Out of Town

Clever hedge fund managers have figured out ways to make money off of weather futures, the electricity grid and quite a few other unlikely sources. What I want to know is if anyone can help me find a way to invest my retirement savings in bicycling in Portland, Oregon. According to the latest numbers, it's a serious growth industry.

I was pretty sure that New York City had San Francisco beat for this year's Park(ing) Day, what, with the children's reading hour and the on-street gymnasium in Brooklyn; Staten Island and Queens getting in on the act; and German tourists frolicking on the sod in front of the MoMA (all captured by StreetFilms, of course). Then I saw photos of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome admiring Rebar Group's Parkcycle -- literally, a pedal-powered park on wheels -- and I realized that we had been foiled again. Back to the drawing board New York City Park(ing) fans. We've got 12 months to come up with something better than this...

If you're a New York City bike commuter and you're feeling down about all of the pot holes, rude, dangerous drivers, and cops clipping locked bikes off of street furniture, two recent stories in LAist, the Los Angeles version of New York City's Gothamist, might make you feel better:

While New York continues its on-again, off-again relationship with cyclists, Washington, DC is on the verge of requiring bike parking for commercial and residential development.

Detroit car makers lost another battle in their fight against stronger emissions regulations last week, this time in Vermont.

Driving (carefully) with Dutch "shared space" guru and traffic engineer Hans Monderman.

On Tuesday we highlighted a Times of London story about the London borough of Westminster turning to an airline-style variable pricing system in an attempt to make up parking revenue that has been lost since the introduction of congestion pricing. CNet is reporting that Westminster has figured out another way to make up the lost funds. They're using a wifi-based closed circuit camera network for automated parking enforcement.

We reported yesterday that noted Danish urbanist Jan Gehl will soon be surveying New York streets with an eye toward improving them for human use. Gehl has been working in Sydney, Australia as of late, and an essay he wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald offers insight into what he may be looking for here in the city.