Bike Erie

TheCityFix - produced by EMBARQ Car-oriented cities have a number of costs for citizens' health and well-being. Up to 75% of urban air pollution is caused by motor vehicle fuel combustion, and in 2012, 3.7 million premature deaths were linked to outdoor air pollution.

I was riding my bike on the shoulder of a busy road in a quaint town in coastal Maine when it happened: A car full of young men rode up alongside me, shouting lewd insults. That was unnerving enough. Then, as they passed me, just inches away, one of them slapped me on the rear end.

We're very pleased to present a post by Paul James of Pedestrianise London, on the subject of Sustainable Safety - the Dutch approach to road and street design that reduces danger, and improves accessibility and mobility for all, regardless of their mode of transport.

As acceptance of the bicycle lifestyle gains traction throughout North America, business owners and entrepreneurs of all stripes are hard at work entrenching bike-friendliness into their business models. Why? Quite simply, it's a smart business move.

Faced with a serious transportation problem on its sprawling technical center campus in a Detroit suburb, General Motors Co. has turned to a solution that predates cars - bicycles. GM has launched a bike share program for 19,000 employees at its Warren Technical Center.

Bicyclists Are Serious Shoppers A 2012 study of shoppers in New York City's East Village district - which had recently installed protected bike lanes - found that, per capita per week, cyclists spent the most money at local businesses. Bicyclists: $168 Pedestrians: $158 Car drivers: $143 Public transit: $111 The "so what?" argument may seem valid here. The East Village is particularly dense, with especially high mode shares of bicycling and walking. So of course that will be represented in total retail sales for the area. But the phenomenon does not exist in a single-neighborhood vacuum; cities in every region across the country are seeing positive results from increased bike infrastructure.

New York may have dropped in a recent ranking of cycling cities. But it does have some world class infrastructure, including a "complete street" on 9th Avenue, with a protected bike lane. Built in 2007, it was controversial at the time (like everything else bike-related in the city). But a study by the Department of Transport finds that it's paid dividends economically. Local stores between 23rd and 31st streets have seen a 49% increase in sales, compared to an average of 3% for Manhattan as a whole. The DOT doesn't give an explanation. But other research has shown similar things. While bikers tend to spend less per visit than drivers, they spend more over a month, according to one Portland study. Bike advocates note that you can park more bikes in a limited space than you can family-sized vehicles.

The city is considering creation of bicycles-only lanes on Penn Avenue through Downtown Pittsburgh, including the Cultural District. The lanes would occupy the eastbound side of Penn Avenue, replacing the existing traffic lane from Stanwix Street to 11th Street. Eastbound vehicles would be rerouted to Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue, which run parallel to Penn. Westbound traffic and on-street parking would not change. The plan was outlined at a meeting Tuesday with business interests, bicyclists and others, hosted by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. "This is still very much conceptual, very much in the information gathering stage," said Jeremy Waldrup, the partnership's president and CEO. "It's by no stretch of the imagination a perfect concept," said Stephen Patchan, the city's bicycle-pedestrian coordinator. But the city intends to move quickly, hoping to have the lanes in place before Sept. 8, when it will host the 18th Pro Bike/​Pro Walk/​Pro Place conference, bringing an estimated 1,000 city planners, transportation engineers and bicycling and pedestrian advocates here. Mayor Bill Peduto announced in April that he wanted bikes-only lanes in Downtown in time for the conference. Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2014/06/11/Wheels-are-turning-to-build-bike-only-lanes-in-cultural-district/stories/201406110055#ixzz34Lph7CNO

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified the positive impact of making cities more bike-friendly: "integrating health-enhancing choices into transportation policy has the potential to save lives by preventing chronic diseases, reducing and preventing motor-vehicle-related injury and deaths, improving environmental health, while stimulating economic development, and ensuring access for all people." The CDC also recognized that a lack of efficient transportation alternatives to driving and a fear of biking in heavy traffic only encouraged people to continue to drive all or most of the time.

While streets were once a place where we stopped for conversation and children played, they are now the exclusive domain of cars. Even where sidewalks are present along highways and high-speed streets, they feel inhospitable and out of place. Traffic and road capacity are not the inevitable result of growth. They are the product of very deliberate choices that have been made to shape our communities around the private automobile. We have the ability to make different choices-starting with the decision to design our streets as comfortable places for people. Thankfully, in recent years a growing number of people around the world have stood up and demanded something better. PPS is helping to show the way forward, assisting communities realize a different vision of what transportation can be.

But when Atomic Object put a single bike rack outside its Grand Rapids office, "all of a sudden, there were more bikes than could be secured, so we added another," said Mary O'Neill, business manager of the Grand Rapids-based software development company, which also has an office in Detroit. "Then we realized there were people who wanted to bike in all seasons of the year, so we looked at a place to store bikes inside," O'Neill said. Despite humble Census numbers, more employers in Grand Rapids may be pushed by their workers to follow Atomic Object's lead as the city government works to become more bicycle-friendly and encourage more people to pedal to work. Grand Rapids officials - believing that if they build it, people will pedal - are putting together a 100-mile urban bike network. City officials would like to see 2 percent of the workforce riding bikes to work and dream of being a bicycling mecca like Ann Arbor. In that city, nearly 5 percent of the workforce - or 2,782 of the 56,646 working adults, according to the 2011 Census report - get to work on bikes, the highest percentage of bicycle commuters in Michigan.

Bikes for Goodness Sake is a charity with a mission to share to Goodness of Bicycles with underprivileged children. We are a registered 501 c(3) non-profit. We work local bike shops and corporations to create events and distribute bikes to local children. We aim to create a cycling culture in North America by giving a bike to a child. Each bike we give comes along with a custom fit a helmet. The charity was started by Mark Smith and Pete Buck of Bucks Bikes in Austin, Texas. Our first event was on July 4, 2008. We worked the the Texas Military Family Services and identified 50 recipient children. Our goal for that event was to honor the silent sacrifice of children whose parent serve in the Armed Forces. Here is a video that honored that event.

Protected bike lanes are the latest approach US cities are taking to help their residents get around by bike. But these protected lanes lose their buffer separation at intersections, reducing the comfort and safety for people riding. What the protected bike lane needs is the protected intersection. This proposal for the George Mason University 2014 Cameron Rian Hays Outside the Box Competition presents a vision for a safe, clear intersection design that improves conditions for all users. Proper design of refuge islands, crossing position and signal timing can create a safe intersection that people of all ages and abilities would feel safe in. Learn more online at ProtectedIntersection.com

"Cycling should be made feasible, convenient, and safe for everyone; for women, as well as men, for all age groups, and for a wide range of physical abilities. The authors of this book take the view that cycling should not be limited to cyclists who are highly trained, fit, and daring enough to do battle with motor vehicles on busy roads. As demonstrated in many chapters, getting children, seniors, and women on bikes requires provision of safer and more comfortable cycling conditions than currently exist in most American, Australian, and British cities." (page xii)

CTA makes it easy for you to use your bicycle with transit, including bike parking at stations, racks on the front of buses, and the ability to bring your bike on the train.

Last week the social media world of the New York and Long Island cycling community blew up with outrage over a Suffolk County Legislator's letter to a 17 year old. The letter was in response to the young mans inquiry and call for assistance from...

Imagine getting a $3,000 to $12,000 tax rebate this year. Now imagine it coming again and again. Every year it grows by around a thousand dollars. Imagine how this would change your daily life. Sounds like a teabagger's wet dream, but it's actually a conservative estimate of how much you'd save by ditching your car, or even just one of your cars - and getting on a bicycle instead. Car-centric conditions don't always make it easy to choose the bicycle. Communities designed exclusively for motor vehicles impose a major financial penalty on those who are compelled to take on the expense of driving. But if you're one of those who lives in a bike-friendlier place, you'll be doing your local business community a good turn and padding Uncle Sam's pockets as well as your own if you trade four wheels for two.

A study conducted by researchers at Monash University found more than half of respondents said the availability of end-of-trip facilities affected their decision to ride to work in difficult weather conditions. These facilities include undercover bicycle parking, showers, change rooms and lockers. Lead researcher Farhana Ahmed from the Institute of Transport Studies says the importance of good facilities to accommodate cyclists should not be underestimated. "From my analysis I found more than half of respondents said these end-of-trip facilities help them cope with adverse weather conditions and help them ride to work," she says. The government's National Cycling Strategy, implemented in 2011, aims to double the number of people cycling in Australia by 2016. However, this new research by the Institute of Transport Studies suggests policymakers need to focus on cyclists' preferences if they are to achieve this goal.

In 1866, Congress created the first peacetime all-black Army regiments-the Buffalo Soldiers. There were four regiments in all and members of the 25th Infantry stationed at Fort Missoula became the Bicycle Corps. Bicycling caught the eye of the US military in the late 1800s. In 1896, Fort Missoula's Lieutenant James Moss, a white officer (African American regiments were historically commanded by white officers), was granted permission to establish a Bicycle Corps with soldiers from the 25th Infantry. Their job was to test the bicycle for possible military applications. What resulted was a journey of epic proportions. After shakedown rides to Lake McDonald (126 miles) and Yellowstone National Park (800 miles) in 1896, the men rolled out of Fort Missoula on June 14, 1897 at 5:30 in the morning. Forty-one days and 1900 miles later, they pedaled into their destination, St. Louis. - See more at: http://wabikes.org/2014/02/10/black-history-bike-history/?goback=%2Egde_91090_member_5839075474793316352#sthash.YrfHxVJ4.dpuf

If people young and old made just one in 10 trips by bike, Brits could gain the equivalent of almost one million extra healthy years of life over the next decade, British Cycling said today as it launched a 10 point plan for how Britain can be transformed into a true cycling nation. New research, published today and commissioned by British Cycling from Cambridge University, has also shown that if people replaced just five minutes of the 36 minutes they spend each day in the car with cycling, there would be an almost 5% annual reduction in the health burden from inactivity-related illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, stroke and some cancers.