Bike Policy & Politics

The Dutch Reach Can Save Lives

Habits are a key part of life. Simplicity often is the shortest avenue to success. With one movement, how you reach to open your car door, you can save a life. You can save a bicyclist from injury. Creating a new habit, retraining your movement when opening a door, can come with unquantifiable benefit. Learn the Dutch reach — don’t “door” …

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Paying Employees To Not Drive In Washington, DC

Donald Shoup pointed out many years ago that if companies pay the costs of parking for their employees, a common fringe benefit (and an expensive one, at that), those employers are essentially giving “an invitation to drive to work alone.” Shoup continues to explain that it is time to level the playing field and has been promoting a …

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Push Back On Trump’s Transit Disaster

Day after day, we witness backtracking in our country. Looking at the big picture, after nudging tenaciously year after year, the hurdles some of us thought we had energy to overcome are set up once more like barricades to common sense and dignity. Some of the hurdles that we thought determined environmentally and socially compassionate forces had overcome slip …

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Car-Free Montreal Getting 3 More Streets In 2017

Montreal’s car-free network will continue growing in 2017, with 3 more street segments slated to be added to the network this year. To be more specific, the city’s mayor, Denis Coderre, has announced that he’s awarding $1.7 million in an effort to pedestrianize the 3 streets in question. The funds will be awarded over a …

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London Mayor Doubles Bicycling Budget

Here’s a bright note for many and needed news for those concerned about politicians keeping their promises, especially their environmental promises. All is well in London on this account. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is apparently aiming to make London one of those cities we pedestrians, cyclists, environmentalists point to and say, “Ah, if only — if only …

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Bike-Friendly & Ped-Friendly Roads Create 46% More Jobs Per Dollar Spent

Via CleanTechnica: Owing to the recent election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America, and some of the comments that he’s made to date about infrastructure spending and job creation, the folks over at Bike League recently reposted an old article of theirs discussing the fact that infrastructure projects that …

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Bicyclists Surpass Drivers In Copenhagen!

Also published on CleanTechnica. Those of us who try to keep abreast of urban planning and clean transportation news are familiar with the benefits of bicycling in terms of pure air, livability, quieter streets and homes, space and resource efficiency, a stable climate, and public life. We’re also aware that some places are much better than others. …

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“Best Cyclist Road Safety Initiative Ever” — Cycling UK & West Midlands Police

Every bicyclist knows that feeling of relief as a car passes a bit too closely. Although, there are too many injured bicyclists who do not. The West Midlands Police are determined to put those injuries and deaths in the past, and one of the police agency’s new initiatives is gettng props now as the “best …

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Seattle Gets A Traffic Garden!!

Knowing and practicing traffic safety saves lives, and no time is it more ideal to learn than when young. Yes, the rules of the road are easy to set into memory, just as language is. Seattle is setting a standard for many things, not the least of  which is protecting Seattle’s younger citizens via valuable knowledge. Seattle now …

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Electric Bicycle Shop Offers Safe, Progressive Transit Options & Conversation To Community

It’s the time of year in Florida that is perfect for bicycling. From now until July, it is a refreshing active transport option without the worry of torrential summer downpours. I recently stopped by to visit Pedego of Sarasota and owner Michael Weatherby at a local electric bicycle shop that specializes in safe, comfortable electric bicycles in order …

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Transforming Barcelona — One “Superblock” At a Time

In a new wave of socially and environmentally conscious planning, Barcelona is taking back its streets from cars. The plan will convert up to 60% of the streets from road to green spaces, bike paths, and a boardwalk for pedestrians. To begin, a square of 3×3 city blocks of the Eixample district will be closed off …

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Salt Lake City Street’s Decision To Replace Parking With Bike Lanes Boosted Business

A popular street in Salt Lake City (300 South, also known as Broadway) somewhat recently decided to replace on-street parking with a protected bike lane, and to monitor the effect on the area afterwards. What effect does such a transition have on nearby business? What the in-house study done on the matter found, was that …

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Milan to Offer Cash-to-Cycle Commuter Incentive

In Italy, officials are targeting pollution with a different strategy. As reported by the Guardian, Milan, the ‘economic powerhouse of Italy,’ and home to countless Vespas and Fiat500s, looks to bring the bicycle back in force by paying citizens to cycle to work. As a city with a history of being auto-centric, a grave pollution …

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Car-Free Sundays With Less Air & Noise Pollution

In São Paulo, Brazil, citizens are enjoying less air and noise pollution – at least on one day a week. On Sundays, during what is called Paulista Aberta, motor traffic is restricted on the popular Paulista Avenue and the street is dedicated to cyclists and pedestrians. Grassroots group Minha Sampa campaigned for the event since …

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$64 Million Bike & Ped Plan For San Diego Moves Forward

Recently, Next City reported on San Diego, California’s $64 million plan to construct a bicycle and pedestrian transit system complete with “protected bike lanes, pedestrian greenways, curb bulb-outs, road diets and more.” The Downtown Mobility Plan, if adopted, will reinvent the way cyclists and pedestrians travel the downtown streets. “Just getting to this stage is …

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Bike Commuting Triples In London, Driving Halves

The streets of London have seen an increase in bike riders and a decrease in car commuters. According to an article published by the BBC, the number of cyclists during rush hour will outnumber cars within the new few years. According to Transport for London, over the last decade and a half car drivers have …

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Bogotá Gets Two-Way Bike Lane On Important Street

Originally published on Gas2. Bogotá, Colombia, has a new vision for bicycle transit. A new message if you will. As part of the city’s 16th annual Car-Free Day, February 4th, the people helped transform one lane of a bustling city street into a two-way bike-only lane. The city had already introduced a bike lane on …

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Nike Sponsoring A New Bikeshare In Portland

Portland has been the #1 large city for bicycling (in the United States) for a long time, considerate and supportive of bicycle commuting. The city shows that planning and consideration make a difference, and the city has even gone without any bicyclist deaths from accidents for several years. The latest news from Portland (other than this) is that Nike is sponsoring a …

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Portland 1st In Nation To Require Bike Lanes

The city of Portland, Oregon, made a big step towards the establishment of protected bike lanes as the norm late last year when it moved to require that road designers recommending bike lanes only do so with protected bike lanes. If recommending unprotected (conventional) bike lanes, road designers are now required to explain why, in …

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70% of US Mayors Prefer Bike Lanes over Parking or Extra Driving Lanes

A substantial majority of US mayors would prefer to see more biking lanes in their cities, even at the expense of street-side parking or extra driving/passing lanes, according to a new survey from the US Conference of Mayors. The 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors — which queried 89 different mayors, from a variety of economically …

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Bikes vs Cars Documentary Released Nationwide, Companion App Tracks Cycling Impacts

The crowdfunded documentary Bikes vs Cars has been released nationwide, and is being screened at select theaters, as well as being available for streaming and download on Vimeo. The film, which is essentially about cycling as a tool for positive change, as well as the conflict between the two named modes of transportation when it …

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1050 Bicycle Friendly Businesses

Bicycling is enjoying a renaissance with strong growth worldwide, and certainly notable growth in the US. Things have improved in the 21st century, with more than 1,050 visionary local businesses now included in the “Bicycle Friendly Businesses” program of the League of American Bicyclists. These top bicycle-friendly businesses are located in 47 states and Washington, DC. There are a multitude of reasons for regular …

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$100 Million Bike Infrastructure Program Launched In Colorado

By Marc Howe Colorado hopes to become America’s “best state for biking” with the launch of a $100 million scheme to foster the usage of pedal-powered transportation via heavy investment in cycling infrastructure. States Governor John Hickenlooper unveiled the ambitious public-private project to spend in excess of $100 million over the next four years on encouraging bike usage while at the Interbike …

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Bikes vs Cars — New Documentary From Award-Winning Swedish Filmaker Fredrik Gertten

Did you know that General Motors slowly took over mass transit in the LA area and then all but eliminated it? Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten informs us in his latest documentary, Bikes vs Cars — We Are Many, about this and much more. He creates a fascinating, educational study revealing more about bicycle culture …

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Role of Infrastructure & Transportation in Promoting Physical Activity (Infographic & New Research)

A simple holistic concept is that everything is connected. One’s interrelationship with daily activity, transit, and infrastructure is a key relationship to holistic connectedness. News from the United States Department of [Active] Transportation supports this. Cultivating refreshing spots of activity in the day and night of our lives is a key way to stay in …

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NYC Bike Share Launches — Thoughts From NYC & The Interwebs

New York City (NYC) has finally rolled out the beginnings of its large bicycle-sharing program, Citi Bike, with 6,000 bikes and 330 bike-sharing stations hitting the streets on Monday. The stations are initially located in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It’s far from the largest such project at the moment, but it’s the largest in the US, …

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Where Bike Commuting Grows Fastest (Infographics)

The League of American Bicyclists recently created some cool infographics about bicycle commuter growth across the country. In general, bike commuting has skyrocketed, doubling from 1.7 billion in 2001 to 4 billion in 2009. However, the growth has occurred to a much greater degree in cities and towns that have been designated as Bicycle-Friendly Communities by …

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Better Bicycle Facilities, Off-Road Bike Paths = More Bicycling

More or less, bicycle infrastructure policy and its relationship to riderships was the topic of my 2007 master’s thesis. It’s been obvious to some of us for a long time that bicycle infrastructure policy needs to change in order to give bicycle ridership a big boost, and public health would of course improve from that, …

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