Transportation

Public Bikes and Public Spaces

- Dan Harrison 2 Comments

Back in July, Toronto announced that it would attempt to bring the Bixi bike sharing programme to the city. A big condition was that Bixi would need to have 1000 people purchase the $95 annual subscription to the service before the imposed deadline of November first. Well here we are on October 19th, and Bixi has reached the 1000 member mark, in large part due to an investment from AutoShare.

The car-sharing company AutoShare announced Monday night that it bought 100 of the $95 annual subscriptions, pushing the total over 1,000. The announcement was made to room full of BIXI subscribers gathered for a party at the Steam Whistle Brewery. “There was a big cheer, that’s for sure,” said AutoShare president Kevin McLaughlin, who called the purchase an investment in BIXI. “The bigger picture is bringing a better transportation system to Toronto,” he said.

Read more at The Toronto Star, or at Bixi Toronto.

In other good Toronto news, the University of Toronto is experimenting with the creation of new, pedestrian only spaces. The idea is undergoing a real-time evaluation by closing down little-used roads and setting up tables, chairs, and fake grass. Although one area wasn’t very successful (Devonshire between Bloor and Hoskin), the other is flourishing. Willcocks Street between St. George and Huron is being heavily used by students, faculty, and random passers-by as a place to meet, work, and enjoy free Wi-Fi. Evaluation of the concept will continue until the winter, when a decision will be made whether or not to turn the temporary set-up into something more permanent.

More information can be found at Spacing.ca.

Toronto’s First Bike Boxes

- Dan Harrison 2 Comments

Cyclists in Portland have long since known the benefits of Bike Boxes (also called advance stop lines.) which allow a safe place for cyclists to stop at an intersection. This gives cyclists increased visibility when taking the lane to make a left turn, and generally increases the safe space around bikes. Toronto’s first bike boxes have sprouted up at Harbord and St. George recently and although many motorists and cyclists are unfamiliar with them, they’re a step in the right direction!

Read more of Derek Flack’s article at BlogTO.

Horse Drawn Trash for Good Collection

- Adam Clare

Before automobiles horse drawn buggies were used for trash collection and it looks like we’re going back to that classic solution. Garbage trucks have a hard time negotiating smaller streets and a benefit of the horses is less exhaust in the city.

For Jean Baptiste, mayor of medieval Peyrestortes, near Perpignan and one of 60 towns now using horses to collect waste, the benefit above all is practical. “You can’t turn a waste collection vehicle around here. We used to block streets to traffic and keep waste in open skips.” He sold off a dustbin lorry and acquired two Breton carthorses instead. Asked whether the changes are saving money, he says: “It’s too early. But money isn’t the only reason. The exhaust smells have gone, the noise has gone, and instead we have the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.”

In Saint Prix, however, in Greater Paris, Mayor Jean-Pierre Enjalbert is certain he is saving money as the novelty of the horses has increased recycling rates. “By using the horse for garden waste collection, we have raised awareness. People are composting more. Incineration used to cost us €107 a tonne, ridiculous for burning wet matter, now we only pay €37 to collect and compost the waste.”

Read the full article at the Guardian.

Reminder: Support Bikes in Toronto

- Adam Clare

Toronto could be the next city with a Bixi bike sharing program and you can help make it happen! The more people who ride in a city the safer bicycling becomes so it’s in everyone’s interest to get Bixi up and running in Toronto. Also, bicycles are always good news.

The City of Toronto has made it difficult to setup the program by requiring 1000 people to register for the service by November. Right now about 650 have signed up.

Don’t forget to sign yourself up to make the streets of Toronto greener and safer!

Here’s how Bixi describes itself:

Toronto has the chance to join major metropolises on three continents – Minneapolis, Washington D.C., London, Melbourne and Montreal – that have adopted BIXI, the finest bike sharing system in the world. We deserve access to an active and green alternative to traditional forms of urban transport to reduce pollution and traffic congestion. BIXI is simple, fast and economical. You just take a bike when you need one and drop it off at any station on the network when you’ve finished your trip.

Sign up for Bixi on their website.

Here’s all the times we’ve looked at Bixi on Things Are Good!

Puff Shows Drivers How Much They Pollute

- Adam Clare

It’s well known that cars create a lot of pollution and that if we can get more people to drive their cars more efficiently (better yet – not at all) drivers would kill the environment a little less. To help drivers figure out how much CO2 they release into the air some enterprising floks created an app called Puff.
Puff

Puff is designed to let drivers visualize how much pollution they are emitting on their iPhone as they drive. This way drivers can adapt their driving to minimize their CO2 output.

“Puff is attached to the frame of the car or to the tail pipe. The lamp is light weight and thus well below the 50 pounds you can apparently safely hang from the exhaust pipe. The lamp itself is detachable, so you can take it inside with you whenever you leave your car at the curb. (…) The app also logs the drive data allowing you to keep track of various information such as how much total CO2 you’ve emitted during this trip or during all your trips with Puff, what is the average rate of emission, the total number of miles driven and the average MPG. It also estimates how much NOx, CO and hydrocarbons you’ve released into the environment.”

Read more at Pop-Up City

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