Transport For London (TfL) serves a role similar to our Metropolitan Council except only for transportation. TfL coordinates transportation and road design across the boroughs and cities of greater London and operates or coordinates services such as their subway, red buses, and ferries. TfL also operate the city-wide Oyster card system. TfL has been increasingly […]
Streets.mn presents Bicyclopolis, a graphic novel by Ken Avidor in serial form. In last week’s episode, The Velochronitron, Dan Petosky learned about the pedal-powered time-travel invention in Uncle Fred’s laboratory in Stillwater, Minnesota. This week’s episode is Cycling Into the Future. Click on the pages twice to make them bigger.
Some people inside and outside the bicycling community believe that we should require cyclists to get licenses and/or register their bikes with the state. License and registration fees would help pay for bicycle infrastructure and ensure that all cyclists are adequately trained in correct riding techniques. Motorists like this idea because they think cyclists don’t […]
Last week fellow streets.mn writer David Levinson made the case for a Bicycle Trust Fund based on a registration fee, sales tax, or some other means. There was some good discussion in the comment section, and I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise that users should pay for infrastructure. I fully support drivers paying for not […]
One of the arguments I hear frequently against investment in bicycle facilities is that people don’t bike in the winter (and winter is eight months long). We know that some people certainly ride bicycles all year regardless of weather, and we can probably guess that if we did a better job maintaining our bike infrastructure […]
Late this fall Hennepin County put out a draft of its new 2040 Bicycle Plan for public review and comment. This long-range vision and planning document piqued my interest but, oof, the thing is 116 pages long! Not the easiest to tackle in terms of length, especially for bike-loving-yet-busy folks who might not have time to comb […]
In discussions of bicycling for transportation we don’t often give much thought to the bicycle. We talk a lot about laws, facilities to ride bicycles on, and and all of the benefits of bicycling but the lowly bicycle itself gets pretty short shrift. And it shouldn’t. It’s important. If we want to increase transportation bicycling […]
For best results, read this post while listening to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5a-de0hhk I had a good time this Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday and, donning my bird-killing Vikings’ stadium costume, I ventured out into the city atop my bicycle to take pictures of spooky houses, enjoy the kid-full sidewalks, and visit friends. I made it to a […]
When I was in New York City a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to get together with Nolan Levenson, a Macalester graduate who now works as a transportation planner in New York City. We met near his office in lower Manhattan to talk about ways the City of Saint Paul might apply some […]
Significant praise has been heaped on ridesharing services. Uber, Car2Go, HourCar and NiceRideMN, to name a few, are lauded for increasing transportation options. Each service adds another way to get from point A to B, making our multi-modal system stronger. These networks run best when switching from one mode to another is easy and obvious. […]