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Post by rikita on Feb 24, 2013 14:09:50 GMT
well in berlin the bike paths vary even between parts of the city. some areas have good ones, others have none...
but i think you are right in that there are probably just as many accidents with babies in cars (often maybe also due to distracted parents when the baby starts crying) as with bikes... just, as i said, having your baby in front of you (or on your bag) with a baby sling or similar, that seems going a bit too far...
maybe it also depends how you define baby here - there's a difference if we are speaking about a three month old or a ten month old or an 18 month old...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2013 17:46:48 GMT
One of the places in Paris where they have made sensational bike lanes is along the T3 tramway line. The huge boulevards where the tramway goes used to have three lanes in each direction. Reducing it to two lanes in each direction has allowed the city to widen the sidewalks and add the bus lanes.
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Post by tod2 on Feb 24, 2013 19:55:12 GMT
What a brilliant ( but looks rather boring) bike path! I could do that for sure as a first attempt on a Velib. In your first photo - on the extreme left - I notice what seems to be the remainder of an old signal tower for trains?? The ones where they pulled those long switches either up or down to change the rail lines.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2013 20:03:16 GMT
Yes, there are old freight rail lines along that section, which is in the 12th arrondissement, between Porte de Bercy and Porte de Charenton. It's true that it is not a scenic area.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 6, 2013 19:24:55 GMT
Yes, those are lovely utilitarian bicycle paths. Unfortunately not everywhere one cycles, drives or takes public transport is scenic. I do like the old signal tower. Perhaps they can plant more trees, and better public transport will promote urban renewal. Here is a cute Dutch video reminding road users (car drivers, bus drivers and cyclists) to remember to stop at red lights. It targets young people as studies have shown they are most likely to run a red light - though remember, older drivers can also be distracted. bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/traffic-safety-must-be-celebrated/ The road death rate has halved in Utrecht, but they would like to bring it down to zero.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2013 23:39:29 GMT
Considering the fact that the Vélib bikes are supposed to be for utilitarian purposes, I don't think that most of the users worry about whether the route they take is scenic or not -- they just want to get where they are going. Interestingly enough, just 2 days ago, I was back in this zone to take the tramway. But tramway service was suspended due to "severe personal injury" (I presume that the tramway hit a car somewhere along the line or vice versa.). I just jumped on a Vélib and pedaled my way along this very section to get to Porte de Vincennes where the second half of tramway 3 was still running normally.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 20, 2013 5:07:56 GMT
Taken tonight, April 19 ~~
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Post by lagatta on Apr 20, 2013 13:21:18 GMT
Wonderful! There have been many such initiatives in recent years in other Mexican cities, even in DF! DIY bicycle infrastructure in Guadalajara: www.copenhagenize.com/2011/01/diy-bicycle-infrastructure-in.htmlI had to put my glasses on to read your poster; it shows up very small on my computer screen and doesn't enlarge when I click on it. Did manage to read it with glasses. In Mexico, do people usually write 9 pm and not horas 21?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2013 13:34:59 GMT
That's exciting Bixa. I don't recall seeing too many cyclists in and or around Oaxaca while visiting there. I'll bet you're wishing you had your old Raleigh now that you're in a living situation that would be ideal for cycling.
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Post by htmb on May 12, 2013 13:22:15 GMT
Ron Cunningham, the long-time editorial page editor of The Gainesville Sun and current executive director of Bike Florida, writes about bike share programs in this featured column. Ron and his wife traveled to Washington, DC where they found the bike share program easy to use and very efficient. They biked around the city, stopping at various embassies hosting open house events, as well as a restaurant where Langston Hughes used to bus tables. Ron also reminisces about the ill-fated Gainesville bike share program initiated in the year 2000, when the progressive city of Gainesville was once again ahead of its time, though the results were less than satisfying. The joys and economies of bike sharing done correctly, by Ron Cunningham
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2013 7:15:28 GMT
The city of La Rochelle tried a system of 350 free yellow bikes in 1974. They were all gone within a year.
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Post by htmb on May 26, 2013 16:19:09 GMT
As early as that? Interesting.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2013 16:24:08 GMT
And Amsterdam had already tried it in 1965. All of the (white) bikes were stolen the first month -- or thrown into the canals. People are horrible. Cambridge, UK also tried it in 1993 but the 300 (green) bikes also disappeared within a year.
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Post by htmb on May 26, 2013 16:28:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2013 14:37:24 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on May 27, 2013 20:45:53 GMT
6,000! Hooray for starting off doing it right. Have you seen the latest cover of the New Yorker? Here's a short interview with the artist, who's a cyclist in the city.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2013 11:24:59 GMT
, Thanks for that! Everyone I spoke with in NY were enthusiastic about this. I think it's the cabbies and delivery people who are not very thrilled....
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2013 11:34:21 GMT
Most of the articles that I read always mention that Paris is the main bike sharing city with our 20,600 bikes. But it's not true -- the biggest programme in the world is in the city of Hangzhou in China with 61,000 bikes.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2013 11:43:52 GMT
Jeez, that's alot. Most of the articles I've read cite Paris as being the ideal model that most cities have followed. Must be doing something right.
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Post by rikita on May 28, 2013 11:54:39 GMT
hm, people stealing bikes, while i don't approve, i can understand a bit - but throwing into the canals? why?
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Post by mossie on May 28, 2013 13:27:59 GMT
People do all sorts of stupid things with bikes When I was younger, very, very much younger, I had the bright idea one Sunday morning about 4am to put all our mess garden furniture on the mess roof . I enlisted the help of the remaining 2 or 3 still upright to help me, but finished by finding a bicycle belonging to the most senior member of the mess. This I perched on top of the chimney ;D When the mess staff came in to work later they had they task of getting everything down, but they left the bike. When I surfaced at lunchtime I was pounced on as the most likely culprit and ordered to get it down. That was far more difficult for me in the state I was in, than it had been to put it up there. ;D ;D ;D Another daft bike story. When I was on a squadron in England we had a new CO. One evening he came back with us from the pub to the sergeants mess, which was not a normal event. He was of the old school, and in fact had flown Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. He was trying to engage us rather disenchanted NCOs and brought with him some of the other squadron officers. I had been in trouble earlier for riding a station issued bicycle, not mine, in the mess one night and damaging it. This resulted in a notice on station orders, which were posted up weekly, to the effect. "Sgt Verney is banned from riding station bicycles" ;D ;D. One has to know what the connotation "station bicycle" means to realise the hilarity at my expense. Any way back to our new CO. We flew in crews of 2, a pilot to fly the aircraft and a navigator to control him onto his target by means of radar. Imagine for a moment driving your car at night with no lights, or street lights. You have a companion who by magic can see in the dark and so gives you driving instructions . So in the mess, our CO had the long tables pushed together to form a long strip, he then attemted to ride a bicycle along it with his unfortunate navigator perched on the handlebar giving direction. . They did not reach the end of the table and so failed to make an interception
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Post by lagatta on May 29, 2013 1:06:07 GMT
Ha!
The NYC CitiBikes are made in Québec. They are Bixi bikes, as are the Barclay bikes in London, the Capital bikes in both Ottawa and Washington, and several others. Expertise, but also a competitive advantage for aluminium, as the Saguenay region in central-Northern Québec has a huge reserve of hydroelectric energy.
New Yorker cover is very cute. I see that gym every day, near my place, pedalling by. Also note the pedestrian in the background, getting exercise by walking dog.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 3, 2013 22:33:54 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2013 22:46:25 GMT
I KNEW this was going to be controversial and it has been "political" for some time. Damn the naysayers and let's see how it goes!!!!! GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2013 3:47:11 GMT
It's funny that they would be attacked on their colour, but it is perfectly true that the colour of the Parisian Vélib bikes was carefully chosen to be as unobtrusive as possible. And I must admit that whenever I'm in a city that has chosen brightly coloured municipal bikes, I find them rather garish.
Frankly, I don't find the NYC colour all that bad compared to some that I have seen.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2013 13:23:50 GMT
Yes, our Bixis are silvery, similar to the Parisian Vélib, but a slightly different design. Ms Rabinowitz is nuts, but she actually has a point about the blue CitiBikes' colour - but isn't her argument odd for someone speaking on behalf of a business newspaper? CitiBikes are branding, for the CitiBank, using its corporate colour. Like the Barclay aka Boris bikes, though those are a more "distinguished" tone of blue.
Obviously NYC is not London is not Paris is not Amsterdam. Improving cyclability and walkability in cities (and cleaner air, fewer motor-vehicle crashes etc) involves studying best practices (obviously starting with cities with a very high modal share for bicycles and a very low serious accident rate for them, i.e. Amsterdam and Copenhagen) and adapting these practices to a wide variety of urban areas.
Many New Yorkers are thrilled with the recent increase in pedestrianized zones. The "traffic patterns" changed had become a disaster.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2013 22:30:57 GMT
Call me stupid, but I don't get what's wrong with the blue color. Really, a case could be made for all shared bikes everywhere to be that weird lime-ish "safety" color or maybe "safety orange". Unobtrusive and understated aren't such great things for a small person-powered vehicle in a world of automobiles. Pretty! -------->
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2013 22:34:56 GMT
That's because you live in colourful Mexico. However, it is really silly to criticise the colour of the bikes if one thinks yellow coloured taxis are normal.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2013 13:28:29 GMT
I suspect that there is a very long-standing fued going on here between Ms Rabinowitz and Mayor Bloomberg. They are from the same milieu - Bloomberg News is also a business news provider, hence a rival of the WSG. They are both of Northeastern-European-Jewish descent, however Bloomberg grew up in the Boston area, not NYC, and seem to be about the same age (the only cue I have to Ms. Rabinowitz's age is one unconfirmed reference to 1939 birth, but I could be catty and say she looks MUCH older than Mr Bloomberg, who was born in 1942).
While conservative in terms of fiscal and foreign policy, Bloomberg tends to be what in the US is called "socially-liberal", and in what might be key in Rabinowitz's animosity, believes that man-made climate change is real, and calls for reducing carbon emissions and increasing public transport.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 6, 2013 16:10:19 GMT
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