World Bicycle Day is today: Ideas for making transportation cycling irresistible
Promulgated by UN General Assembly in 2018, June 3rd is World Bicycle Day.
At first I thought that it made more sense to do it in May, because in many places that is "Bicycle Month," but actually June 3rd can be the crowing achievement date "ending" Bicycle Month.
Having been busy doing other things, I am not prepared today to publish my ideal program for a community aiming to work diligently at developing a significant percentage of bicyclists as a regular part of "traffic."
By significant, I mean at least 10% overall, and more in the neighborhoods and districts that have more of the preconditions that support sustainable mobility.
.jpg)
One of the boards is on "Big Ideas" but they aren't "that big," imo.
More like important topics. And given all the master plans I've read, the biggest failure is to translate the ideas into action. That requires the right kind and specific types of programming.
I intend to write a big idea paper overall on how to create a system in Salt Lake for biking as transportation--while the area and state is big on recreational cycling, every day transportational cycling appears to be quite low.
One of the reasons is that while "the valley" is flat, on either side are the foothills and mountains (where the recreational cyclists go), which are daunting.
Between the elevation and its effect on me (way higher than DC) and having to climb a steep hill to get back home (there are a couple of streets with a relatively workable incline, but they are many blocks out of the way) I get wiped out. Yes, I am considering an e-bike, but I am hoping to put it off for a few more years.
.jpg)
So my one big idea, as part of an overall serious in depth program to promote bicycle transportation is making the light rail free going up the hill, between 600 East--the edge of Downtown--and 1400 East--the "bottom" of the University of Utah campus.
Like the Trampe Bicycle Lift, it makes the topography much less of a barrier to every day cycling ("Norway’s 450-foot-long ‘bike elevator’ is like a ski lift for cyclists," Business Insider).
Particularly good past blog entries on biking:
-- "Ideas for making bicycling irresistible in Washington DC," 2008
-- "Best practice bicycle planning for suburban settings using the action planning method," 2010
-- "Is Montreal the number one city for bicycling in North America," 2010
-- "Biking as a social change movement," 2011
-- "Best (or at least better) practices bike parking and bicycle facilities," 2011
-- "What should a US national bike strategy plan look like?," 2014
-- "(Still) tired of mis-understanding of the potential for e-bikes," 2015
-- "Part 2, building a network of bike facilities at the regional scale," 2017
-- "Why not a bicycle hub at National Airport?, focused on capturing worker trips but open to all," 2017
-- "This week is Bike Week at the University of Utah," 2018
-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs," 2020
-- "May is National Bike Month: Advocating for Vulnerable Road User laws," 2021
-- "Open Streets DC as an event versus an agenda," 2021
-- "It's a mistake to remove "Enforcement" from the "E's framework" of bicycle and pedestrian planning," 2022
Labels: bicycle and pedestrian planning, comprehensive planning/Master Planning, sustainable mobility platform, transportation planning, urban design/placemaking
posted by Richard Layman @ 4:28 PM&Permanent Link
1 Comments:
Can Car-Crazy LA Make Room for 'Bikepooling'?
A UCLA project that uses an app to organize group rides aims to promote car-free transportation for Los Angeles residents.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/can-car-crazy-la-make-room-for-bikepooling
But only about 1% of LA commuters get to work by bicycle, according to the US Census Bureau, a figure that reflects the challenges that riders face in a freeway-laden city that’s been optimized for the automobile. Protected bike lanes are rare, and the streets of Southern California are among the most dangerous for two-wheeled travelers. Between 2011 and 2020, 276 cyclists were killed in traffic in Los Angeles County — the most of any US county. In 2018, Bicycling Magazine declared LA the “Worst Bike City in America.”
To encourage more Angelenos to take to the streets by bike — and keep them safe there — a demonstration project set to launch this fall will encourage residents from low-income neighborhoods to bike to work in groups.
“It’s not just an informal group of cyclists — it’s a public transportation system based on bicycles,” said Fabian Wagmister, an associate professor at the University of California Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television and the founder and principal investigator of the Civic Bicycle Commuting research project, also known as CiBiC.
Post a Comment
<< Home