If you’re passionate about walking, biking and living outside of the city, then you might want to check out what may be the very first new car-free community to break ground in the U.S. Modeled after remote pedestrian-only towns like Zermatt, Switzerland (see photo above and aerial of town here), it’s called Bicycle City, and its founders would like the initial development 15 miles south of Columbia, South Carolina to be the first of many.

It will be very similar to the Vauban neighborhood in Germany where residents crowdsourced its development and placed all parking on the periphery, leaving the neighborhood pedestrian only.

Lead founder Joe Mellett, an internet pioneer who sold his business to fund the pre-development, and his group spent $1 million on 140 acres, with the first phase including 10 homes ranging from 800 to 1600 s.f. - starting in the $100,000s - near the periphery parking lots, if the county approves construction for this fall. It doesn’t score points for being a greenfield development, and the team does recognize that with an intent to identify urban sites in the future.

Bicycle City is going to need some help from the crowd to see it through, with the biggest hurdle proving that there really is a market for something like this, that the U.S. (at least those willing to live near Columbia, SC) is ready for this. Stay connected via @cooltown on Twitter see if Bicycle City decides in the very near future to apply crowdsourced placemaking and lets you all in on it.

Read more in the Charleston City Paper, Car-free community cropping up in rural Columbia suburb.

Photo of Zermatt, Switzerland courtesy of Matt.

One would be hard pressed to find any real estate development firms firmly committed to investing in crowdsourced placemaking yet… except one. See Renaissance Downtowns’ recent press release below:

July 20, 2010

This program is currently being prepared for the city of Nashua, NH with the intent to employ the methodology in Waterbury, CT and Bristol, CT as well. These three municipalities have all designated Renaissance as master developer and are in the early stages of the planning and development process, a process that intends to meet the wants and needs of the market by listening to the individuals who comprise that market through the crowdsourced placemaking program.

Looks like your typical highway map doesn’t it? Except this isn’t for cars, this is the map for London’s new bicycle superhighway system. Check out the full size map with legend here.

From London Mayor Boris Johnson, “These radial routes are set to transform our great city into one where cycling is the first choice for many thousands of Londoners. As well as being good for your health and wallet, encouraging more people to commute to work by bike will in turn help us improve air quality, cut carbon emissions and reduce congestion on the transport network.”

Here are some of the notables:

- The first two of twelve routes (in red on the map) opened on July 19, 2010.
- It’s partially paid for and sponsored by Barclays bank, branded the Barclays Cycle Superhighway (think corporate-named stadiums).
- The City of London plans to invest £116M (~$177M U.S.) on cycling in 2010, £23M of it on the cycle superhighway.
- Around 5000 cycle journeys are currently made everyday on the two routes, with plans to increase to 27,000 by 2013.
- The majority of superhighway lanes will be at 1.5m (~5 ft) wide, textured and painted blue.
- 5000 new cycle parking spaces for the first two routes, with 66,000 new parking spaces overall by 2012.
- The next two routes will open is summer 2011, and the rest by 2015.

An important note is that this is just a start. The first two routes are considered pilots, which you can see in the promotional video below. Many Londoners are already saying the lanes need further distinction from auto traffic, which you can read about in a BBC report, How super? What cyclists make of superhighways. Let’s see what the crowd can do about it. They could also use some branding help from these guys. Stay tuned.

You know what it was like with commuting by bike in the 20th century… you may as well wear a tie-dye as well.

When bicycle advertising campaigns are featured in business magazines, you know the times are a changin’. Check out the logos, gear, posters and website behind People for Bikes: Uniting a Million Voices to Improve the Future of Biking at the Fast Company article, Finally, Bike Branding Moves Beyond Hipster Ghetto. People may even want to choose their bike from the icons above and make it their avatar.

It’s a biking campaign presented as lifestyle branding, complete with Lance Armstrong as spokesperson. The message is essentially, ‘I bike, therefore I’m cool’. There’s even an opportunity for the crowd to effect change, by being one of a million pledgers to enact legislative change. It’s something America as a whole wasn’t quite ready for a decade ago…

In a new century of consciousness, where big homes, big cars and big credit card limits are no longer a staple of the American Dream, the bike commuter is starting to gain an equal amount of status as the car commuter. Or at the very least, the average American probably now sees the Hummer owner to be as much of a dork as the bike owner, if not more so. In other words, bikes are becoming cool.

...though not quite as hip as they are in Amsterdam, where bicyclists have their own streets, traffic lights and parking garages. Give it another decade. In the meantime, you can read the stories leading up to that here.

If all continues to go well, San Francisco’s business and resident groups (ie the crowd) will be able to trade parking spaces for revenue and quality-of-life generating spaces instead. The City’s Pavement to Parks trial program is experimenting with repurposing underutilized street space into pedestrian-only parks and plazas. Their first project, the 17th Street Plaza has already become a favorite local destination.

The positive reception has lead to its ‘Parklet‘ program, where a pedestrian platform replaces streetside parking spaces. The first trial parklet opened March 18, 2010 on Divisadero Street, and if it’s an economic and social success (it’s already an environmental one), the City will look to establish a permit system allowing any business to apply for a permit and do this on their own. Indications look pretty good if Parklet beneficiary John McDonald, co-founder of Mojo Bicycle Cafe has anything to say about it, interviewed in the Streetflims video above…

As far as I know, we are the first full operation restaurant, beer, wine, sandwiches, food, breakfast, lunch, dinner that also is attached directly, all one business, to a full service and sales bicycle shop, and now has a patio courtesy of the City and County of San Francisco.

If I had a business somewhere else and was witnessing what’s happening arouund here, I would be on the phone to the city trying to make my spot the next location.“

The City also likes to add that it’s had more ‘road diets’ (lane removals to add ped and bike facilities) than any other city in North America. Approximately 35 with more to come in the next year.

So, what’s stopping you from getting a parklet demonstration going with your city?

It just keeps getting better in Oak Cliff, Texas for its Better Block project. First their two-day demonstration of a pedestrian-oriented destination on 7th Street spurred city council action to work on making it permanent, now the team is ready to tackle something bigger… a three-month demonstration of a pedestrian-only plaza.

Less than three months after the 7th Street demonstration, Dallas’ city council, led by council member Delia Jasso, told Better Block founder Jason Roberts that he and nonprofit Go Oak Cliff will have three months to prove the plaza is successful enough to make it permanent. The program is directly modeled after New York City and San Francisco’s plaza programs.

Here’s a photo of the existing intersection. It’s a challenging site because it’s currently surrounded by parking lots and roads, unlike the buildings fronting 7th Street. What will the team think of? What’s the budget? Does the site eventually allow for new buildings? The details will come when they start in September (after the dog days of August), though Jason did say they’ll have mobile food vendors bringing in revenue.

Keep track of both Better Block projects on 7th Street and the plaza at the Crowdsource Placemaking Lab. Even better, start your own plaza demonstration-to-transformation program!