Today’s post is going to be a little different. That’s because this will be my last blog entry here at Streetsblog.net.

I just want to say what a privilege and an honor it has been to work with so many talented, dedicated bloggers over the past 18-plus months. Together we have built an amazing network of people who care about active, sustainable transportation and the future of our nation’s communities. We’ve had a lot of meaningful conversation. And it’s been great fun.

My colleagues here at Streetsblog will continue this work, highlighting the best the Streetsblog Network has to offer.

As for me, I’m taking a little time off before starting in September at Grist, where I’ll be covering cities and placemaking.

In the meantime, I’ll be hanging out on Twitter — I’m @buttermilk1 — and at my blog, Pursuit of Happiness.

Earlier this week, we wrote about a Mike Pintek, a Pittsburgh radio show host who joked about hitting bicyclists with his car.

Today, we read in the Chicago Bicycle Advocate Blog about two young men who were convicted of hunting down bicyclists to hit with their car — while they were drunk.

Good thing they were convicted, you might think. But when you hear the sentences they received, you might be shocked:

The second man charged with intentionally hunting down and striking a bicyclist in Brookfield on May 31, 2009 has been sentenced to zero jail time. The driver, 20-year-old Erik Fabian, pled guilty to aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and leaving the scene of an accident.  He was sentenced to two years probation.  Fabian’s buddy, Armando Reza, was sentenced last week to 10 days in jail for the same incident, a seemingly light sentence that has outraged a good many Chicago bicyclists. According to the Chicago Breaking News Center, the two were drinking before deciding to drive around looking for bicyclists to hit. Both men were sentenced by Cook County Judge Carol Kipperman.

The Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago bicycle advocacy group, has expressed outrage at the "insufficient sentences" given to the men. This morning the group started a letter-writing campaign directed at Cook County State’s Attorney, Anita Alvarez, and assistant state’s attorney, Mike Pattarozzi, to justify these negotiated sentences. According to the Alliance the crimes with which the men were charged were eligible for penalties of up to 2-5 years in jail.

According to a news story about the incident, the two men dared each other to commit the assaults. It was like a game to them — they even pulled over to switch seats so they could each get a chance to play. Fortunately, neither of the people they struck was seriously injured. But it’s not hard to imagine how differently it might have turned out.

And yet, in a culture where assault with a vehicle is routinely joked about, prosecutors are willing to cut offenders an easy deal.

More from around the network: Xing Columbus writes in praise of car-pooling. M-Bike.org has some news about more funding for the Underground Railroad bike route. And Atlanta Bicycle Coalition reports on a $5 million boost for a major bike trail in that city.

Today we’ve got news from member blog Dotage St. Louis about a sweet new initiative from the National Parks Service (NPS) called "Core of Discovery." Aimed at tourists visiting the city’s Gateway Arch (an NPS property), it highlights various attractions of St. Louis’s downtown — historic architecture, bike rentals to enjoy the path along the Mississippi, the new Citygarden sculpture park and many others.

The Core of Discovery website is beautifully designed, and the NPS is also using social media — including a Flickr group that already has some quite stunning content — to draw visitors into an exploration of what urban St. Louis has to offer. The effort dovetails with a major design competition focused on better integrating the Gateway Arch grounds into the city’s urban fabric. Here’s what Dotage St. Louis has to say:

With the ongoing City Arch River 2015 design competition, it’s great to see the NPS express its dedication towards connecting the Arch to downtown in the meantime.… It might seem like a small step on the part of the NPS, but clearly much thought has gone into the design of this site and the marketing of our downtown. I applaud this effort and am excited that I’ll be here in person to witness the more radical interventions that will be proposed this fall as a part of the Archgrounds International Design Competition.

More from around the network: Half Mile Circles writes about a new report about the effect of compact development on greenhouse gas emissions. Transit Miami writes about the threat to some Miami Beach bike lanes. And One Speed: Go! has a philosophical meditation on the benefits of riding a tandem.

A tip of the hat goes to our member blog Fort Worthology for being part of the bike parking solution in Fort Worth, Texas.

Just a few months ago, the city approved an ambitious "Bike Fort Worth" bicycle transportation plan, which aims to create nearly 1,000 miles of bike lanes — up from 100 miles today. Of course, the growing number of people on bicycles in town means a growing need for places to park bikes. That’s where yesterday’s Fort Worthology post picks up. Kevin Buchanan writes:

It’s not every day that we get to report on something we actually had a hand in, but today is one of those days. Fort Worth South, Inc. wanted to improve the bike parking situation in the Near Southside as part of their larger goal of huge bike infrastructure improvements across the district, and they decided they wanted some outside help. So they called us and Trinity Bicycles up and asked if we’d collaborate on a new bike parking improvement plan. After a lot of discussion, many meetings and several in-the-field work sessions identifying parking locations, ideal setups and more, we put together a comprehensive bike parking plan. Now, we’re happy to report, Phase One of the plan has been approved by the city and funded by the Near Southside TIF (Tax Increment Finance district), so we can give some details.

While we’re still finalizing the number of racks and such, we can say that this will be a pretty dramatic increase in bike parking, even in Phase One. At the moment, there are approximately 12 of the city-installed Texas star “lollipop” racks across the entire district.… Even in the best of cases, the Texas star racks are less than ideal — they look more like street art than bike racks, making them not obvious to riders, and there are simply too few of them and in too few locations. With the large increases in bike traffic in the Near Southside in the last year or so, thanks to the Magnolia Avenue bike lanes, groups like the Night Riders and a continued increase in new urban residents, the existing bike parking infrastructure was becoming very inadequate to meet resident and visitor needs.

As mentioned above, we’re still finalizing all the numbers, so we can’t give a specific number yet, but we’re fairly confident that you can look forward to dozens of new [simple 'staple'] racks in Phase One. 

Nice work. The bicycle transportation scene in that part of Texas has a lot of potential.

More from around the network: The Dead Horse Times analyzes plans for a Columbia River crossing between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Walkable Dallas-Forth Worth asks, What is livability? And The City Fix kicks off a great new series on "Access for All" with a post about Rio street dwellers and how their lives are affected by the lack of good public transit.

Last year, we posted a piece about a couple of shock jocks in Detroit who thought it was funny to talk about throwing things at bicyclists.

This year, the hateful talk is coming over the airwaves from Pittsburgh.

Streetsblog Network member blog Reimagine an Urban Paradise has been following the story of a Pittsburgh DJ, Mike Pintek of KDKA, who made some ugly remarks about being "tempted" to hit people on bikes with his car. The audio has been taken down, but here’s a partial transcript of what Pintek said from Reimagine’s author, Lolly:

"There are some bicyclists who are just these arrogant little dorks that think they can do anything they want because they’re on a bicycle and ‘we’re being green and environmentally friendly’…

"I have been thoroughly tempted — I haven’t done it ’cause I’m not going to do it — I’m not that kind of person…but I have been so tempted to just bump ‘em.

"I have been so tempted to pull up behind them when they’re doing this — you know spread out across the road — put my car in neutral, jam the accelerator down, race the engine and scare the living crap out of them.

"They’ve got to stop being so arrogant about what they’re doing. They’ve got to obey the rules. They have to do the right thing or else they’re going to get killed."

This all is playing out in a city where several bicyclists have been attacked in recent weeks by gangs of kids, as reported by Bike PGH.

Reimagine’s Lolly has this to say about what she thinks the consequences should be for the DJ:

Driver’s licenses are a privilege, not a right and if a person announces their desire to use their vehicle as a weapon, they should lose their license. If they use their job to incite others to commit violence, they should lose that job.

She also notes that in the case of a San Francisco driver who allegedly did target people on bikes and used his vehicle as a weapon, the charges are felony attempted murder.

PGH Is a City and WWVB have more. Apparently Pintek is going to talk about what he said on his show today. We’ll keep an eye on it.

On another note entirely, we’d like to thank the folks at the Top Online Engineering Degree blog for including Streetsblog.net on their list of Top 50 Blogs for Civil Engineers to Read. It’s a terrific list that we’re looking forward to digging into. You should definitely check it out. And we’re honored to be included.

Yesterday, we asked if you thought the BP oil spill was changing anyone’s driving habits. The consensus — sadly — was a resounding no. While there’s plenty of anger at BP CEO Tony Hayward, few people seem willing to examine the role consumer demand plays in risky deep-water drilling. And even if they are willing to consider it, many people have no alternative to driving.

Still, there’s no question that a lot of people could reduce the amount of driving they do, and the amount of gas they burn, if they really wanted to. Today on the Streetsblog Network, member blog RIDE Solutions of Roanoke, Virginia, puts forth the case for cutting time behind the wheel as a response to the catastrophe in the Gulf:

Moving your money from one oil company to another doesn’t really do much to affect the voracious appetite we have for oil that drives companies like BP to make risky and reckless decisions about where to drill.  Blame BP all you want — and you should — for lax safety systems, but they wouldn’t be there in the first place if it weren’t for our demand for gas, and our demand that it stay cheap.

So, if you want to act in a way that really has an impact, there are two main things I would recommend:

Drive less:  This is the obvious one, the harder one, and the one that has the most impact.  The more you can stay off the road, or replace oil-powered trips with human-powered ones, the more real impact you have on reducing our dependence on oil.  Not only that, but driving less has additional positive benefits that a boycott, even a successful one, wouldn’t; you’re polluting less, helping keep the air in the Roanoke and the New River Valleys clean. You’re contributing to the conservation of our amazing green space — less driving means fewer roads, less sprawl, fewer parking lots, and more parks, trees, greenways and other greenspace.  You’re reducing your carbon footprint, and you’re probably going to get physically healthier at the same time .…

Go Local: Perhaps not so obvious as driving less, but still important. The energy required to get goods from one side of the country to another is incredible and a significant component of
the country’s transportation fuel consumption. Shopping locally is not only good for fresher food and more local employment opportunities, it means that the stuff you’re buying didn’t travel nearly as far to get here. Bicycling to the local farmer’s market and filling your basket with fruits and veggies is a double-punch to BP’s gut; neither you nor the food you’re buying took much oil to get to the market.

Even if you don’t drive yourself, you have friends and family who do. Take this opportunity to talk to them about driving less. These conversations can be uncomfortable — I know, because I’ve had them. But they’re important.

More from around the network: Gary Rides Bikes doesn’t want to put up with impatient drivers any longer. EcoVelo has some helpful hints on how to trigger traffic lights with your bike. And Utility Cycling is looking for your stories of getting around on two wheels.

An antiquated technology. (Photo: eyermonkey via Flickr)

As a couple of Streetsblog Network members, including Seattle Transit Blog, have noted, today is "Dump the Pump" day, organized by the American Public Transportation Association. It’s an annual event in its fifth year, designed to give a little positive PR to the public transit sector. But this time around, events in the Gulf of Mexico give it a new kind of resonance.

Over at NRDC Switchboard, here’s what Deron Lovaas has to say (disclosure: NRDC is a partner in the event):

While public transportation plays second fiddle to the auto when it comes to mileage traveled in the U.S., it plays a crucial role in our metropolitan areas, the largest 100 of which host two-thirds of our population and most of our GDP. Regions across the country would be gridlocked without it. It saves 300,000 barrels of oil a day, much more than the Deepwater Horizon wreck has been spewing into the Gulf, and it cuts heat-trapping pollution by 37 million metric tons a year.

And it’s making a comeback this century, as we all come to grips anew with the perils of our massive addiction to oil (we consume almost 20 million barrels a day of the black stuff). From 1995-2008, while traffic on our roads grew 21 percent, transit ridership grew almost twice that much (38 percent). And new
analysis from the Department of Transportation shows that with adequate investments ridership could rise faster, which when deployed as part of a comprehensive strategy to increase travel efficiency including road pricing, intelligent transportation technology, more compact land development and other measures could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5-17 percent by 2030.

In short, public transportation currently makes us more energy secure, and boosting its share of travel can and must be a key component in any strategy to drive our oil dependence down in the future. I hope you will join me in taking advantage of bus or train service in your area, and if you don’t have easy access I urge you to lobby your city, county and state to do a better job of providing it.

Here’s our question to you: Has the Deepwater Horizon spill made you or anyone you know reconsider their car commute? Do you feel any differently about pumping gas? Could this be the thing that would make you "dump the pump"? Or are there simply no other travel options in your part of the world?

Bonus question: Do you think that sustainable transportation advocates are making good use of the "teaching moment" that the Gulf disaster potentially provides?

Let us know in the comments.

More from around the network: Hot-weather biking tips from Cartky.org in Louisville,
Kentucky. A report on Miami bike-sharing from Livin in the Bike Lane. And news of another online tool to help you assess your street’s walkability, from Andy Nash Network.

Are garages charging bike parking prices that the market is unlikely to bear? (Photo: Bicycles Only via Flickr)

Today on the Streetsblog Network, Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt writes at How We Drive about the cost of bike parking at Manhattan garages. (New York’s larger garages have been required to offer bike parking since late last year, and they haven’t always been happy about it.)

Vanderbilt’s post is prompted by a piece in the Wall Street Journal about one East Side garage that is charging a cool $175 (plus tax) for a monthly bike parking space. The WSJ’s Ralph Gardner basically thanks the garage for charging so much because he’s terrified of riding his bike in the city to begin with.

Vanderbilt wonders what kind of economic thinking is behind the garage’s decision to set such a high rate:

The first question that came to my mind was why it was so expensive (when presumably you could fit upwards of a dozen bikes in a standard car spot), and then, secondly, why garages would charge such a high amount if no one seemed willing to pay it. Wouldn’t it better to make half (or anything above) the theoretical profit than no profit at all? I don’t know how these garages are set up, but if parking that bike means having to have an attendant park and retrieve it for you, I suppose the garages want to make sure the transaction costs are covered — i.e., if they charged cyclists ten bucks a month but then had to send attendants in search of bikes (when they could be retrieving more lucrative cars). In other words, do they essentially charge that much to not have to deal with the aggravation of dealing with parked bikes?

Good questions all. Has anyone out there found a good garage rate for parking bikes in Manhattan? Or, perhaps more to the point, has anyone out there found a garage that actually seems to see this as a business opportunity rather than as an obligation to be avoided at any cost? Will prices shake out if and when demand becomes more apparent?

By the way, Vanderbilt is hosting a very cool forum over at Slate called Nimble Cities. Here’s the idea: They’re looking for smart new ideas about transportation within and between cities. Submit your own brilliant solution, vote on the ideas of others, and see what rises to the top. Vanderbilt will write about the best concepts in more depth as the month progresses.

Introducing students to the awesomeness of bus travel. (Photo: Santa Rosa CityBus)

Even though I had been riding the bus with my parents since I was very little, I can still remember the nervousness I felt about making the trip on my own for the first time. Would I recognize my stop in time? Would I be able to pull the signal cord to get the driver's attention? What if I went too far?

I can also remember the sense of pride and freedom I felt when the trip went smoothly. And my excitement at the realization that I could take the bus not just to school, but to a friend's house, or to the bookstore I loved way downtown. My world had opened up, all because of a bus system.

So a recent post from Streetsblog Network member blog Santa Rosa CityBus about kids learning to ride the bus caught my eye. This California city has a program to educate groups in the ways of the bus system:

Santa Rosa CityBus offers FREE travel training classes for groups who want to have someone help them learn our transit system in "real time". This service is generally used by seniors, students and those who have mobility challenges.

Santa Rosa CityBus was contacted by teachers from both Santa Rosa High School and Slater Middle School who wanted their students to learn how to use public transit. Both instructors realize that knowing how to read and understand the system route map and time schedule is a very valuable life skill and more than worth taking the time to learn.

So last week, 39 Santa Rosa students and 8 school staff members were treated to a comprehensive, hands-on training program. CityBus staff met the students at their schools and started the training by providing a general introduction to Santa Rosa CityBus, including helpful information on fares, bus tickets, monthly passes and transfers... Feedback from students is always very positive. They really enjoy the class and, as a result, feel confident to use Santa Rosa CityBus to travel around town.

In a way, it strikes me as too bad that the kids can't learn how to use the bus from parents and other family members, the way that I did. But the reality of many American cities is that no one in the family uses anything but a car for transportation. I have plenty of grown-up friends from other parts of the country who are intimidated by using public transit in their own cities or any other. So I think it's great that Santa Rosa is doing something to change that -- to show kids that independence and connection to a larger world don't have to depend on a personal motor vehicle.

More from around the network: Discovering Urbanism on learning from the early family-friendly suburbs. The Transport Politic on how to make transit commuting more interesting. And Newton Streets and Sidewalks on ticketing bicyclists who break the law.

Finding a safe place to cross can be hazardous to your health. (Photo: jr????? via Flickr)

Today on the Streetsblog Network, reports of obstacles for pedestrians from two states.

First, from Massachusetts, some observations about crosswalk design. In theory, a crosswalk with a signal and a button for a pedestrian to activate the signal should be a welcoming sight for someone traveling on foot. But as TransitBoston points out in a post this morning, the presence of that button is often window-dressing for an intersection that functions poorly for anyone not traveling by car:

At least one intersection in Newton requires three entire light cycles to cross from corner to corner. Here is a dramatization of the process: Press a button. Wait a minute. Cross. Stop. Press another button. Wait a minute. Cross. Stop. Press a third button. Wait a minute. Cross… Whew, that was exhausting. And it was only 150 feet of walking. That is a walk signal functioning (by some meaning of the word) as designed, and it is not really much of an outlier as crosswalk signals go. Many other crosswalks require at least two cycles to go from corner to corner.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, WalkBikeJersey Blog reports that a businessman in a Jersey Shore community is calling for the repeal of a new law that requires cars to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. His argument might strike you as strange — he says that the law is "dangerous." But what, exactly, is the danger he’s so concerned about? WalkBikeJersey writes:

In New Jersey, where turning right on red is a birthright, the "Stop for Pedestrians in the Crosswalk" appears to have puzzled a generation of suburban drivers trained to own the road…. Inevitably lack of understanding generates backlash. The Atlantic City Press reports that Long Beach Township businessman Dick Jeffries has started a petition to repeal the stop for pedestrians law with the endorsement of Mayor Joseph Mancini.…

Jeffries’ quotes in the article totally reflect his windshield view of traffic safety:

"People don’t know what to do because the law is so unclear. Everyone is so frightened by this thing with these big signs they put up. I mean, what is it? A $200 fine and two points on your license?"

Ah, yes. That is terrifying — the thought that if you don’t stop your two-ton vehicle to let another human being cross the street, you might risk not only a fine, but two points on your license as well.

More from around the network: City Block on the true cost of gasoline. Livin in the Bike Lane on a Florida law that would require cyclists to ride in bike lanes or to the right of a car traffic lane. And Cap’n Transit on glamour and honesty in bus service.

Too many American cities and towns are places where humans fear to tread. (Photo: =kryz= via Flickr)

A few months ago, we had a discussion in this space about the question of whether mobility is a basic human right. Many commenters expressed concern that framing the issue this way was counterproductive, leading to the impression that people in our society should have the right to jet anywhere they want at a moment’s notice. Here’s what commenter Mark Walker had to say then:

I would argue that we’re already hyper-mobile and need to reduce the need for mobility by building walkable communities served by efficient and sustainable transit. Telling Americans mobility is a human right is like telling the morbidly obese that Doritos are a human right.

Several other commenters suggested reframing the argument to emphasize "accessibility" rather than "mobility." And that’s exactly what member blog A Place of Sense, in Indianapolis, is talking about today.

The blog’s author, Graeme Sharpe, writes that it can be instructive to keep the Americans with Disabilities Act in mind when considering how much access people have to the amenities and opportunities of their towns and cities:

[T]he Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title III, clearly defines universal accessibility as a right. Architectural barriers to access are not permitted in open establishments, transportation, or public places.

It is well known that the layout of a city shows the values of its citizens. Seen through the lens of the ADA, our street design policies are upside down. Accessibility is a prime concern for any new building
project, but other than a few laudable street designs (Cultural Trail!), most cities cede the public right-of-way to automobiles without a second thought.…

I’m not arguing for a city closed to traffic (which would present a barrier to access by itself), but certainly our cities need a better balance. If we believe that universal accessibility is a civil right worthy of our highest levels of protection, then why are there barriers to access at nearly every street corner?

 Why indeed? Why are so many of our towns and cities designed in such a way that you need a car to cross a street safely (a situation I experienced recently in Pahrump, Nevada)?

I personally have no problem with the term "mobility," if it is understood as the ability to move about the public space safely and freely. But whether you call it mobility or accessibility, people should not be prisoners of municipal infrastructure that disenfranchises anyone who is not driving an automobile — whether for reasons of age, health, ability or personal choice.

More from around the network: Discovering Urbanism on the preference young families show for auto-dependent suburbs. Let’s Go Ride a Bike on evolving bike etiquette in a city (Chicago) with booming ridership. And Spacing Toronto on the politics of biking in that city.

Here’s the analogy of the day from the Streetsblog Network: Parking spaces are like toilets — at least for conventional planners.

That line comes from Reinventing Urban Transport, and while it’s good for a laugh, it yields several important insights on closer examination.

Paul Barter, the blog’s author, has been thinking about the parallels between parking spaces and toilets for several months now. Here are some of the similarities that he notes:

1. Both are treated as an essential ancillary service that every building will need.
2. It is usually assumed that no fee (or a token fee at most perhaps) will be charged. Remember, we are talking about the conventional approach to parking policy here. Some jurisdictions even ban fees for such facilities.
3. There is thus little direct return on the investments. So the private sector would under-provide them unless forced to. To the rescue come regulations in the form of parking or toilet requirements in planning or building codes.

But as Barter goes on to argue, planning for parking the way you do for toilets is a fundamentally flawed approach. Here’s how he starts breaking it down:

1. It is much more difficult to predict parking demand than to predict toilet demand (which itself is not easy). The human need to expel waste changes little (except when beer is consumed in large quantities perhaps). The demand for parking can change enormously over time as car ownership changes and as mode choices shift.
2. Everyone needs toilets. Only car users need parking. (But conventional parking policy assumes that ‘car users’ = ‘everyone’.)
3. Parking takes a lot more space than toilets. Forgive me for stating the obvious here. It is common for American suburban office parks to be required to have as much parking space as they have floor space for other uses. Buildings in Kuala Lumpur…or Bangkok often have a third or more of their floors devoted to parking. Parking standards often dramatically limit the density that is feasible on a site.

There’s a lot more to his original post, and Barter is looking for more insights to help develop the idea — which he finds has been quite useful in presentations. Head on over to his site and offer your feedback.

More from around the network: The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia reports that the installation of 1,500 bike parking rings on old meter posts has begun. This is a stimulus-funded project. Bike Denton has the story on a $15 million grant for bike lanes in Austin, Texas. And The Transport Politic asks, whose turn is it to lead transport planning?

Why thank you very much, City of Santa Monica. (Photo: Evan G via Flickr)

First, we noticed a very nice photo that reader Evan G recently posted to our Flickr pool (at right). It shows a sign that directs riders to expanded bike parking facilities at the Santa Monica Central Library in California. We love to see this kind of thing -- check out the polite tone! It's a great acknowledgment from a DOT that bikes are truly an integrated part of a municipality's transportation system, deserving of respect and consideration.

Next, another reader pointed us to a bike rack project administered by the Albany/Schenectady/Troy bus service in New York, the CDTA. They've got a $50,000 annual budget to help private and public entities buy racks (private businesses get a 50/50 match, while the public and non-profit sectors get the racks for free).

Our tipster points out:

Combined with the fact that all [CDTA] buses have bike racks on the front, this should greatly expand the area their existing routes can serve.

We'd love to hear any more bike rack success stories in the comments.

More from around the network: Transit in Utah has a report on traveling around the Salt Lake City area using transit. Human Transit writes about "treating buses like ambulances" in Barcelona. And City Parks Blog makes the connection between parks, transportation and public health.

Proper bike racks: It's really so simple. (Photo: Illuminate LA)

Network member Soap Box LA reports on how the organized efforts of bike advocates forced a new branch of Trader Joe's in Hollywood to install bike parking -- just weeks after it opened with no such facilities.

The new Trader Joe's is part of a major transit-oriented development (TOD) project at the fabled corner of Hollywood and Vine. But when it opened, people who wanted to do their shopping by bike found an absence of bike parking, and a lot of excuses from the chain store.

A boycott ensued, fueled by Facebook and Twitter. Many phone calls were made to corporate and government officials. And after some dithering, the store installed appropriate racks.

As Stephen Box points out on Soap Box LA, it's mystifying that a redevelopment project touted as progressive design failed to include bike parking in the first place. But quick action by a network of engaged citizens was very effective in this case. Box writes:

It's been two weeks since the TJ’s in Hollywood opened, It’s been two days since the director of construction installed the bike racks. They look great and they are a victory for a few reasons.

*We’ve got bike racks and can lift the boycott! Now we can shop at Trader Joe's!

*We’ve established a bike parking standard for the Trader Joe’s corporation! No wave or wheelbender bike racks, simple inverted-U racks that are properly installed and spaced and protected and accessible and visible and convenient and effective. This is the bike rack standard for Trader Joe’s.

*We’ve established a bike parking standard for the Metro and for the [Community Redeveloment Agency]. Transit-oriented development must have a bike parking standard for the project as a whole and for the tenants.…

*We’ve established a bike parking standard for the neighborhood.

Maybe next time, they'll put the bike racks in first and save themselves the headache.

More from around the network: Transit Miami on the deadly nature of Florida's highways. Hugh Bartling on the potential for waterborne transit in Chicago. And Half Mile Circles on an upcoming US DOT webinar about the role of transportation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

How the heck can we get people to drive less?

That’s one of the most vexing questions facing sustainable transportation advocates. Higher gas prices seem to do the trick, although anecdotal evidence suggests that watching an entire ecosystem being destroyed by a busted oil well doesn’t have much effect.

The fact is, too often we are engaging in guesswork and speculation when we talk about strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). But thanks to a new study of how land use affects transportation choices, we now have a great new source of actual data. The study, a meta-analysis of 50 previous studies, is called "Travel and the Built Environment," and it’s published in the Summer 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association. It’s the result of several years’ work by Reid Ewing of the University of Utah and Robert Cervero of the University of California, Berkeley.

Kaid Benfield at NRDC Switchboard did a great job of summing up their conclusions:

What they found: location matters most when it comes to land use, driving and the environment. 

The study’s key conclusion is that destination accessibility is by far the most important land use factor in determining a household or person’s amount of driving. To explain, ‘destination accessibility’ is a technical term that describes a given location’s distance from common trip destinations (and origins). It almost always favors central locations within a region; the closer a house, neighborhood or office is to downtown, the better its accessibility and the lower its rate of driving. The authors found that such locations can be almost as significant in reducing driving rates as other significant factors (e.g., neighborhood density, mixed land use, street design) combined.

Daniel Nairn at Discovering Urbanism also wrote about the study, pulling out a thread about connectivity on the street-grid level:

[The study is a] big win for connectivity, which is great because this is something that can actually be done. Some cities and states are starting to write codes to ensure a robust street network in new developments. Even more important is retrofitting connections into existing networks. Hopefully these results will spur localities to look for those odd scraps of land and consider punching a street or multi-use trail through them. Although cycling was not considered in this analysis, I can attest from personal experience that street connectivity is the single most important factor for enhancing safety and convenience.

More excellent analysis, focusing on the importance of intersection density, can be found at Lawrence Aurbach’s Ped Shed.

More from around the network: Livin in the Bike Lane on the effect of air pollution on bicyclists (this is not good news, folks). On Two Wheels wonders if Montréal could benefit from fewer traffic signs. And The Bellows considers the benefits of congestion.

Can this trend be reversed in Beijing? (Photo: crypt K. via Flickr)

According to a recent article published by Agence France-Presse (AFP), increasing affluence in China has caused the rate of bicycle ridership in Beijing to drop from a high of 80 percent in the 1980s to less than 20 percent today. Though 20 percent is still very high by U.S. standards, the drop is nothing short of stunning. The results of this dramatic increase in driving are predictable, with massive traffic jams and intense smog now the norm.

Commenter Lovely Bicycle adds this thought:

This just goes to show that when bicycle use is high from necessity alone, it is not a stable situation. Only when the *status* of the bicycle in society changes, will its future be guaranteed.

Which brings us back to the idea we wrote about earlier in the week. How is it that we can achieve that perceived increase in status for bicycling here in the United States -- and around the world? Or is that even the best route to increasing mode share?

The situation in Beijing shows just how high the stakes are on a global scale, and how diffuse and localized the solutions will need to be. How can we use the tools we have to create those solutions?

As I write this, I am sitting in the Personal Democracy Forum 2010 conference. Most of the people here are struggling with these same types of questions, no matter their political persuasion or the cause they want to advance. I hope to share some of the strategies I'm hearing about with all of you over the next couple of weeks.

More from around the network: Car Free With Kids on the uncommon phenomenon of common courtesy. Cap'n Transit on the priorities of transit managers. And American Dirt on the difference between a neighborhood and a subdivision (is it real?).

You’re seeing electric-powered bicycles more and more on the streets of New York these days, so far mostly ridden by restaurant deliverymen. But are they just early adopters of what will become a more widespread trend?

Today on the Streetsblog Network, Commute by Bike has a post asking just that question. Big caveat up front: It’s written by a woman who owns a shop that sells electric-assist kits for bikes in Carrboro, North Carolina.

That said, it raises some good points about how electric bikes could be a part of the future of transportation, especially for people with children and other cargo to transport, or for longer commutes. The author says she was inspired to start her business by her own experience:

You see, I had three small people under the age of five to take care of, and not only did they need to be transported, but I needed to have the energy to deal with them. After a lengthy internet search, a cargo bike was selected to transport them. But I didn’t live super close to town, and there were some big hills in the way. I didn’t think I could do it. I could barely pedal the bike up the first hill out of the driveway.This is where the electric assist kit transformed this into a realistic solution.

With my kit, I can pedal the bike even with three kids or a week’s worth of groceries, over 12 miles of hilly terrain. I can do it every day and it doesn’t take forever or leave me sweaty and exhausted. It’s become a realistic and competitive alternative to the car. And in fact, it’s become the preferred option most of the time as everyone enjoys riding the bike more than riding the car, especially Mom!

Setting up this bike actually was a life-changing experience for me, so I started a bike shop to help other people realize their own dreams of using their car less and their bikes more. Electric assist has been a big part of this.We help a lot of people like myself who want to electrify cargo bikes.

But we also help a lot of commuters with distances of over three miles to go. Some people are even riding 20 miles each way, and the electric assist just makes this commute much faster and more do- able. Instead of bike commuting one day a week, they’re doing it three or five days. We’ve also helped people with disabilities, people who are out of shape, and people who just want to have more fun riding their bikes. It’s been a pleasure watching all of these people dust off bikes and leave their cars in the garage. In my book, anything that enables people to do that is worth doing.

Probably there are purists who don’t like e-bikes precisely because they allow people "who are out of shape" to ride (heck, we all know there are folks who apparently look down on gears). That’s not my concern at all. I do, however, worry about electric assist bikes in urban settings — that they can be too fast to mix well with regular bikes in heavily trafficked bike lanes. I’ve already seen some scary situations caused by e-bikes, and I’m sure I’ll see more as they proliferate.

(On a side note, the International Cycling Union is looking into what is known as "motorized doping" in pro bike racing — the possible use of hidden batteries to increase a rider’s speed. Hat tip to @spokesnyt for that link.)

What’s your e-bike opinion? Let us know in the comments.

There’s also a semantic bike controversy is brewing on the network today: Is the term "cyclist" one that people who ride bikes should embrace, or reject as marginalizing? Is calling people who ride bikes "people who ride bikes" going to make those people more acceptable to the mainstream?

A post on Seattle’s Publicola kicked it off. Bicycling Toronto is in the anti "cyclist" camp, saying, "The last thing Toronto needs is more cyclists." But Biking in LA takes the other side, writing, "You’re a cyclist. Get over it.… No one benefits from getting caught up in a question of semantics."

Of course, this all leads us to the question: Is a person who rides an electrically assisted bike a person who rides a bike? From behind a windshield, at least, we’re betting the answer is yes.

Graph: Ad Age (Source for numbers: US Department of Transportation)

An article published on May 31 in Ad Age about the decline in driving among young Americans has caught the eye of many Streetsblog Network members. The piece — which frames this as a big problem for the automobile industry — posits that the younger generation increasingly sees a wired lifestyle as incompatible with a motorized one:

William Draves blames the Internet. Mr. Draves, president of Lern, a consulting firm which focuses mainly on higher education, and co-author of "Nine Shift," maintains that the digital age is reshaping the U.S. and world early in this century, much like the automobile reshaped American life early in the last century.

His theory is that almost everything about digital media and technology makes cars less desirable or useful and public transportation a lot more relevant. Texting while driving is dangerous and increasingly illegal, as is watching mobile TV or working on your laptop. All, at least under favorable wireless circumstances, work fine on the train. The Internet and mobile devices also have made telecommuting increasingly common, displacing both cars and public transit.

Draves also predicts a trend toward people living near transit hubs, where driving is less essential.

Tom Vanderbilt at How We Drive adds a note of skepticism, pointing out another factor that might be contributing to the numbers (which come from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey):

[C]onspicuously underplayed [in the Ad Age article] is graduated drivers licensing programs, which have made driving (solo, at any time) at age 16 or 17 a thing of the past in many states (with good reason).

Whatever the combination of contributing factors, it’s interesting to see that the auto and insurance industries are clearly unnerved by the pattern. (h/t @philipashlock)

More from around the network: The Dead Horse Times on the importance of population projections to planning efforts. Biking in LA on a setback in relations between Los Angeles bicyclists and the LAPD. And the Virginia Bicycling Federation on a victory for lower speed limits.

How is a bicycle like a fish? Specifically, a piece of raw fish on sticky rice wrapped in seaweed?

Over at Copenhagenize Mikael Colville-Andersen is talking about the parallels between bicycle culture and sushi — from a marketing standpoint.

It’s part of a great conversation going on at Colville-Andersen’s site about the difficulties of marketing bicycling as transport in a country like America.

In a guest post on Copenhagenize over the weekend, Brian Glover pointed out that in most of the United States, people who bike to get places rather than for sport are viewed as either losers or freaks.

How to change that? Glover, who lives in North Carolina, is skeptical that people in the American heartland will ever buy into cycling based on the sleek urban images popularized on the Copenhagenize and Copenhagen Cycle Chic sites. Here’s the core of his argument:

I do think it’s possible to market cycling to the mainstream here in the U.S., and in developing cycling cultures around the world. But the way to make that happen is to tie cycling to high-status lifestyles in specific local cultures. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Though it may trouble Mikael to admit it, “Denmark” is not a magic word for everyone. So, advocates and marketers need to look at what people really want; to be crude about it, they should market cycling in ways that, for the mainstream of a given local culture, just might get you laid.…

[E]ven [in North Carolina], and in much of the South, I can see possibilities. For instance, I think a "Charleston" approach would appeal to quite a lot of people — blonde sorority girls on updated beach cruisers, tailgate parties with kegs and dogs (arriving by bike trailer), couples who look like George W. and Laura Bush (or even better, Cindy McCain) pulling up on expensive city bikes to big ol’ Victorian houses in dense, Spanish-moss-draped neighborhoods right out of Southern Living. Ladies who lunch, pedaling stylishly in pastels to an azalea-shrouded church that isn’t an exurban megacomplex.

But Colville-Andersen, who has worked for years now to improve the image of cycling worldwide, sticks to his guns. The innovation, he insists, must come from the urban centers and infuse the culture from there. And that’s where the sushi analogy comes in:

Sushi was "trendy" in L.A. and then New York, where it stranded for a while — but didn’t go away. The Theory of Diffusion of Innovations came into play. The Innovators took hold of sushi. It moved over to the Early Adopters and then the Early Majority. It’s now been embraced by the Late Majority and, in the case of sushi, there are probably many Laggards who will never try it. Nevertheless, it’s a success.

The bicycle is "hot" again, all over the world. With a bit of luck, the trend won’t fade and we will continue to sell urban cycling positively, in order to allow the bicycle to tango its way into the lives of the Early Majority. We’re well on our way.

What do you think? Will bicycling as transport one day be as ubiquitous as California roll?

More from around the network: The National Journal Transportation Expert Blog asks if transit authorities should get $2 billion in emergency operating aid. Human Transit has more on transit and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (a continuation of a conversation we took note of last week). And Cap’n Transit looks at the pernicious effects of parking requirements.

BP's Tony Hayward admits he has a problem with oil. (Photo: via BullsOil.com)

Admitting you have a problem is, of course, the beginning of the road to recovery in the 12-step tradition of overcoming addiction. We're happy that BP's Tony Hayward has taken that first step -- congrats, Tony!

But the magnitude of this particular catastrophe is paralyzing for many of the rest of us -- including those who have known for a long time that our addiction to fossil fuels is an ongoing catastrophe. 

Streetsblog Network member blog Straight Outta Suburbia/Saliendo de las Afueras (our only bilingual blog) is determined to get beyond paralysis. Today, it has a list of actions that people and governments could take to reduce their own consumption of oil. Here are a few:

• Write your city council person and demand that 5 percent of the parking spaces in your city be converted to bicycle racks.
• Instead of driving to the gym, walk to the store.
• Employers should not buy parking places for their employees. Instead, they should use the money they spend on parking to pay extra cash to employees. When other people pay for parking, people drive more.
• Gasoline-powered leaf blowers, meet your eco-friendly replacement, the rake.
• Pass a modest carbon tax and index it to inflation. This would give people an incentive to conserve while raising money to subsidize alternatives to gasoline-powered transportation.
• Believe that you can. That's the first step. Next time somebody says we need oil, tell them they've underestimated the power and determination of a growing group of disgruntled, passionate and pissed-off people!

Will actions like these fix the problem of dependence on oil? No. Are they naive and idealistic? Maybe. But can they be part of a paradigm shift that would lead to real, long-term solutions? Possibly, especially that part about the carbon tax.

One thing is for sure: Failing to do anything is what's known in the addiction-recovery community as classic denial.

More from around the network: Greater Greater Washington reports a victory for transit -- and social media. The Transport Politic discusses the importance of imagining a multimodal future. And WalkBikeJersey sadly notes that New Jersey drivers place last in a recent insurance industry survey that tested motorists on their knowledge of rules of the road. Not that people in the rest of the country did so great either.