Take, for example, the walking paths of Brasilia, the Brazilian capital city that was planned down to the smallest detail in the 1950s and ’60s -- planned for a populace that would move about exclusively by automobile.

But as you can see from the photo posted by Daniel Nairn of Discovering Urbanism this weekend, the people of Brasilia still move about by foot, leaving their mark in the grassy areas between mega-freeways:

These rogue pedestrians don't have an easy task. Virtually the only way to access this space is to cross at least six lanes of traffic and then cross another six lanes to exit. The width of the open space is 1/4 of a mile, which is exactly twice the width of the national mall in Washington D.C., and there is no shade or amenities whatsoever. They still make the journey.…

This is the network of function over geometry. The paths are trodden out of convenience, but they also gently meander. Lewis Mumford recognized this universal tendency back in 1961, just as Brasilia was under construction: "The slow curve is the natural line of the footwalker, as anyone can observe as he looks back at his tracks in the snow across an open field."

Although it's hard to prove conclusively, it looks like safety concerns played a part in determining where the highways were crossed. Several paths seem to converge at points where on-ramps and off-ramps are separated from the main flow of traffic. Crossing at these points allows the pedestrian to have breaks of median before having to make the next step. It looks as if some people have been willing to sacrifice a certain degree of time in order to cross a little more safely at one of these points.

Interestingly, these points of convergence are analogous to the forces that led to the origins of medieval Paris. 

For more about the what French philosopher Gaston Bachelard called "chemins du désir," or "pathways of desire," see the excellent post on Detroit's emerging web of walking paths on Sweet Juniper! It's one of the best blogs being written today from the urban frontier.

More from the network: Reports of assaults by drivers on cyclists from Tulsa Alternative Transportation Examiner and Transit Miami. Also, Human Transit on the breaking of London's Circle Line, and Hub and Spokes on Mexico City's BRT plans.

The piece, by Haya el Nasser, starts out talking about how population is falling in many of the suburbs that grew most quickly over the last few decades -- places like Bellevue, Washington. These communities have become known as "boomburbs." But their boom days are past -- for now. Some have begun losing population.

The most interesting angle in the article, however, isn't the decline of suburban fortunes and the real estate market that fueled them. It's what municipal leaders and researchers are saying will be necessary to make those places economically viable in the future. Which is this: they'll have to become more like cities. Denser. More walkable. Not bedroom communities, but self-contained communities.

Robert Lang, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who coined the term "boomburbs," put it this way: "The irony is that if they want to keep growing, they must grow as cities, which is diametrically opposite of how they got so big in the first place."

And transit will be key to that transformation:

Will light rail pave the way to a different future in Irving, Texas? (Photo: pinecone via Flickr)

Population has declined since 2006 in Irving, Texas, but the city is prepared for healthy growth as soon as a light-rail line to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is completed. "Eventually, you have to shift your focus to not just booming growth but redevelopment," Mayor Herbert Gears says. "That (rail) line is what's given us the opportunity to create an urban center."

Condominiums, apartments and retail are planned along the transit line. The city projects a 240,000 population by 2015, an 11% jump.

Growth in Henderson, Nev., near Las Vegas, has slowed but not stopped. "With the slowdown we've seen, it gives us an opportunity to take a breath," says city spokesman Bud Cranor. Henderson is focused on creating "green" jobs and a more sustainable urban environment, he says.

The article highlights what is emerging as a powerful unifying argument for smarter development: economics. It's an approach that could bring conservatives and liberals together. And it will certainly be part of Transportation for America's upcoming discussion on conservatives and public transportation.

More from the network: Bike Portland on results from an ad campaign that asked, "Should cyclists pay road tax?" Dotage St. Louis on an attractive replacement for a parking lot. And Rights of Way in Portland, Maine, on what a difference a four-foot narrowing of a street can make.

(Photo: Richard Masoner of Cyclelicious)

Send your JPEGs to sarah [@] streetsblog [dot] org, or tag them with "kidbikes" and "streetsblog" in Flickr. Your deadline is next Tuesday, November 24.

Our past slide shows have been on bike traffic, space hogs, work bikes and crummy transit conditions. Check them out if you haven't already.

Photo: hebedesign via Flickr

While researching a recent pedestrian death in Savannah, I ran across this television news report, which I think deserves to be examined on its own. If I’m hearing him correctly, this is the message delivered by a Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police officer:

"Someone could be looking down at their cellphone. Next thing they know they look up and there’s a kid in the road or a person in the road where they are not supposed to be at. And they don’t have time to stop. And like I said, pedestrians will lose that battle every time."

Perhaps this short comment from the officer was taken from a longer segment in which he railed against distracted driving. I hope that’s the case and if so, I commend him for it. But if not, it suggests a terribly casual attitude toward an awfully dangerous practice.

Sustainable Savannah links to Tom Vanderbilt's recent excellent essay on Slate, "In Defense of Jaywalking." Read it if you haven't already. It is a concise and well-researched examination of the biases against pedestrians -- biases that are reflected in media coverage and law enforcement, but most importantly, in street design.

More from around the network: Transportation for America will be hosting an online discussion December 7 on conservatives and public transportation. Biker Chicks of West Chester decries the push to register bikes in Philadelphia. And Mobilizing the Region talks about how transit operating aid is the best route to job creation.

First, Steve Davis at Transportation for America reports on the meeting T4A and several of its partners had with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood on Monday. The meeting was to deliver a petition with more than 4,100 signatures gathered after last week's release of the "Dangerous by Design" report on pedestrian fatalities:

U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood with James Corless of Transportation for America and Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition

With the petition and a copy of Dangerous by Design in front of him, LaHood listened intently as T4 America’s James Corless and others talked about the epidemic of preventable deaths -- and what we can do to turn the tide and keep pedestrians safe.

Secretary LaHood was hopeful that federal transportation policy can better accommodate all users and keep them safe, and that now is the right time to make that change.

“I think this Congress gets it now,” Secretary LaHood told us. “Certainly in part because of advocates like you.” He acknowledged that making the streets in our communities safe and accommodating for everyone dovetails well with the Obama administration’s focus on livability.

He stressed that safety is the top consideration for everything they do at USDOT and urged T4 America to take the report directly to Congress as they continue discussions on the full six-year transportation bill. He also asked for more copies of Dangerous by Design (on their way, Mr. Secretary!).

We'll be keeping an eye on developments.

More from our members: Network Musings beings news of a proposed vehicle-miles-traveled tax in the Netherlands. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia reports on a proposed bike registration and ban on brakeless bikes in that city. And Hub and Spokes has a video about the impact of mandatory parking minimums.

But they aren't resting on their laurels. In today's post, they call on the city to improve pedestrian infrastructure further with the goal of increasing the percentage of people walking to work:

Walking in Cincinnati: It's good, and should be better still.

According to U.S. Census data, only 2.3 percent of the Cincinnati-Middletown Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) commutes to work by foot...

So if safety isn't the issue in Cincinnati, then what is it? The region as a whole does not boast very dense development patterns outside of Cincinnati city limits and a few other pockets like Hamilton, Middletown, northern Kentucky's river cities, and Norwood. Furthermore, the areas that are appropriately designed lack any clear amenities for pedestrians like crosswalk counters, scramble crossings at high pedestrian volume intersections, or curb bump outs. Another major detractor is the lack of barriers between pedestrians and motorists like bollards, trees/landscaping, or on-street parking.

I would also contend that the physical condition of our pedestrian surfaces is also a major factor. Fully taking advantage of the Federal Government’s Safe Routes to School program is a critical piece of the puzzle, but so is the ongoing maintenance of our pedestrian surfaces. This may be tricky in the low-growth Midwest and northeast, but solutions like rubber sidewalks provide long-term maintenance savings in addition to the overall improvement in surface quality for pedestrians.

More from around the network: Extraordinary Observations writes about A&E's show "Parking Wars." Adam Voiland at DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner notes how the ink-stained wretches of journalism reveled in Washington's recent Tweed Ride. And Let's Go Ride a Bike has some very practical tips on how to dress for a comfortable winter bike commute (she does it in Chicago, people).

It quotes a leader in the Wisconsin Republican Party painting transit-oriented development as a red menace: "This has been done before," Dane County Republican Party spokesman Bill Richardson said on a Madison radio show. "The Soviet Union and in East Berlin and all those places. They built these ... very ugly high-rise apartments, and they jammed people into these."

We were happy to see that Streetsblog Network member The Overhead Wire posted a quick response to this nonsense:

What kind of development is really being forced on Americans? (Photo: co-plex via Flickr)

[E]veryone who reads here knows the histories and the market distortions of sprawl, which has absolutely dominated the market over the last 60 years. If anything, it's they who are forcing everyone to live their lifestyle, a sick distortion of the actual desires of at least some Americans, such as myself, who want to live in an urban walkable environment. By not providing a choice in living, or transportation, the opponents of livable communities are telling us that the actual market doesn't matter and that they know what is best...

We know that not all in their circle believe this way, and ultimately building cities shouldn't be a partisan issue. The road towards transit and walkability is a sustainable one from a fiscal and environmental standpoint. I think many times we overlook the power of fiscal arguments for the movement at our own peril. The research on sprawl is not good, and people are starting to get it, a bit late, but at least they are starting to see how value is created by cities and urbanism is a fiscally responsible choice.

It will be interesting to see how the division over transportation policy among conservatives develops in the next few months. Will the ideology of fear trump more evidence-based economic analysis? What do you think?

More from around the network: Hugeass City wanted a coffee, but needed to be in a car to get served at one Seattle Starbucks. Copenhagenize reports on bicycle theft and insurance profiteering in the Danish cycling paradise. And Tucson Bike Lawyer has a dispatch on biking in Bogotá.

But that's why we hate it so much when transit infrastructure and transit riders are neglected. And they are. The nation's buses and trains and light rail are too often underfunded, dismissed, vandalized and disrespected.

Transit riders deserve better.

We asked you to send in photos of crummy transit conditions from around the country, and once again, you stepped up. Here are some of the indignities you've witnessed:

Many thanks to our contributors, including the indefatigible Richard Masoner of Cyclelicious, BicyclesOnly, dirtycrumbs, Streetsblog's own Ben Fried and Brad Aaron, and Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson.

Check out our previous slide shows of bike traffic, space hogs and bikes at work.

For our next show, we're looking for something a lot happier -- kids on bikes. We've already received many pictures on this theme, but we want more. Kids on their own bikes, kids in cargo bikes, kids on trailer bikes -- show us what you've got. Send JPEGs to sarah [at] streetsblog [dot] org, or tag your photos with "streetsblog" and "kidbikes" in Flickr. Get them to me by Tuesday, November 24.

And as always, thank you.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we've got a powerful demand for safer streets in Florida. Transit Miami has posted an open letter to Florida Governor Charlie Crist and the state's DOT, calling them to account for the lamentable showing the Sunshine State makes in Transportation for America's recent report on pedestrian fatalities, "Dangerous by Design." Here's a taste of what they had to say:

A pedestrian signal in Winter Park, Florida. (Photo: quite peculiar)

Florida has managed to take the top 4 spots [for danger to pedestrians] nationally; this clearly is not a great achievement. The common denominator for all 4 metropolitan areas is the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), which is responsible for designing most of the roads within these urban environments.  We believe that (FDOT) should be held accountable for poorly designed roads within our state that result in hundreds of preventable pedestrian deaths each year.

The decades of auto-centric culture within FDOT needs to come to an end. A major paradigm shift has to occur within FDOT from designing roads for cars to designing them for people. There is no simple solution, and it will take a leader who is capable of changing an organization whose sole focus seems to be moving more cars faster, rather than considering pedestrians and bicyclists.

More from around the network: In Texas, Michael Lindenberger at Dallas Transportation digs into the TexPIRG report on the links between campaign money and how transportation dollars are spent, and comes up with his own conclusions. David Daddio at The City Fix asks if we are really looking at the end of the American exurbs. And Bike Portland puts the funding for bike infrastructure into perspective.

The blog's author, Bill Lindeke, writes about the recently concluded "Blue Zones" project that was conducted in Albert Lea, Minnesota, under the sponsorship of the AARP and the United Health Foundation. The five-month project aimed at encouraging people to make incremental changes -- such as eating healthier food and walking more -- that could extend their lives and improve their overall well-being.

Reports on the success of the experiment are mixed. That's hardly surprising, writes Twin City Sidewalks, since the autocentric infrastructure of most American communities is such a powerful shaping force in our everyday lives:

Not too many people have access to this kind of infrastructure anymore. (Photo: Christopher Alexander's "Timeless Way of Building")

Lately, the public health world has been trying to change this fabric, and to make exercise and movement a part of American everyday life again. But that is a very difficult thing to do, precisely because all these systems of movement, shopping, interacting, and living are everywhere. In most Minnesotan homes, we need cars to do just about anything. Most of the time, you don't have a choice to walk or bike to do an errand.

So, efforts like Albert Lea's Blue Zones project are really tilting at windmills (just like this blog, in fact)...

Of course I found it excellent that the city identified sidewalks as a key factor in reinstalling walking within everyday life. It's just a very difficult thing to actually accomplish, because of the interlinked nature of movement patterns. Even if you have a sidewalk, without a corner store or small library (without a giant parking lot in front of it), the actual concrete slab doesn't do you much good.

It took 50 years to change our cities so that walking and biking are nearly impossible. It's going to take a long time to make them easy and convenient again.

Is the idealism of something like the Blue Zones project ultimately productive? Or does it simply play into stereotypes about dreamy idealism that can't effect real change?

Let us know what you think in the comments.

More from around the network: San Francisco Transit Oriented Design on the notorious Bay Bridge S-curve. Carfree USA on bicycle production as an economic indicator. And Copenhagenize on bad behavior in bicycle culture.

In Chicago, the Active Transportation Alliance rallied at an intersection where a pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run last month to demand safer conditions in that city. Five Chicagoans have died in the last month after being hit by drivers.

From the Active Transportation Alliance blog:

A Chicago sidewalk near the spot where Martha Gonzalez was killed by a hit-and-run driver October 13. (Photo: Steven Vance of Steven Can Plan)

Active Trans and Center for Neighborhood Technology called on our leaders today to make streets safer for pedestrians. Transportation for America, a national campaign, released a national report that ranks Chicagoland 41st in a list of the 50 most dangerous metropolitan areas in the country for pedestrians.

We gathered at 18th and Halsted streets this morning with representatives from Chicago Police and the 25th Ward to talk about street design and the laws that make it easier for drivers to disregard pedestrians.

Martha Gonzalez was a victim of fatal crash at that intersection last month and it was powerful to have her family there.

Tell your senator to support HB43! This legislation would require drivers to STOP for pedestrians. These deaths are preventable and we have solutions that have proven effective in other communities. Call on your leaders to act now!

The report ranked Louisville, Kentucky, as the seventh most dangerous metro area with more than 1 million residents. Network member Broken Sidewalk notes that this is in spite of a relatively high rate of spending on pedestrian infrastructure:

If Louisville is spending among the most per person for pedestrian improvements but still ranks among the worst metro areas for safety, then we’re either not putting our money in the right places or there’s a more fundamental problem that must be addressed.

I’m not going to try and diagnose these problems right now, but I would be willing to guess that addressing speed will be a key factor. Dangerous by Design points out the alarming truth about a pedestrian’s survival rate when struck at various speeds. When hit at 20MPH, your chances of recovery are good at 95 percent.  As speed increases, survival rate drops rapidly.  At 30MPH, the rate stands at 55 percent and at 40MPH your chances of survival are only 15 percent. Considering so many of Louisville’s arterials have a posted speed limit of 45 (or sometimes more) miles per hour, it’s no wonder that so many pedestrian deaths occur on arterial roads.

Among the many other network blogs covering the report are Bike Delaware News, Discovering Urbanism and Greater City Providence.

I clicked through right away, because that line had so much resonance for me.

The post turned out to be a link to a story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel by Richard L. Birch. He's a business writer who lives in Milwaukee but also has an apartment in Almería, Spain, where his wife's family is from.

Here's what he writes about re-entry into his native country:

Photo: Sprawled Out

Arriving home from Spain, we drove through Milwaukee from Mitchell International Airport, and the eerie calm of sealing ourselves behind car windows settled over us; the "carness" of our life here spread out like a gray pall all around us.

Instead of people, conversation, shopping, eating and attending to business on the hoof, we were surrounded by access roads, parking lots, highways and bridges until we eventually passed under the shadow of the hulking three-story garage whose gloomy, and empty, cavern overshadows our magnificent art museum.

We Americans are all infrastructure -- and no people...

What's the cost for living our American way? It's not just the thousands of dollars for the second car, insurance and gas. We also have to support a lake of concrete around us -- and gas, electric and sewer lines to stretch out past the near-vacant belts beyond the older suburbs. Property taxes in Almería on our condo are one-twelfth our taxes in Milwaukee, even though the value of the two homes is roughly the same.

One-twelfth. Oh, and they throw in free health insurance.

It's a powerful piece of writing. Click through yourself to read it all.

Is there hope that momentum is shifting away from this kind of lonely landscape? Over at NRDC Switchboard, Kaid Benfield writes about a new report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute on the prospects for the real estate market in the United States. The report, Benfield writes, projects a gloomy future for the kind of sprawling development that Birch drove through after landing in Milwaukee.

Benfield writes:

In a section titled "markets to watch," the report also advises investors to favor convenient urban office, retail, entertainment and recreation districts where there are mass transit alternatives to driving. Investors are advised to shy away from, among other things, fringe areas "with long car com­mutes or where getting a quart of milk means taking a 15-minute drive."

Related: a post from brand-new network member American Dirt on spreading brownfields and shuttered gas stations (h/t to The Urbanophile's Aaron Renn).

Money in Memphis has gone to big projects like the FedEx forum, not to improving the downtown's streetscapes.

At the precise time that city elected officials were delivering uplifting rhetoric about the importance of downtown to the overall economic health of the region, to attracting and retaining talent and to its role as “welcome mat” to Memphis, it was engaged in a financial sleight of hand that largely set downtown adrift.…

[W]e have a proposal. We think that the Center City Commission should invite teams -- architects, residents, urbanists, young professionals and others – that would survey downtown and send in recommendations to Center City Commission.

After all, we walk the streets. We know downtown block by block. We know every special spot and every ugly wart. We know every unsightly sign put up by MATA, we know every landscaping mistake and we know every place trash accumulates.

Why not appoint us as special hit squads that’ll issue reports on the state of downtown and recommendations for improving things? We would demand downtown improvements, a design ethos and for regular reports that could be shared with elected officials on what has to be done for the city’s core to be healthier and more competitive.

I visited Memphis last spring and was struck by its unrealized potential -- both in terms of downtown infrastructure and human resources. Several people I met talked about how much they love the city and want to stay there -- but how they are being forced out by a lack of opportunity.

Smart City's post is an indication of how much potential energy there is in that place. How amazing would it be if City Hall could have the foresight and humility to take their suggestion and tap some of it?

More from around the network: DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner wants to make the point that bicycles are not just a white thing. Let's Go Ride a Bike talks about the natural attractiveness of bicycles. And The Infrastructurist reports on another massive construction project in China -- one that will destroy 10,000 homes in central Beijing.

Stephen Box at SoapBox LA reports:

These kids from the West Side of LA were determined to let the city know what they think about bike commuting.

The FIRSTteamWestside (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a group of kids who prepared a presentation that they intended to give at the Bike Plan (draft) workshops.

Their mission was to develop a plan to improve local transportation. They did the research and they prepared and they discovered that the public workshops were not the robust public arena they desired, so they adapted.

Their coach reports, "The kids were hoping to give a presentation at one of the "public forums" but were badly disappointed when they found out that members of the public would not be allowed to speak so they posted it on YouTube and submitted the link at labikeplan.org."

The kids give an amazingly articulate and informed statement, recommending additional bike cars for the region's commuter rail system. The future is coming.

More from the network: The Transport Politic looks at the importance of aligning transitways with walkable neighborhoods. On Transport discusses the concept of "lifestyle centers" and their aspirations to create a sense of community in a suburban mall setting. And Intersection 911 reports on the 38 percent bump in Philadelphia bike commuting during the SEPTA strike.

Waiting to board the B44 in Brooklyn. Photo: Benjamin Fried

Crowding is just one indignity transit users have to face. Others include inadequate bus shelters, nonexistent or vandalized seating, blocked entrances -- you know the stuff.

Send us your pictures of crummy transit service and infrastructure where you live and we'll put together a new slide show. You can e-mail JPEGs to me at sarah [at] streetsblog [dot] org, or tag them with "streetsblog" and "transitfail" in Flickr. Get your submissions in by next Thursday morning.

Portland Transport has a post on the connection between cul-de-sac development and safety for all street users, as discussed at the Congress for the New Urbanism Transportation Summit in Portland.

What are the dangers of cul-de-sac development? (Photo: TheMuuj via Flickr.)

For me the highlight presentation on opening day…was about the safety effects of different street network types.

The study was based on looking at all cities in California with population of 40,000 or greater. The surprising finding was that cities built before 1950 are safer (in terms of both serious injuries and fatalities for all classes of users: auto drivers/passengers, cyclists and pedestrians) than cities built after 1950.

The differences appears to be in the type of street network. Compact street grids seem to be safer, compared to the arterial-collector-local street 'tree' style of street network popular in post-war development.

No link to the study itself yet, but we're interested in hearing more.

More from around the network: Urban City Architecture launches a series of posts on the pressing issue of pedestrian safety in Miami. Bello Velo reports on a new driver education campaign designed to improve cyclist safety in Huntsville, Alabama. And Copenhagenize is looking for your opinion on the safety of daylight headlight requirements.

Elly Blue writes:

Multi-use paths like the
Hawthorne Bridge have the
highest injury potential. Photo: Jonathan Maus

There’s a constant chorus -- sometimes soft, sometimes overpoweringly loud -- in every conversation about bike infrastructure in America. Its refrain: You’re safer without any bike lanes, separated lanes, cycle tracks, bike boulevards, off-road paths. Just take the lane, follow the rules, wear your helmet, and you’ll be fine.

A group of scholars at the University of British Columbia have found otherwise. They conducted a literature review, looking at all available studies linking bicycle safety with infrastructure. Their conclusions will be counterintuitive for some.

“Results to date suggest that sidewalks and multi-use trails pose the highest risk, major roads are more hazardous than minor roads, and the presence of bicycle facilities (e.g. on-road bike routes, on-road marked bike lanes, and off-road bike paths) was associated with the lowest risk.”

“One of the major advantages of infrastructure-based improvements, compared to personal protective devices such as helmets, is that safe infrastructure provides population-wide protection for all cyclists,” study co-author Meghan Winters said in a press release.

The study's abstract draws these conclusions:

Evidence is beginning to accumulate that purpose-built bicycle-specific facilities reduce crashes and injuries among cyclists, providing the basis for initial transportation engineering guidelines for cyclist safety. Street lighting, paved surfaces, and low-angled grades are additional factors that appear to improve cyclist safety. Future research examining a greater variety of infrastructure would allow development of more detailed guidelines.

I'm sure that many of our network members will want to dig deeper into this one. 

More from around the network: a rant against bike chic from Biker Chicks of West Chester. Extraordinary Observations makes the connection between free burritos and traffic congestion. And the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia reports on biking the transit strike in that city.

Fortunately, the problem is beginning to get some more attention, in part because of the actions of advocates like those at the National Complete Streets Coalition, who are working to implement complete streets policies around the country and at the federal level.

Curb cut to nowhere, near the spot where a driver killed a St. Louis woman using a wheelchair in the street.

Yesterday, he marked a sad anniversary on his blog:

Four years ago today Elizabeth Bansen was struck and killed by an SUV as she returned home from the market two blocks east of her apartment. Although the accident occurred around 6pm, the driver didn’t see Bansen in her wheelchair on the street.  On December 6th 2007 I posted on the jury finding the city negligent in Bansen’s death since the sidewalks were not passable.…

Yesterday I drove over to see the couple of blocks along Delmar to see if the sidewalks between the housing and the market were corrected.  Sadly, the situation is exactly like I found it in December 2007.

In Jackson, Mississippi, the situation is just as bad. There, one persistent man -- Dr. Scott Crawford -- has worked to draw attention to the pathetic condition of the local sidewalks.

We first heard about Crawford nearly a year ago through Transportation for America, when he sent them some pictures documenting the lack of access to bus stops for people with disabilities. Crawford's advocacy got attention from local news outlets. And just a few days ago he was featured in a major USA Today story about how the nation's crumbling and inadequate sidewalks are putting wheelchair users at risk across the country.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia links to a local TV news story about how illegally parked cars and even construction materials are frequently blocking newly created bike lanes in that city.

The view from the bike lane in Philadelphia. Photo by Bikes on Transit via Flickr.

Meanwhile, our Twitter friend @keg41 linked this morning to an LA Times story about the growing number of cyclists in that city and the debate over how best to integrate bikes into an overwhelming car culture. The piece is pegged to the ongoing trial of a Brentwood physician who allegedly used his car to assault two cyclists on the road where he lived, but it goes on to provide a fairly thorough overview of some public health issues associated with biking, including the debate over whether bike lanes are good for bikers. Perhaps the most significant thing about the article is that it doesn't treat biking as something cute or quirky or trendy.

Meanwhile, Twin Cities Streets for People calls out a Prius driver who couldn't seem to stay out of a Minneapolis bike lane. And The WashCycle breaks down a proposed DC zoning change that could mean more bike parking.

Our call for pictures of work bikes elicited such an overwhelming response -- more than 300 photos -- that we almost didn't know where to begin. It's truly inspirational and delightful to see how people around the world use bicycles for work (and in some cases to haul some serious gear for play). There seems to be no limit to the inventiveness and resourcefulness of cyclists.

Because of the richness and variety of the pictures you sent (and keep sending), we'll be running at least one and maybe two more slide shows on this theme. Keep watching this space.

For now, here's a selection of some of our favorites, spanning the globe from Beijing to Bogotá to San Francisco.

Many thanks to all our contributors, including those at ITDP, Cyclelicious, Tucson Bike Lawyer, Bikejuju, Bikes and the City, Utility Cycling, Cenas a Pedal and Rock the Bike.

If you've missed our past slide shows, on bike traffic and space hogs, you might want to check them out.