Cher the Road

Cher the Road....because bikes are out there all the time....not only when it's Sonny ;)

Our poll asking what kind of cyclist you are has closed and the results are:

#1 I have a bike for every occasion                   44%
#2 I don't know....as long as it has wheels         27%
#3 Road Bikes and Spandex all the way!          16%
#4 I believe bikes are for mountains                  11%

Participate in our new poll...Which type of bicycle facility would you prefer?

Bikes Belong

Would you prefer to live in a community where you had to drive everywhere for everything, or would you prefer to live in a community where you could walk, ride a bicycle, take public transportation, or drive to get to where you want to go?
This question is at the heart of the current debate over how transportation funds will be spent over the next few years. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted on February 2 to eliminate funding for nonmotorized transportation (e.g., bike paths and sidewalks) from the federal transportation bill working its way through Congress. The “wildly imbalanced transportation bill” also imperils federal support for public transportation systems.

Click here for the complete article

BIKE TO WORK WEEK IS COMING....GET INVOLVED!

The Ped/Bike Workshop with the Coeur d’Alene Mayor and City Council will be on Thursday, February 23rd in the Old City Council Chambers at City Hall. (710 Mullan Ave., CdA) It’s being held at noon.

This is a great opportunity to show our City Leaders just how important Ped/Bike infrastructure is to our community. So walk, pedal, or roll to this workshop and come be a part!!!

Not Every City Can Be the Most Bicycle-Friendly

A couple of weeks ago, Chicago transportation commissioner Gabe Klein mentioned to us that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had set a goal for his hometown to become the bike-friendliest city in America. This was right around the time Nate Berg reported on Long Beach, California, which is awkwardly planning to do the same.

A quick Internet search reveals that this is more than just a two-town contest. Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis didn’t even realize other cities seriously thought they were in the running. Davis, California, already has the official motto on lock-down as “most bicycle friendly town in the world” (not to mention the most bicycle-friendly municipal logo). Boston is aiming for the slightly less measurable promise of becoming “the leading bike-friendly city.” Meanwhile, New Orleans also has its eye on the mantle. As do bike advocates in Buffalo, New York, Columbus, Ohio and Flagstaff, Arizona.

This is a great development for the U.S. bike scene. Nothing motivates Americans (and our elected officials) quite like the race to appear in a magazine as the “best” at something. Unfortunately, we can’t all be superlative at the exact same thing at the same time. And so as a public service to the collective imaginations of these and other cities out there, we thought we’d propose a couple of civic distinctions they could aspire to instead. In a world where it will hopefully soon no longer be so notable to befriend cyclists, who wants to fight for these titles?

1. Most Aging Baby-Boomer Friendly City in America. We imagine this would be a place where the public transit is extensive, the walkable one-bedroom housing is ample, the hospitals are superb and no one ever has to shovel the sidewalk.

2. Least Car-Friendly City. It’s one thing to embrace bikes. But are you willing to go all the way and shun cars? Jack up your meter rates, put all your downtown parking garages to more productive use and then accept the political fallout from publicly stating that your city is not meant for cars.

3. Most Solo-Friendly City. More and more Americans are living alone, and those who do don’t want to live in a place where people will look at them funny. In this city, single women don’t fear walking alone at night, there are more Trader Joe's than Costcos, and indoor stroller bans are socially acceptable.

4. Most Transparent City. This town would set national records for the fastest turn-around on FOIA requests, the deepest open-data website and the toughest protections for public access to government business.

5. Least Wasteful City. This title could be awarded to the town that produces the least trash per capita, with bonus points for the maximum use of innovative recycling.

6. Most Edible City. This would be the urban center that produces the largest share of its own food (and has the friendliest laws for doing so) – from rooftop gardens to public fruit trees to backyard chicken farms and bee hives.

7. America’s Best Prepared City for Climate Change. Obviously, the people in this city would first need to admit that climate change exists. Then they would invest actual resources and planning to make sure vulnerable infrastructure and local communities can withstand oddball weather, rising sea levels and strange migrating insects.

8. Least Unequal City. This motto would probably work better on a bumper sticker than “Most Equal City,” which we suspect would confuse folks. This is where the gulf between the highest and lowest earners (and the neighborhoods in which they live) is the smallest. It also may be where 100 percent of the people are in the 99 percent.

9. Hardest City in America To Find and Have a Smoke. We wanted to suggest a public-health honor, but "least obese city" seemed tacky. So this town is one where smokers are least welcome in public places, and where cigarettes are the most expensive to buy where you can find them.

10. America’s Safest City to Cross a Street on Foot. More than just a reflection of walkability, this superlative would also factor in degrees of locally specific aggressive driving behavior and relative ratios of car-on-pedestrian collisions.

Aspiring cities are invited to steal any of these (just please don't all reach for the same one).

by Emily Badger


Emily Badger is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities. She also writes for Miller-McCune, and her work has appeared in GOOD, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times. She lives in Washington, D.C. All posts »

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Coexisting With Bicyclists: 10 Rules for Drivers

Love Them or Hate Them, Cyclists Have Road Rights

Horrific accidents involving bicyclists and drivers have made headlines recently, including a 2010 collision between an SUV and a bicycle in Largo, Maryland. On the bike was 30-year-old law student and Green Party candidate Natasha Pettigrew. The driver thought she had struck a deer and kept driving, according to news reports. Pettigrew later died from the injuries.
Traffic accidents involving bicyclists and vehicles killed 630 people in the U.S. in 2009, the latest available figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Another 51,000 bicyclists were injured, sometimes critically.
Bicycling advocates say drivers can play a big role in reducing those grim statistics, paving the way for peaceful coexistence. It's a two-way street, of course. Bicyclists have responsibilities, just as drivers do.
For this story, Edmunds.com asked bicycling advocates, bicycling-accident attorneys and other experts to give their recommendations on how drivers can coexist more peacefully with bicyclists. In a companion story, we'll outline bicyclists' responsibilities. But for you drivers, here are our 10 rules of the road for driving near bicyclists.

For the complete article click here

Two Wheels and High Heels

Ten lessons from the great cycling cities.

Christine Grant on January 23, 2012 at 10:08 am

Kyoto

In the Seattle suburb where I grew up, the main transportation choice most residents face is what kind of car to buy. I moved to Seattle after college and, inspired by the “car-lite” lifestyles of several friends, decided to give cycling a try.

I fell in love with it. Urban cycling freed me from slow buses, parking meters, and mind-numbing elliptical machines. I arrived at work with more energy. I lost weight. I discovered charming neighborhood restaurants. I could smell fresh laundry and dinners in the oven while I pedaled home through residential streets. Getting from A to B on my bike became the best part of my day.
Recently, I won a fellowship and got to spend six months living life on two wheels in the world’s most bike-friendly cities. I brought home ten lessons, and thousands of photographs, for Cascadia:

1.) It’s the infrastructure, stupid! Amazing infrastructure makes cycling normal and safe in bike meccas, but not yet in the Northwest. For example, parked cars to the left of the bike lane not only provide a barrier between motorized traffic and cyclists, they also minimize a cyclist’s chance of getting “doored.” Most cars in Denmark (pictured) only have one occupant, the driver, and drivers get out on the left. Same goes for the Northwest.

Click here for the entire article

Most Americans Want a Walkable Neighborhood, Not a Big House

The symbol of American success often involves having the biggest house possible, but our outsized fantasies seem to be shifting. According to a new survey, more than three quarters of us consider having sidewalks and places to take a walk one of our top priorities when deciding where to live. Six in 10 people also said they would sacrifice a bigger house to live in a neighborhood that featured a mix of houses, stores, and businesses within an easy walk.

For once, our preferences align with our impending reality; in the future, we may not have a choice whether or not to downsize our lifestyles. The housing bust exposed that the McMansion phenomenon is unsustainable, which has forced us to re-examine our priorities. In another study in 2010, the ideal number of square footage people desired for their houses dropped dramatically. It's becoming increasingly clear that the American dream of buying a big old house will need to be revised for the youngest generation.

Regardless of our financial situation, living in walkable areas is just better for us. There have been numerous studies concluding that suburban and rural lifestyles are actually less healthy than cities, while New York City, the mother of all walking cities, enjoys a record-high life expectancy. Urban planners are already trying to figure out ways to design suburbs that necessitate less driving. Things that are good for us all too often require a bit of sacrifice. But in this case, our ideal and our fate are perfectly in line.

Dutch Kids Pedal Their Own Bus To School

In the Netherlands, bikes abound. And now, they even take kids to school. Behold, the bicycle school bus.

The Dutch are bicycle fanatics. Almost half of daily travel in the Netherlands is by bicycle, while the country’s bike fleet comfortably outnumbers its 16 million people. Devotees of the national obsession have taken the next logical step by launching what is likely the first bicycle school bus.
Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.
Co.Exist spoke with Thomas Tolkamp who built the BCO about its origins and how the idea is catching on around the world for the sets of 11 lucky kids who get to arrive in school pedaling their own school bus.
Co.Exist: What was the inspiration for the bus?
Tolkamp: I had already made other big bikes (like the Beerbikes) and a few years ago someone mailed me with the question if I could develop a bike especially for transporting kids. So for that other company (a child care) I made the first bicycle. Some other companies were also interested, so I began to produce more bicycles and have improved the bike.
How many of these have been sold? How many are in use?
We’ve sold around 25 bikes. They are still all in use, except for the very first one, which was a prototype.

Does it only come in yellow?
No, we’ve sold bicycles in green, blue, purple, grey, red, yellow, but all [standard] colors are available.

How much does it cost?
Around $15,000, so less than a taxi or normal bus.

Can the kids alone make it go?
It’s possible to ride the bike without the motor when most seats are in use, but it wouldn’t be safe to ride without an adult.

Do you have plans to export it?
We have already exported some bikes to Belgium and Germany, but not this kind of bike. We have gotten frequent requests for information about the bike from all around the world (North America, South America, Europe) but we’ve never sold a bike outside of Europe.

Do you think it will work well in other countries, or is it something special about the Dutch culture?
I don’t know really, but what I do know is that people from all around the world like the idea. We have gotten interest from the press all over the world and all people are positive.
I hope I can sell the bike in the near future to a foreign country and see how people at other countries react on the bike. I think it will work well in other countries, because as more and more people [are] becoming fat and "green living" becomes more important, ideas like this get more popular.

Hat tip: Yes! Magazine