a dozen B-cycle bike-sharing programs across the U.S. Until now, however, membership would just be good for the city in which you signed up. That’s going to change this week. Annual memberships will now be valid in all 15 locations in which B-cycle is located (and, presumably, in any cities where B-cycle …
This is sweet. An excellent compilation of existing, planned, or under construction bike-sharing programs around the world. It was put together by the bike-sharing-obsessed people over at the The Bike-sharing Blog, which is a product of Paul DeMaio / MetroBike, LLC and Russell Meddin. The map includes 2nd- and 3rd-generation bike-sharing programs (sorry, 1st-generationers). Check out the map, …
I’m all for simple cycling. I consider myself a Dutch-style cyclist — in other words, I simply get on my bike (with normal clothes on) and ride away at a comfortable pace. No need to complicate things and turn bicycling into some kind of high-tech insider’s club. That ruins the simply, efficient appeal of it …
Mikael Colville-Andersen is a world-leading urban planning / transportation planning consultant. His focus is on human-powered transport, especially the bicycle, and humanizing cities (at least, that’s how I would summarize it). His blog, Copenhagenize, is one of the few urban planning blogs I follow, and I am pretty much always eager to check out his …
Here’s a cool idea/image I just ran across on reddit. We can dream. Source: someone on blogger
Bike lights are great, but they’re rather small and can sometimes be easily missed. Wouldn’t it be great if the lights gave a better message to drivers to watch out and give the biker his or her deserved space? Heck yeah! So I’m really hoping this great bike light concept below gets off the drawing …
Lighted Bike Safety Zone Created With Bike Light Concept Read More »
Electric bikes have taken off a bit… as I predicted (about 5 years ago) they would. While I think normal bikes must be better for people in 90-99% of cases, I do think electric bikes are pretty cool and have their place. One place electric bikes might make a good fit is as delivery vehicles. …
Here’s a completely counterintuitive finding — bike-friendly communities are seeing a greater increase in bicycling! Who would’ve thought? Bike-Friendly Communities Increase Biking (Infographic) (via Clean Technica) Data from the latest American Community Survey shows that more people are riding their bikes in communities that make strategic investments for bicycles. No real surprise there. The …
Bike-Friendly Communities See Bigger Increase In Bicycling (Infographic) Read More »
The League of American Bicyclists has announced another list of “Bicycle Friendly Communities.” Here’s more from Charis Michelsen of CleanTechnica: More Bicycle Friendly Communities for the U.S. — Los Angeles, Miami, and Nashville (via Clean Technica) Bicycle friendly communities are exactly what it says on the tin — communities taking steps to make cycling …
More Bike-Friendly Communities Announced, Including LA, Nashville, and Miami Read More »
Colored bike lanes are one of my favorite things in the world. They make the greenest form of transportation (bicycling, of course) safer and more attractive. They grant bikers much more respect on the road. In Florida, I’ve been yelled at to get out of the road while I was biking in a bike lane …
There are tons of reasons to bike. Tons. It’s ridiculously, insanely good for helping preserve a livable planet. It’s ridiculously, insanely good for our health. And it’s ridiculously, insanely efficient (saves a ton of money for individuals, cities, counties, states, and countries). But there’s one more key reason that is often overlooked: it’s ridiculously, insanely …
The Most Underrated Reason You Should Bike (+14 Biking Videos) Read More »
Last I wrote about Boston’s new bike-sharing program, Hubway, it was about how popular the service was. (Oh yeah, and I shared a test ride blog from someone at Boston University.) Well, the rockin’ and rollin’ on Hubway bicycles has continued. In four months, 140,000 rides were taken via Hubway. Even compared to several other …
Boston Bike-Sharing Still Rockin’ — To Increase 50% Read More »
Chicago may not be the first city many people think of when they think of solar leaders — it shouldn’t be — but it has been on the leading edge of green for awhile, and a couple new announcements out of the windy city keep that trend going. 1. A non-profit car-sharing program in Chicago, I-GO, …
Chicago — Solar-Powered EV Car-Sharing & Solar-Powered Airport Read More »
I have written about New York City’s planned bike-sharing program a couple times here on EcoLocalizer, and have written about bike-sharing programs in Paris, China, Barcelona, London (a couple times), Chicago, D.C. (sister site Ecopreneurist has as well — linking to that piece), Boston, and my current city of Wroclaw (twice). I’m a fan. But I’ve got one problem with many attempts at bike-sharing — the programs start too small. Well, NYC is not disappointing me. It’s starting with 10,000 bikes at 600 stations, comparable to Paris (probably the most successful and certainly the biggest program in the world, which started with 10,000 bikes at 750 stations).
Following up on my recent post on Boston’s new and highly successful bike-sharing program, Hubway, I thought I’d direct your attention to a great post on Boston University’s news site, BU Today, in which Leslie Friday describes her experience testing out Hubway. Here’s the intro:
D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare bike-sharing program has been a great success (despite its rather small size). Paris’ Velib bike-sharing program rocked the world with its tremendous, unprecedented success. Barcelona’s Bicing program was much more successful than originally anticipated. And so on and so on. Now, it’s being reported that Boston’s new bike-sharing program is a great success, even much more successful than originally anticipated.
Switzerland looks like one of the prettiest countries in the world. It’s got an amazing quality of life. And I heard recently that it has NEVER been in debt. Wow. I think the U.S. could learn a lesson or two from this leading country (starting with: DON’T POUR YOUR MONEY INTO WARS & “DEFENSE”).
Continuing on with my Green NGO Highlighted series, which I got away from for a short time, here’s a cool one a good Facebook friend of mine shared with me nearly two months ago. It’s the Bamboo Bike Project, based in Africa, which combines two of the greenest things on the planet.. bamboo and bikes.
I wrote a pretty extensive introduction to Wrocław’s new bike-sharing program about a month and a half ago, with 18 photos and 2 videos included. Now, I said that I would write an update once I tried it out and I finally have. Marika (my partner) and I were walking to the store today and decided on the way to try it out if there were any bikes available (every other time we went to try it out there weren’t bikes available or, once, the system was down). It was quite simple to use, the process being…
I love writing on walkable cities. Have you noticed? I’m not the only one, though. There are huge communities and organizations of people working on that one particular issue. There’s also a great website, Walk Score, that ranks cities on their walkability (which I’m frustrated to find out is still not a word according to my Google Chrome spell checker).
There are so many great non-profit organizations (aka non-governmental organizations or NGOs) out there that I thought I might start a series highlighting some of these great NGOs. The first one I’m highlighting is one a friend recently directed me towards — the Walkable and Livable Communities Initiative.
Who doesn’t love small, independent bike shops (other than big, corporate bike shop chains, that is…)? But for those of us who travel or move around a lot (and I think that’s most people these days), it can be hard to find such bike shops in new cities (ok, not that hard, but not always that easy either). Additionally, in some places, there’s no independent, local bike shop at all. The Bike Store Guys is a website that links up many of these shops, though, and helps create a broader community of such bike shop owners and lovers, for people across the U.S. Here’s more from their website
If you’ve read many of my posts at all, you know that I love bikes — they are one of the greenest things on the planet, are cheap, are widely available, and are fun and relaxing to ride. You may also know that I lived in the Netherlands for 5 months, perhaps the best country in the world for bicycling.
Streets should be child-friendly, don’t you think? I certainly think so, and so does Sustrans, a sustainable transport charity based in the United Kingdom. Sustrans has launched a competition for primary and secondary school children (7- to 14-year-olds) that has them designing their “dream streets.”
