Princeton, NJ - Riders prepare for the Paris-Brest-Paris ride. "Other riders during the 2007 P.B.P. simply succumbed to the saddle time. Neck muscles are known to give out, leaving cyclists with heads as loose as that of a newborn. Saddle sores, blisters, and hand and foot numbness are all possible."
New York City - New York's bike sharing system, which hasn't even chosen a vendor yet, is already under fire from pedestrians “Our sidewalks are precious to us because they are so narrow" and drivers worried about losing parking spaces. "The city called for a 30-station test program to start later this summer and for the official program, featuring 10,000 bicycles at 600 stations, to start on April 1, 2012. The city emphasized that not only would it not finance any part of the program, but it also expected the winning bidder to share its profits."
Toronto - Toronto's bike sharing system, also Bixi, launched last month, and they've already had 64,500 trips taken.
San Francisco - This is a pretty cool tool, the Bay Citizen's Bike Accident Tracker, that let's one see where every reported crash in the Bay Area occurred, along with some information like sex of participants, road type and party responsible. "all but 4 fatal accidents appear to have occurred on roads without bike lanes" - admittedly, they don't say how many roads have bike lanes. It also shows that children are in more crashes. "The analysis shows that in the Bay Area cyclists ages 10 to 19 were involved in more traffic collisions — more than 3,200 from 2005 to 2009 — than any other age group." [Aside: On Saturday I saw a group of kids trying to ride over the 11th Street Bridge in the traffic lanes - where bikes are not allowed - and a police officer told them on his loud speaker to get out of the road. They wound up going down the embankment to the Anacostia.]
Eugene, OR - The Delta Ponds bike/ped bridge is open - and stylish.
Portland, OR - Portland is looking at a 740 bike, bike-sharing system of their own. "Portland is in line to receive $6.6 million in "regional flexible funds" and one of the five candidate projects is the Central City Bike Sharing Program." Portland Streetcar wrote a letter to Ray LaHood talks about bike sharing (in DC) on his blog.
United States - A four-part "discussion" about the cost of cycling compared to driving. "American will work 15.98 hours a year to pay for their bicycle, which works out to be 0.063927 hours per day – or 3.84 minutes a day." That compares to 2 hours a day for the car. After a bunch of excuses are giving for not biking (weather, hills, perspiration) one person wrote "North Americans always have an excuse for not cycling. Tokyo, one of the world's largest cities, with a very warm and humid summer climate, has a bicycle mode share of roughly 25%."
Hangzhou, China - Streetfilms highlights the world's largest bike-sharing system. Bus-users get a free 90 minute transfer to bike sharing. It looks like some bikes have a back seat for kids, and all of them have a lock.
The Biggest, Baddest Bike-Share in the World: Hangzhou China from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
United States - A four-part "discussion" about the cost of cycling compared to driving. "American will work 15.98 hours a year to pay for their bicycle, which works out to be 0.063927 hours per day – or 3.84 minutes a day." That compares to 2 hours a day for the car. After a bunch of excuses are giving for not biking (weather, hills, perspiration) one person wrote "North Americans always have an excuse for not cycling. Tokyo, one of the world's largest cities, with a very warm and humid summer climate, has a bicycle mode share of roughly 25%."
Awesome, I'll tell the spouse!
Posted by: Shawn | June 06, 2011 at 07:09 AM
wow
Posted by: Bernie | June 08, 2011 at 07:33 PM