Recommended reads

Two really good biking-related reads today:

John Pucher and Ralph Buehler write about the rise of biking in mid-size cities. Yesterday while biking in to work, I noticed several other people biking alongside me, enough to take the whole lane (on a one-lane, one-way street). It was one of the first times I've seen this, and hugely encouraging. So, since I live in a mid-sized city where biking is really taking off, this piece struck home. This part is particularly true:

Smaller cities may offer some advantages for cycling because their shorter trip distances are more easily covered by bike, and because lower volumes of motor vehicle traffic make cycling less stressful.

Certainly we still have a load of stressful streets in Savannah when it comes to biking, but it's absolutely true that the shorter distances make biking more of an option than in large metros.

Photo by City of Boulder

Next, Dan Malouff shows a cheap but effective method to do new cycle tracks, in Boulder, CO. I'd love to see more cities try this method out, as it's so inexpensive, effective, and can be removed easily if for some reason it doesn't work. That approach ties in well with this three-part process I noted earlier this week.