what's wrong with this picture?
http://www.dhakamirror.com/?p=9081
http://inhabitat.com/no-car-day-in-china/
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20750&start=30
now for a healthier, more economically friendly, pollution-free, pedestrianised future...
bike lane completely separated from car lane with integration of landscaping
http://kerrieandmike.freeservers.com/images/Europe/Europe6.html
pedestrian crossings, tree-lined streets, street lights, parking lane, bike lane, traffic lane
http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/things-to-do/cycling
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/11/8/161753/351/travel/Urban+Active+Travel%3A+More+European+Bikes
http://phillyew.com/category/events/
Stimulate The Local Economy and Your Wallet By Getting Rid of Your Car
Here's a fascinating graphic from the National Building Museum's Intelligent Cities project (click on the image or here to enlarge it). The big numbers are impressive: a city can keep over $127 million in the local economy by reducing car ownership by just 15,000 cars. http://www.good.is/post/stimulate-your-local-economy-and-your-wallet-by-getting-rid-of-your-car/
summer streets.cities without cars
New York Summer Streets is back for 2011 with the first of three major street closures last Saturday on the 6th August and Paris has again installed its regular beach on a dual carriageway along the banks of a Seine. A pavement chalk festival took place in London, in Passadena and Liverpool is hosting the 3rd open International Pavement Art Competition in September when the London Sky Ride also returns to the capital. So many ways to enjoy our streets when the cars are banished! http://pedestrianliberation.org/2011/08/08/summer-streets-cities-without-cars/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uxNXaoAzjkQ#!
clear distinction between car, pedestrian and bike.safe for all
http://nytimes-se.com/2009/07/04/new-york-bike-path-system-expanded-dramatically/
bollards separate traffic from cyclist
http://simonkagstrom.livejournal.com/
http://blog.ratestogo.com/bicycle-riding-in-amsterdam/
vauban, the german suburb without cars
Do you ever get the feeling that every time you close your eyes, someone in Europe is doing something brilliant for the environment? Well, the residents of Vauban, Germany live in a suburb where most streets are off-limits to cars and the shops are mixed in with housing. The town’s 5,500 people are packed into a square mile, where they walk and cycle their way through day-to-day life.
The New York Times reports that as a result of this planning, children are everywhere. Vauban, on the French-Swiss-German border, enjoys solid links to public transportation. Residents who want to keep their cars buy parking spaces for $40,000 in one of two town lots, but 70 percent of Vaubanites don’t have their own.
Vauban was completed in 2006. In its prior life it was a Nazi army base, with streets running between the barracks that would be too narrow to accommodate private car use. Today, those same streets are lined with energy-efficient apartment buildings, rather than detached single-family homes, which are forbidden. The town is planned in a ribbon shape, at the center of which runs the tram line.Vuaban also has a car sharing club for families who don’t want to buy a vehicle of their own. Residents tend to make local shopping trips with the use of bike carts that haul their goods behind them. About half of them vote for the Green Party.
The Times reports that this carless option is being explored in new residential developments in the United States and in Europe. It is certainly a smarter building move than tract housing subdivisions that depend on the automobile.
However, Vauban-style construction may be most appropriate for the developing world, where the countryside has yet to be overbuilt. In more economically advanced countries, including Israel, the best option would be to retrofit existing suburbs – such as Holon, Ramat Gan and Givataim outside of Tel Aviv – to operate without cars. Perhaps these places could start by outlawing cars in a central district, and gradually expand the area off limits to vehicles, while providing bike rentals and reliable public transportation to keep the neighborhood alive economically. This would vastly improve the quality of life for people who choose to live away from the chaos of the cities without eating into the limited stores of open space that remain.
http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/05/vauban-carless-german-suburb/
car-free new york city streets, a beautifully illustrated dream
What would the streets of New York City look like without cars? For a recent New York Times opinion piece, Bruce McCall imagines what the Big Apple might look like all roads were car-free. It's a vision we could surely get behind.
http://www.good.is/post/car-free-new-york-city-streets-a-beautifully-illustrated-dream/
bike lanes protected from traffic lanes
lit pedestrian crossings to warn drivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1h7y4MQpA&feature=player_embedded
Curitiba is an amazing city for urban planning.take a look at this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJR9uCSyGKM&feature=player_embedded#!
how much space would we have without cars?
1.space taken by 40 non-moving cars
2.space taken by 40 drivers.take note of the pollution left from cars
3.space taken by 40 transit riders
4.space taken by 40 pedestrians and cyclists
http://www.lakesammfriends.org/DesignVirtues.html
berlin's striking cycling renaissance
Berlin is a hugely under-appreciated cycling city. Often overshadowed by the accomplishments of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, over the past two decades Berlin has quietly experienced what is perhaps the most striking cycling renaissance in the world. On any given day, more trips are now made by bicycle in Berlin than any other European city.
Berlin does not fit the mold of a typical bicycling paradise. The metropolis of 3.5 million people is as populous and expansive as Los Angeles. In contrast to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Berlin boasts abundant road supply, minimal traffic congestion, and an extensive Metro system. Summers are hot and humid and winters are long and cold. In the capital of the nation that produced Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW, and autobahns, one would not expect bicycling to flourish; yet, since German reunification in 1990, Berlin has undergone a cycling revolution.
According to Berlin’s 2010 Mobility Report, Berliners made approximately 1.4 million trips by bicycle every day in 2008, amounting to 13 percent of all trips citywide (and 14 percent of commute trips). This figure has more than doubled since 1990, yet it is likely already outdated, given rising gas prices ($8/gallon in Berlin) and an aggressive city initiative to raise cycling mode share to 15 percent by 2015.
While mode share figures are an imperfect measure of cycling rates, they allow for rough comparisons between cities. In Amsterdam and Copenhagen, about 35 percent of all trips are made by bicycle. In Portland, cycling captures 6-8 percent of commute trips, the largest total of any major American city. For a city the scale of Berlin, 13 percent mode-share is substantial — especially considering 30 percent of trips are already made by walking and 26 percent by public transportation.
http://www.streetsblog.org/
NACTO
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CITY TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS
this website features design ideas to integrate bike lanes into existing city streets
here are some designs:
buffered bike lanes
contra-flow bike lanes
left-side bike lanes
conventional bike lanes
http://nacto.org/cities-for-cycling/design-guide/bike-lanes/conventional-bike-lanes/
public space, private rules: the legal netherworld of occupy wall street
UPDATE: The private owners of Zuccotti park blinked early this morning, postponing their plans to clean the park and rescinding their request for assistance from the NYPD.
The New York Police Department's announcement that officers will remove Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park at 7 a.m. tomorrow is a reminder that the movement was lucky to stumble into that location. Had the protest begun almost anywhere else in New York City, it almost certainly would have been shut down far sooner.
The three-plus-week-old protest has allowed New York to make use one of its least effective policies. Zuccotti Park is one of New York’s 500-plus “privately owned public spaces,” but most are so useless and unattractive that no one even thinks of them as parks at all.
The POPS program was created in 1961 to add much-needed park space to Manhattan’s unrelenting street grid. The city offered a deal to real estate developers: create a public space on your property, and earn the ability to extend the building 20 percent higher. Zuccotti Park—originally known as Liberty Park before it was renamed after the CEO of its corporate owner—was built in 1968 under such an agreement.
Developers were quick to jump on the opportunity to squeeze more space (and thus profit) into Manhattan’s expensive, narrow land plots. Some buildings created two spaces: Zuccotti Park, for example, was built as part of the deal to construct 1 Liberty Plaza, across Liberty Street. That building got its height bonus for putting a typically useless and unattractive “plaza,” ringed with concrete pillars, around the structure itself. But in exchange for further special zoning permits, such as an exemption from a requirement that the building be set back for light and air, the company also built the park across the street.
to read more, head to this website...
http://www.good.is/post/public-space-private-rules-the-legal-netherworld-of-occupy-wall-street/
car crushing mayor
this is hilarious but a pretty simple solution.watch the video!
city of vilnius' mayor comes up with a way to stop citizens illegally parking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V-fWN0FmcIU
service vehicles can be a real issue, how can this be resolved in a bicycle solution?
http://pedestrianliberation.org/
top ten obstacles for users of guide dogs
- Overgrown hedges / low-hanging branches 87%
- Cars parked on the pavement 81%
- Wheelie bins / loose rubbish 58%
- Shop furniture, incl. A-boards, displays, canopies, etc. 42%
- Broken glass 34%
- Badly maintained pavements 33%
- Cyclists/scooters/skateboards on the pavement 28%
- Chewing gum 22%
- Discarded bikes outside shops 20%
- Lack of barriers around road-works 19%http://pedestrianliberation.org/page/2/
should these vehicles really be allowed into the inner city streets?
http://pedestrianliberation.org/page/2/
car free sundays in ciclovia
watch this youtube clip
Waterloo, Ontario had its first Car Free Sunday a few weeks ago. The 2011 Paris Plage came to a close a week ago and New York Summer Streets worked great. Brussels has one on the 18th September and London also had one (err. that is London, Ontario actually). London, England will of course get a taster on the 4th September when the Mayor hopes to get more than last years 85,000 cyclists out for the 2011 London Skyride. Our very own public health minister, Anne Milton suggested that streets in the UK should be closed on sundays so children could play after learning about how they close streets in Bogota, Columbia every Sunday. Unfortunately the health ministry said that ‘would be something for local councils to consider’
http://pedestrianliberation.org/page/2/
no words necessary...
http://pedshed.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/munster_capacity.jpg
i thought this was an interesting image
http://www.myphotoclub.com/forums/index.php?t=1734
in copenhagen, gas stations morph into bike repair shops
Norwegian energy company Statoil ASA has installed bicycle care stations at select gas stations in Copenhagen, reports Copenhagenize. The bike stations were installed using unused wall space at existing gas stations, and feature a pull-down shelf to lift and hold bicycles during repairs, an air hose, paper towels, and gloves. Inside the stations are free bicycle care kits that can be borrowed for more involved repairs. Just imagine, instead of filling up on non-environmentally-friendly fossil fuels at the local gas station, you ride your bike there and revel in your tiny carbon footprint while taking care of your sweet ride.
The note on the stations reads: "You can care for your bicycle here. You can pump and wash your bicycle and, inside the shop, you're welcome to borrow a free bicycle care kit with oil, tire levers, allen keys, etc."
While these repair stations are only a small step towards setting up a broader bike-friendly infrastructure—like more bike lanes—the project certainly represents a friendly gesture from an industry often hostile to bikers. Let's hope other international oil companies follow Statoil’s lead.
http://www.good.is/post/in-copenhagen-gas-stations-morph-into-bike-repair-shops/
with no space left on our busy streets, this is what we have resorted to...
ford's zipcar deal is a clever marketing move
Zipcar is a car-sharing service that provides users with inexpensive, convenient transportation.
By partnering with Zipcar on college campuses, Ford Motor is employing an inexpensive, convenient marketing strategy to introduce the next generation of car buyers to its vehicles.
Under the two-year program, Ford will supply Zipcar with up to 1,000 Ford Focus and Escape vehicles for use by students at more than 250 U.S. campuses. By roughly doubling the number of cars available to college students through Zipcar, Ford will quickly become the service’s largest vehicle source, with about 50% market share. The program is expected to generate about 2 million hours behind the wheel of Ford vehicles for college-age drivers, many of whom would never have considered buying a Ford before.
That kind of exposure is priceless, but is coming incredibly cheaply to Ford through its Zipcar alliance. Ford will subsidize membership fees for the first 100,000 students who sign up for Zipcar ($10 off the $35 annual membership fee) and will discount $1 off the hourly rate for the first 1 million hours of use on any of its vehicles. That means that other than providing the cars, the entire marketing effort will cost Ford only about $2 million over two years. Ford typically spends more than $2.5 billion a year on advertising.
The deal also reflects the personal vision of Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr., a passionate environmentalist who worries about the effects of traffic congestion in overcrowded cities. His separate venture capital fund, Fontinalis Partners, has been investing in transportation companies that provide urban mobility services.
“Today’s students are thinking differently about driving and transportation than they have in the past,” said Ford. “This program enables today’s new drivers to experience our latest fuel-efficient vehicles, while helping them reduce their cost of living and help relieve congestion on campus. We’re looking forward to making Ford a staple of their college experience.”
And looking forward to selling them a Ford after graduation, no doubt.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2011/08/31/fords-zipcar-deal-is-a-clever-marketing-move/
http://www.designbuzz.com/entry/foldable-electric-bike-with-specially-designed-shelf-to-store-your-belongings/
pavement to parks, san francisco
some built projects...
22nd street parklet
and coming...
Over an average weekend, up to 100,000 pedestrians walk along this portion of Powell Street, contributing to a highly animated yet often congested sidewalk experience. The Powell Street Promenade will provide extra space for people to walk, sit at a table or on a bench, chat with a friend, or just watch as thousands of people pass by. Wood, stone, and metal trim will provide a rich visual quality to the space, softened by landscaping and pedestrian scale lighting.
The Powell Street Promenade is scheduled to be installed by late Spring of 2011.
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