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A Look at European Transit Planning

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The New York Times has a good article about the differences between traffic planning in the USA and Europe. The article shows ways that European cities move people more efficiently by supporting mass transit and sustainable transit solutions like bicycles rather than supporting a car culture.

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation

Read more here.

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!

You Can Help a Bike Sharing Program Come to Toronto

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Readers of this site know that bicycles are great and that we like bike sharing programs, well, now it’s Toronto’s turn to get on the Bixi bandwagon. We’ve looked at Bixi before when they opened in Montreal.

The city of Toronto will approve Bixi to open next year in Toronto IF they an get 1,000 members before this November. If you are free tonight you can sign up for a Bixi membership at the Bixi Bash.

Here’s info on Bixi from the Toronto Star

“It’s pretty inexpensive, even if you’re just going to use it once a week,” said Daniel Egan, the city’s manager of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. “There are a number of milestones we need to achieve by the end of November in order to launch this for next year. And one of those is to sign up 1,000 members. It’s really to protect the city and the (BIXI) company from financial risk — to know there’s a demand for this.”

The city will also need to secure $600,000 in corporate sponsors and locate appropriate docking sites. Both are well underway, says Egan.

“Quite frankly I think our biggest challenge will be the demand for more bikes once this program launches,” said Egan.

The ruggedly designed bikes are adjustable and designed to fit all body types. The wheels generate electricity to power the fixed-on lights.

Keep reading at the Star.

Car Free Cities are Always an Option

- Adam Clare

Today I’ll cut right to the chase: car free cities are thriving in Europe. Awesome.

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.

Copenhagen to Build Bicycle Highway

- Adam Clare

The most bike-friendly city in the world is about to get better by building commuter highways designed for bicycles.

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.

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