The US Was Once A World Leader In Bike Lanes – Can We do It Again?

Read the surprising history (and see amazing photos!) about when the US was a world leader in bike lanes.  In the years before cars took over bike super-highways, cycle paths, and sidepaths enabled people to reach destinations in Rochester, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York (in particular, Coney Island), New Jersey, and Los Angeles.

Now cities all over the US like Asbury Park, are acknowledging the need to reduce/eliminate the use of automobiles, and rebuilding infrastructure for bikes and other micro-mobility.

In 1900, Los Angeles had a bike highway — and the US was a world leader in bike lanes

Los Angeles’ partially-completed California Cycleway, in 1900.
 (Pasadena Museum of History)

“The success of the Coney Island Cycle Path spurred cyclists in Upstate New York to push for local governments to build similar bike-specific routes that would run alongside roads, funded by tolls.

The idea was that by building these relatively smooth, sometimes paved paths — often called “sidepaths” — next to rutted country roads, cyclists would demonstrate the benefits of road investment to teamsters and farmers, who’d then support the campaign for paved roads in general.

These routes were distinct from sidewalks and were intended specifically to segregate bikes from horse and carriage traffic with a few feet of grass or other buffer. More than anything, they resemble today’s protected bike lanes, which are set off from roads with bollards, parked cars, or other physical barriers.”

Read about it!

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/30/8861327/bike-lanes-history

 

Don’t Fling Open The Driver Door – Learn The Dutch Reach

Bicyclist injuries and deaths occur when a driver opens the door into the path of person on a bike, either causing the person on the bike to hit the door, or forcing her into the traffic lane. Learn to do it here.

 

This simple change in the way you get out of your car can save lives — of cyclists, drivers and passengers. Here’s how to do it, and why it’s so effective.

By Oct. 5, 2018

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Parking Revolution

Would this be a revolution in Asbury Park?  “We need more parking!” is the familiar refrain. The fact is that we can’t create more parking. We have #toomanycars. The best ways to reduce the use of, and need for cars in any city is to reduce the availability of parking, and make it less desirable to drive. The solution is to make it more desirable to use alternative transportation, walk or bike. “Talkin’ ’bout a revolution…”

A Modest Proposal to Eliminate 11,000 Urban Parking Spots

Feargus O’Sullivan Mar 29, 2019

Amsterdam plans to systematically strip its center of parking spaces in the coming years, making way for bike lanes, sidewalks, and more trees.

A woman parks her bike beneath boxes of daffodils on a bridge in Amsterdam, Netherlands April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Coombs – RC190EAE23D0

This week, Amsterdam is taking its reputation for pro-bike, anti-car polices one step further by announcing that it will systematically strip its inner city of parking spaces.

Amsterdam transit commissioner Sharon Dijksma announced Thursday that starting this summer, the city plans to reduce the number of people permitted to park in the city core by around 1,500 per year. These people already require a permit to access a specific space (and the cost for that permit will also rise), and so by reducing these permits steadily in number, the city will also remove up to 11,200 parking spaces from its streets by the end of 2025.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/amsterdam-cars-parking-spaces-bike-lanes-trees-green-left/586108/

Bike Lanes Are The Best Fix For Traffic Congestion

Cities are at peak car.  Traffic congestion and crashes are a constant issue.  It’s been shown over and over that adding bike lanes (and walking infrastructure) is a cheap and easy fix in large cities like Toronto, and in small cities it’s even easier.  Let’s commit to bike infrastructure. We’ll patiently wait for naysayers and car addicts to calm down as traffic eases and crashes are reduced.

Bike lanes prove that transportation solutions can be cheap and effective

Read about it…

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2019/01/11/bike-lanes-prove-that-transportation-solutions-can-be-cheap-and-effective.html