m-bike.org

Author: Todd Scott

  • U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

    headerlogoYesterday Mayor Cockrel signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Act.  He joins a growing list of other Metro Detroit signees that have done the same, including:

    • John Hieftje (Ann Arbor)
    • Marilyn Stephan (Berkley)
    • Daniel Paletko (Dearborn Heights)
    • Robert Porter (Ferndale)
    • James Ellison (Royal Oak)
    • Gretchen Driskell (Saline)
    • Brenda Lawrence (Southfield)
    • Norma Wurmlinger (Southgate)
    • Cameron Priebe (Taylor)
    • David Flaisher (Township of West Bloomfield)
    • Mark Steenbergh (Warren)
    • Paul Schreiber (Ypsilanti)

    Part of this agreement includes the following:

    We will strive to meet or exceed Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing global warming pollution by taking actions in our own operations and communities such as:

    2. Adopt and enforce land-use policies that reduce sprawl, preserve open space, and create compact, walkable urban communities;
    3. Promote transportation options such as bicycle trails, commute trip reduction programs, incentives for car pooling and public transit;

    There’s no surprise that many of these Michigan cities have taken the lead on bicycle facility development.  Some have not.  For those communities that have not seen the light — or made the commitment to improve biking — this may be another justification to help push them along.

  • Good Biking Tips from Gordie Howe’s Son

    Newspaper articles on safe cycling often make experienced cyclists  cringe.

    That’s not the case with today’s Free Press article:

    As the youngest of Gordie Howe’s sons, I was raised by someone who grew up during the Depression in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where temperatures hover at minus-20 all winter. My dad ate oatmeal three times a day, walked or skated five miles to school, and lived in a two-bedroom house with 11 siblings and no indoor plumbing. Popular toys were rocks and sticks.

    So when I decided to begin commuting to work on my bike, my dad wasn’t impressed. He merely said, “Watch out for cars.” Good advice.

    In the article Howe notes that the U.S. News and World Report “ranked biking to work the No. 1 way to improve your life in 2009.”  He also mentions donating to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen bike shop, which we noted earlier.

  • Talking about Detroit biking on the Radio

    scaledownToday (Monday, January 26th) at noon I’ll be on CJAM radio (95.1 FM) to discuss biking in Detroit.

    The program is called Scaledown Radio and it hails from Windsor.  The program hosts also have a web site call Scaledown with a vision to “connect every Windsorite to their own walkable neighborhood that has its own public spaces, local independent businesses and artists.”

    Though the CJAM  listening area is limited to Windsor and Southwest Detroit, you can listen to it as an audio stream on the Internet.  Just visit the CJAM web site to lean more.

  • New Partners for Smart Growth

    800px-flag_of_albuquerque_new_mexicosvgToday a group of us from Detroit are heading to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the 8th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference.

    It looks like they really have some great sessions.

    It’s likely that some of the excitement and energy from yesterday’s inauguration will be present at the conference.  It certainly seems the new Obama administration is more supportive of smart growth.

    From freshly-updated Whitehouse.gov urban policy agenda:

    Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. President Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.

    The tagline for the conference?  Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities.

    It’s almost as if they shared the same author.

  • New Mobility Agenda

    At a recent transportation engineer meeting in Farmington Hills a presenter told the following story.

    An Australian businessman said that when he’s in the U.S., he schedules 3 meetings per day.  When in Australia, he schedules 4 per day, but when in Europe, he can handle 5 meetings per day.

    In the U.S. he spent more time traveling between meetings compared with being in them.

    The irony is there is more mobility in the U.S.  We have high-speed roads and expressways allowing people to move more quickly.  In Europe, transportation is not as fast, however, this has promoted greater density.  In other words, everything’s closer together.

    This same issue was raised by Glatting-Jackson transportation engineer Ian Lockwood during his presentations in Detroit.  The more cities increase mobility, the more everything spreads out.

    Accessibility/new mobility — being able to readily get between locations — is more valuable than high-speed mobility.

    That’s a concept that’s been lost not only on most Metro Detroit road planners but on people like Oakland County executive L. Brooks Patterson.  Patterson has been sprawl promoter but has not connected the dots showing that inefficient land use leads to an inefficient and uncompetitive business environment — with or without gas at $4 a gallon.

    Of course biking and walking suffer greatly when communities pursue high-speed mobility.  High-speed roads are rarely bike friendly.  And in these less dense communities, everything is further away which makes cycling and walking less attractive.  Lower density also makes public transit less effective.

    Here is a great Streetfilm video from Paris that talks about how they’re doing things right.  Their engineers look at how to efficiently move people not cars.  It’s pretty basic and common sense.