The League of American Cyclists has bestowed one of its highest honors on Boulder, CO: a Platinum ranking for bike friendly communities. Now along with Portland, OR and Davis, CA, Boulder is a shining example of how sustainable transport solutions invigorate communities, enliven cities, and create a better standards of living for residents.
Boulder features many things which helped push it from gold to platinum status such as:
381 miles of bikeways including bike lanes, routes, contra-flow lanes, and multi-use trails
Greenways for bikes and pedestrians with 74 underpasses to separate cars from other commuters
Freiker, or frequent biker programs, designed to promote school children and parent commuting by bike
Priority measure for bikes: such as bike lanes are plowed first during snowy season
If you’re feeling like a loner, consider where you live.
Residents on busy streets tend to have 75% fewer friends than those living on similar streets with less traffic, according to research published in September by the University of the West of England, Bristol.
Joshua Hart, who conducted the study for his Master’s dissertation in transport planning, found that “high levels of motor traffic on residential streets are associated with poor health and weakened social cohesion among residents.”
His findings, which confirmed the results of a 1969 study by Prof. Donald Appleyard examining traffic’s impact on a neighborhood in San Francisco, were based on door-to-door interviews with 60 households on three different streets in Bristol, UK. Each street was labeled “heavy”, “medium” and “light,” depending on levels of daily motor vehicle traffic.
Highlights include the following (download the full report here):
An average resident of a “heavy” street had fewer local friends and acquaintances compared with their neighbors on “light” streets.
The residents of “light” streets felt they had a broader “home territory,” or area where felt a sense of personal responsibility or stewardship.
Residents in “light” streets reported almost three times the number of gathering spots, compared to “medium” and “heavy” streets.
Residents on “medium” and “heavy” streets had fewer cross-street friendships than their “light” street counterparts.
Most streets in New York bring to mind urban warfare instead of urban renaissance, but on the Upper West side, residents, businesses, and advocates have recently launched a blueprint to revitalize their community and create more livable streets to their area. The video by Robin Urban Smith and Street Films presents the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign
Some highlights of the blueprint are:
Longer pedestrian crossing times
Curb extensions
Chicanes and other measures to slow traffic on side streets
Bike lanes, bike boxes, and segregated bike lanes all in green paint
Extend bike lanes through intersections
Increase bike parking
Increase the price of car parking as to discourage cars
The Eierlegendewollmilchsau is a most unique creature. In addition to having a very long German name, it is capable of providing an amazing amount of bounty for one animal. It can lay eggs, grow wool, provide milk, and even bacon - all from one animal. Literally translated, Eierlegendewollmilchsau means “Egg Laying Wool Milk Sow”.
But there is a catch. Sadly, the Eierlegendewollmilchsau doesn’t really exist. It is a mythical creature that has come to symbolize the concept of “all-in-one” and is mythical because nothing exists that can combine so many useful and beneficial features in one place. There is, however, a city in northwestern Germany that has come close.
Bremen, Germany has succeeded in creating a completely integrated transportation network that is entirely accessible with a single card called - you guessed it - the Eierlegendewollmilchsau. A passenger can easily ride their bike on one of Bremen’s well maintained bike lanes, catch a light rail train, take a bus across town, rent a car from a convenient car-sharing kiosk, and even do some banking at an ATM, all with this one card. It’s a great example of planning a system that puts a priority on user convenience and treats many different types of transportation as seamless, purposefully linked and overlapping. By keeping the ease of use of the passenger in mind more people are more inclined to use it, ultimately making for a healthier environment and higher quality of life.
A very interesting study released earlier this month counters conventional wisdom, suggesting that a clear majority of people support tolling and road pricing. As the authors of the study, which analyzed numerous national and international public opinion surveys, clearly write in the conclusion of their report, “…in the aggregate, the public supports tolling and road pricing.”
The study’s findings will come as a surprise to many policy makers and elected officials who offer the standard response that tolling and road pricing are unpopular, and should therefore not be implemented lest they defy their constituents.
Traditionally, attempts to solve congestion have focused on building new roads or widening existing ones. But it’s clear that the strategy has not worked. That’s in large part because there’s a cyclical logic to road construction: as more roads are built more people want to drive cars, which in turn, drives the demand for ever more road construction. For decades now, there have been proposals for reducing the demand for road space by charging drivers who use it. But these proposals more often than not went nowhere in large part because of politics. Read the rest of this entry »
Rhys Thom and I recently visited Mexico City where we met with two researchers at UNAM - Mexico’s National University - who are doing some fascinating research. Robyn Hudson, a charismatic professor, originally from Australia who has been living in Mexico City for quite some time, and her colleague Marco Guarneros, a fellow biomedical researcher, conducted a study comparing the ability of Mexico City’s residents to detect certain smells, with the ability of people living in a Tlaxcala, a neighboring town. Mexico City and Tlaxcala are similar in many respects - they share a similar culture and climate, situated high in the mountains of Mexico. But there is one crucial difference: Mexico City has much higher levels of air pollution.
When compared to their neighbors, people living in Mexico City need higher concentrations of a smell in order to identify it, a clear indication that their sense of smell is deteriorating. Read the rest of this entry »
File this under the eye-catching-Bottom-of-the-Pyramid-design category and add it to the list of fascinating cycle innovations intended to meet multiple needs for the poor - in this case, the challenges of water filtration and transportation.
The product is called the Aquaduct, a tricycle designed by a team of five at IDEO that stores water in a twenty gallon tank in the back of the bike’s wide, blue frame. As the user travels back home, the energy they expend pedaling is used to filter the water into a removable two gallon tank that rests in front of the handlebars.
As with any shiny new Bottom-of-the-Pyramid innovation, it’s important to remember that just because the product is inarguably cool doesn’t mean it will actually be applicable in the specific context of local consumers. Has research been done to confirm that the Aquaduct would be cost effective and functional for the BoP in different regions as compared to other available means of water filtration and transport? And I didn’t understand the idea of storing 20 gallons of water but having only two gallons filtered - is this really enough for a family? Does the user have to pedal around every time they want an additional two gallons of filtered water?
These are questions that IDEO will have to answer as the bike moves beyond its prototype status (and I’m sure they will - if they haven’t already). In the meantime, IDEO’s creation has shown promise as grand prize winner of the Innovate or Die contest for sustainable cycle design. Maybe soon, we’ll see it in use on the ground.
Once known as the world’s ‘bicycle kingdom,’ China has experienced rapid urbanization leading some to declare the beginning of the end for China’s bikes. While it’s true that from 1995 to 2005, China’s bike fleet declined by 35 percent and private car ownership more than doubled, there is no evidence today that bicycles are a thing of the past on Beijing’s streets.
Increased urbanization and growing diversification of transport has only meant cycling Beijing streets is becoming a greater challenge, particularly in areas where designated bike lanes have been removed. Cycling in Beijing – let alone mastering the art of walking Beijing’s overcrowded streets brimming with buses, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and some 18 million people – is (in a word) terrifying, yet somehow millions of Beijingers seem to cope just fine.
Helmets are nonexistent, and the agile Chinese have mastered the art of multi-tasking while cycling. Not only do people seem to cart their livelihoods on bikes, but I’ve witnessed whole families perched atop a single tandem, ladies cycling one-handed with umbrella in tow to prevent any sun exposure that would risk their pale complexions; I even saw a man with three 15” computer monitors strapped above his back wheel (and they were not flat screen). And you’ll never see a hint of the abashed – anything goes in the Beijing bike lane. Read the rest of this entry »
An independent commuter survey conducted by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment found that commuters overwhelmingly support the new BRT system in Delhi. For some, the result may be surprising after the initial operational glitches and media blitz declaring the new bus corridor a disaster. While there are several things that should be improved with the new system, as with any project, the outpouring of support for the new bus corridor suggests that it would be both a strategic and political mistake to scrap the project.
The term “Butterfly effect” was coined by Edward Lorenz based on the theory that a single flap of a butterfly’s wings in one part of world could set off a tornado in another part of world. The concept – which posits that small variations at the outset can have profound implications down the road - can be applied to transportation engineering, especially in the context of non-motorized transportation infrastructure. To understand why this is so, let’s look at the case study of Bangalore City.
In Bangalore, pedestrians and cyclists are in the minority, constituting only 8% and 2% respectively of total trips. However their small numbers obscure an important fact - they play an important role when it comes to accessing public transportation.
As part of its efforts to create a more sustainable transportation system, the government plans to unleash a whole host of public transportation improvements – a metro, monorail, bus rapid transit, general bus improvements and a commuter rail. The total Traffic and transportation budget for next 16 years is nearly $12 billion with 79% of the total investment allocated to mass transportation.
By contrast, the total investment planned for pedestrians over the next 16 years is a scant $72 million, or just 0.6% of total investment. The government plans to improve around 350 km of one-way footpaths and construct 68 grade separated crossings with the money. The proposed cross-sections of the arterial and collector roads show cycle lanes but it remains to be seen if any exclusive lanes for the cyclists would ever be built in Bangalore. Read the rest of this entry »
Congestion Pricing. Photo by 
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