Strava insights – US focus but still an interesting read

Data trackers extraordinaire Strava has published its annual end of year insights for 2015, and there is some pretty info in the report.

Comprising millions of individual uploaded rides, the data offers unique insight into the habits and behavior of cyclists in the United States. For example in 2015, 5.3 activities were uploaded and shared on the social network every second.

This immense depth of data allows documentation and analysis of Strava’s growth in the world of cycling and running in the United States, while also providing direct comparison with the Strava community on a global scale. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most interesting information.

2015 Highlights

• Globally, Strava athletes uploaded 5.3 activities every second
• Over 26 million rides uploaded in the U.S.
• Average speed for U.S. male cyclist is 14.6 mph, female U.S. cyclist is 12.7 mph ­
• Average cycling commuter distance in U.S. is 10.5 miles

Global Cycling

Across Strava’s global platform, cyclists shared a total of 115.8 million rides in 2015, accruing a total of nearly 2.6 billon miles — almost enough for a one-way trip to Neptune. Strava’s cyclists together accumulated 133 billion vertical feet in elevation gain.

U.S. Cycling

Cycling uploads on Strava continue to grow and grow as riders in the U.S. logged 26,320,103 individual rides throughout the year, logging 539,112,239 miles along the way. Saturday, July 11 proved to be the year’s most popular day for a ride. From the hills of Vermont to the high Rockies of Colorado, riders in the U.S. climbed an 25.6 billion vertical feet.

For average distance, men recorded 23 miles for each ride, while women averaged 20 miles. The average ride time was yet another significant difference, as the men’s 1:54:00 put them in the saddle for longer than the women, who registered 1:38:00 in comparison. Women recorded an average speed of 12.7 mph for an individual ride, with men registering 14.6 mph.

Not known as a traditional cycling state, Louisiana emerged as surprisingly the fastest state, with an average speed of 15.2 mph, joined by flatland Florida atop the ranking for longest average ride with 24.2 miles. Also surprisingly, Vermont topped Colorado and California as the biggest climbers, with 1,460 vertical feet gained per ride.

Strava also revealed that California was the most active state in the U.S., with 7,172,721 rides logged, a considerable margin of difference over its nearest rival, Colorado, where they totaled 1,465,414. Sausalito, California, was home to the most popular segment in the U.S. in 2015, with 15,327 attempts on the “7-11 Bump.”

Bike Commuting

For many Strava members, commuting is a large part of their daily routine, with an average of 95,878 rides recorded as commutes to and from work every week. A pacey average of 15.0 mph ensured riders made it in on time, tackling an average 10.5 miles door-to-door. Winter was an unappealing affair for many, axing commuter activity by 63.3 percent as people returned to more comfortable methods of transport.

“This latest release of Strava’s data demonstrates once again the great depth of insight which is available when collating the activities of the world’s cyclists and runners,” says Andrew Vontz, Strava brand manager. “The Strava story offers us an unprecedented opportunity to analyze and interpret a broad spectrum of data, helping to understand behavior and habits of athletes in the United States; as well as providing real-world feedback on how people utilize their local roads for both exercising and commuting.”

I made a commitment …

Very good post …..

Three years ago I made a commitment to myself. I committed to commute by bicycle throughout the year, not just when it is warm and dry, or when it suited me. I committed to cycling to and from the office every day regardless of the weather. No excuses. Cycling was not new to me. After […]

https://pedalworks.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/i-made-a-commitment/

Occasional and Frequent Bike – Design Milk suggestion??

I am not so sure but this article on Designmilk seems to think this is one way to get the majority on the road …

Whatever your commute needs are, the C-Class bike from Ariel Rider was designed for you. Blending the features found in a city bike and cargo bike, the bicycle is meant for city commuters and their various needs. In fact, the C in C-Class stands for city.

The bike itself is not as heavy-duty as a cargo bike, but can carry an additional 300lbs excluding the rider. It has plenty of storage solutions, from a front rack that can carry items from pizza to a bag, and it even comes with a little cup holder for your coffee. The items are secured by elastic cords onto the bamboo carrying tray.

The bike is also perfect for seasoned bikers, and those who are a little rusty as well. Its power on demand system (POD) provides an extra boost when needed, which is especially helpful when biking up steep hills.

Reblog: Just try it. I dare you.

Just try it. Just try and steal my bike. Thanks (again) to Chasing Mailboxes, I discovered a trick to thwart would be thieves by simply passing my helmet strap through the front wheel and bike frame before clasping it. Sure. It is easy to remove. And, I would never leave the bike for long like […]

https://pedalworks.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/just-try-it-i-dare-you/

Cycling makes up on 6th of all (Central) London transport

Transport for London (TfL) says bicycles now make up one sixth of traffic in the centre of the capital, with cycling levels in London are now the greatest they have been since it began keeping records at the turn of the Millennium 15 years ago.

Mayor Boris Johnson says that the figures show the need for infrastructure such as the two proposed cross-city Cycle Superhighways, due to be approved by TfL’s board this week.

According to TfL, levels of cycling on the city’s major roads, which make up the TfL road network, rose by 10 per cent in the quarter from 14 September to 6 December compared to a year earlier, and by the end of the current financial year it expects annual growth to have hit 12 per cent.

Last year, for the first time TfL began monitoring the number of trips made by bike within the Congestion Charging zone, and says that 170,000 are being made each day, with bicycles now making up 16 per cent of traffic in Central London.

It adds that between a quarter and a half of all journeys on some routes during peak hours are undertaking by bike.

“Last week I announced my final intentions for the new East-West and North-South superhighways,” said Mr Johnson.

“These amazing numbers show how cyclists are becoming ubiquitous in London and prove, if further proof were needed, why we need to crack on with catering for them.”

TfL said that use of the city’s Cycle Hire scheme had also hit new highs, with just over 10 million journeys made during 2014 – up 25 per cent on the previous year, and 5 per cent greater than in 2012, which had been the year in which the scheme saw highest take-up.

It added that the number of hires made at Waterloo station had increased by 12 per cent, which it said suggested “more people are now using the scheme as a viable commuting option,” and it also revealed that customer satisfaction with the scheme was at record levels.

One of the reasons for the continued growth in use of the scheme is its wider availability – now covering 100 square kilometres and with further expansion planned, there are also more bikes and docking stations.

Mr Johnson said, “Barclays Cycle Hire continues to grow in popularity and there can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city.”

Tfl’s director of strategy and planning for surface transport, Ben Plowden, added: “Our aim is to make cycling an integral part of London’s transport network and to be normalised so that anyone can jump on a bike to get to work, to the shops or to discover London.

“Seeing these continuously record breaking numbers of cyclists in London is a great demonstration that our work to make cycling easier and safer, including unprecedented levels of investment, is achieving this aim.”

Future City Perfection: Gi Bike

GI Bike

Gi-Bike is a connected, lightweight, electric folding bike. The creators aim to revolutionize and transform the way millions commute to work, they state that Gi-Bike has enough features to satisfy all the needs of the everyday commuter. To begin, the bike is foldable, it only takes 1 second and one motion to fold, and can easily be carried like a wheeled-luggage, it features electric assistance, knowing when you need help and will assist you with the electric engine. It also features wheel smart LED lights that turn on at night and includes an app connected to the Gi-Bike´s integrated anti-theft lock that locks automatically once you walk 10 feet away from your bike. The app also allows you to control all of Gi’s features, including its electric assistance, wireless lights, and also provides live statistics measuring calories burned, speed, time, mileage, and much more

KICKSTARTER HERE

See how it works below

 

Glasgow and City cyclist must use Strava

Glasgow on the Strava heat map

If there was a reason to run Strava on your GPS or phone for every journey then this is it – the company are selling the info to cities to help with the planning of routes for commuting. If you are like me and use it for rides away from the city then you should make sure you have it running on your phone so that the cities that buy into it are properly informed …..

road.cc

Strava has moved into the ‘big data’ game with the launch of Strava Metro, which it says gives data providing “ground truth” on where people ride bikes or go running – and it is licensing the results to city authorities and advocacy groups, including in London and Glasgow.

The San Francisco, California-based company, developer of the smartphones apps and website that allow users worldwide to track their rides and runs, says that “millions of GPS-tracked activities are uploaded to Strava every week from around the globe.

“In denser metro areas, nearly one-half of these are commutes. These activities create billions of data points that, when aggregated, enable deep analysis and understanding of real-world cycling and pedestrian route preferences.”

The popularity of using Strava on main commuter routes can clearly be seen on the map of London accompanying this article – you can find a bigger version here on the Bicycleretailer.com website – with strong levels of usage on roads such as the Embankment.

Making the data available to local transportation authorities or advocacy groups can help identify where demand for cycling, for example – and thereby the need for safe infrastructure – is strongest.

According to the company, “Strava Metro’s mission is to produce state-of-the-art spatial data products and services to make cycling, running and walking in cities better.

“Using Strava Metro, departments of transportation and city planners, as well as advocacy groups and corporations, can make informed and effective decisions when planning, maintaining, and upgrading cycling and pedestrian corridors.”

Clearly, there are bound to be privacy concerns with such a service – we’ve reported in the past, for example, concerns that thieves use rides uploaded to Strava to target where people who own high-end bikes live.

Strava has sought to allay such worries by emphasising that Strava Metro “processes the data to remove all personal information linked to the user and structures it for compatibility with classic geographical information systems (GIS) environments.”

It adds: “Strava Metro tools enable DOTs and advocacy groups to do detailed analyses and glean insights into cycling and running patterns dissected by time of day, day of week, season and local geography.

“Advocacy organisations and the general public can now access high-resolution heatmap visualisations of the data free of charge at Strava Labs.”

You can find those heatmaps here.

“Organisations seeking deeper insight and analysis can license Strava Metro data and tools for use with geographic information systems (GIS) mapping software. Licensing costs are based on the number of Strava members in the requested geographic area.”

There is an inquiry form for anyone wanting to find out more information.

The company’s co-founder and president Michael Horvath said: “Bicycling safety is a top concern to our members worldwide, especially when they’re riding through metropolitan areas with a high concentration of motor vehicle traffic.

“Strava Metro delivers an innovative way for us to serve Strava members and non-members alike by helping to make their daily commutes and weekend rides smoother and safer,” he added.

Pricing of the licensing of the data will depend on the number of Strava users in the area concerned.

According to a blog post by Reed Albergotti in The Wall Street Journal, the first local authority to sign up is the department of transportation for Oregon, which will pay $20,000 to license it for 12 months to analyse usage in Portland.

A policy analyst working for that body, Margi Bradway, said: “We’re dipping our toe into the idea of big data with this project.”

Jennifer Dill, who is a professor at Portland State University’s Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, said: “Right now, there’s no data. We don’t know where people ride bikes. Just knowing where the cyclists are is a start.”

Other customers are located in London, Glasgow, Orlando in Florida, and Alpine Shire in Victoria, Australia, although the actual bodies to have licensed the data have not been reported.

Rain I think i will take the car to work honey …

HAHAHAHAHA

A: don’t live in the suburbia death trap

B: don’t drive if you deal with a rush hour

This is in Glasgow – or more accurately Bearsden outside Glasgow … love it. more here 

Cycling London – info graphics shows where the cyclists are and where they ride to….

We hear a lot lately about the risks that London bike commuters face every day. In the last few weeks no fewer than three people on bike have been killed in collisions with trucks, and just this morning a 44-year-old man was in serious condition in hospital after being crushed by a tipper truck.

However, in analysing where the popular places for bike commuters to live and their commuting routes, renting advice site rentonomy points out: “Cycling in London is generally quite safe. While it’s true that last year 16 people were killed cycling, Transport for London estimates that people make around 540,000 bike trips every day in the city.”

Blue areas indicate the highest density of bike commuters (Graphic courtesyrentonomy.com)

“The number of cyclists on the Capital’s major roads has more than doubled since 2000 – up nine per cent in the year 2008-09 alone,” writes rentonomy’s David Butler.

The stereotypical view of London cycling is that typical bike riders in the capital are fixie-riding Hackney hipsters. Rentonomy doesn’t have any data on bikes and lifestyles, but Butler says the the top five areas where bike commuters live include Dalston, Stoke Newington and Clapton, all in the borough of Hackney, plus neighbouring Clapton in Islington.

Butler says that 12% of all commuters cycle into work from Dalston. “Others in the top five are Stoke Newington (10%), Highbury (9%), Clapton (9%) and Herne Hill (8%), according to the 2011 census.”

The money saved by commuting by bike is substantial. “With annual Travelcards costing £1,200 (zones 1-2) and £1,400 (zones 1-3), these savvy cyclists could be saving between 8% and 15% of their rent,” says Butler.

And where are these commuters going?

Butler says: “We used data from the 2001 census to see where people from these top 5 cycle areas are cycling to in their daily commute, and created the map at the bottom of this article. With the exception of Dalston, by far the most popular commuting destination is Victoria and St James. This is to be expected as this area is the most common commuting destination of all methods of transport. Dalston residents are most likely to cycle to Haggerston, Bloomsbury or the West End.”

Ladies – grab your bikes (blokes too)

Some myths debunked

Monday Bike Style: brompton in Barcelona

Riding above the traffic in London – the future sky effect

 

Last month ride.cc how Boris Johnson had revealed very rudimentary plans for an elevated cycle path over London, and now a firm of architects has produced sketches of how the project, with the working name SkyCycle, might look.

Sam Martin, a landscape architect and director of Exterior Architecture, has apparently been in discussions with the Mayor of London and Network Rail since May about using disused railway lines above ground in a network linking mainline railway stations across the capital.

Here it is:

Mr Martin “TfL estimate the number of journeys made by bike will treble to around 1.5 million by 2020. Where are they meant to go? SkyCycle is the next logical step, because you can’t realistically build more cycle lanes on ground level.

“You have to start knocking down buildings and there will always be the problem of traffic. It will be less safe than it is now and you can’t persuade people to get on bikes as it is even if you keep raising taxes on cars.

“Boris loves the idea and Network Rail are really positive about it. I sincerely believe it could be the next significant piece of London infrastructure and would transform the capital.

“It has been compared to New York’s High Line, which I am familiar with, but the reality is this is a completely different concept.”

Mr Martin’s plans include a pay-as-you-ride Oyster service, which he proposes costing £1 per journey, with a corporate sponsor like Barclays helping to fund the construction costs.

It is thought the first route could be built on the Olympic regeneration of east London, linking Stratford with the City of London through Liverpool and Fenchurch Street stations but this has yet to be confirmed.

 

If you needed more reasons to get off your arse, out the car and on the bike

Scottish Household Survey: Travel Diary 2009/2010

23 November 2011

Transport Scotland statisticians today published Scottish Household Survey: Travel Diary 2009/2010. This bulletin presents analysis of information collected by the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) in 2009/2010, about travel in a random sample of adults (16+) living in private households across Scotland. Two years data is combined to achieve larger sample sizes, allowing for more detailed analysis, although individual years are reported at a national level. It can be found on the Travel Diary Results page

Main Findings

Travel patterns
1.1 In 2009/2010, 75 per cent of respondents reported travel the previous day; men were more likely to have travelled than women (77 per cent vs 74 per cent).
1.2 Those aged 80 and over carried out the least travel (45 per cent) in 2009/2010. This age group experienced the greatest decline in travel between 2007 and 2010.
1.3 There was an overall decrease of 6 percentage points in those travelling the previous day between 2007 and 2010.
1.4 The majority of journeys were undertaken in urban areas (settlements with a population of at least 10,000) – 64 per cent compared to only 21 per cent in rural areas with the remaining 15 per cent in small towns.

Mode of travel
1.5 Just over half of all journeys in 2009/2010 were as a driver and over a third were by sustainable modes of transport (walking, cycling and public transport).
1.6 Men were more likely to drive than women (58 per cent vs 45 per cent) although women were more likely to walk or be a car or bus passenger than their male counterparts.
1.7 Car usage increased with income; bus usage decreased. Thirty per cent of respondents in households with income up to £10,000 p.a. drove and 15 per cent took the bus compared to 67 per cent and 4 per cent respectively for those with household incomes of over £40,000 per annum.
1.8 The average number of occupants in a car/van was 1.6 across Scotland, a trend that has been relatively stable over the last decade. Commuting journeys had a lower average number of occupants per vehicle (1.2); weekend journeys and those for leisure purposes had a higher average number of occupants per vehicle (1.8-2.5).

Purpose of travel
1.9 Over a quarter of journeys were for commuting in 2010 – a 3 percentage point increase from 2007. Twenty-three per cent were for shopping, consistent with other years.
1.10 Men and those in households with higher incomes were more likely to have travelled for business or commuting purposes. Journeys for shopping or to visit friends/relatives were more common amongst women and those in lower income households.

Day and time of travel
1.11 Although the percentage of journeys during the week peaked during the morning and evening “rush hour” periods (start times between 8:00-8:59am and 4:00-5:59pm), weekend journeys peaked around start times between midday to 1:59pm.
1.12 Rail and bus journeys were most common during the week. This makes sense since these modes are more common for journeys for commuting or education purposes.
1.13 The older the respondent, the less likely they were to travel after 6.30pm – 8 per cent of those aged 80 and over compared to 22 per cent of 16-19 year olds.

Distance and duration
1.14 Sixty-two per cent of journeys were less than 5 km (approx 3 miles) in 2009/2010, with almost half being less than 3km (39 per cent were less than 2km and 24 per cent less than 1km).
1.15 In 2009/2010, the average (mean) journey distance was 11 km (approx 7 miles), compared to a median of only 3 km (approx 2 miles). This shows that half of all journeys were 3km or less.
1.16 Over 65 per cent of journeys in urban areas were under 5km compared to less than 45 per cent in rural areas; conversely, less than 10 per cent of journeys in urban areas were 20km (approx 7 miles) or over with around one fifth of rural journeys covering the same distance.
1.17 In 2010, a lower proportion of journeys were 1-3km in length and less than 10 minutes in duration than in previous years. Conversely, a higher proportion of journeys were at least 20km and 21-120 minutes compared to previous years.

Congestion
1.18 Ten per cent of driver journeys were delayed by congestion in 2010 – in line with 2009 levels but a 4 percentage point decrease since 2007 (similar to 2003 levels). This figure provides an update to the indicator used in the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework.
1.19 Twelve per cent of service bus journeys suffered delays in 2010. Congestion was given as the most common reasn for delays to bus journeys with 59 per cent stating this reason for their delay.

Cycle commuters healthier than those that drive or take the bus

bike commuters

from the great ride.cc

Commuting by car or public transport is bad for your health, that’s the not very shocking conclusion of a Swedish public health survey in to the commuting habits of 21,000 people which has been published in the journal BMC Public Health

The snappily titled “Detection Relationship between commuting and health outcomes in a cross-sectional population survey in southern Sweden” was carried out by researchers from Lund University gathered information on full time workers aged between 18 and 65 in southern Sweden. In a press release explaining their findings Erik Hansseen from the university’s division of occupational and environmental medicine said:

“Generally car and public transport users suffered more everyday stress, poorer sleep quality, exhaustion and, on a seven point scale, felt that they struggled with their health compared to the active commuters.

“The negative health of public transport users increased with journey time. However, the car drivers who commuted 30 – 60 minutes experienced worse health than those whose journey lasted more than one hour.”

While most of this might seem confirmation of the staggeringly obvious the Lund researchers say that all might not be as it seems. They point out, (we’d like to imagine while leaning forward at their desks and pressing their fingertips together before possibly taking their rimless glasses off for a quick polish), that some of the health outcomes might relate to the economic circumstances of their research subjects as much as their chosen methods of commuting. Thus poorer people might be more likely to commute by public transport, but their health would also be adversely affected by the very fact of being poor. However the economic argument doesn’t necessarily explain why cyclists and walkers are healthier other than the active nature of their commutes. While in the UK cyclists are generally slightly more affluent than the general population that may or may not be true for Southern Sweden. Pedestrians are likely to be drawn from all economic strata of a society.

That they say, probably while staring out of the lab window at a fiord (do they have those in Sweden – ed), might also explain one of the seeming anomalies of the research, that commuters who drove for over an hour to work were more relaxed and less stressed than those that drove for under an hour. This they posit could be down to the relaxing nature of driving through Southern Sweden or the fact that people driving longer distances could be more affluent, high achieving males who didn’t really have very much to worry about anyway.

The Lund researchers conclude that more research is needed to tease this knotty one out. Well fancy that.

The run Commute

This is pretty inspiring

This is my daily exercise routine; my run to work is my run to keep my health!

I live 15 miles from my office in Midtown New York City. Each day I get to work by foot – I run to work! Exercise is one of the most important parts of my life, if I don’t exercise daily I just don’t feel good.

Having a tangible reason and benefit to running to work takes the mental pressure out of my mind on whether I will make time for exercise or not each day. I have to get to work, so I have to run, it’s simple, it’s routine, it’s a better life and lifestyle.

When I’m training for ultra marathons I run home too! Running ‘double’ workouts is another secret to my success in staying injury free, being accomplished in the ultra distance races, and keeping mental burnout at bay.

If you can work your exercise into your daily routine so it has a tangible use and benefit then you’ll have developed an important lifestyle habit that will improve all other areas of your life.

No excuses! You can commute to work too! Instal a shower at your office. Take a sponge bath in the bathroom. Shower and change at a local gym. Run home from work at the end of the day and shower at home, do it, you can make it happen!

“Exercise each day as if your life depends on it” – Dr. Douglas Graham

Drafting – is this no longer allowed in etiquette

A humorous article from the Guardian .....


Posted byPeter Walker Thursday 25 August 201107.00 BSTguardian.co.uk 

 

Does my draft look big in this?

 

This is a blog post which is unapologetically slimline in scope. I want to canvass views on a relatively minor point of cycling etiquette which nonetheless fascinates me: where do you stand on drafting?

By drafting, I mean the practice of riding in the slipstream close behind someone’s rear wheel, thus greatly reducing the effort you need to expend keeping at their speed. If you’re riding in the middle of a big group this can, supposedly, save you up to 40% in energy. Even behind one other cyclist it makes a very noticeable difference.

It’s all pretty standard and uncontroversial if you’re participating in an organised road race or sportive, assuming of course you take your turn at the front. Where it gets more contentious is commuting.

My position’s pretty clear: I’m happy to either draft or be drafted. With the former I don’t go ludicrously close to another bike’s rear wheel and I’m vigilant in case my temporary helper has to brake or swerve to avoid something. And if we reach a red light I’ll often try to set off quickly so as to offer a reciprocal helping hand. When in front I indicate well in advance, and point a helpful finger towards upcoming potholes and the like.

But I’m having to reconsider whether it’s worth the bother. I’m not sure about your home cycling patch but in London a reasonable minority of fellow commuters seem to view being drafted in much the same way as if you’d walked into their home and helped yourself from their fridge.

These malcontents react in different ways: some turn round and scowl; others begin weaving round the lane, slowing down or speeding up. One young man’s facial expression was so laughably aggrieved – you’d have thought I’d propositioned his mother – that when we stopped at a red traffic light I felt obliged to ask him, politely, why he so objected to being drafted. “Look,” he hissed, “we’re individuals, we’re not in this together. We’re cycling alone. Don’t you get that?” Even by London’s famously misanthropic standards this was strong stuff.

There is, of course, an obvious answer: if someone clearly doesn’t like being drafted then don’t do it. That’s all very well but doesn’t help much with that annoying breed of urban cyclist who, having been overtaken on the open road then edge in front at a red light and/or set off before the signal changes.

If you’re a light jumper, I reckon, then being drafted is the comeback. I’m damned if I’m going to expand effort overtaking a rider of broadly similar speed so they can enjoy my slipstream, even less so hang back a designated few metres. This is commuting, not a triathlon.

I’ll admit that there have been times when I’ve grimly hung on to the back wheel of a speedy traffic light ignorer who is trying hard to shake me off, pushing myself far harder than I’d intended, more or less purely to irritate them.

There is a spin-off minefield of protocol connected to drafting: as a male rider is it a bit ungentlemanly to do so to a female commuter given that the basic technique involves staying as close to their buttocks as possible? A friend of mine was once drafting a Lycra-clad road cyclist round Richmond Park’s cycling track when she turned round to accuse him of “having a gawp”. He backed off.

I’ve gone on long enough. It’s your turn. Commuter drafting: sensible, mutualistic effort-pooling or presumptuous and potentially intimidating?

A move back to cycling (and other alternatives) in cities

A great article on te rise of green in europe – a slant from the New York Times but interesting reading.

ZURICH — While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Christoph Bangert for The New York Times

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded bypopular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of“environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation.

“In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”

To that end, the municipal Traffic Planning Department here in Zurich has been working overtime in recent years to torment drivers. Closely spaced red lights have been added on roads into town, causing delays and angst for commuters. Pedestrian underpasses that once allowed traffic to flow freely across major intersections have been removed. Operators in the city’s ever expanding tram system can turn traffic lights in their favor as they approach, forcing cars to halt.

Around Löwenplatz, one of Zurich’s busiest squares, cars are now banned on many blocks. Where permitted, their speed is limited to a snail’s pace so that crosswalks and crossing signs can be removed entirely, giving people on foot the right to cross anywhere they like at any time.

As he stood watching a few cars inch through a mass of bicycles and pedestrians, the city’s chief traffic planner, Andy Fellmann, smiled. “Driving is a stop-and-go experience,” he said. “That’s what we like! Our goal is to reconquer public space for pedestrians, not to make it easy for drivers.”

While some American cities — notably San Francisco, which has “pedestrianized” parts of Market Street — have made similar efforts, they are still the exception in the United States, where it has been difficult to get people to imagine a life where cars are not entrenched, Dr. Schipper said.

Europe’s cities generally have stronger incentives to act. Built for the most part before the advent of cars, their narrow roads are poor at handling heavy traffic. Public transportation is generally better in Europe than in the United States, and gas often costs over $8 a gallon, contributing to driving costs that are two to three times greater per mile than in the United States, Dr. Schipper said.

What is more, European Union countries probably cannot meet a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions unless they curb driving. The United States never ratified that pact.

Globally, emissions from transportation continue a relentless rise, with half of them coming from personal cars. Yet an important impulse behind Europe’s traffic reforms will be familiar to mayors in Los Angeles and Vienna alike: to make cities more inviting, with cleaner air and less traffic.

Michael Kodransky, global research manager at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in New York, which works with cities to reduce transport emissions, said that Europe was previously “on the same trajectory as the United States, with more people wanting to own more cars.” But in the past decade, there had been “a conscious shift in thinking, and firm policy,” he said. And it is having an effect.

After two decades of car ownership, Hans Von Matt, 52, who works in the insurance industry, sold his vehicle and now gets around Zurich by tram or bicycle, using a car-sharing service for trips out of the city. Carless households have increased from 40 to 45 percent in the last decade, and car owners use their vehicles less, city statistics show.

“There were big fights over whether to close this road or not — but now it is closed, and people got used to it,” he said, alighting from his bicycle on Limmatquai, a riverside pedestrian zone lined with cafes that used to be two lanes of gridlock. Each major road closing has to be approved in a referendum.

Today 91 percent of the delegates to the Swiss Parliament take the tram to work.

Still, there is grumbling. “There are all these zones where you can only drive 20 or 30 kilometers per hour [about 12 to 18 miles an hour], which is rather stressful,” Thomas Rickli, a consultant, said as he parked his Jaguar in a lot at the edge of town. “It’s useless.”

Urban planners generally agree that a rise in car commuting is not desirable for cities anywhere.

Mr. Fellmann calculated that a person using a car took up 115 cubic meters (roughly 4,000 cubic feet) of urban space in Zurich while a pedestrian took three. “So it’s not really fair to everyone else if you take the car,” he said.

European cities also realized they could not meetincreasingly strict World Health Organization guidelinesfor fine-particulate air pollution if cars continued to reign. Many American cities are likewise in “nonattainment” of their Clean Air Act requirements, but that fact “is just accepted here,” said Mr. Kodransky of the New York-based transportation institute.

It often takes extreme measures to get people out of their cars, and providing good public transportation is a crucial first step. One novel strategy in Europe is intentionally making it harder and more costly to park. “Parking is everywhere in the United States, but it’s disappearing from the urban space in Europe,” said Mr. Kodransky, whose recent report“Europe’s Parking U-Turn” surveys the shift.

Sihl City, a new Zurich mall, is three times the size of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Mall but has only half the number of parking spaces, and as a result, 70 percent of visitors get there by public transport, Mr. Kodransky said.

In Copenhagen, Mr. Jensen, at the European Environment Agency, said that his office building had more than 150 spaces for bicycles and only one for a car, to accommodate a disabled person.

While many building codes in Europe cap the number of parking spaces in new buildings to discourage car ownership, American codes conversely tend to stipulate a minimum number. New apartment complexes built along the light rail line in Denver devote their bottom eight floors to parking, making it “too easy” to get in the car rather than take advantage of rail transit, Mr. Kodransky said.

While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has generated controversy in New York by “pedestrianizing” a few areas like Times Square, many European cities have already closed vast areas to car traffic. Store owners in Zurich had worried that the closings would mean a drop in business, but that fear has proved unfounded, Mr. Fellmann said, because pedestrian traffic increased 30 to 40 percent where cars were banned.

With politicians and most citizens still largely behind them, Zurich’s planners continue their traffic-taming quest, shortening the green-light periods and lengthening the red with the goal that pedestrians wait no more than 20 seconds to cross.

“We would never synchronize green lights for cars with our philosophy,” said Pio Marzolini, a city official. “When I’m in other cities, I feel like I’m always waiting to cross a street. I can’t get used to the idea that I am worth less than a car.”

Saturday morning run commute to work

It’s nearing summer in the Middle East and running has to either be done early doors – late at night or in air conditioned luxury indoors.

Ran in this morning and watched as temp on the Suunto HRM first said 29 then rose in the warm sections to 34 degrees C. Lap times fairly consistent – 1st km and a bit is on corrugated dirt road then the rest is mainly tar road – although some sections get busier with traffic. Bits where there is no traffic you can see as the lap times barely deviate from the 4:25/km heat cruising pace.

lap times

Remembered to stretch off after the run so hopefully legs wont be sore later.

The Little Magic Bike – from EcoVelo

I love EcoVelo – here’s a story – I have similar machine love for my Brompton

I had an amazing day on my Brompton today. It was a typical work day but I had a meeting scheduled for after work, and because I needed to get across town from the office to the meeting, the little Brommie came with me all the way in on the train instead of staying back at the bike locker.

Wow, what an awesome little machine for multi-modal commuting and city riding. I hadn’t ridden it in the city for a while and I’d almost forgotten how well-suited it is to urban traffic. It is so precise and responsive at speed, yet it handles wonderfully at walking speed for threading through pedestrians or snaking through narrow alleyways. Just perfect for a crowded city.

Where it really shines is on the train though. If you’ve ever taken a bike on a busy commuter train with too few rack spaces for the number of bikes, you know that entering and exiting the train while everyone is jockeying for position can be more than a little nerve-wracking. The cool thing is that because the Brompton can fit even the smallest rack space, or better yet, fold up and stow behind a seat, you can just stand back, relax, and wait until everyone is finished before boarding. What a difference.

When I arrived at the meeting location, I folded the Brommie and brought it in with me. I placed it along with my C-Bag next to where I was seated and waited for my appointment. It was cool to think that such a tiny package enabled me to get across a sprawling suburb, onto a crowded train, then across a dense urban area with so little fuss, all the while carrying a computer, camera, food, water, a change of clothes, and other personal items. Pretty incredible technology.

The best thing is simply that the bike is so much fun to ride. It’s a cool looking machine that gets lots of comments and starts conversations wherever it goes. Just today I folded it for a half-dozen curious people who were wowed and amazed by what one person dubbed “the little magic bike”.

A gym for cyclist – way to go London

From Road.cc on the new club in London ….

new fitness club, H2, focused on cyclists’ needs has opened in Soho. Spinning, showers, gym, dry cleaning, physio and a bike mechanic are all on site, to send commuters immaculately on to work after working out.

H2 is slap-bang in the heart of London’s media, advertising and entertainment district, and aims to provide cyclists with everything they need to make their commute better.
First, there are 230 secure bicycle parking spaces inside the club, on Josta racks – useful in cramped Soho, where offices are piled on top of each other and many people’s desks will be merely a hop, skip, croissant and cappuccino from the club. Second, there are well-appointed changing rooms, plentiful lockers (which can be hired for permanent storage) and decent showers – to cater for those that want to cycle to work but wouldn’t otherwise have the facilities to avoid all-day stinkiness. H2’s manager, Piers Slater said that in many gym chains, the changing rooms are an afterthought, but that H2 put extra work into making them fit for purpose. He recognises this will be one of the club’s key draws – and they look large enough to withstand the morning and evening rush hours.

H2’s philosophy, he also explained, is that most users will want to do their aerobic exercise – cycling or running – in a park, or out in the country. There are no treadmills or cross-training machines, but for cyclists who want more, there’s a large spin studio. And this is Spinning® – with a capital ‘S’ and an ® – denoting the club’s affiliation to the New York-based programme that guarantees serious quality workouts. The timetable tells you in advance who the instructor will be, and whether the session will be an endurance, interval, strength or race/recovery ride. It also indicates the target heart-rate zones.

Road.cc took part in a class and the Star Trac bikes were brand new (as you’d expect), and much smoother than others we’d tried when piling on the resistance. However, the spinning’s not just for masochists: Slater envisages it coming into its own during the winter, when fewer people will fancy the commute yet will still want to turn their legs over; the classes will also be a way of encouraging new cyclists to commuting, by giving them confidence in the saddle.

Aside from the spinning, there’s a ‘Core Training’ gym. Not as in abs and lower back – though there’s facilities enough to give them a right old working over – but as in concentrated and focused. There are no large racks of free weights – weight-lifters aren’t the target market – but instead kettle bells, medicine balls and a rather frightening looking ‘War machine’ system of pulleys, which is claimed to be a more holistic way of working the body’s muscles. Personal trainers are on hand, and the whole set-up is designed to fit in with the likely needs – and time constraints – of commuters.
While you’re working out, H2 can look after your laundry and dry cleaning, and the in-house workshop can take care of any bike repairs, providing stage one and two servicing. There’s also personal maintenance: osteopathy, physiotherapy, sports and remedial massage, podiatry and acupuncture.

The Soho club is the first of a projected chain: work is underway at a site at London Wall (near the City), and Slater sees eventually sees expansion further afield. If you’re commuting regularly, the concept seems to make a lot of sense – especially when juxtaposed with the alternative cost of a monthly travelcard. The club shows some nice attention to detail – for example, I’m told the women’s changing rooms provide hair straighteners, so that female cyclists can smarten up their helmet hair before the working day. They’ve also pledged not to over-fill the place, and shut the doors to new members when capacity is reached.

Peak-time membership is £27.99 a month; off-peak is £19.99, and that lets you in after 11am. This includes the bike park, gym, showers and changing, and the spin studio when no classes are on. Spin bundles bring the cost down to £3 a class, or heavy spinners can have unlimited access for an all-in price of £44.99 a month.