Getting Around: ‘Good Bicycle Karma’ (Video)

Here’s a fun, simple, and low cost idea to encourage smart and safe cycling in cities. Copenhagen’s ‘Karmaspotters’ walk the streets of the city giving out good karma presents to cyclists who are being considerate while biking around the city.

(Source: Cycling Embassy of Denmark)

Related:

• ‘When the Bad Guys Ride Bikes’ (Atlantic Cities)

Getting Around, Safely: ‘The Invisible Helmet’ (Video)

This is awesome on so many levels:

“If people say it’s impossible we have to prove them wrong.”
Design students Anna and Terese took on a giant challenge as an exam project. Something no one had done before. If they could swing it, it would for sure be revolutionary. The bicycle is a tool to change the world. If we use bikes AND travel safe: Life will be better for all. (Vimeo)

You can read more about the Invisible Bike Helmet here.

Getting Around, Safely: ‘Share the Road’ (PSA)

An encouraging sign of the times from the Canadian Automobile Association via their YouTube page. Who knows? Maybe one day they’ll just be known as the Canadian Mobility Association.

Related:

• ‘Bike-Car Relationship’ (CAA)
• ‘National conference brings bikers, motorists together’ (The Tyee)

(Source: youtube.com)

Above are few paragraphs from bike injury lawyer David Hay’s recent op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, ‘The great debate over bike helmet laws’. There’s been quite a controversy stirred up over recent months here following news from that Vancouver will be joining more than 165 cities worldwide in getting a bike sharing system in 2013. The concern on the part of a lot of people here is that we have a provincial mandatory bike helmet law and in the two cities with bike shares and mandatory helmet use, Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia, the systems have not been very successful. Mexico City had a mandatory helmet law, but provided an exemption after the first year of their bike share system. There have been some workarounds proposed here in Vancouver, but nothing that seems like a sure thing at this point. That said, I think Hay makes a good point that the critical factors for improving safety for cyclists and making cycling a more mainstream way to get around is through better infrastructure and a change in thinking on part of drivers and cyclists alike. 

(Photo source: Open File)

Getting Around in Cities | Sticks, Carrots and Tambourines: Actively Learning from Copenhagen’s Transport Successes

From SFU Continuing Studies:

Andreas Røhl describes his experience as the City of Copenhagen’s Bicycle Programme manager. Andreas manages Copenhagen’s Bicycle Programme and recently joined Urban Systems Ltd. for a temporary term in their Metro Vancouver office. He is participating in a range of active transportation projects throughout Western Canada, including the development of an Active Transportation Master Plan for the City of Vancouver. 

With the City of Copenhagen, Andreas focused on bicycle policies and strategies to improve conditions for cycling, and recently led the completion of the Copenhagen’s Cycling Strategy as well as the City’s Design Guidelines to Great Cycle Roads. In addition to his in-depth knowledge of cycling infrastructure, Andreas has extensive experience with cost-benefit analysis, cycling education, and promotional campaigns.

(Image credit: Cycling Embassy of Denmark)

Gotta keep ‘em separated! 

From The Economist:

For years urban planners have emphasised the needs of the motorist over those of the pedestrian. Thanks partly to greenery, partly to a greater understanding of how pedestrians behave, and partly to concerns about social cohesion, priorities are changing.

London provides two good example of this shift. On February 1st Exhibition Road, a landmark street near many of the city’s museums, is being formally reopened after a three-year construction project to turn it into something that transport engineers like to call a “shared space”. Kerbs have been stripped out, along with the usual road markings, to create a thoroughfare that is designed to be shared by cyclists, pedestrians and cars alike. The idea, adopted from continental Europe, is to create an area which is not just more pleasant for people on foot but also safer because it encourages drivers to pay closer attention to their surroundings. 

Less experimentally, big improvements have already been made to Oxford Circus, one of the city’s busiest intersections. The junction between Oxford Street and Regent Street sees as many as 40,000 people pass through every hour, and only 2,000 vehicles. Until 2009, however, pedestrians came well down the pecking order. In the language of planners, pedestrians were unable to follow their desire lines, the paths they want to take as opposed to the ones they are meant to. At Oxford Circus, giving rein to people’s desire lines has meant ripping out guard railings that hemmed pedestrians in and allowing people to cross the junction diagonally as well as from side to side (a feature known as a pedestrian scramble). 

Check out the rest of the article here. The Independent’s ‘Walk on the wild side: Pedestrians could soon be on equal footing with cars’ and the Guardian’s ‘Exhibition Road, London - review’ both profile the pedestrianization project and are worth a look.

(Photo credit: The Guardian)

From The National Post:

Following recent high-profile cycling deaths in Ontario, results of a poll suggest four in five Canadians think until more cyclists respect the rules of the road, they won’t be able to gain the respect of motorists.

“What Canadians are saying is that there needs to be more understanding between motorists and cyclists,” Ipsos Reid associate vice-president Sean Simpson said.

Simpson pointed to Europe as an example of co-operation because bicycles are more common and both parties are accustomed to each other on the road.

The poll’s results also indicated Canadians are vastly in favour of more bike lanes.

Findings of the poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid exclusively for Postmedia News and Global News, show four in five (or 81 per cent) of those surveyed think Canada’s cities don’t have enough lanes devoted to cyclists, while nearly three in four (73 per cent) feel cyclists are right for demanding more respect from drivers.

Simpson said ordinarily, when a large number of people support an issue, more of them will say they somewhat agree, instead of strongly agree. In the case of bike lanes, the situation is reversed, with 43 per cent strongly supporting additional bike lanes, and 38 per cent of respondents saying they somewhat support the proposal.

More than half of all university graduates surveyed said they strongly supported bike lanes, with another 34 per cent said they somewhat supported them. The results show that younger people are more likely to support bike-lane expansion, but only by a margin of five per cent.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Globe & Mail; infographic credit: Globe & Mail)

Sustainable Transportation: ‘How the Dutch Got Their Cycle Paths’

From Smart Planet:

The Netherlands is famous for many things — tulips, drug culture, the Hague — and its bicycle infrastructure should certainly be on that list. Its capital city, Amsterdam, is one of the top biking cities in Europe, with 600,000 bikes in a city of 750,000 people, many of the country’s roads have multiple bike-only lanes or paths, and policy requires that every shop have bicycle parking.

Many cities would like to install similar infrastructure to save money, protect cyclists, and encouraging the energy-efficient and healthful activity. But how did the Netherlands get there in the first place?

A short documentary, made by the Dutch Cycling embassy, highlights the history of Dutch cycling and is well worth a watch.

You’ll find more on the documentary here. If this is of interest you may also want to check out the New York Times article, ‘The Dutch Way - Bicycles and Bread’.

(Photo credit: The Guardian)

Bikes in the City: ‘On the Right Track’

From Vimeo:

Catherine Ciarlo, Transportation Policy Director in the Office of Mayor Sam Adams in Portland, Oregon, explains how cycle tracks and buffered bike lanes work.