Cities and Countries

Outside of China, only two cities of more than a million people are known to have a bicycling mode-share over 30 percent: Amsterdam and Copenhagen. As Rutgers urban expert John Pucher has documented, cycling's vibrantly high percentage of urban trips throughout Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany was not the product of amorphous cultural factors. Rather, it came about through public policies that not only made cycling safe and convenient but also made driving costly and cumbersome.

We got a tip yesterday about an errant driver hogging a curbside spot in a residential area:

We've seen lots of new, innovative bikeway designs appear on New York City streets over the past few years. But there’s one very promising concept we haven't seen -- bicycle boulevards. Bicycle boulevard design uses a variety of techniques to create low-traffic, low-speed streets where cyclists mix comfortably with cars. They’re very popular in Portland and Berkeley, two cities with high bicycle mode-share. Here in New York, though, they don’t seem to be part of the playbook yet. In this Streetfilm we ask: Why not?

City parking meters are a gold mine, and in Chicago, Morgan Stanley is rolling in parking riches. Secret company documents leaked to reporters show the company will rake in a 70 percent profit margin this year from its $1.15 billion, 75-year lease of Chicago's parking meters. This profit is on top of the millions Morgan paid to buy new, high-tech meters. The good times will keep on rolling for investors: In 2010, after another meter price hike, Morgan expects to make monthly profits of $4.8 million, roughly 55 percent higher than in 2009.

The Times ran a piece on Vélib's growing pains this weekend. The story is more thoroughly reported than the hatchet job we saw from the BBC back in February -- no claims that bike-share in Paris will flame out quickly this time around. Vélib is part of Parisian life now, and some level of theft and vandalism is part of the bargain.

Following a highly-publicized, intensely-followed trial, Christopher Thompson, the physician accused of using his car to seriously injure two cyclists in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, is behind bars.

As the Senate opened its second round of climate change hearings today, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter delivered the urban case for climate legislation, outlining an array of infrastructure improvements and green reforms that would be made possible by federal action to reduce carbon emissions.

Clarence recently dug up a few unused nuggets from last year's junket to Melbourne, Australia. Watch and see how curbside space in residential neighborhoods has been repurposed for plantings that double as traffic calming treatments. Whatever red tape they had to hack through to plant trees in the roadbed, not just on the sidewalk, they've hacked through it in Melbourne. Have to say, though, the trees planted in the bike lane (or the bike lane painted around the trees) had me scratching my head.

Elana linked to this story out of Salt Lake City in the Capitol Hill headline stack this morning, and it's worth everyone's full attention. Derek Jensen reports on what may be the biggest impediment to urbanism of them all: The widespread bias of banks against walkable development.