Category: Biking Elsewhere

Continue reading “Cars — bikes — bus comparison”

The film features lots of happy cyclists from the Netherlands, Denmark and Colombia, and shows how creating a bicycle-friendly city is the civilised thing to do.
Scripted by Enrique Pe
Continue reading “Cycling Friendly Cities”

Motorists who talk on cell phones drive slower on the freeway, pass sluggish vehicles less often and take longer to complete their trips, according to a University of Utah study that suggests drivers on cell phones congest traffic.
Continue reading “Drivers on cell phones clog traffic”

How many ways can one sit, stand and pedal a bike? Watch this video to find out.
Continue reading “Amazing freestyling”

Funky bikes at their best! The Tour de Fat is one of the craziest bike parades in the country. Sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, this event is all about self expression, custom bikes and fun. Nearly 2000 people dressed in costume, paraded through the streets of downdown Ft. Collins.
Continue reading “Bikes, beer and one crazy bike ride”

By GREG HITT, Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON — A little after 6:00 one morning, Earl Blumenauer emerged from his Capitol Hill row house. The temperature hovered near 40 degrees and it was really raining. The Oregon congressman hopped on his rust-colored Trek Portland, an aluminum-frame bicycle with a carbon front fork designed to absorb road shock, and pedaled to his office.
Though he was alone on the road, and despite the downpour, he stopped at every red traffic signal. At one odd-shaped intersection, Mr. Blumenauer mused aloud about all the streets jutting off at odd angles. Perfect for a traffic circle, he suggested.
Later that morning, House Minority Leader John Boehner, the Ohio Republican, was incredulous that anyone had been out in such weather. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked.
Some members of Congress come to Washington and get in the fast lane. The 59-year-old Mr. Blumenauer came to Washington and got in the bike lane. Few members of Congress care more than he does about cranks and sprockets.
Continue reading “For Congressman, Life in Bike Lane Comes Naturally”

In 2006, there were 6 million traffic crashes in the U.S., injuring just under 2.6 million people. In the same year, a crash occurred every 5 seconds, someone sustained a traffic-related injury every 12 seconds, and someone died in a traffic crash every 12 minutes. The Nations urban congestion problem resulted in 4.2 billion hours of travel delay, 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel, and a net urban congestion cost of nearly $80 billion, according to a 2007 Texas Transportation Institute report. Today, highway vehicle travel accounts for 81% of total U.S. transportation energy consumption.
Continue reading “More cars and more highways equals…”

Copenhagen: City of Cyclists, Part 1 of 5: Our very first episode of A Billion Bikes, takes us to the Danish city of Copenhagen, which has one of the most advanced urban bicycling communities in the world. A full third of their city workforce commutes by bicycle! This is an excellent 5-part program of weekly episodes. But first, a brief hello from Tour de France champion Floyd Landis, and a fun open.
Continue reading “Copenhagen: City of Cyclists”

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Even though Seminole is Central Florida’s most affluent county,
thousands of students who are within walking or bicycling distance of
their public schools receive government-subsidized bus transportation.

Seminole provides subsidized bus rides to hundreds more students than
anywhere else in Central Florida. Even Orange County, which has 100,000
more students than Seminole, has thousands fewer getting subsidized bus
transportation.
Continue reading “It’s too dangerous for kids to walk to school”

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As H. L. Mencken would say, for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. This paper contends that helmet legislation as the primary thrust and cornerstone of bicycle safety campaigns among youth is a cookie cutter solution for three primary reasons. First, it misplaces the focus of campaigns and detracts from other safety behaviors. Second, it is an individual-level intervention that ignores a range of societal and structural factors that increase bicycle safety. Finally, it fails to take into account the importance of youth attitudes and social dynamics as important behavioral determinants. The overall effect is a myopic paradigm with which bicycle safety is approached, and this has harmful consequences for the overall aim of campaigns.
Continue reading “A Distorted Paradigm: Helmet Legislation Among Youth Detracts from a Comprehensive Attitude Towards Safety”