Amid the biking craze in many cities around the world, if you’ve been biking around urban destinations lately, such as the DC neighborhood of Adams Morgan, you may find parking at a premium. In Japan, 700,000 people bike everyday, more than in the U.S., so one can imagine bike parking can be an unprecedented drag. Of course, the Japanese have already used their renowned technical ingenuity to not only solve this problem, but encourage even more people to bike.

The ward government of

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As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. Streetcars ruled downtowns in the early 20th century. Then cars happened. Then a backlash against suburbia happened. Then rising gas prices happened. Now here we are with 40 U.S. cities looking to streetcars once again as a compelling economic development strategy, nicely reported in the NY Times’ Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future.

You can read about their myriad economic benefits in a past entry,

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$4/gallon has had quite a snowball effect, and one of the rewards for pedestrians outside of car-free days and cities going glorious bonkers to build bike lanes is Google has finally offered walking directions as an option.

The maps above show the same starting and arriving points, but the one on the left is for driving directions and since July 22, 2008 there’s one on the right for walking directions. It’s almost amusing how logical the path becomes. Google says they’ll try to find you a

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For a city with such a reputation for bureaucracy, it’s perhaps a sign of the new times that Washington DC is the first city in the U.S. to have a modern, city-wide bike sharing program, open for use as of August 13, 2008. It’s the same system used in Barcelona, and inspired by the 20,000 bike/1400-station phenomenon in Paris.

Ok, so the SmartBikeDC program at 120 bikes and 10 stations pales by comparison to Paris, but that’s 120 bikes/10 stations more than any other bike sharing system in

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If you think being advertised to is worth free zero-carbon rides through town, then EcoCabs is just for you. Rapidly spreading throughout Europe and North America, this Dublin-based shuttle service relies on pedal power with electric-battery assist. Passengers say the ride is surprisingly smooth with some acceleration kick. Some of the vitals:

Launched: April, 2008
Maximum number of passengers: 3
Top speed: 7 mph/12 km/h
Where: Dublin, Ireland, Toronto, Canada; New York, Chicago,

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What’s a city that launches the world’s largest bike sharing program, Velib (’free bike’… for the first 30 minutes), do for an encore? It announces the world’s largest electric car sharing program, Autolib. However, unlike the wildly successful bike sharing program, it’s unclear if this will result in more or less people driving. We’ll soon find out.

The highlights:
- 4000 electric cars
- 700 pick-up points
- Drop off anywhere (a computerized system will let you know of available

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Transit becoming cooler than cars? What’s next?

It doesn’t matter if it’s by bus, subway, light rail, streetcar or commuter rail.  It doesn’t matter if it’s in Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, New Jersey, Houston, Charlotte or Philadelphia. For the last ten years, mass transit ridership has been increasing (see NY Times survey), and significantly the last three months for obvious reasons.

Americans took 10.3 billion public transit trips in 2007, up 2.1% from 2006, but

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What’s hot? Bicycles?!

As you can see by the graph, bicycle production is enjoying a renaissance, increasing in each of the last six years while car production has remained steady in growth. Much of the recent growth has been driven by the rise gas prices as well as in electric bike production, which has doubled to 21 million units in the last three years. Since 1970, bicycle output quadrupled while car production doubled.

The city of Copenhagen (pictured) plans to invest more than

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So what’s the delivery truck equivalent of the bicycle? Look no further than Paris, the home of 20,000 shared bikes, and there you’ll find La Petite Reine, a delivery company that utilizes a fleet of 60 Cargocycles.

With a delivery capacity of 400 lbs. and 50 cubic feet within an 18-mile delivery radius, La Petite Reine completes 2500 deliveries every day for larger corporate partners like DHL that can’t access the more intimate street networks of more pedestrian-oriented downtowns.

‘La

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Already owning bragging rights to being the greenest city in the U.S. by one measure, Portland, Oregon believes it’s the most bicycle-friendly city as well. Their evidence:

- In the 1970s the state passed a bicycle bill requiring that all facilities be built with bicycle and pedestrian accommodations.

- In the 1990s, city councilor Earl Blumenauer worked to establish a bike program in the city, who has since become the leading U.S. congressman speaking on behalf of bike and

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While cities across Europe were growing their bike sharing programs, especially in Paris with 20,000 bikes and nearly a thousand stations, U.S. cities had yet to initiate even one. However, that’s about to change May 2008 when Washington DC becomes the first U.S. city to establish a bike sharing program.

Clear Channel Outdoor and the DC Department of Transportation are launching Smartbike DC, a modest but important introduction to bike sharing in the U.S. - with 100 bikes and 10 stations. 

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Pub on wheels

A year ago we profiled the conference bike from the Netherlands, which allowed seven people on one bike together - and have a ‘conference’ at the same time. Be it no surprise that the Dutch now bring us the Fietscafe (pictured above), or the PedalPub as it’s known (and distributed) in the USA. If the world has a biking scene, it’s hands down in the Netherlands.

This time instead of seven, there are fourteen people that can ride at the same time, each of them pedaling at their

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‘Third places’ for bicycle commuters

We know third places are that familiar social gathering place away from home and work, and we’re thankfully witnessing a renaissance of them in neighborhoods everywhere. So, it was inevitable that as more creatives turn to more natural means of transportation we would start to see third places for biking commuters, aka urban bike stations (thank you Springwise).

You’re in luck if you live in the following cities with urban bike stations, all of which

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A ‘Google Maps for pedestrians’

Say you live in a walkable city and want walking directions as opposed to driving directions to a destination across town. You’re in luck if you live in London and perhaps soon in Boston, thanks to Walkit, a Mapquest for people on foot.

Check out the map above - notice how the suggested walking route cuts right through several parks and with no regard for one-way streets.  It even calculates calories and CO2 saved based on walking speed and compared to other

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This isn’t your father’s light rail

...which is why in Europe they call them trams, apart from ‘light rail’ which is associated with those clunky, boxy trains you see in the U.S.  The tram in the video above debuted in November 2007 in Nice, France.

The Strasbourg, France line pioneered the sleek look in 2006 and has been an overwhelming success ever since, not to mention a favorite photo subject for tourists - now how often does that happen? Notice in the video above how its futuristic

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BusinessWeek article, reflecting the fact that subways are the ‘new hybrids’, the ultimate status symbol of being a progressive major urban city.

According to a VP at Alstom, one of the largest transit car builders in the world, “You have in some cases a prestige issue, which is more the case in young cities in need of an image. Unless funding is an issue, cities usually will spring for a subway. The tramway [light

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Transit Cooperative Research Program provides some evidence for the logic that assumes fewer auto trips will result simply because people will take transit or walk more often, and drive

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I don’t know what it is, but this seems to be the year of the bicycle…

Based on criteria (see below, which are very U.S. oriented, thus skewing the rankings significantly) provided by the League of American Bicyclists, Virgin Vacations presents the 11 most bike friendly cities in the world:

1. Amsterdam, Netherlands - You have to check out the video on the site - amazing, though it may help to ignore the rather nerdy-sounding narrative. 40% of all trips are by bikes, and there are more

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How can you tell a city really cares about bicyclists? By spending the money to design and install the world’s first and presently only bike lift to encourage biking to popular, but difficult to reach places. In this case, it’s a steep hill between the city’s main university and its downtown.

Built in 1993, the ‘Trampe’ (bike lift) has been averaging 46 uses/day since. Cities today can build one for $450-$550 foot, or as the company website says, “the same building costs as an ordinary

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The stackable city car - revisited

Almost two years ago we profiled the wildly innovative, stackable, electric City Car, designed via the MIT Smart Cities program.

Think of it as a cross between car sharing and bike sharing, where you have the access to a dual-passenger car, but parked in a space not much larger than a bicycle.

It was pretty difficult for people to understand the concept based on images, so the folks at MIT finally produced a video to show how it works.

Considering

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Inspired by the huge political, social and economic success of Paris’ bike sharing system, U.S. cities are looking for ways to instill a more profound biking infrastructure and culture. In Europe, a woman in a dress on a bicycle is the norm, while in the U.S. it’s a curiosity.

In a USA Today article, Big cities try to ease way for bicyclists, several cities are at least talking about big changes to support a more authentic biking culture:

New York City is creating the first ;a

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