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MELBOURNE BEATS US AGAIN
From Bart Sbeghen at BicycleNetwork:
The last three years I’ve counted bike riders at Bourke and Swanston to compare with other cities around the world I visited (and did comparable counts on key routes) in 2011.
I am interested particularly in the male-female ratio, as a
higher proportion of women is an indicator that riding conditions have improved as it shows a wider range of the population is riding (not just men).
This morning’s count shows 38% of riders on Swanston Street are women. This is up from 27% in 2011 (before improvements to Swanston Street) and 32% in 2012 (post improvements). That’s a 44% increase in the percentage of women riders in two years. We have a higher proportion of females than the key routes in Vancouver and Portland (or at least those cities in 2011).
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Also the peak hour numbers seem to be well up – 493 riders in the busiest hour and 146 in the busiest 15 minutes.
UPDATE: Pucher and Buehler weigh in on the seeming contradiction in U.S. data from the National Household Survey and the American Community Survey that show the boom in bicycling is mostly men.
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ANOTHER LOVELY MYTH MUGGED BY FACTS
From Inhabitat New York City: Are NYC Bike Lanes Actually Helping Cars Move Faster?
Opponents of bike lanes in New York City have argued that they take room away from cars and slow traffic down, but a new report is showing the opposite. The study, released by NYC’s Department of Transportation, found that car speeds have actually increased slightly over the past few years. To be fair, it’s not really clear whether the faster speeds are because of the bike lanes, but the findings do contradict those who said that the lanes would cause cars to move more slowly.
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KEEPING PORTLAND WEIRD
A unicycler plays Star Wars theme on flaming bagpipes. Not much more to say, really.
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