Thursday, December 12, 2013
Bike news from BikePortland
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| The Copenhagen Wheel |
Happiness machines: The many benefits of bikes include slowing the aging of skin, getting you to sleep promptly and separating you from air pollutioncompared to car use.
Bike share placemaking: In NYC, Citi Bike stations are providing more than just transportation. People are using them for on-street public seating, rendezvous points and interaction hubs, all from "the space that would have otherwise been used to store a couple of empty cars."
Total safety: The almost daily drumbeat of road deaths has convinced a TV anchor in New York City that Vision Zero, a policy that to use road design to eliminate them, is "a fight worth having."
Suburban calm: The "safest suburb in the world" got that way by building "two separate transportation networks." The city of 44,000 suffered exactly one traffic fatality between 2001 and 2005.
Gas tax hike: U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland) wants to add 15 cents per gallon to repair roads and build new infrastructure. It'd be the first such increase in 20 years, during which time the market price of a gallon has risen $2.20.
License requirements: A British driver's license is "basically a Ph.D. in driving," while American driving tests are "a joke," writes an American in England.
Safety gap: People on bikes and foot account for 15% of annual average U.S. traffic deaths, a recent study found. In car-bike collisions, people were using bikes legally 89% of the time and people in cars are at fault 87% of the time.
E-bike ban: NYC's government is in hot water over a new law banning the use of electric bikes by businesses or their employees.
Street grid science: On Strongtowns.org, Andrew Price looks closely — very closely — at six different street grid patterns, including Portland's, and offersrevealing insights about the cities each one creates.
Black Friday parking: "If you want to build a strong town, get rid of your parking minimums," writes Chuck Marohn in a photo essay ridiculing the amount of land devoted to auto parking that's useful on one day every year. "Any chaos that ensues will be healthier for your city than the acres of unproductive, wasted space we have justified with a veneer of professional expertise."
Pro-bike smackdown: "Just as it would be inefficient to force travelers to walk or bike for trips most efficiently made by motorized modes, it is inefficient and unfair to force travelers to drive for trips most efficiently made by active modes," writes Todd Litman in a total demolition of most arguments in favor of car-dependent cities. I especially like his calculation that building Portland's 2030 bike plan would cost "$6 to $25 annually per capita, a small fraction of the approximately $665 per capita spent annually on roadways."
Cargo bikes: It's the Associated Press's turn to notice that these are a thing.
Outrage shortage: Last week's awful New York train derailment that killed four, injured 60 and got wall-to-wall news coverage and investigative resources was dwarfed by the little-noticed death toll of local street systems.
Indoor parking: Bike theft is a significant barrier to biking, and the infrastructure that fixes it is secure indoor parking, says newspaper coverage from Vancouver BC.
Biking gadgets: Laser-projected bike lights, snap-on electric assists, airbag-style helmets: all part of a boom in cool bike gadgets, but maybe a "distraction" from the supposed need for "hard segregation" to improve safety.
Easy e-bike: The 12-pound, $700 Copenhagen Wheel, which snaps into your rear dropout and gives your bike a smartphone-connected electric assist, is now on sale, and it's worth a couple minutes as your video of the week:
Labels: bike portland, copenhagen wheel, vision zero
Monday, March 11, 2013
BikePortland article on Capital Bikeshare
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| Photo: BikePortland |
Jonathan spent some time using the system and interviewing some of the CaBi crew including General Manager Eric Gilliland, formerly WABA's Executive Director (and an early supporter of FABB). The article, Behind the scenes of Capital Bikeshare, contains some good photos and information about the system. Here's an excerpt:
Capital Bikeshare employs 45 people; a mix of managers, mechanics, technicians and a street team (technically they're all employed by Alta Bicycle Share, the system's operator).
Most of the staff at Capital Bikeshare is made up of what are known as "rebalancers." They're in charge of making sure there are just the right number of bikes at any one of the stations at any given time. The term "rebalance" is used because they attempt to balance out the empty and full stations so users are assured either a bike to rent or a place to dock no matter where or when they need one.
Unlike a subway or bus system, where the passenger vehicles rotate through the routes consistently, there's a finite number of vehicles in a bikeshare system and a limited number of places to park them (each bike must be secured at an electronic docking station). And depending on topography, commute patterns, and special events — mass migrations of the bicycles from one part of town to another presents a challenge. The northwest part of DC, for example, is densely populated and it's on a hill. This means in the morning, thousands of people grab bikeshare bikes and roll into downtown.
"In the morning, we try to have [downtown] stations empty," explained Gilliland, "As they fill up, we sweep up the bikes and try to catch another wave of commuters."
Most of the staff at Capital Bikeshare is made up of what are known as "rebalancers." They're in charge of making sure there are just the right number of bikes at any one of the stations at any given time. The term "rebalance" is used because they attempt to balance out the empty and full stations so users are assured either a bike to rent or a place to dock no matter where or when they need one.
Unlike a subway or bus system, where the passenger vehicles rotate through the routes consistently, there's a finite number of vehicles in a bikeshare system and a limited number of places to park them (each bike must be secured at an electronic docking station). And depending on topography, commute patterns, and special events — mass migrations of the bicycles from one part of town to another presents a challenge. The northwest part of DC, for example, is densely populated and it's on a hill. This means in the morning, thousands of people grab bikeshare bikes and roll into downtown.
"In the morning, we try to have [downtown] stations empty," explained Gilliland, "As they fill up, we sweep up the bikes and try to catch another wave of commuters."
Labels: bike portland, capital bikeshare
Monday, January 7, 2013
Interview with Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic
AG - What's your take on the state of cycling advocacy today? What are the largest challenges to improving life for cyclists in the US?
TV - I was just down in D.C., looking at their bike share system, and what struck me was that the people who were first thinking about this, a number of years back, were planning students and bike advocates, noble voices dwelling largely in the wilderness. Now they’re the people administering the programs, doing the consulting, getting the money, making it happen. It’s becoming rather expected that a city will have a bicycle projects coordinator, just as it will soon be expected that any city worth its salt will have something like a bike share system. And hence the answer to the second question: Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. People’s choices are shaped largely by their environment; put an escalator next to stairs, 99% of people will not take the stairs. Build things that are good for a person on a bike — whether they are eight or eighty — and you’ll get more people on bikes. Get more people on bikes, and the other issues, like behavior and safety, virtually take care of themselves.
AG - Being keen on racing and interested in advocacy, any thoughts on strategies to bring those communities closer together?
TV - Cycling is incredibly divisive, almost like some mutant dividing cellular organism — the racers snicker at the “Freds” in hi-viz spandex, even as they terrorize people riding Dutch bikes on multi-user paths. There’s division everywhere — steel versus carbon, disc brakes versus cantilever. 29ers versus 26ers. There’s probably some huge clash over wheel skewers I’m not even aware of. It’s so far beyond anything in the world of cars — e.g., I drive a wagon, but it’s not like I harbor some huge suspicion of sedans.
Having ridden with Tim Johnson in the Ride of Washington, I’m of course enthused by his whole approach, which is basically to say that all of us on two wheels are basically on the same road, that the pro racer of today was the kid on the Schwinn a few decades ago, and to enlist those in the racing community to help promote that. There are many noble rides for charity causes, why not rides to make things better for cyclists in general? How many pro riders, after all, have been killed or seriously injured by drivers on training rides?
AG - In addition to cycling, you write about technology for a number of publications. To you, what's the most important technological improvement to hit the cycling world? (Ebikes? Strava? Compression socks?)
TV - I’d have to go with the simple, yet utterly indispensable, smart phone. With one device you can track your ride on Strava, Instagram that epic ascent, conduct your business even as you’re playing hooky, find the nearest bike share station in cities around the world, locate the closest bike shop when that mechanical strands you — the list goes on. It goes in my jersey pocket even before that spare tube.
We had planned a series of notes about the book Traffic but only managed to get to the first installment, Traffic notes, Part 1. Maybe we'll try to dig up the notes and try for Part 2 this year.TV - I was just down in D.C., looking at their bike share system, and what struck me was that the people who were first thinking about this, a number of years back, were planning students and bike advocates, noble voices dwelling largely in the wilderness. Now they’re the people administering the programs, doing the consulting, getting the money, making it happen. It’s becoming rather expected that a city will have a bicycle projects coordinator, just as it will soon be expected that any city worth its salt will have something like a bike share system. And hence the answer to the second question: Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. People’s choices are shaped largely by their environment; put an escalator next to stairs, 99% of people will not take the stairs. Build things that are good for a person on a bike — whether they are eight or eighty — and you’ll get more people on bikes. Get more people on bikes, and the other issues, like behavior and safety, virtually take care of themselves.
AG - Being keen on racing and interested in advocacy, any thoughts on strategies to bring those communities closer together?
TV - Cycling is incredibly divisive, almost like some mutant dividing cellular organism — the racers snicker at the “Freds” in hi-viz spandex, even as they terrorize people riding Dutch bikes on multi-user paths. There’s division everywhere — steel versus carbon, disc brakes versus cantilever. 29ers versus 26ers. There’s probably some huge clash over wheel skewers I’m not even aware of. It’s so far beyond anything in the world of cars — e.g., I drive a wagon, but it’s not like I harbor some huge suspicion of sedans.
Having ridden with Tim Johnson in the Ride of Washington, I’m of course enthused by his whole approach, which is basically to say that all of us on two wheels are basically on the same road, that the pro racer of today was the kid on the Schwinn a few decades ago, and to enlist those in the racing community to help promote that. There are many noble rides for charity causes, why not rides to make things better for cyclists in general? How many pro riders, after all, have been killed or seriously injured by drivers on training rides?
AG - In addition to cycling, you write about technology for a number of publications. To you, what's the most important technological improvement to hit the cycling world? (Ebikes? Strava? Compression socks?)
TV - I’d have to go with the simple, yet utterly indispensable, smart phone. With one device you can track your ride on Strava, Instagram that epic ascent, conduct your business even as you’re playing hooky, find the nearest bike share station in cities around the world, locate the closest bike shop when that mechanical strands you — the list goes on. It goes in my jersey pocket even before that spare tube.
Thanks to BikePortland's The Monday Roundup for this reference and several other tidbits.
Labels: bike portland, embrocation cycling, tom vanderbilt, traffic
