Annals of Cycling – 41

An occasional update on items from the Velo-city.

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UPDATE: TWO WHEELS AND HIGH HEELS 

Sightline just released “Ten lessons from the great cycling cities” by Christine Grant:

Recently, I won a fellowship and got to spend six months living life on two wheels in the world’s most bike-friendly cities. I brought home ten lessons, and thousands of photographs, for Cascadia.

She’s not kidding about the photos – every lesson is extensively illustrated.  Check it out. 

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UPDATE: WHAT’S COUNTED, COUNTS

 

Just out: the U.S. 2012 Benchmarking report on Cycling and Walking:

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WHO PINCHED MY RIDE?

Outside addresses bike theft:

When thieves stole his beloved ­commuter bike on a busy street in broad daylight, PATRICK SYMMES snapped—and set out on  a cross-­country plunge into the heart of ­America’s bike-crime underbelly. What he saw will ­rattle your frame.

And this: Get a bike. Lock it to a post. Take a pic every day for a year.

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SO WHO’S CHEATING? 

Tim from B.C. Hydro:

I made this bike about my electric bike and the typical response I have with people when I tell them about it:

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MAKING CYCLING COUNTS 

Invented in Denmark, the cyclist counter represents the melding of infrastructure and public data in a way that is transparent, interactive and even fun for citizens.

An interview with Marianne Weinreich of Veksø A/S, a Danish company which has produced cycling equipment for the urban environment for the past 60 years – here.

How do you respond to someone who says: “This is just a waste of money, why do cyclists need special counters?  Pedestrians and cars do just fine without them.

It’s an important signal.  It’s a signal from the city saying that they want things to be different.  We’ve had 50 years of cities being planned for cars.  Now we are at a point in time because of congestion, climate change, immobility and obesity that we have to do things differently.

Of course you cannot suddenly increase the number of cyclists just because you put up a cyclist counter, but it can be a first step – a kind of a lighthouse – and a signal to citizens saying that cyclists are a priority.  In the United States in particular where the bike is viewed not so much a means of transportation, but rather as a thing of leisure, it may be that a counter could get cyclists to view themselves as part of a movement.

Also, a short catalogue of cycle counters, along with some useful info here.

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BICYCLE SUPERHIGHWAY

From Treehugger:

Malmö is upping the stakes by putting up 30 million Swedish crowns (about US$4.1 million) toward the building of a four-lane super cycling highway between it and its bike-happy northern neighbor city Lund….

The proposed bicycle superhighway would, in addition to four lanes (2 in each direction) have exits but no intersections, two types of wind protection (low bushes as well as solid fencing) periodic bicycle service stations, and would take eight years to complete.

Total cost of the superhighway is estimated to be about 50 million Swedish crowns (US$ 7.1 million).

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