Transportation Policy

Luc Nadal of the Institute for Transportation Development Policy sends along these photos showing some of the exciting new things happening on Parisian streets these days.

Nobody knows whether the convoluted and difficult congestion pricing "deal" reached by political leaders yesterday will actually result in anything. The deal is complex even by Albany standards. A few things, however, are clear:

An enforcement camera in London captures a motorist in the bus lane.

Since we're talking about urban bike-sharing today, it's worth taking a quick look at Germany's Call-a-Bike program. The remarkable thing about this system is that you don't even need to leave the bicycles in a set parking spot. Using your cell phone you call the phone number on the side of the bike, a magic ray beam shoots out of the sky an unlocks the bicycle's rear wheel (I may not have the technological details correct there), and when you're done riding you call the number to close your transaction and leave the bike standing at any street corner in the city. It costs 6 cents per minute. Call-a-Bike is run by the Die Bahn, the German national transportation agency.

David Haskell, executive director of the Forum for Urban Design, and organizer of last week's New York Bike-Share Project demonstration in Soho, says it's time for New York City to ditch the London model and take a closer look at the traffic-reduction techniques Paris has implemented without congestion pricing. An op/ed in today's New York Times focuses on one aspect of the Paris approach, bike-sharing:

On Sunday in Paris, more than 10,000 bicycles became available at 750 self-service docking stations. The bike program, called Vélib (for "vélo," bicycle, and "liberté," freedom) is supposed to double in size by the end of the year. Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of Paris's trendy third district, said "For a long time cars were associated with freedom of movement and flexibility. What we want to show people is that in many ways bicycles fulfill this role much more today." The New York Times reports:

Laura Conaway at the Village Voice caught the filming of a bike lane-related television ad near Lafayette and E. 4th Street yesterday. We’re guessing that either MyBikeLane brought in some venture capital funding and is going big-time or the Dept. of Transportation was filming a public service advertisement. We’re leaning towards the latter because we’ve … Continued

Dept. of Transportation Comissioner Janette Sadik-Khan tells NY1 Transit reporter Bobby Cuza that New York City and the MTA still plan to implement a Bus Rapid Transit program, with or without Albany's approval of congestion pricing.