Hövding – a Swedish company best known for its radical airbag cycling helmets (definitely check these out) – is currently crowdsourcing unsafe conditions and cyclist frustration in London.
Working with the London Cyclist Campaign, they distributed 500 yellow handlebar buttons. Cyclists were then instructed to tap these buttons whenever they felt unsafe or frustrated with current cycling conditions.
Here’s what the button looks like:
Every time the button is hit, the data point gets logged to a public map and an email gets sent to the Mayor of London reminding him of his promises around cycling. Both of these things happen via the rider’s smartphone.
Here’s what the public map looks like at the time of writing this post:
Not only does it tell you pain point locations, but it also seems to suggest the primary cycling routes. I think this is a brilliant initiative because, it’s entirely user-centric. It’s telling you how people feel on the ground.
Supposedly, Hövding is actively looking for other cyclist groups around the world to help them distribute their buttons. So if you’re a group in Toronto or in another city, I would encourage you to reach out to them. The more data the better.
Hövding – a Swedish company best known for its radical airbag cycling helmets (definitely check these out) – is currently crowdsourcing unsafe conditions and cyclist frustration in London.
Working with the London Cyclist Campaign, they distributed 500 yellow handlebar buttons. Cyclists were then instructed to tap these buttons whenever they felt unsafe or frustrated with current cycling conditions.
Here’s what the button looks like:
Every time the button is hit, the data point gets logged to a public map and an email gets sent to the Mayor of London reminding him of his promises around cycling. Both of these things happen via the rider’s smartphone.
Here’s what the public map looks like at the time of writing this post:
Not only does it tell you pain point locations, but it also seems to suggest the primary cycling routes. I think this is a brilliant initiative because, it’s entirely user-centric. It’s telling you how people feel on the ground.
Supposedly, Hövding is actively looking for other cyclist groups around the world to help them distribute their buttons. So if you’re a group in Toronto or in another city, I would encourage you to reach out to them. The more data the better.
Barcelona is in the midst of dramatically rethinking its urban fabric to address issues around urban mobility and climate change. Initially laid out in this 2014 Urban Mobility Plan for Barcelona, the city is now implementing something it calls superilles (or superblocks in English).
Here’s what it looks like:
The idea is to concentrate transit and vehicular traffic onto the edge of these new superblocks and then convert the interiors into livable spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. Here’s a description from the Agència d’Ecologia Urbana de Barcelona:
“Superblocks are made up of a grid of basic roads forming a polygon, some 400 by 400 meters, with both interior and exterior components. The interior (intervía) is closed to motorized vehicles and above ground parking, and gives preference to pedestrian traffic in the public space. Though the inner streets are generally reserved for pedestrians, they can be used by residential traffic, services, emergency vehicles, and loading/unloading vehicles under special circumstances. The perimeter, or exterior, of Superblocks is where motorized traffic circulates, and makes up the basic roads.”
The result is going to be an absolutely radical shift in the amount of public space given to drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. When their 2014 report was issued, it was estimated that 73% of public space was allocated to cars (versus pedestrians). This plan will completely flip that ratio. With the superblock model, it is estimated that 77% of public space will now be allocated to pedestrians.
Here’s what that is expected to look like…
Before:
After:
There are also plans to expand the bicycle network to roughly 95% of the city’s population.
Before:
After:
If any of you are from Barcelona, I would love to hear a local perspective on this mobility plan. Were and are there cries of a war on the car?
Images: Top image from Tom Walk (Flickr); Maps from Urban Mobility Plan of Barcelona 2013-2018
Toronto can’t make up its mind right now as to whether it would like to invest in additional cycling infrastructure.
Of course, we have a history of vacillating on topics like this. And I think it’s because we’re at a tricky inflection point. We are weaning ourselves off of the car, but most parts of the city remain underserved by transit and heavily dependent on the car.
So today I thought I would share some numbers from a research study that was published last year by Stefan Gössling of Lund University and Andy S. Choi of the University of Queensland. It’s called, Transport transitions in Copenhagen: Comparing the cost of cars and bicycles.
Much of the focus of the paper is on the cost-benefit analysis that the City of Copenhagen uses to make its cycling investment decisions. Here is an excerpt from ScienceDaily:
“If the costs to society and the costs to private individuals are added together, the impact of the car is EUR 0.50 per kilometre and the impact of the bicycle is EUR 0.08 per kilometre.
The study by Stefan Gössling and his colleague also shows that if we only look at costs/benefits for society, one kilometre by car costs EUR 0.15, whereas society earns EUR 0.16 on every kilometre cycled.
“The cost-benefit analysis in Copenhagen shows that investments in cycling infrastructure and bike-friendly policies are economically sustainable and give high returns,” says Stefan Gössling.”
So there you have it. Now I thought we could debate this in the comment section. Your thoughts?
P.S. The images at the top of this post were taken by me using my new GoPro bicycle handlebar mount.
Barcelona is in the midst of dramatically rethinking its urban fabric to address issues around urban mobility and climate change. Initially laid out in this 2014 Urban Mobility Plan for Barcelona, the city is now implementing something it calls superilles (or superblocks in English).
Here’s what it looks like:
The idea is to concentrate transit and vehicular traffic onto the edge of these new superblocks and then convert the interiors into livable spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. Here’s a description from the Agència d’Ecologia Urbana de Barcelona:
“Superblocks are made up of a grid of basic roads forming a polygon, some 400 by 400 meters, with both interior and exterior components. The interior (intervía) is closed to motorized vehicles and above ground parking, and gives preference to pedestrian traffic in the public space. Though the inner streets are generally reserved for pedestrians, they can be used by residential traffic, services, emergency vehicles, and loading/unloading vehicles under special circumstances. The perimeter, or exterior, of Superblocks is where motorized traffic circulates, and makes up the basic roads.”
The result is going to be an absolutely radical shift in the amount of public space given to drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. When their 2014 report was issued, it was estimated that 73% of public space was allocated to cars (versus pedestrians). This plan will completely flip that ratio. With the superblock model, it is estimated that 77% of public space will now be allocated to pedestrians.
Here’s what that is expected to look like…
Before:
After:
There are also plans to expand the bicycle network to roughly 95% of the city’s population.
Before:
After:
If any of you are from Barcelona, I would love to hear a local perspective on this mobility plan. Were and are there cries of a war on the car?
Images: Top image from Tom Walk (Flickr); Maps from Urban Mobility Plan of Barcelona 2013-2018
Toronto can’t make up its mind right now as to whether it would like to invest in additional cycling infrastructure.
Of course, we have a history of vacillating on topics like this. And I think it’s because we’re at a tricky inflection point. We are weaning ourselves off of the car, but most parts of the city remain underserved by transit and heavily dependent on the car.
So today I thought I would share some numbers from a research study that was published last year by Stefan Gössling of Lund University and Andy S. Choi of the University of Queensland. It’s called, Transport transitions in Copenhagen: Comparing the cost of cars and bicycles.
Much of the focus of the paper is on the cost-benefit analysis that the City of Copenhagen uses to make its cycling investment decisions. Here is an excerpt from ScienceDaily:
“If the costs to society and the costs to private individuals are added together, the impact of the car is EUR 0.50 per kilometre and the impact of the bicycle is EUR 0.08 per kilometre.
The study by Stefan Gössling and his colleague also shows that if we only look at costs/benefits for society, one kilometre by car costs EUR 0.15, whereas society earns EUR 0.16 on every kilometre cycled.
“The cost-benefit analysis in Copenhagen shows that investments in cycling infrastructure and bike-friendly policies are economically sustainable and give high returns,” says Stefan Gössling.”
So there you have it. Now I thought we could debate this in the comment section. Your thoughts?
P.S. The images at the top of this post were taken by me using my new GoPro bicycle handlebar mount.
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