Comments on: News Cycle: "Vulnerable user" law proceeds, Top 10 bike-friendlies, Trek's $$, B.C. bike scammer goes down & more

By: Top 11 Bike-Friendly Cities: America does better! « Bike Intelligencer

Top 11 Bike-Friendly Cities: America does better! « Bike Intelligencer — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:10:15 +0000

[...] Cities: America does better! In Bicycle advocacy on January 21, 2010 at 1:10 am We kvetched recently about how only one American city, Portland, made the Top 10 bike-friendly cities in the world list [...]

By: Rider Down: Hate crimes against cyclists spreading? « Bike Intelligencer

Rider Down: Hate crimes against cyclists spreading? « Bike Intelligencer — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:32:51 +0000

[...] we have to get the basic legislation in place, such as Washington’s “vulnerable user” law, before we can pursue more specific violations of human rights. But at some point the [...]

By: Paul Andrews

Paul Andrews — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:07:23 +0000

Good stuff Tim, thanks for the info. Yes we’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’ve also got a new mayor who rides! I’m hopeful we’ll start seeing some real innovations coming from soggy Emerald City.

By: Tim K

Tim K — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:47:54 +0000

Thanks for this Paul. I hadn’t seen the list. Though I have no ideas about the Aussie site’s credentials, I would like to make a comment about the bike-friendliness of Bogotá and Columbia in general.

They’ve been doing the bike thing a long long. time. You know the Ciclovia (closing parts of a city for bike and ped use on certain days) movement sweeping “green” cities all over the world? Well, Bogotá did this first — way back in 1976!!! Every week (week!!!) they close 70 mies (70 miles!!) of road to automotive traffic.

Estimates are that more than 1.5 MILLION people participate each week. That would be like if we got every man, woman, and child in the Seattle AND Portland metro areas out for a weekly bike ride.

Can you imagine anything of that scale every happening around here, or even in the great Portland? When we close streets we talk about closing blocks, not miles, and certainly not 70 miles.

Though I agree Portland has done some amazing things, and that I, too, would like to see Seattle make the list, the truth is: We’ve got a long way to go, baby.

More on Ciclovia on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciclov%C3%ADa) and on Bogotá, specifically, on Street Films: http://www.streetfilms.org/ciclovia/