Capitol Hill - My hometown congressman, the always crazy Ted Poe, wants to make the Census Bureau's American Community Survey questions optional, (which undermines the effort somewhat). One of the questions is about how one commutes to work. Also, an argument for why a Republican congress is good for bike advocates (I'm not convinced).
Philadelphia - tweed+folding bike race “Nowhere else will you see a race with people running and unfolding bicycles while wearing a tuxedo jacket and bowtie with shiny disco pants.”
New York - Bike lane opponents n Brooklyn complain that the lanes were added without sufficient community outreach, but "he PPW bike lane was installed after 3 years of open meetings with the local community board. The lane wasn't installed until after CB6 voted to request it be installed by DOT."
Wheeling, WV IL - "I've had it with these mother f----ing snakes near this mother f---ing bike path!"
Miami - More on Miami's very sexy bike sharing program and its sexy apparal.
San Antonio - The Alamo City becomes the first one in Texas with bikesharing starting March 26th. Also, several cyclists were injured when riding on a San Antonia area trail after "they fell from their bikes when the front tire of the bike fell into a long groove that was left open and unprotected by a county road repair employee while creating an expansion joint on the bridge over the dam." A judge removed the city from the list of defendants.
Denver - Denver Mayoral candidate James Mejia wants to double the number of B-cycle stations in that town and add helmet rental opportunities.
Long Beach - a prominent CA bike advocate was among those killed in a small plane crash. And a 103-year old cyclist has had to switch to a tricycle. Still, Long Beach wants to make him a poster boy for healthy, active living.
United States - Biking is good for the economy part II, Freeways are expensive.
Portugal - Touring Portugal by bike
Switzerland - Now Cancellera is being accused of using really good ball-bearings (it's all ball-bearings these days). Is that even illegal?
Taiwan - Taiwan wants the world bicycle market to be tariff free.
re snakes, that's in Wheeling, Illinois. Just shows the depths the Examiner will plumb for a bike-lane slam, they're scraping for news coverage from an exurb of Chicago
Posted by: Read Scott Martin, 13th Street NE | March 20, 2011 at 08:02 AM
Deco Bike is quite expensive, $180 a year ($15 a month x 12, with no option for a yearly membership). One-day pass is $14. Each 30 min. after the first 30 min. is $4, and so on.
On top of that, there is a refundable $100 deposit. And it's reasonable to assume that people will miss the 30-min. cutoff from time to time, adding even more to the annual cost. I guess LeBron James could afford that, but can enough "regular" people? I'm glad the Deco Bike people aren't running CaBi.
Maybe they need all that money to pay for the Playboy PlayMate endorsement deal.
The Miami New Times has a piece on their Bike Blog titled "Five Reasons the New Miami Beach Bike Share Kind of Sucks". I have to say that I agree that their system is far too expensive.
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2011/03/5_reasons_the_new_miami_beach.php
Posted by: Michael H. | March 20, 2011 at 08:28 AM
Wash: Can you confirm that the estimated costs for bike lanes is only the retrofitting of existing roads? How much would the bike lanes/paths cost if they were built denovo (e.g. Metro Branch Trail). Of course the costs might be lower because you do not have to consider as much weight bearing and stress on the road. I'm just trying to get a handle on the numbers for the next debate with my driving-obsessed friends.
Posted by: SJE | March 20, 2011 at 03:10 PM
Hmm, this is like that question about how much shuttle launches cost. It all depends. The cost of adding a bike lane in, is just the paint (and the planning). But if you want to count the cost of the road beneath it, I guess you can use the cost of a lane of city road divided in half (bike lanes are usually 5' and lanes about 8-12 feet). Of course building a surface just for bikes would be cheaper than a road. A 6' wide MUT costs about $140-200K per mile. That's probably a fair number.
Posted by: washcycle | March 20, 2011 at 09:52 PM
Thanks. That would make a MUT about 1/5 the cost of a regular road.
Posted by: SJE | March 21, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Yes. Trails are definitely less expensive than bike lanes, if you only consider the construction costs. Of course the bike lane--like the rest of the road-- will have been graded for higher speeds, less up and down, etc. As an indication of what grading can cost, MD-SHA estimates that the ICC trail costs about $4 million/mile because it's footprint gets interstate-highway level of grading--of course that cost would have applied had it been a bike lane.
The land aquisition costs can make a trail more expensive. The bike lane just needs incremental land acquisition for 5-6 additional feet (maybe more if you allow for a buffer or less if shoulder is narrowed). The trail right of way will rarely be less than 20 feet.
Posted by: Jim Titus | March 21, 2011 at 10:23 AM
Mike H. -- in order for operational costs of Bikeshare to break even, membership probably needs to be double the cost that is typically charged (around $75). Especially because most cities don't have the ability to generate high amounts of sponsorship revenue, or advertising revenue from slots on the stations, even if they haven't already signed their rights away to advertising as part of bus shelter/street furniture contracts.
Posted by: Richard Layman | March 21, 2011 at 01:11 PM
rofl re "It's all ball bearings these days"! I thought I was the only person who remembers that movie. :^)
Posted by: antibozo | March 21, 2011 at 07:27 PM