Bicycling
Basics
Taking the Wrong Route to Bike Lane Benefits: A Rebuttal to 538
FiveThirtyEight went viral in our circles earlier this month, with a post titled "Bike Lanes Don’t Cause Traffic Jams If You’re Smart About Where You Build Them." Our colleagues and friends, people who love to ride bikes and want to make cities more bikeable, sent this article zooming around the tightly-wound corner of the internet that is all about #bikes. The post had a much-welcomed conclusion, backed by data, charts, and statistical tests: Bike lanes have a negligible effect on congestion. Streetsblog noted the implication that complete streets need not be a zero-sum game, while arguing that bike lanes should be measured by safety, connectedness, and other measures beyond congestion.
April 24, 2014
Earth Day Resolution: Stop Building Projects Like the Zoo Interchange
Leading up to Earth Day, the New York Times ran an editorial, "Time Is Running Out," lamenting the lack of urgency in the United States to prevent a very urgent problem: catastrophic climate change. Today, Brad Plumer at Vox explained why it may be too late to keep average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels -- the threshold that climate scientists have been warning about.
April 22, 2014
How Does Your State Stack Up on Funding for Walking and Biking?
How well does your state fund infrastructure for walking and biking? Or perhaps we should say, how poorly?
April 21, 2014
What Is Your State Doing to Improve Walking and Biking?
How good are your state's policies on walking and biking?
April 18, 2014
More Walking and Biking, Better Health: New Evidence From American Cities
New data from the Alliance for Biking and Walking's 2014 Benchmarking report bears out the notion that people tend to be healthier in cities where walking and biking are more prevalent.
April 17, 2014
Local Climate Doesn’t Exert Much Influence on Biking and Walking
Which state has the highest share of people who walk to work? It's not temperate California.
April 16, 2014
5 Things You Should Know About the State of Walking and Biking in the U.S
The Alliance for Biking and Walking released its big biannual benchmarking report today, a 200-page document that measures the scope, status, and benefits of biking and walking across the United States, using 2011 and 2012 data to update its previous reports.
April 16, 2014
Caltrans Endorses the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide
It wasn't a total surprise, but exciting nevertheless for bicycle advocates gathered at the NACTO "Cities for Cycling" Road Show in Oakland last night. Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty announced that the agency will endorse the use of the National Association of City Transportation Officials Urban Street Design Guide, giving California cities the state DOT's blessing to install modern infrastructure like protected bike lanes.
April 11, 2014
“Suspected Drunk Cyclist Leaves Trail of Destruction”
A funny thing happens when you switch the word "car" with the word "bike" in news reports. Robert Prinz, a former Streetsblog San Francisco intern, has been making the switch in stories about destructive car crashes and posting the results at his blog, 10 Miles per Hour Challenge! It makes for some provocative viewing.
April 4, 2014
You Know Bicycling Is Good for Your City. Now Prove It to the Skeptics.
Quick quiz: Are you a left-brained cycling advocate or a right-brained cycling advocate? Here's how to find out: If someone asks why you ride, do you talk about the wind in your hair and the sense of satisfaction achieved by pedaling up a hill? If so, you're doing it wrong. If you want to sell your bike project to funders -- like, for instance, U.S. DOT -- you’re going to need to left-brain it all the way. Here’s how.
March 24, 2014