Separate bikeways are the lead actors in bike-friendly cities, but many supporting actors complete the cast: bikes on transit facilities, good traffic law enforcement, even bike "lifts" on steep hills. Three more worth mentioning are blue lanes, parking cages, and cyclibraries.
Blue lanes.
(Photo courtesy of Jayson Antonoff, International Sustainable Solutions.)
My youngest son often bikes to drama rehearsals. It's about three miles from our home in Seattle, mostly on traffic-calmed neighborhood streets and a bike trail -- pretty good bikeways, overall. The only parts I worry about are the intersections where he has to cross especially busy streets, like six-lane Highway 99.
Oregonians share my concern about crossing big roads on two wheels: they told the state's Bicycle Transportation Alliance that unsafe intersection crossings are the biggest barrier to cycling (PDF). On many routes, and particularly for children, busy intersections are the weakest links in the emerging bikeway network in our city and others.
One cure is Blue Lanes. Pioneered in the cycling meccas of northern Europe, they are bicycle lanes through intersections boldly painted to demarcate which road space is reserved for pedal power. Typically, they're accompanied by traffic signals specifically for cyclists. The city of Portland has installed 10 blue lanes to date.
Parking cages.
Once my son arrives at his drama rehearsal, he leaves his bike locked outside for hours, exposing it to the risk of theft or vandalism. A good lock and a secure public bike rack help. (Seattle has about 2,300 public bike racks; that's more than New York City [PDF; see page 273].)
But bikes locked to racks remain vulnerable. Thieves can cut locks or strip bikes with surprising speed. Better than racks are cages, rented by the hour -- an innovative technology detailed in this short video from streetfilms.org.
Cyclibraries.
I often find myself somewhere without my bike, needing to take a quick round trip to some nearby location: a business meeting or a local shop. Years ago, Portland sparked a bevy of North American imitators when a nonprofit group there began refurbishing old two-wheelers, painting them bright colors, and leaving them on the streets of the city for anyone to use. Originally attempted in Amsterdam, this program of free-range bicycles eventually foundered; the bikes disappeared.
Such libraries of bikes persist inside certain manufacturing companies, such as Boeing, where company-owned fleets of shared bicycles have long been used for quick, job-site errands.
A commercial form of cyclibraries has emerged in the past two years in Europe, originating in Lyon, France, and launching this year in Paris. Like airport luggage-cart stands that automatically rent carts, then refund a deposit on the carts' return, a network of sidewalk kiosks -- little bike libraries -- dispense simple bikes on demand, for the cost of a deposit and a little more than $1 an hour.
Paris has sold a license to an outdoor advertiser to place 21,000 bikes at 1,500 kiosks this year, partially in exchange for advertising privileges on the bikes and kiosks, as described here.
Portland is exploring how it might do something similar. I wonder whether car-sharing companies might get in on the act, too, since they've already built the billing and transaction systems. Flexbike? Zipbike?
What does bike-friendly look like? What is Bicycle Respect? It's blue lanes with bike signals at all major intersections. It's an abundance of secure bike parking -- perhaps with bike-parking cages installed in place of some metered car-parking slots. It's hundreds of cyclibraries scattered through the cityscape, each automatically renting out a dozen two-wheelers by the hour, speeding errands and leaving more cars at the curb.
Bicycle friendly means no longer worrying about my son, or his bike, when he rides to drama.
(Thanks to Deric Gruen, who did research for this series.)
Seattleites: Come hang with Amanda Little at Elliott Bay Books
Weatherizing Portland
Comments
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:14 am
01 Jun 2007
If the politicians were serious about CO2 emissions, they would promote safe bicycling like there is no tomorrow. There are about 300,000 people in Seattle of working and biking age. What would happen if you could motivate 3,000 Seattleites who also work in Seattle to commute by bike (1% of total working population). Lets see, this is equivalent to about 100 metro buses with a fleet average of about 38 MPG, each spewing CO2, and consuming a lot of precious liquid fuel (95% of which is regular diesel). Bump that number to ten or twenty percent and your city would win any CO2 reduction contest.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 12:30 am
01 Jun 2007
Too bad that the Portland experiment did not work. But I thought they had more success in Amsterdam. It will be most interesting to see what happens in Paris: if they achieve what they hope to there, that is likely to provide a model for many other cities, including NYC.
Our mayor Michael Bloomberg has his heart in the right place, but this city is a jungle of competing interests. Still, I fail to see why business interests, as BioD suggests is the case in Seattle, should be anti-bike-friendly.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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ac5p Posted 12:54 am
01 Jun 2007
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SustainableGreen Posted 1:10 am
01 Jun 2007
"Cyclibraries"? Uh, like where are, ya know, like, the books? Yeah, I agree the term is rather clumsy.
I admire the vision of cities like Seattle and other progressive places, but what I found with my years in transportation agencies is either bias, ignorance, or dismissal regarding bicycles. I have even had planners dismiss potential bicycle facilities out-of-hand for congested urban commercial centers. Few states or cities are very supportive, for the reasons mentioned here.
Most transportation engineers I know are very conservative, have a narrow comfort range, and have been trained to focus on the private automobile, pretty much entirely--which is one big reason why we have such a problem. This is in spite of agencies calling themselves "multi-modal", and in fact being charged by law with the responsibility. So when politicians have no interest they are merely following the money of the corporate oligarchy, in which bicycles have no say in the U.S.A.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:39 am
01 Jun 2007
To me, just "painting" a bike lane is not the same as a real bike lane. A real bike lane is defined by a curb which separates it from the automobile traffic.
Unless there is a curb, there is nothing to keep a car or bus from taking a swerve into the bike lane, or making a right turn into it at will.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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