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To Helmet or not to Helmet?
One of the powerful impressions I brought home from Amsterdam was that no one wears a bicycle helmet. The message that sends is that cycling is a safe activity. Does our culture’s insistence on helmets send the opposite message? Should I stop wearing my helmet to symbolize my conviction that cycling is a safe mode…
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Traffic Circles in the Netherlands
One of the unique bicycle features in the Netherlands is that traffic circles (‘rotaries’ if you grew up on the east coast like I did) have a separate lane for bikes. Concrete islands help regulate the flow of autos to avoid conflicts with bikes.
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Academic Research on the Portland Streetcar
It’s not every day that you get to read a master’s these about your favorite transportation project. So I settled down over the weekend with a cold beverage and all 210 pages of University of Calgary student Tom Gardiner’s thesis: Understanding Perceptions of the Portland Streetcar System. Even better, Tom’s thesis focuses in on my…
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Licht aan! (Get Lit!)
Sometimes the parallels are just eerie. In the Netherlands a major safety campaign was under way to get cyclists to have proper lights. They even had cops handing out lights. Sound familiar? The difference I noticed with a lot of ‘programs’ like this in the Netherlands is that they get a lot of promotion -…
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A Painful Conflict
Over at BikePortland.org, Jonathan reports on a conflict brewing between streetcars and bikes in the new South Waterfront development. As a multimodal alternative transportation advocate, it pains me greatly to see two modes that I love in conflict with each other. I serve as chair of the Portland Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) and as…