The Green Lane Project will provide financial and technical assistance for cities to develop physically protected cycling infrastructure. The six to-be-determined cities will then serve as models for other American cities looking to incorporate street designs that make cycling appealing to residents of all ages.

A few major cities including New York and Washington DC have implemented protected bike lanes, but the designs are still “When a city is out on the front like this and they have a problem, it’s not always clear where they go. We’re trying to help those cities figure it out,” said Green Lane Project Director Martha Roskowski. “So they don’t have to go to Copenhagen to see how these things work.”

Bikes Belong is looking for cities that have political support for creating world-class bike infrastructure, as well as a plan in place. The organization also wants to include three “emerging cities” outside the superstars like New York and Portland, Roskowski said.

“We’re looking for six cities where they have elected officials that are on board with this,” said said. “They’ve gone through some type of a planning process. They get it. They want to do these things.”

Bike Belong sent out invitations to 33 cities that have fairly developed cycling transportation programs. Those include Houston, Memphis, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, as well as San Francisco, according to Roskowski. But any city can apply, whether it was invited or not.

One city that has already been chosen is Chicago. The city’s DOT chief, Gabe Klein, is serving as an adviser on the project, as is New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Roskowski said Bikes Belong has not determined what New York City’s role in the program will be, whether strictly as an adviser or as a participant.

The Green Lane Project will build on the work done by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to create a design guide for a new generation of cycling infrastructure. The Bikes Belong Foundation will be focusing most of its resources on the six chosen cities over the next two years, Roskowski said. They hope the results will be instructive to cities everywhere.

“We’re focusing on putting resources into six cities,” said Roskowski, “the other half is trying to capture what’s happening and share it with all the other cities.”

Applications for the program are due by March 9.

The Times of London has launched what Dani Simons aptly calls a “nearly mind-blowing” pro-cycling campaign. Inspired by a crash that seriously injured a Times reporter, “Cities Fit for Cycling” is the kind of multifaceted public safety program that is normally the province of non-profit advocacy, right down to the eight-point manifesto that covers everything from education and street improvements to truck design.

Here’s a sample:

• “Trucks entering a city centre should be required by law to fit sensors, audible truck-turning alarms, extra mirrors and safety bars to stop cyclists being thrown under the wheels.”
• “Two per cent of the Highways Agency budget should be earmarked for next generation cycle routes, providing £100 million a year towards world-class cycling infrastructure. Each year cities should be graded on the quality of cycling provision.”
• “20mph should become the default speed limit in residential areas where there are no cycle lanes.”

The Times is taking suggestions from the public on how to make streets safer. There’s even an online form that puts readers in touch with their local officials.

“Imagine if the NY Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal put their considerable clout and resources behind an effective strategy to promote cycling safety,” writes Simons. Instead, sensationalist fear-mongering, fabricated controversies and shameless victim-blaming continue to be the hallmarks of cycling coverage in New York, where the press corps tends to be embarrassingly regressive even in comparison to other stateside media markets.

Maybe that will change once city bike-share adds thousands of everyday cyclists to the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Or maybe, if The Times campaign generates enough buzz (and the paper itself isn’t felled by scandal), News Corp. will export “Cities Fit for Cycling” to one of its properties across the Atlantic.

Heads up, Cuozzo.

Every Democrat on the committee voted for the amendment, and at the markup session this morning Democrats Nick Rahall, Peter DeFazio, and Daniel Lipinski spoke in favor. DeFazio’s remarks were especially impassioned, telling his colleagues to “look those kids in the eye and tell them we can’t afford this program,” and characterizing the opposition as “just mean-spirited.”

Opponents of the amendment couched their arguments in terms of government reform. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) said that the bill should be “focused like a laser on the national highway system” and not dictate any other uses of transportation funds. Rep. Herrera Buetler (R-WA) said that the bill, as written, would put the power to implement bike/ped projects into the hands of authorities closer to the communities those projects would serve, saying it would “unleash” states’ ability to pursue their own priorities.

However, putting more money in the hands of the states actually keeps it further out of reach for cities and towns that want to build better streets for biking and walking. The League of American Bicyclists’ Andy Clarke, following the proceedings on Twitter, responded that Herrera Buetler and Shuster “are missing the point.” The federal government is not dictating anything, Clarke said: “States are the problem.”

Photo: @jackNruth/Twitter via @MikeLydon

This Twitter photo of LeBron James biking to American Airlines Arena before facing off against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls last night has gone viral on sports news sites all over America.

There are some interesting sociological currents swirling around LeBron James, bike commuter. While the photographer labeled James a “manchild” for taking to Miami’s none-too-friendly streets on a bike, the prevailing sentiment in the ESPN comments section seems to be that the sight of LeBron riding to work will help rehab his public image.

After the Heat edged the Bulls, James told reporters in the locker room that bike commuting is pretty routine for him. In fact, he seems to enjoy talking about the bike ride more than the basketball game:

The Heat forward isn’t as vocal about his modal proclivities as say, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, but he sure has a higher pulpit if he ever chooses to speak up about street safety. Our friends at Transit Miami are hoping LeBron the bike commuter can quicken the pace of change in south Florida: “Maybe now we can get some Lebron-sized bicycle lanes.”

Pedestrians and cyclists make up a disproportionate number of traffic deaths in America, while federal funds to make walking and biking safer are disproportionately low. Image: Alliance for Biking & Walking

The Alliance looks at all 50 states, and 51 of the nation’s largest cities, in its biannual benchmarking process. The report assesses bike-ped travel, traffic safety, and federal funding, as well as planning and policy initiatives like statewide bicycle plans and pedestrian advisory committees.

The bottom line is a mix of encouraging trends tempered by enduring inequalities. The share of all trips made by walking or biking has actually increased, from 9.6 percent to 12 percent, since the publication of the previous benchmarks in 2010. Even the share of federal funding for bike and pedestrian projects has inched upwards by half a percentage point. However, that federal funding share is still disproportionately low (only 1.6 percent), and equates to just $2.17 per capita nationwide.

Furthermore, the bike-ped share of traffic fatalities has actually increased, from 13 percent to 14, over the past two years. This echoes the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data recently published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA announced last month that fatality rates are decreasing among motor vehicle occupants, and even among cyclists, but increased for pedestrians in 2010. Whatever new safety benefits are currently benefiting people behind the wheel, they haven’t extended to pedestrians.

The Alliance’s report arrives at a time when Congress is still in the midst of crafting a new surface transportation law. SAFETEA-LU, the current law that’s already been extended eight times, is set to expire again in 69 days, and will either have to be replaced or re-extended by then. (Interestingly enough, the 2010 report was published shortly after SAFETEA-LU expired for the first time.) Programs like Transportation Enhancements, the source for many of those precious few bike-ped dollars, have already proven to be a sticking point in negotiations.

While Congress draws out the reauthorization process, the Alliance report offers insights into what states and cities have accomplished in the meantime. The state leaders in bike-ped policy are unchanged from 2010, with one exception: Virginia has been supplanted by its neighbor to the north, Maryland, as the state with the lowest per-capita bike-ped funding. You can see more leaders and laggards after the jump, or read the full report here.

• Share of commuters who walk: Alaska at No. 1, Alabama at No. 50
• Share of commuters who bike: Oregon at No. 1, Alabama at No. 50
• Bike-ped fatality rates: Vermont has the lowest, Florida has the highest
• Per-capita bike-ped funding: Maryland has the lowest, Alaska has the highest

In terms of cities, the report assessed the nation’s 50 largest cities, plus New Orleans (which is not the 51st largest city, but was included for the sake of continuity with the 2007 and 2010 benchmarking reports).

• Share of commuters who walk: Boston at No. 1, Fort Worth at No. 51
• Share of commuters who bike: Portland, OR at No. 1, San Antonio at No. 51
• Bike-ped fatality rates: Boston has the lowest, Forth Worth has the highest
• Per-capita bike-ped funding: New York City has the lowest, Washington, DC has the highest

Kids are more likely to be injured while walking or biking in East Harlem and the Lower East Side than the wealthier areas between them. Click to enlarge. Image: T.A.

Children growing up in Manhattan’s low-income communities are at significantly higher risk of being seriously injured or killed in traffic than their neighbors in wealthier districts, a new study from Transportation Alternatives finds [PDF]. Intersections near public housing appear to be particularly dangerous for children trying to cross the street.

In East Harlem and on the Lower East Side, the number of children younger than 18 who are killed or seriously injured while walking or riding their bikes is significantly higher than on the Upper East Side or in Gramercy and East Midtown, even though there are more total crashes with pedestrians in those wealthier neighborhoods.

The most dangerous intersection for kids on the East Side is Lexington and 125th, where 34 children were injured and one killed between 1995 and 2009.

The disparity can’t be explained by differences in population. In fact, the Upper East Side has the greatest share of residents under the age of 18 of the four areas studied. Rather, children are more at risk of getting hit by a car than adults in the low-income neighborhoods, while they are at lower risk in the high-income areas.

Transportation Alternatives hasn’t pinned down a cause, but they theorize that the design of public housing projects could be the culprit. Nine of the ten most dangerous East Side intersections for children were near public housing. The creation of large superblocks at many public housing developments could be encouraging children to cross mid-block, for example.

Twelve-year-old Dashane Santana, a resident of the East Village’s Jacob Riis Houses, was hit and killed last Friday while crossing Delancey at Clinton Street, across from NYCHA’s Seward Park Extension at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Leaders from East Harlem and the Lower East Side have decried the unsafe conditions their children face. “My district contains the greatest concentration of public housing in the city and is located in an area of Manhattan where traffic can be quite heavy. That means the children of my district are at risk,” said City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito. “We need immediate action to address dangerous driving habits and must improve traffic patterns in high risk areas. Bike lanes in East Harlem are certainly one part of the solution, but more can be done.”

“This map shows us an injustice, pure and simple,” said Damaris Reyes, the executive director of the neighborhood organization Good Old Lower East Side. “Our kids living in public housing on the Lower East Side, including my own children, deserve safe streets just as much as any other child in the city. The NYPD needs to get its priorities straight and crack down on dangerous driving.”

Last October, two drivers traveling at high speeds crashed at the corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt, jumping the curb. Photo: Fort Greene Patch

There’s still a long way to go before an official redesign moves forward, but Cohen and Loxton’s impressive organizing has revived the idea of redesigning Lafayette, and it’s a great case study in how to mobilize for safer streets.

Cohen and Loxton both live in Fort Greene and bike, walk and drive on Lafayette with their kids. They told the CB 2 committee last night that the street feels like it’s geared more toward fast-moving cars than people, with two eastbound traffic lanes and two parking lanes. The galvanizing moment for them came last October, when two drivers crashed at high speeds at the corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt Avenue, jumping the curb outside a packed church.

The next week, they started gathering signatures supporting “traffic calming and a bike lane” on Lafayette. Their regular sign-up spot was the farmers market by Fort Greene Park. Since the weekend of the New York City marathon in early November, 1,500 people have signed the petition in writing and another 100 have signed it online.

“You would just say ‘Lafayette’ and people would want to talk to us,” said Loxton. “In the cold, they would stop.”

Cohen said petition-signers described Lafayette as a “notorious speedway,” and parents shared fears of letting 10-year-old kids cross the street alone. On a recent Friday evening, she clocked drivers routinely exceeding the speed limit by 7 – 10 mph.

Under the banner “Make Lafayette Safer,” Cohen and Loxton propose extending the Lafayette Avenue bike lane from Fulton Street to Broadway, preferably on the left-hand side of the street, and adding sidewalk extensions and more prominent crosswalks at intersections. In addition to providing a useful new link in the bike network, especially for cyclists heading east from the Manhattan Bridge or neighborhoods on the other side of Flatbush Avenue, striping the bike lane could curb speeding by reducing excessive capacity for car traffic.

Following the committee vote, there will probably be another vote at the full Community Board before DOT puts out a plan to redesign Lafayette. (“If we hear a lot of support from the community, that could move things forward,” said DOT’s Chris Hrones last night.) There may also be some action at Community Board 3, which covers Lafayette east of Classon Avenue.

While “Make Lafayette Safer” has the backing of City Council Member Tish James and the Fort Greene Association, a Lafayette redesign is no gimme. Most committee members who spoke last night seemed to be open to change, but there’s more apprehension on the board than the final vote lets on. Committee member Nancy Wolf questioned why a bike lane was needed to calm traffic: “There are a lot of ways to do that that don’t involve a bike lane.” And Board Chair John Dew framed the potential conversion of a motor lane to a bike lane as a loss: “Downtown Brooklyn has changed so much, with a new park, new condos, a new arena. We’re not getting any more streets. We’re losing streets.” (Replied one committee member: “It makes it more urgent to look at issues like this to slow traffic and makes streets safer.”)

Supporters of redesigning Lafayette for greater safety made a strong showing last night too, crowding the room and speaking extensively about their experiences on the street. It will take a few more evenings like that before the vision of a safer Lafayette reaches fruition.

Via NYC livable streets all-star Dani Simons, whose new Tumblr you really ought to be following, comes this marketing innovation from Swedish ad agency Goss and sports good company Sportspec. The flyer next to the parking ticket can be traded in for a discount on a Sportspec bike purchase.

Writes Simons:

A clever and opportunistic campaign. It takes advantage of the moment when car ownership seems like the biggest pain in the rear (a parking ticket, again!); to offer a discount on the purchase of a bike. Bike ownership is positioned as a release and freedom from the burden that cars represent. If you enlarge the ad, it claims the campaign had high conversion rate for bike sales, especially expensive bikes. I don’t see why this couldn’t work for less expensive bikes, or membership in bike organizations. (Unless your city has strict rules about not putting stuff on people’s windshields, and to be honest, those rules seem seldom enforced.)

Goss says that one in seven flyers have been redeemed as part of this campaign, which has been in effect since 2008 in central Gothenburg, Sweden. Sportspec has sold 1,000 bikes through these coupons.

Could a similar campaign work with New York’s notoriously agitated curbside parkers? Probably not for this guy, but perhaps one in seven are primed for a less aggravating mode of transport.

Reader Paul Murphy sends along this ad from the Australian division of Giant Bicycles. The spot, by the Melbourne-based firm Leo Burnett, started airing last summer as part of Giant’s “Real Riders” campaign. Imagine if images of grocery bags slung over handlebars could somehow saturate the airwaves as much as sleek new luxury sedans gliding through traffic-free downtown streets.

Has anyone seen an ad with so many scenes of city cycling air in the U.S.?

NYC DOT's screenline bike count has doubled since 2007. Full graphic available in this PDF.

The New York City Department of Transportation recorded an eight percent increase in the number of people biking into Manhattan below 50th street this year. The bike count has now doubled since 2007, when the city’s first on-street protected bike lane was installed on Ninth Avenue.

This year’s increase is less than the double-digit increases of recent years, and it appears to have been hampered by construction work on the Manhattan Bridge, which has forced cyclists to detour onto the Bowery, with all its barreling truck traffic, on inbound trips. The city released a preliminary bike count in the spring that found a bigger increase — 14 percent — before the construction detour took effect.

NYC DOT’s screenline count measures cyclists crossing the four East River bridges, the Hudson River Greenway at 50th Street, and riding the Staten Island Ferry. It’s the best hard count of cycling activity available but doesn’t capture bike trips outside the city core.

In addition to the new bike count, NYC DOT announced that it is expanding its program to convert defunct coin-slot parking meters into bike parking. The department has transmogrified 175 meters so far and plans to convert thousands more. They are currently reviewing responses to an RFP seeking to repurpose 6,000 meters as bike racks.

“Our infrastructure needs to keep pace with new demands on city streets,” transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said in a statement. “By transforming obsolete parking meters into off-the-rack bike parking, we are recycling old facilities to meet this growing need.”

An additional 6,000 bike racks would represent nearly a 50 percent increase over the current total of 13,000. While the number of racks has skyrocketed in the last few years, DOT needs to make up for the loss of tens of thousands of decommissioned parking meters that functioned as de facto bike parking spaces.

With today’s announcement, DOT seems to have hit one of the benchmarks in its Sustainable Streets strategic plan, which set out to double bicycling rates compared to 2007 levels by 2012. The next target: Tripling the 2007 baseline cycling rate by 2017.

Speaker Sheldon Silver announcing the availability of free rental bikes in Lower Manhattan in 2009, the year after his Assembly spiked congestion pricing. Photo: Downtown Express

Capital New York’s political reporter extraordinaire, Azi Paybarah, breaks this remarkable story:

Half of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s face is bruised and purple, and there are stitches over his left eyebrow and a scab across his nose and the back of one of his hands. Silver sustained the injuries while riding a bicycle when he hit a pothole and fell, according to a spokesman for the lower Manhattan Democrat.

“The speaker said to me he feels a lot better than he looks,” spokesman Michael Whyland said.

Despite the injuries, the 35-year-veteran legislator is keeping up with his normal schedule.

This might be a good time to ramp up the campaign to put a price on the East River bridges. The free ride creates a huge incentive for massive trucks and other vehicles to chew up the pavement on the streets of Silver’s Lower Manhattan district. Just sayin’.

Photo copyright Dmitry Gudkov

Ed Lederman started riding a bike in New York in 1982. He had just arrived in the city with a dream of becoming a professional photographer and landed his first New York job: cleaning a photographer’s studio. Not long into this lean period, it occurred to him that he could save some money by riding a bike. Ed remembers an urban cycling scene dominated largely by messengers and other thrill-seeking types. Ed was among them: He fondly recalls one of his hobbies, spinning down a quiet Fifth Avenue at 4:30 in the morning, trying to ride a streak of timed green lights.

After a couple of months of sweeping floors, Ed graduated to photo assisting and, a few years later, he struck out on his own. In the past 25 years he has built a successful business as an in-demand New York City architectural and panoramic photographer. One thing that hasn’t changed is his love of navigating New York on a bicycle. His job often had him photographing buildings and construction projects and he usually took a taxi or the subway to the site. Occasionally he rode his bike to scout the location with his camera a day or two before the job. This proved convenient and cheap, and before long he found himself riding all over the city with cameras and a tripod strapped to his back.

When the 2008 economic crisis hit, business slowed down. Finding more time on his hands, Ed decided to launch a personal project: a New York “photo of the day” series. Very often he ventured out in search of the day’s photo on his bike. This was the perfect means to get around: fast enough to cover a good amount of ground, yet versatile enough to allow him to stop and set up a photo anytime. By this point he had been photographing New York professionally for years, yet he says that this new situation taught him to experience and document the city in a new light. The project continued for over 500 days, and the exposure from the series led to new assignments and a resurgence in his business.

Ed’s days of raising hell on Fifth Avenue are behind him; he prefers to ride in bike lanes and puts a premium on comfort over speed, taking in the city at a leisurely pace. After years of buying nice bikes and having them stolen, he finally gave in and bought a flea market beater, the Panasonic seen here. The theft deterrence plan is working so far – once or twice he forgot to bring a lock with him and returned to find his ride untouched. No doubt Ed will continue to explore and document the city he loves, and he will do much of it from the saddle of his bike.

Michael Kimmelman

For once in a Times story on bicycling, there’s no fear-mongering about lawless bikers or hand-wringing about misused street space. That’s partly because the article is rendered as criticism rather than reportage and thus doesn’t require “balance.” But mostly it’s because the writer, Michael Kimmelman, formerly the Times’ chief art critic and, as of July, its architecture critic and senior critic to boot, clearly wouldn’t stand for it.

“New Yorkers should love bicycling,” Kimmelman begins. At the conclusion of the piece, he writes: “This [cycling] was the only way to travel.” Between these bookends is an autumn day spent riding from the West Side on the Hudson River Greenway, through Midtown to the Lower East Side, over the Williamsburg Bridge, along the Brooklyn waterfront, back to Manhattan by ferry, up First Avenue, to and through Central Park and then home, with abundant pauses to eat, converse, consider, and, yes, stop at red lights.

Much of the ride is in the company of Janette Sadik-Khan. Mercifully, the DOT Commissioner isn’t likened to Robert Moses or Jane Jacobs but is allowed to be herself: “a keen bicycler… the driving force behind the city’s new bike lanes and now also a piñata for their vocal opponents.” Opponents whom Kimmelman rebukes for their myopia even as he invites them to join him:

It’s too bad that so many New Yorkers still complain about the bike lanes’ contribution to the inconvenience of urban driving instead of promoting them for their obvious role in helping solve the city’s transportation miseries, and for their aesthetic possibilities. I don’t mean they’re great to look at. I mean that for users they offer a different way of taking in the city.

That passage conveys a lot: not just that it’s time for “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes” and their tabloid enablers to get off Sadik-Khan’s back and get a life — or, better, a bike — but that there’s a new voice at the Times’ bully pulpit: one for whom architecture isn’t just buildings but is the fabric in which structures, spaces and society intersect and interact.

In recent columns, Kimmelman has extolled “the power of place” in fostering political protest from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, and has written of the value of melding green design with quality architecture in public housing in the Bronx. In his piece today, Kimmelman plants his critic’s flag squarely amidst New York’s contested streets, and states openly that bicycling is “a no-brainer” — not just “for the obvious health and environmental reasons and also because cycling can be the swiftest way to get around,” but because bicycling lends our city “civic diversity.”

“Great cities offer up as one of their distinguishing virtues [a] combination of serendipity and complexity,” Kimmelman writes. Accordingly, he doesn’t sugarcoat cycling’s pitfalls, but recalls “plenty of accidents over the years… crashing into double-parked cars, abruptly opened taxi doors and reckless riders,” and grumbles about the traffic-blocked bike lanes and “crosstown madness [that left him] cursing the downsides of cycling.” But even that, he implies, is a price worth paying to find “New York unspooled as a series of surprises.” Cycling “provide[s] a natural mix of intimacy and distance. On a bike, the city shrinks.“

Kimmelman does hit a bump, attributing to Jacobs rather than the mid-century urban thinker Lewis Mumford the crucial insight that “new highways only create more traffic as cars multiply to meet increased capacity.” No matter, it’s grand seeing Moses’ obsessive program of more and wider highways exposed as magical building; hearing Sadik-Khan describe the concept of safety-in-numbers for cyclists as an “architecture of safety”; having Kimmelman himself proclaim that “the bike lanes are about urban livability and about encouraging the sort of street culture that, as Jacobs reminded us, a healthy and democratic city depends on“; and reading his shout-out to London’s “traffic-congestion fee program for drivers of the sort that New York was wrong to reject.”

I’m probably making too much of Kimmelman’s essay. One article, even in the Times, doesn’t a revolution make, and the enemies of livable streets will probably ignore it anyway. Take it, then, as a harbinger of the livable streets revolution that, though fitful, is now firmly underway.

Last night the board’s transportation committee heard from NYC DOT about the city’s bike-share plans, and apparently it was a drama-free affair.

Streetsblog reader Steve Vaccaro (also our attorney in the FOIL case seeking documents from opponents of the PPW bike lane) sends this recap:

On bike-share, a CB8 member who adamantly opposed the proposal for cross-park shared bike/ped paths four months ago expressed no hostility, asking if the bikes would have enough cargo room for all her things, and if DOT would consider including three-wheelers in the bike-share program to better accommodate seniors.

The co-chair of the transpo committee, Jonathan Horn, who also opposed the cross-park bike path reso at the full board, expressed no opposition to bike-share and helped explain that the CB would have an opportunity to select exactly where the stations would go, subject to the DOT’s overall density requirements and safety restrictions.

Only one community member, a woman with a canvas bag on which was scrawled “Enforce the Bike Laws,” spoke against the bike-share program. She claimed that seniors would not able to use the bikes and therefore that they were “excluded” from the program. DOT’s Jon Orcutt explained that this was inaccurate.

The presentation by a representative of the Stuart C. Gruskin foundation on the “5 to Ride” education/pledge campaign for commercial cyclists was well received.

The committee then took up a proposal on electric-assisted bicycles, or “e-bikes.” Statements from NYPD and the State DMV were distributed to demonstrate that most if not all e-bikes cannot legally be operated on NYC streets. A proposal was discussed under which businesses seeking a cafe license would have their applications recommended to be approved by the CB only if they agreed not to use e-bikes to deliver food. This proposal passed after thoughtful discussion.

Finally, the committee took up the issue of whether insurance, registration and licenses would be required of commercial delivery cyclists. This issue had been referred to the committee by the full board, after the full board rejected the committee’s proposal last month to require these things of all cyclists (commercial, recreational, and others). The committee chairs seemed to understand that the proposal for commercial cyclists was largely redundant with the rules that already apply to them — something stressed by opponents of the broader blanket reso that had been rejected the preceding month — and after some discussion, decided to table the issue until January.

This is significant, because several members of the Transportation Committee have for years said that licensure and insurance for cyclists was their #1 priority in the area of cycling.

At this intersection on the main ring road around Groningen, cyclists get their own green phase. When the bike signal says go, cyclists at any point in the junction can travel in any direction. Engineer Hillie Talens explains how it works in this short video, which kicks off a series of Streetfilms we made on a trip to the Netherlands with a delegation from Bikes Belong.

Photo copyright Dmitry Gudkov

Henriette lives in lower Manhattan, works in film set design and uses her bike for just about everything – commuting, errands, and child transport. She owns a car too, but only really uses it for getting out of the city. I caught up with her as she was picking up her daughter Paloma from school in the East Village. Originally from East Germany, Henriette has called New York home for the last 19 years, for most of which she’s used a bike for transportation. Having had a couple of run-ins with car doors over the years, she has her guard up, even as the addition of bike lanes and increase in ridership have made her feel somewhat safer. With Paloma on the bike, she sticks to only riding in bike lanes or walking the bike on the sidewalk where necessary.

For years, Henriette rode a beloved old beater with coaster brakes. In fact, she traded up for this Biria just a couple of weeks ago. She was sad to part with the old bike, but loves the comfort and reliability of the new one. Paloma has spent most of her five-and-a-half years on the back of Henriette’s bike, graduating from a small child seat to the current rear banana seat configuration.

Photo: Uberselektor/Flickr

Berlin is a hugely under-appreciated cycling city. Often overshadowed by the accomplishments of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, over the past two decades Berlin has quietly experienced what is perhaps the most striking cycling renaissance in the world. On any given day, more trips are now made by bicycle in Berlin than any other European city.

Berlin does not fit the mold of a typical bicycling paradise. The metropolis of 3.5 million people is as populous and expansive as Los Angeles. In contrast to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Berlin boasts abundant road supply, minimal traffic congestion, and an extensive Metro system. Summers are hot and humid and winters are long and cold. In the capital of the nation that produced Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW, and autobahns, one would not expect bicycling to flourish; yet, since German reunification in 1990, Berlin has undergone a cycling revolution.

According to Berlin’s 2010 Mobility Report, Berliners made approximately 1.4 million trips by bicycle every day in 2008, amounting to 13 percent of all trips citywide (and 14 percent of commute trips). This figure has more than doubled since 1990, yet it is likely already outdated, given rising gas prices ($8/gallon in Berlin) and an aggressive city initiative to raise cycling mode share to 15 percent by 2015.

While mode share figures are an imperfect measure of cycling rates, they allow for rough comparisons between cities. In Amsterdam and Copenhagen, about 35 percent of all trips are made by bicycle. In Portland, cycling captures 6-8 percent of commute trips, the largest total of any major American city. For a city the scale of Berlin, 13 percent mode-share is substantial — especially considering 30 percent of trips are already made by walking and 26 percent by public transportation.

The accomplishments of Berlin are even more outstanding at a district level. Substantially larger than Amsterdam (population 780,000), Copenhagen (541,000), and Portland (583,000), Berlin encompasses a wide range of neighborhood types, from dense urban to single family suburban. Outlying suburban districts like Spandau or Steglitz resemble Portland or Boulder, with bicycle trips composing around 6-12 percent of all trips. Meanwhile, in Berlin’s dense urban core of Mitte, Tiergarten, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Schöneberg, and Fredrichshain—an area of 695,000 people with a population density 50 percent higher than San Francisco—bicycling comprises an outstanding 20 percent of all trips.

Berlin owes its success to equal parts bicycle culture and infrastructure. Bicycling education begins at an early age—every Berliner must pass a bicycle safety course in elementary school. This early education campaign feeds into what appears to be a surprisingly orderly movement of traffic—bicyclists tend to obey traffic laws and motorists tend to look out for bicyclists. Demographically, Berlin is Germany’s largest college town—it has three major universities and 135,000 college students, in addition to hundreds of thousands of 20-somethings who flock to Berlin from throughout Europe after graduating. Yet bicycling is not restricted to young urbanites. The ubiquitous grade-separated cycle tracks, bicycle boulevards, and other facilities make cycling attractive to schoolchildren and the elderly alike.

The recent snowball effect, however, has been the product of good long-range planning. Upon reunification, Berlin took a proactive stance to accommodate future growth in bicycling rather than simply meeting present demand. The city made a sustained long-term commitment to bicycling, currently investing approximately €5 million ($7 million) annually into bicycle infrastructure and programs. Whereas cities like San Francisco or Seattle seem to constantly be playing catch-up to bicycling demand, Berlin planned for success even when the demand was not there. The “if you build it, they will come” adage seems to ring true.

It is worth noting that Berlin still has plenty of room for improvement. Post-WWII redevelopment created many high-speed boulevards and mega-apartment complexes that eroded the livability of many neighborhoods of the city (especially in East Berlin). While the city has demonstrated a strong commitment toward encouraging bicycling citywide, these areas in particular have lagged behind in becoming bicycle-friendly. However, if there’s one constant in Berlin, it’s change: Its cityscape and culture are among the most dynamic in the world, and the city seems to reinvent itself every couple of years. With the rate of bicycle ownership (721 per 1,000 people) now more than twice the rate of car ownership (324 per 1,000 people), the role of bicycling in Berlin shows no signs of diminishing; further growth seems inevitable.

What is occurring in Berlin gives hope to metropolises across the world. Twenty years ago, Berlin faced the same challenges that countless cities face today: Bicycling was an afterthought, a niche transportation mode reserved for students and hipsters. However, the city’s sustained, long-term commitment to the 5 E’s of bicycling—Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation & Planning—has today produced a renaissance that’s pushed cycling into the mainstream. While New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles are too big to be the next Amsterdam or Copenhagen, they could be the next Berlin.

Daniel Jacobson is a senior at Stanford University studying urban planning. He studied abroad in Berlin for three months earlier this year. His work is available at www.danielaaronjacobson.com.