To paraphrase what the former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, famously said: "A well-designed city is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use the bicycle."
Wide protected bike-lane in Downtown Vancouver filled with people on bikes.
It’s really important that #Vancouver’s Downtown Business Association, who were originally against bike-lanes, are now among their most vigourous supporters, because of ACTUAL EVIDENCE that they’re better for downtown business than any street parking they replaced.
Safe bike-lanes mean business.
“In Utrecht, the bike is not an end in itself. It is a means to create a liveable, healthy, climate-friendly city for all. The success can be admired in the inner city. It is lively and yet quiet at the same time. Here, it's noticeable: Cities aren't loud; only cars are, and they play no role here.”
That was one of my favorite things because I would just go up to the bar like a normal human being and get my order super quick.
STREETS ARE FOR PEOPLE
My walk from the subway stop goes through a few stop signs and it is incredibly rare to see a car stop.
Is your city Bicycle Ready?
Think Portland needs a bigger and bolder plan that would also be an attraction. What if there was a bike highway, protected/separated space for bikes from the airport all the way to Nike's campus. Would cut across a huge swath of Portland, help turn car commuters to bikes and be an attraction itself
Stuff we subsidize:
Private sports stadiums for rich owners and rich employees.
Roads, highways, parking for private vehicles.
Food
Gasoline
Internet
There's a bunch of other stuff
Think they actually have negative value. A lot of motorists seem to think it is a bike lane and that bikes NEED to be in it and if it isn't there bikes shouldn't be there. They have limited useful value in way finding to a real bike lane/path is about it IMO.
The problem with PBOT and the city's approach in general to East Portland roads, isn't a lack of attention or investment. It's that the projects they do build are way too compromised (bcuz politics), too sympathetic to drivers, and are lacking in physical protection for bikers/walkers.
In New York City they put the bike lanes on the left side of the road because you want the fastest vehicles to stay to the left.
The main message was that bikes are slowed down by cars, significantly! Cars are just slow all on their own.
I mean if everyone in a car got on a bike what I said would still stand. Cars slow down bikes. Bikes rarely slow down bikes and if they do it's only because they're jammed into a narrow space which would no longer be the case without cars.
So before cars were invented all humans stopped moving during the winter? You can easily bike in the winter, it's often even better than during the hot months.
And many people with disabilities are unable to drive but are able to use bikes and wheelchairs but cars make it dangerous.
If every single bicycle in the world disappeared cars would be just as slow as they are today.
If every single car in the world disappeared bikes would be multiple magnitudes faster than they are today. A 40 minute urban bike ride would go down to 20 minutes.
So we moved to Brooklyn this weekend. Went on my first bike ride longer than going around the block today & it was pretty incredible. Perfect, absolutely not. There's way too many cars in general & parked in bike lanes but overall I saw tons of bikes, felt like I was in a bike city & loved it.
This reddit comment in response to the question "is it crazy to bike commute 6 miles?" is exceptional:
"What’s crazy is sitting alone and angry in a metal box for over an hour a day."
So succinct yet fully captures the mental health problem cars create.
www.reddit.com/r/bikecommut...
And all the best neighborhoods and squares and villages in and around Boston coincidentally are where all those old trains ran...🤔
If Boston simply stopped trying to appease cars, an incredibly selfish and inefficient mode of transport, it could transform itself into one of the world's greatest cities. The bones are there, it's an amazing walking city, biking is already the fastest way to get around but the T needs expansion.
Ever ask yourself why so many climate scientists are also cyclists?
Cincinnati 1955
Cincinnati 2013
American cities were not built for cars.
They were bulldozed for cars.
This is what Storrow Drive should be - except even better. We have more space, we put in a train that runs along storrow, add dedicated wide bike lanes, even little coffee shops could dot the land scape so ppl could enjoy the waterfront with a cup of their favorite brew
Very open to any comments, suggestions, feedback, feature requests or anything else about PeopleStreets News.
A few things I'm thinking of adding soon are:
-ability to make image/video posts
-subscription option to get notified about new stories
-comment formatting
news.peoplestreets.live
Made a thing for the urbanism, bike, pedestrian, transit community at news.peoplestreets.live. The quick summary is it's basically a news aggregator for urbanism news where you can submit stories and vote and comment on them. My hope is this site can become a way to share news far and wide!
Me holding the lid of the carafe over a pot to make coffee without the glass carafe
Just stumbled on this picture of me from four years hacking the coffee machine to work after I broke the carafe and it feels like the right thing to share right now.
Screenshot of Google AI responding that space is part of the sky.
Screenshot of Google AI responding that space is not part of the sky.
AI: Automated Idiot. 🤦♂️🤣
I think we can change the world by having protected bike lanes and secure bike parking everywhere.
Update: ODOT will not be moving forward with my radically non-radical idea of improving urban mobility by NOT expanding freeways as Director of Urban Mobility. Alas. 😞
The $.10 seemed a bit low and after discussing my micro plastics AI revised to $.50 which brings total per gallon cost of gasoline to $20 even. And...that feels right. At $20 a pop I think a lot of people would reevaluate driving a mile to buy some bread but more necessary uses would still exist.
