It’s Bike-Bus-Walk to Work Week in Springfield. For me it’s just another week of doing what I do every day. Here’s the thing: I would not be doing it — commuting by bicycle — if it were difficult to do. Seriously. Why is it not difficult? Primarily it is not difficult because I live 3/4 [...]
My headline over-promises. I am not particularly interested in increasing participation as an end in itself. But it is clear that many bicycle advocates believe that providing such infrastructure as bicycle lanes, tracks, and separated paths does increase participation. According to recent studies, it’s not entirely clear what the cause-and-effect relationship actually is between infrastructure and participation. [...]
James D. Schwartz has an interesting post from earlier this spring about the cost of owning a car in terms of your time at work. The reality isn’t pretty: Motorists works 2 hours each day to pay for a car. Bicyclists work 3.8 minutes each day to pay for their bicycles. (Obviously the costs are [...]
The Holy Grail of bicycle advocacy is numbers of kiesters in saddles on two wheels on the road. Some advocates are willing to do almost anything to increase participation — including putting novices in danger. There’s a “but”: It appears rather clear that the more people who ride bicycles in a given area the safer [...]
Make plans now to commute by means other than an automobile the week of 16-20 May. It’s cool to do it for a week. It’s truly epic to keep it up — maybe not everyday, but maybe one or two days per week. Ease your way in. Pretty soon you’ll be selling a car and [...]
Take a look at this interesting info-graphic that shows, among other things, the differences between the numbers of bicycle commuters by gender. The idea is that one measure of bicycle friendliness is the low ratio of male to female bicyclists. Why do women commute by bicycle in smaller numbers than men? Is the lower ratio an indication [...]
I was in Florida when the following news article was published in the Springfield News-Leader on 5 January: How Can We Attract Young Professionals? Here are the first few paragraphs: Expanding local trails, banning public smoking and confronting the city’s lack of diversity are ways for Springfield to attract and retain young professionals, according to a [...]
Check out this NPR story/podcast about the rising popularity of riding a bicycle to work. I like this part: “It’s almost like a snowball effect,” says researcher John Pucher of Rutgers University. “People see other people cycling and they say, ‘Wow!’ ” As part of a three-year research project for the U.S. Department of Transportation, [...]
A reader alerted me to this map showing bicycle commuter rates in the U.S. Click the image for a choice of viewing sizes. Commuting is just one aspect of utility bicycling. I wonder if there’s more data on other kinds of trips, e.g. to the store, school, etc. Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle commuting, bicycle [...]
See if you can spot the problem (from montrealgazette.com): A 2003 study published in the Injury Prevention Journal by Peter Lyndon Jacobsen concluded: “A motorist is less likely to collide with a person walking or bicycling if more people walk or bicycle. Policies that increase the numbers of people walking and bicycling appear to be [...]
Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic (mandatory reading for all humans), posted a Slate column on Friday in which he considers how Hollywood treats non-drivers and bicyclists. We are, apparently, a bunch of losers and creeps. And the broader culture, apparently, is hip to this if not the source of it: Or perhaps it’s the wider society [...]
Check out this report of a new branding campaign by Bikes Belong called People for Bikes. The designs all look happy and unhipsterish, which Suzanne Labarre at Co.Design thinks is a good thing. I agree. But the photo below, promoting bicycle commuting and Bike to Work Week, goes off the rails. OK, I get it [...]
Hello Springfield Bicyclists! I need your help to understand what’s happening on the streets of Springfield. Please take a few moments to fill out my survey. I’ll compile the results and report back here once I get a good sample. Please pass the survey to your friends. You can click the “like” button or use [...]
I really really really wanted the long U.S. Census form this time. No such luck. I wanted certain of my demographics to be counted (to name a few): 3-person, middle-class family owning 1 car Commuting by bicycle and on foot Living within 1 mile of work Wife works in a home office I wonder what [...]
It happens every weekday morning. My daughter and I ride one block on a sidewalk against traffic. There — I said it. This bit of sidewalk merely takes us north on Fremont — a 30-mph collector — to the next residential street — Loren — where the real journey to MSU begins — the entire, [...]
