Queen's SURP Alumni

plantedcity:

Talk: Joyride: Walking and Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet

Mia Birk was in Vancouver last week to talk about making our lifestyles, cities and planet healthier by getting around more by foot and pedal. Birk, CEO of Alta Planning + Design, an advisor to the Post Carbon Institute, and former manager of Portland’s Bicycle Program (1993-1999) recently wrote the book Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet, which:

tells the dramatic and enlightening behind-the-scenes story of how a group of determined visionaries transformed Portland into a cycling mecca and inspired the nation.

Through a panoply of hilarious and poignant stories, Birk takes readers on a 20-year rollercoaster journey of global and local discovery and education, while bringing into sharp focus some of the planet’s most pressing and hotly debated energy and transportation issues, policies, shortcomings, and solutions.

Her talk follows in the same vein and is a great compliment to the people focused city building efforts of Jan Gehl and others.

You can also read a summary of Birk’s book and highlights of Portland’s bike success story here. I was particularly impressed by the following bit information:

Portland built its entire 300-mile network of bike ways for the cost of a single mile of urban freeway.

(Image: http://tinyurl.com/22oeat5)

Video: New York Bike Wars

As mentioned in the previous post cities around the world are taking on the challenge of making their neighbourhoods more healthy, livable and sustainable by making it easier to get around as a pedestrian or cyclist. However, as with any change it is contentious and there are vocal advocates on both sides. For example, we saw this recently with a rant by Canadian hockey pundit Don Cherry in Toronto; Vancouver is going through the same with its recent separated lane additions; and New York is also showing some backlash to the efforts of Janette Sadik-Khan and PlaNYC. In this context I thought the above video from Ecomobility TV might be of interest. It admits that there are issues with bike lanes but takes time to explain some of their benefits and the need for calm on all sides. 

SG

Documentary: Riding Bikes with the Dutch

A young American family travels halfway around the world looking for bicycle bliss and ends up rediscovering their own home.
After a home exchange in Amsterdam with my wife and young son, our whole outlook on cycling changed. Instead of being satisfied with being stuck in grid lock in Southern California, we began to see how the simple act of riding a bike can change the whole outlook of a city. When we returned home to Long Beach, CA we found that our hometown was striving to become the most “Bicycle Friendly City in America”.

Jan Gehl on ‘Cycling and Global Responsibility’

Cycling and Global Responsibility was the final presentation at Velo-city 2010, Copenhagen. The conference was about Bicycle Transportation.

Speaker: Jan Gehl, founder of Gehl Architects, Copenhagen
Jan Gehl: “You must show the cyclists that you REALLY want them to bike here”.

Gehl can be found discussing walkable and bikeable communities in the context of his new book Cities for People here and here.

Cycling Copenhagen: Through North American Eyes

While Streetfilms was in Copenhagen for the Velo-City 2010 conference, of course we wanted to showcase its biking greatness.  But we were also looking to take a different perspective then all the myriad other videos out there.  Since there were an abundance of advocates, planners, and city transportation officials attending from the U.S. and Canada, we thought it’d be awesome to get their reactions to the city’s built environment and compare to bicycling conditions in their own cities.

If you’ve never seen footage of the Copenhagen people riding bikes during rush hour - get ready - it’s quite a site, as nearly 38% of all transportation trips in Copenhagen are done by bike.  With plenty of safe, bicycle infrastructure (including hundreds of miles of physically separated cycletracks) its no wonder that you see all kinds of people on bikes everywhere.  55% of all riders are female, and you see kids as young as 3 or 4 riding with packs of adults.

SG