A quarter of households in Britain – more in the larger cities, and a majority in some inner cities – live without a car. Imagine how quality of life would improve for cyclists and everyone else if traffic were removed from areas where people could practically choose to live without cars. Does this sound unrealistic, utopian? Did you know many European cities are already doing it?

Vauban in Germany is one of the largest car-free neighbourhoods in Europe, home to more than 5,000 people. If you live in the district, you are required to confirm once a year that you do not own a car – or, if you do own one, you must buy a space in a multi-storey car park on the edge of the district. One space was initially provided for every two households, but car ownership has fallen over time, and many of these spaces are now empty.

Vehicles are allowed down the residential streets at walking pace to pick up and deliver, but not to park. In practice, vehicles are rarely seen moving here. It has been taken over by kids as young as four or five, playing, skating and unicycling without direct supervision. The adults, too, tend to socialise outdoors far more than they would on conventional streets open to traffic (behaviour that’s echoed in the UK, too).

Read the full article at the Guardian.

You can read all about it at Copenhagenize.

Currently 55% of the citizens in central Copenhagen ride a bicycle daily and the number is 37% for Greater Copenhagen. While in many other countries anybody who cycles to work is often considered a ‘bicycle commuter’, most of the 500,000 people who cycle to work or education in Copenhagen don’t fit into the Danish version of this statistical category.

A ‘commuter’ is loosely categorised as someone who travels more than 10 km to work. The City of Copenhagen and the surrounding towns are aiming to increase the trips by bike on the new routes. There is an efficient network of public transport throughout the region but just as any train passenger or motorist knows, it feels much quicker and is much quicker if you don’t have to stop all the time. The same principle applies to cycling to work and it is the key to the development of this new net of superhighways.

Just like anywhere, there are many people who cycle longer distances but the focus for the new plan is the ‘middle ground’ – the zone between 7 and 15 km from the city centre.

Why do these measures matter? Because parking helps make commuters—a lesson long ago learned with cars. Studies in New York found that a surprisingly large percentage of vehicles coming into lower Manhattan were government employees or others who had an assured parking spot. Other studies have shown the presence of a guaranteed parking spot at home—required in new residential developments—is what turns a New Yorker into a car commuter.

On the flip side, people would be much less likely to drive into Manhattan if they knew their expensive car was likely to be stolen, vandalized, or taken away by police. And yet this is what was being asked of bicycle commuters, save those lucky few who work in a handful of buildings that provide indoor bicycle parking. Surveys have shown that the leading deterrent to potential bicycle commuters is lack of a safe, secure parking spot on the other end. (In England, for example, it’s been estimated that a bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds.)

A number of American cities are now waking up to the fact that providing bicycle parking makes sense. Philadelphia, for example, recently amended its zoning requirements to mandate that certain new developments provide bicycle parking; Pittsburgh’s planning department is weighing requiring one bicycle parking space for every 20,000 square feet of development* (admittedly modest compared with the not-uncommon car equation of one parking space per 250 square feet); even the car-centric enclave of Orange County, Calif., is getting in on the act, with Santa Ana’s City Council unanimously passing a bill requiring proportional bicycle parking when car parking is provided. In Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities, pilot projects are investigating turning car-parking meters—once semireliable bike-parking spots, now rendered obsolete by “smart meter” payment systems—into bike parking infrastructure.

Myette boasts that his fledgling moving company, Transport Myette, will tow just about anything that can be stacked on his modified bike trailers.
“Pretty much anything, except for pianos, of course,” he said Tuesday at a job, where he and two of his employees carefully pieced together – with the help of duct tape and straps – intricate piles of large household items, including a mattress, a stove and a fridge onto the flatbeds.
The Montreal resident’s inspiration to launch the bike-moving business came while surfing the Internet last summer. Myette stumbled upon the website of an American company that sold mini-trailers.
Up until then, he had been working for a moving company that used a truck.
“I’ve always been a cyclist, I’ve always cared about the environment, so it just seemed natural to me to combine the two,” said Myette, who bought his first custom trailer last fall for $1,000 and now owns three.
Workers pull the trailers with standard mountain bikes equipped with powerful hydraulic disc brakes – for the steep descents.
Outside of peak periods, Transport Myette charges just $25 an hour for one worker with a trailer, $35 an hour for two workers and two trailers and $50 an hour for three of each.

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7. The busiest bike stretch in the nation is Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen. 35,000 cyclists use the street each day.
8. The average speed of cyclists in Copenhagen is 15,3 km/h.
9. Danes cycle just over 1000 km a year per capita. The Dutch occupy second place, just under 1000 km.
10. There are 1.7 million people in Copenhagen and 1.7 million bicycles.
11. Only 40% of Copenhageners own a car.
12. 36% of Copenhageners ride a bicycle, 35% take public transport and the rest drive or walk.

THE ROAD: A bicyclist on the road often feels that they are under assault by passing vehicles. Particularly in cities where bicyclists seem rare, motor vehicles aggressively dominate the road, discouraging potential bicyclists from joining in.

THE CONTRAIL: Contrail is a small bright bike accessory that allows bicyclists to color in their own space on the road. It’s like playing with sidewalk chalk, but faster.

THE WORKS: Contrail holds 200 grams of chalk, enough for about 20 miles (32km) of riding. It functions much like a carpenter’s chalk line: A small amount of powdered chalk is filtered through a brush inside the device and picked up on a felt wheel. The felt wheel transfers this chalk onto the rear tire leaving a fine layer. As chalk builds up, the tire leaves a faint line of color on the roadbed. This is you contrail. It is a colorful and ephemeral representation of your path.

Exports reached a record high in 2007 of 1.05 billion US dollars with 4.75 million bikes sold abroad, while 2008 looks set to break that record with the export of 2.76 million bikes totalling 635 million US dollars in the first six months, government figures showed.
There is no official data on how many bicycles are sold locally but industry watchers estimate around one million were sold in 2007 on the island of 23 million people.
“Business was booming in 2007 and this year looks to be the best,” said Jeffrey Sheu, spokesman for the world’s leading bicycle maker Giant Inc.
“Our monthly revenue hit a historical high in August and September looks like setting a new record.”
Giant’s August and September group revenue rose 27 percent and 35 percent year-on-year to 3.91 billion and 4.12 billion Taiwan dollars (120 million US and 126 million US) respectively while 2008 revenue is projected to increase by at least 25 percent to 40 billion.