China continues its slow lurch towards a more just and sustainable society, with two articles on the BBC news website outlining some of Shanghai's efforts to reduce the degradation of its urban environment by a decades-long history of careless development exacerbated by a recent surge in automobile ownership.

One article is a general overview of issues involving the Dongtan Eco-City, a largely car-free development intended for one of Shanghai's river islands.

More comprehensive is an article on how Shanghai is attempting to mitigate the social and environmental effects of rampant growth in the main city itself. Among the key notes:

• The population increased from 13.5 million to 21.5 million in the last 15 years
• The physical size of the city increased sixfold, from just 100 sq km to 680 sq km
• Three ring roads and six motorways now criss-cross the city
• The city has also seen an explosion in car ownership, with over 1 million car owners in 2006, and private car ownership has doubled in two years.
• Shanghai has made it expensive to own a car in the city
• Since the mid-1990s, it has built an extensive metro system, with five lines, now used by 1.8 million people per day, and it is now planning six new lines
• Overall, one-quarter of journeys in Shanghai are by public transport, and the city would like to increase that to 30% by 2010
• Two-thirds of private journeys in Shanghai are by two-wheeled vehicles such as bicycles and scooters
• The city building 180km of dedicated bike lanes, especially in newly built areas like Pudong

To read the entire article, see Can Shanghai Turn Green and Grow?

Richard Risemberg on Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:07:28 -0800 [link]  

The good folks over at Denmark's Cycleliciousness blog finally got tired of hearing how Copenhageners and Amsterdammers and gathered up some statistics showing impressively high transportational cycling use in a variety of hilly Eurotowns, including:

• Parma, italy (19% of all trips by bike)
• Ferrera, Italy (31%)
• Frigid Västerås, Sweden (33%)

And a number of others as well.

We recommend reading the entire good-natured and coherent article on their blog; they call this entry Debunking the Flat Country/Bike Country Myth.

Richard Risemberg on Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:35:24 -0800 [link]  

The panel of experts has made its evaluation, and the People's Choice votes have been counted, so we are happy to announce the winners of the Bicycle Fixation Great Bike Rack Hunt Contest! Kudos to Steve Neff of Bainbridge Island for submitting the People's Choice winner, and to Chris Orr for submitting both the Grand Prize winner and the winner of the "Lanterne Rouge" award for worst rack entered!

For details (and to see the pictures), go to the Results Page now.

We send our heartfelt thanks to all participants, and hope this effort starts a series of dialogues among cyclists and civic leaders over the value of good bike parking in encouraging use of the World's Most Efficient Machine!

Richard Risemberg on Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:52:15 -0800 [link]  

We have just gotten our order in from our factory, and all sizes of our Classic Wool Knickers are now in stock and ready to ship: 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, and 42.

Our next run isn't booked till January, so get them now while we have plenty!

Richard Risemberg on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:44:00 -0800 [link]  

Hey, Chuck Schmidt offered us a new graphic for t-shirts, and it's just beautiful, so mouse on over to our T-Shirts page and take a look--you'll love it!

Tell the world about "Velo Love"!

Richard Risemberg on Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:30:15 -0800 [link]  

Please fill out our Street Tire Survey, as it's time for us to update our review of tires suitable for real-world riding. let us know what tires you prefer to ride day in and day out, wherever you may be.

It doesn't matter what kind of bike or tires you use, as long as you use them for practical riding--let them be racing, mountain, touring, or commuting tires or bikes or any combination thereof; we're interested in waht works for you, not what excites some product manager somewhere.

Go to the Street Tire Survey now; unless you want to upload the optional tire tread picture, it'll take only a few minutes of your time.

Richard Risemberg on Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:19:03 -0800 [link]  

Amsterdam is testing a system they call the "Green Wave" for bicyclists, timing traffic signals along the Raadhuisstraat so that bicyclists traveling at 15kph to 18kph (10mph to 11mph) will not see any red lights at interesections. (Northern European bicycle commuters are almost overwhelmingly non-enthusiasts riding heavy city bikes at about this speed, for whom the bike is simply sensible and pleasant transportation, not an sporting toy.)

Tests in Danish cities showed that cyclist's travel speed there (using perhaps a slightly different timing) increased from an average of 15kph to about 20kph, and that trams and buses using the same streets increased their average speeds as well, while cars were slowed only slightly.

Traffic flow was smoothed, and travel times significantly reduced for the more civilized modes of travel, while car travel was penalized only slightly--a very nice way to balance travel mode incentives and reduce the hidden institutional subsidies and incentives that lead people to choose the dangerous and inefficient personal automobile for urban travel.

To read the entire article, go to Green Wave for Cyclists Tested.

Richard Risemberg on Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:16:26 -0800 [link]  

Wired has blogged a short but sweet article on the world's most bicycle-friendly cities; not very extensive but it has a good photo of a vast bicycle parking lot in Amsterdam, and of course expands recognition of transportational cycling to another segment of an often hitherto-clueless audience.

The criteria used were, oddly enough, those of the League of American Bicyclists, who of course work in one of the least bike-friendly countries on this battered earth, but they're generally worthy guidelines anyway.

Read the article here: Where Are the Most Bicycle-Friendly Cities in the World?, which rather oddly leaves out cities in Japan, where the BF staff has visited and ridden, and where we noted that bicycles were more thoroughly integrated into daily life than even in Holland.

And for you impatient ones, here's the list:

1. Amsterdam
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Copenhagen
4. Boulder, Colorado
5. Davis, California
6. Sandnes, Norway
7. Tronheim, Norway
8. San Francisco, California
9. Berlin
10. Barcelona
11. Basel, Switzerland

It shames us, as lifelong residents of Los Angeles, that none of the cities is in our half of the state, while eight of the ten are in cold, wet, and often snowy places, where ordinary folks nevertheless ride their bikes year-round quite naturally.

Still, we are seeing more bikes every day as we pedal around town, and as we've said before, if it can happen here, at Ground Zero of Carmageddon, it can happen anywhere!

Richard Risemberg on Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:59:16 -0800 [link]  

The entry period for the Bicycle Fixation Great Bike Rack Hunt contest is closed, and we have posted the photos. We will be forwarding them to our panel of experts in a week or so, but meanwhile, our readers have the chance to judge for themselves which of the racks pictured is the best or the worst of class!

The winner of the People's Choice vote will receive a pair of Hemp City Knickers for having found the bike parking rack most respected by practical cyclists.

The "lanterne rouge" who submitted what you decide to be the most clueless bike rack around will receive a James Black Hat. Because it's important to know what mistakes we should avoid in providing bicycle parking facilities.

(The winner of the experts' judgment will receive a pair of our Classic Wool Knickers.)

To view the pictures vote, go to the Popular Vote page

If you didn't hear about the contest earlier, but still want to vote, please see the Contest Page so you know what we're looking for.

And we urge everybody to view the APBP's Bicycle Parking Guidelines to help you with your judging, and to support your arguments for better bicycle parking when you speak to government officials, building managers, employers, and others to ask for bike rack installations.

Because you can park a lot of bikes in the space that just one car takes up.

Richard Risemberg on Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:25:33 -0800 [link]  

Your editor has had another in his series of articles on manufacturers of classic bicycles and components published in Ebykr.com today, so if you're interested you might check out the history of Bayliss-Wiley of England, the first manufacturer ever to make a cassette hub--back in 1938!

Other manufacturers I've written up for Ebykr include:

• Alex Singer
• Bridgestone
• Caminade
• Carlton
• Drysdale
• Gitane
• Goëland
• Legnano
• Rivendell
• Specialités TA
• Stronglight

There are plenty of other articles by other writers as well, making Ebykr an excellent resource for any lover of velocipedes. Enjoy!

Richard Risemberg on Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:09:19 -0800 [link]  

Just read a delightful proposal from residents of Cheviot Hills--not previously known as a hotbed of transit activism--for augmenting a section of the Expo Line light rail system that has just begun construction by integrating bicycle and walking paths and a liner park with daylighted streams (now hidden in storm drains) that would provide native plant and animal habitat and recharge groundwater.

It's a well-thought-out and clearly expressed paper that we strongly recommend to all. This could prove to be even more significant and useful than the Orange Line BRT transitway's bikepath and parkway.

Contains references to other augmented transitways and daylighted creeks in the LA area. Go to:

Exposition Green Corridor (PDF)

From the Light Rail for Cheviot website.

Richard Risemberg on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:37:52 -0800 [link]  

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