Sizing up the City

People move about our cities in many ways. Babies are pushed around in buggies, people with disabilities propel themselves around in electric wheelchairs. People walk or ride bicycles; others catch public transport - buses, trams or trains. Many people rely on carbon-based fuels to power the technology that moves them about: they take their own cars. To support the 'just-in-time' delivery systems, drivers move goods all over our cities many times a day in light vans. Heavy truck drivers take goods to and from the ports and airports.

Taxonomy upgrade extras:

cycling

active transport

transport

walking

transport planning

Coroner Wants Fluoro Cycle Vests Made Compulsory

The New Zealand Transport Agency is to be asked to investigate making high-visibility vests and brightly coloured helmets compulsory for cyclists as a result of the death of a Dunedin man who was struck by a vehicle on State Highway 1 near Allanton last year.

Otago-Southland region coroner David Crerar will also recommend the agency investigate making the use of headlights compulsory at all times for vehicles on the open road, to make them as visible as possible to other road users.

Tags:

The Best American Magazine Writing 2009: Insights for Cycling advocates

David Darlington's stirring narrative shows the devastating price paid by cyclists when the legal system and society fail to hold drivers accountable for deadly recklessness on our roads.

This article hits home on the issues for advocates in preventing/responding to tragic collisions by motorists with cyclists...

Tags:

Advocacy

cycling

active transport

Bikes@Work

Bikes@Work is a Melbourne-based business helping to promote workplace health and sustainability through active transport initiatives.

Active transport (such as walking and cycling) has an important role to play in reducing transport costs, congestion, air pollution, promoting health and enhancing the safety and livability of our cities.

Tags:

bicycle

cycling

active transport

Biking in Buenos Aires Just Got Easier: Introducing the City's New Bike Paths

If you're thinking about traveling to Buenos Aires, consider taking your bike with you. The promise of 100 kilometers of new bike paths is becoming a reality with new safe, separated-from-traffic lanes popping up in different parts of the city. Take a look at the map inside.

Tags:

Guidance on monitoring local cycle use (UK)

Local authorities are increasingly setting targets to support sustainable transport objectives. Many have set targets for cycle use, often in line with the National Cycling Strategy target, of quadrupling cycle trips between 1996 and 2012. In order to set appropriate local targets, local authorities need to be able to quantify the existing situation - the baseline - and to monitor changes in key indicators. All this must be done with reasonable accuracy but without disproportionate cost.

This report provides practical and statistical guidance on monitoring cycle use. It is based on tests of a range of survey techniques undertaken by local authorities in collaboration with TRL. The report explains why monitoring cycle use differs from traditional traffic monitoring and outlines ways of avoiding some of the particular problems entailed, especially conerning cycle counting techniques.

Taxonomy upgrade extras:

Risky cycling rarely to blame for bike accidents, study finds

Cyclists' lobby group CTC said the report needed to focus on driver behaviour rather than issues such as cyclists wearing helmets.

A tiny proportion of accidents involving cyclists are caused by riders jumping red lights or stop signs, or failing to wear high-visibility clothing and use lights, a government-commissioned study has discovered.

Tags:

cycling

cycling accidents

accidents

Lancet Study: We Must Reduce Auto Dependency

WorldChanging Team, 30 Nov 09

by Sarah Goodyear

Austin on Two Wheels threw a link up on Twitter to a very intriguing article published last week in the influential medical journal The Lancet (registration required). According to the Montréal Gazette, the researchers concluded that infrastructure spending should be diverted from road building to pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure for a variety of public health reasons

Tags:

What Stops Teenage Girls From Cycling

Beauty and the Bike

Tags:

Antisocial cycling is annoying - but not harmful

Instead of getting worked up about the perceived dangers of bad cycling, let's focus on changing the bad driving that killed 2,538 people on UK roads last year.

Why do those of us who venture out on two wheels run the risk of being called lycra louts or being compared to the evil overlord of a galactic empire? Take MP David Curry, who once said "the only time I have been knocked down in my life was by a cyclist going like a bat out of hell ... dressed like Darth Vader, as they all do!" Sadly, however, the idea that cyclists are a threat to civilisation seems to show no sign of abating.

Much of the concern with antisocial cycling focuses on jumping red lights and riding on the pavement. Both are illegal and have the potential to cause great annoyance to others, but do they actually cause harm?

Tags: