Category: Biking Elsewhere

By Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious

By Charles Montgomery, The Guardian
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Peñalosa insisted that, like most cities, Bogotá had been left deeply wounded by the 20th century’s dual urban legacy: first, the city had been gradually reoriented around cars. Second, public spaces and resources had largely been privatised. This reorganisation was both unfair – only one in five families even owned a car – and cruel: urban residents had been denied the opportunity to enjoy the city’s simplest daily pleasures: walking on convivial streets, sitting around in public. And playing: children had largely disappeared from Bogotá’s streets, not because of the fear of gunfire or abduction, but because the streets had been rendered dangerous by sheer speed. Peñalosa’s first and most defining act as mayor was to declare war: not on crime or drugs or poverty, but on cars.
He threw out the ambitious highway expansion plan and instead poured his budget into hundreds of miles of cycle paths; a vast new chain of parks and pedestrian plazas; and the city’s first rapid transit system (the TransMilenio), using buses instead of trains. He banned drivers from commuting by car more than three times a week. This programme redesigned the experience of city living for millions of people, and it was an utter rejection of the philosophies that have guided city planners around the world for more than half a century.
In the third year of his term, Peñalosa challenged Bogotáns to participate in an experiment. As of dawn on 24 February 2000, cars were banned from streets for the day. It was the first day in four years that nobody was killed in traffic. Hospital admissions fell by almost a third. The toxic haze over the city thinned. People told pollsters that they were more optimistic about city life than they had been in years.
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Is urban design really powerful enough to make or break happiness? The question deserves consideration, because the happy city message is taking root around the world….
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-worlds-happiest-cities-commute-property-prices

Australia’s first political party dedicated to cyclists is up and riding. I welcome this move: it’s high time we had a party defending us
By Gary Nunn, The Guardian
The “terrorists in lycra” have organised and now, they want your vote.
Australia’s first political party dedicated to cyclists and their interests has launched a membership drive. May I be the first to whip off my biking gloves to applaud. Its launch website asks: “Why has cycling been demonised, politicised and criticised so often in the media and by government officials?”
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/15/australia-cyclists-party

by Mark Sutton, Bike Biz
Cross party support for law which places onus on motorist to prove they were not at fault in a collision with cyclists or pedestrians
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The motion reads: "That the Parliament believes that the number of fatalities and injuries to pedestrians and cyclists on Scotland’s roads, including in the Lothian region, is unacceptably high; recognises that the Scottish Government has funded a number of national cycle safety initiatives; notes that versions of a strict liability rule exist in the civil law of many European countries; notes that a number of walking and cycling organisations support the introduction of such a law in Scotland; understands that a petition by Cycle Law Scotland on this topic has secured over 5,000 signatures; considers that a stricter liability rule could have positive benefits for the safety of more vulnerable road users as part of a package of measures, and would welcome further debate on this proposal."
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https://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/scottish-parliament-to-debate-strict-liability-usage

By Elly Blue, The Guardian
Cars. They’re noisy and ugly. They smell terrible and cause disease on an epidemic proportion. They move way too fast, take up an extraordinary amount of space, are a leech on the economy, and have a propensity to run people over, especially kids. What’s to love?
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For one thing, there’s money. Cars are a major source of household debt – and unlike other investments like houses, they depreciate, costing more the longer you own them and the more you use them. For most US families, car ownership is one of those damned-either-way propositions. According to the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2012, the average US family of four spends about $10,000 a year on transportation – more than they spend on food. This isn’t reasonable or affordable. But the alternative can be far worse, depending on where you live, work, send your kids to school, school, shop, get healthcare, go to church, and all the other things we do in our daily lives.
Then there’s the cost of roads – building and maintaining them. Our gas taxes cover this, is the myth. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been true since 1956, …
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As I’ve written elsewhere, emissions from cars are implicated in nearly all the chronic diseases that are currently hurting our population, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and even autism. That’s to say nothing of the other health impacts of a car-oriented society, such as the lack of opportunities to exercise, zoning that encourages big box businesses and fast food consumption, stress, and social isolation and depression (pdf).
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/28/price-mile-highway-bike-friendly-city
[B’ Spokes: I really wanted to copy the whole thing, it’s that good.]

by Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog

Pedestrian fatalities attributed to distracted driving increased significantly between 2005 and 2010. Image: Public Health Reports

Total traffic deaths have declined nationwide in recent years, but the same has not held true for the most vulnerable people on the streets: cyclists and pedestrians. In 2011, 130 more pedestrians were killed in traffic than the year before, a 3 percent increase, while 54 more people lost their lives while biking, an increase of 8 percent. The same year, overall traffic deaths declined 2 percent.

As for the reasons why, good data has been scarce, but that hasn’t stopped major media from blaming victims for “drunk walking” or “distracted walking.” Now a new study published in Public Health Reports, the journal of the U.S. Public Health Service and the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, reveals that distracted driving — particularly driving while texting — partially explains the rising death toll.

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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/10/23/distracted-driving-is-claiming-the-lives-of-more-cyclists-and-pedestrians/

-> According to a Sept. 19th StreetsBlog article, "The question isn’t whether your city can afford to build high-quality bike infrastructure anymore, say our friends at the Green Lane Project. It’s whether your city can afford not to. The Green Lane Project has been working with the Alliance for Biking and Walking on a study examining the different ways protected bike lanes help local businesses. Blogger Michael Andersen classifies the economic benefits into four basic categories:
Protected bike lanes increase retail visibility and volume…
Protected bike lanes make workers healthier and more productive…
Protected bike lanes make real estate more desirable…
Protected bike lanes help companies score talented workers…"
Source: https://bit.ly/19CZEkx
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.

BY Chris Bruntlett, Hush
The United States Postal Service caused an uproar earlier this month when they released a series of stamps designed to encourage physical fitness among their nation’s chronically inactive children. In the end, they were forced to destroy the entire run of fifteen stamps over outcry about some of the ‘unsafe’ activities that they depicted. These include the wild and irresponsible acts of performing a cannonball into a swimming pool, doing a headstand without head protection, and skateboarding without kneepads.
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In reality, there is far more safety in numbers than Styrofoam, which is why cities around the world with the highest cycling rates are also the safest, irrespective of helmet usage. Furthermore, the mistaken sense of invincibility provided by safety gear drastically changes the dynamic between road users, and not in the favour of the cyclist. Armoured cyclists have been statistically documented to indulge in ‘overcompensation’, taking additional risks, riding quicker and more recklessly than they otherwise would. Similarly, in a scientifically proven phenomenon known as the Mary Poppins effect, motorists also conduct themselves differently around cyclists dressed in protective equipment, leaving less space when passing, and travelling notably faster around them.
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Once, just once, I’d like to see a police or medical professional courageously call for the taming of the bull in society’s china shop, not just the bubble wrapping of our fine china.
Underlying each and every one of these issues is an obesity epidemic that shows no signs of slowing down. 93% of Canadian children do not get the recommended hour of daily physical activity. One in three are either overweight or obese, a vicious cycle that proves difficult to break as they enter adulthood. By 2040, almost three quarters of Canadian adults will be overweight, significantly increasing their risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and costing us over $100-billion per year in treatment and accommodation. Sadly, this generation of children will likely be the first in the history of Western Civilization to live less healthful and shorter lives than their parents.
Despite all of this, the message from our so-called ‘health authorities’ is broadcast loud and clear: you are safer at home on the couch than exercising outdoors without the obligatory padding. The remote possibility of a traumatic injury trumps the overwhelming chance of a lifestyle disease, every single day of the week. They may mean well, but by fixating on the emergency room, these fear-mongering, headline-chasing ‘experts’ perpetuate a safety paradox, which makes matters much, much worse.
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https://hushmagazine.ca/social-commentary/the-safety-paradox/