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LONDON’S CYCLING SCENE
From UrbanTimes:
… what was once a niche of cycling geeks is now a uber-cool urban cycling sub-culture where people meet at cycle shops to pair their affinity for refined design with high end coffee tastings and crisp deli sandwiches.
More links and pics here.
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CITIBIKE AT NIGHT
Here’s a phenomenon now happening in New York that I first heard about in Paris, where Velib is especially popular after the Metro closes but before the bars do.
Citi Bike, the city’s newest form of public transportation, is colliding with one of the city’s favorite pastimes: bar hopping. While ridership peaks during the day (for commuting to work, running errands and sightseeing), some New Yorkers are beginning to see it
as a convenient way to explore the city’s night life, despite the obvious pitfalls of getting behind those handlebars after a drink or two. …
According to Bike Share Map, an independent Web site that analyzes data from bike-share programs worldwide, rides between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., prime hours for night life, accounted for 164,500 of the 1.1 million Citi Bike rides between July 17 and Aug. 16, or about 15 percent.
Much of the article goes on to talk about the dangers of cycling while drunk, but also notes: “Emergency room and city officials say they have not seen a notable spike in bike-related accidents since the 6,000 Citi Bikes were unleashed on the city streets in May.”
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BIKE-SHARE AT UBC
This was reported last month, but I want to draw attention to it. From News1130:
UBC’s director of transportation planning would like to see public bikes available on campus one day.
Carole Jolly says there are a lot of students and staff who cycle, though. “Our campus is quite large so cycling is the perfect way to get around campus in a fast and effective way to move from class to class, in what would otherwise take a bit of time.”
Yes! In fact, bike-share makes more sense at UBC than it does downtown, especially since UBC is about the same size as the CBD but without effective internal transit and with distances greater than a comfortable walk between classes.
Even with a city bike-share, who’s going to take a heavy Bixi model up the hills to get to UBC? Why not a major docking station at the bus loop, wherever it’s located, and then a dense system throughout the campus? Available for use with a Compass card.
If the students can’t push for this obvious step, it’s definitely time for them to get off their little screens and fight for something that will make a difference in their lives.
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UBC has had bike-share for years through the AMS Bike-Coop – http://transportation.ubc.ca/transportation-options/cycling/bike-share/ – though I agree that a larger, slicker system would be a great fit for campus.
Biking in between classes makes a lot of sense. With only 10 or 15 minutes between classes if it is super quick to get a bike often it would help out. Walking from the furthest south lecture theatres to the ones furthest north takes a lot of time and I was a few minutes late usually.
Cycling during the wee small hours makes sense. The roads are a lot quieter then. The New York subway does run all night – though not very frequently – and is possibly a little more intimidating, though I have never had any problems there myself.
Yet.