On Saturday, August 30, 2014 7:42:20 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2014 5:48 AM, Andre Jute wrote:

Melbourne, eat your heart out: "Hunter could be the cycling capital of Australia".



http://www.theherald.com.au/story/25...tralia/?cs=303



The guys behind the scheme want the government to commit A$75m to bicycling infrastructure.

(Not fiddly cheap local cosmetis that might as well be designed to kill

cyclists, real infrastructure.)

See the map at the URL above. If it comes off, it will be a model region.



Wow. Maybe they'll be as successful as Stevenage and Milton Keynes in

Britain, with their designed-in-from-the-start superhighways for bikes,

built with underpasses instead of road intersections, allowing easy

access all across the towns with almost no interactions with motor vehicles.



Just think! As with Stevenage and Milton Keynes, the bike modal share

might rise to as much as... well, 3%. At least, that's what those

towns have had. Not so impressive after all.



From http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/stevenage/



"The cycleways were mostly flat and there were cycle and pedestrian

bridges, and underpasses which wouldn�t have looked out of place in the

Netherlands at the time, mainly because they were modelled on Dutch

infrastructure. Stevenage was compact and Claxton [the designer] assumed

the provision of 12ft wide cycle paths and 7ft wide footways � separated

by grass strips as a minimum, and sometimes barriers, too � would

encourage residents to cycle and walk everywhere. He had witnessed high

usage of cycle tracks in the Netherlands and believed the same could be

achieved in the UK.



"Instead � to Claxton�s puzzlement, and eventual horror � residents of

Stevenage chose to drive, not cycle, even for journeys of two miles or

less."



"... Squint and, where the infrastructure is intact, under the

roundabouts for instance, and you could be in the Netherlands. Except

there are very few people on bikes."



Trendy Portland's bike mode share has stayed flat for several years,

despite more and more "innovative!" segregated facilities. And despite

the rah-rah headline, this article's

http://urbantimes.co/2014/06/bike-la...crease-biking/

bar graphs make clear that most people riding on "protected" cycle

tracks would have been riding anyway. Only a tiny percentage gave up

their car to use their bike.

By the way, the census information for calculating mode share is based on one question:

How did this person usually get to work LAST
WEEK? If this person usually used more than one
method of transportation during the trip, mark (X)
the box of the one used for most of the distance.

The questionnaire is completed in April -- not a great commuting month in Portland since it is so wet. I don't know what the sample size is.

I do know that my commute from Southwest has gotten busier -- a lot busier. I took a hilly-ish route from downtown last week during rush hour (earlier than I usually leave for home), and it was full of cyclists. I drag raced this one kid just because I can't help myself. I'm seeing a lot more cyclists in my part of the town, which is more challenging than the close-in east side from whence most cyclists commute.

Today was spectacular -- sunny but not too hot. I was riding in the(former) middle of nowhere with a friend of mine, and I must have seen 100 other riders comprising multiple packs. There were places when I actually sat up and said, goddamn its pretty -- but not for too long, because my buddy was flying, and it was hilly (more so than this picture lets on). http://tinyurl.com/ls5zpho

Even got a boat ride: http://tinyurl.com/kr2ez3m

-- Jay Beattie.