Bicycle Transportation an Amsterdam Exploration
Check out Marc’s Resources - Dutch design and policy, Copenhagen’s Ministry of Bikes, Dutch traffic laws
Agenda – How do we get more people on bikes back home? (How do we make a more sustainable environment? What is the status quo? How are transportation decisions made back home?)
Course Agenda –
· Experience cycling in Amsterdam and neighboring cities (pay attention to details and big picture)
· Learn basics of U.S. city development and transportation planning
Hear from local officials about city and transportation planning (how did communities decide to make the change from a car-choked city to a bicycle-oriented city? There is nothing inherent to this city compared to US cities that would cause them to make this decision when we did not. Ask speakers about culture, laws, policy, the tax structure)
·
Figure out what and how local decisions can transfer to US context
3-scales
· Individual decisions
· Cultural norms (are you treated as an outlier?)
· Policy regime of the place that you live
Assignments –
· Journaling - How do your thoughts change? What subtleties do you pick up over time How can it work back home?
· Interviews - Ask locals and tourists about biking? How do you like it? Do you bike back home if a tourist?
What arguments can we use for promoting biking back home?
· Economic efficiency – bikes cost less (American value of choice, gas prices)
· Infrastructure – here, no matter where you go, there is a place for you as a bike, if it’s a one way road against you, you can still ride on it as a bike (In Oregon we’re blessed that in the early 70s a law was passed that says that when any arterial is built or repaved, you have to put a bike lane on it)
· Design – separate paths for bikes, grade change, signalization at tricky intersections
· Land use – doesn’t make sense to bike if things are so spread out, on the other hand things are so spread out in America that biking might be the perfect transportation mode for our country, 2 – 4 mile bike ride might be perfect for our density (In the US transportation and land use policy don’t usually work together
· Culture – there has to be a tipping point where biking isn’t a fringe activity, how do we get the culture to extend beyond college students and (lower rate of bicycling comes from immigrating populations, because they don’t usually bike in their culture)
o Park and bike system – if you park at this parking structure, you can get a free bike rental
o Culture of fear – biking is not unsafe
o Joyride – how do you work inside a city to change policy to improve bicycling? How do you get people to
· Policy
· Equipment and gear – how do we expect people to bike normally if they can’t get a bike that’s for normal traffic? (skirt guard, chain guard, upright, step-through, kickstand, lights built in, lock built in
· The amount of money in racing bikes
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Decision to bike
· Initial Considerations
o Family responsibility
o Work requirements
o Preferences
o Distance
o Time
If feasible
\/
· Trip barriers
o Weather
o Geography
o Route feasibility
o Route attractiveness
o Traffic safety
If overcome
\/
· Destination barriers
o Storage
o Showers
o Employer support
If overcome
\/
Decision to Cycle
· Courtesy of Kelly Clifton
Decision to drive
· Initial Considerations
o Family responsibility
o Work requirements
o Preferences
o Distance
o Time **
If feasible
\/
· Trip barriers
o Weather
o Geography
o Route feasibility **
o Route attractiveness **
o Traffic safety
If overcome
\/
· Destination barriers
o Storage **
o Showers
o Employer support **
If overcome
\/
Decision to Drive
· Marc’s variation, inspired by being in Amsterdam
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KK – big things that is missing from this is cost
Bri – in our group of friends it’s like you have to apologize if you drive
Marc – ultimately we should just bike because it’s reasonable, not to be part of the club
Kk – people need to be able to see themselves in the role of a cyclist
T – the info isn’t there – energy star rating, transportation rating
Marc – bicycling could be like recycling; it starts with educating students
Ted – training garden, fake city streets for kids to practice bicycling
American Transportation Paradigm (this has to change)
· Congestion reduction (the problem to overcome)
o Is congestion the problem? Good v. bad congestion. Good congestion due to immediate interesting place. Bad congestion due to far away place & no alternative mode.
· Mobility (should be able to travel by car unimpeded; measured by vehicle throughput and speed)
o Predominant congestion policy: mobility rules, build more; add lanes, build new freeways, build tollways
o Empty corridor - No congestion! Great mobility!; this is the condition at first but it doesn’t last for long
o Triple convergence theory (Downs 1992) & the Levine 2: 1) people switch the times of their trip; 1) you add capacity to a road so you can live a little further away now; 2) people switch their route 3) people switch modes; Levine 1) increased capacity stimulates new development patterns further away; 2) new trips > this is why new roads don’t fix the congestion problem
· Need for space
· Dance averse (dance being lots of people navigating a space, figuring out how not to crash into each other; we try to engineer out potential conflict)
· Land use planning separate from transportation planning (this is where Portland has been brilliant in putting these two things together; where do things go, and how do you get between them – why aren’t these two things considered together?)
The traffic engineer is the one legally responsible.
They can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Praise your traffic engineers for the risks they take.
Often transportation planners are intimidated by having to frame things in a way that the engineer will approve.
Engineers are problem solvers, don’t come to us with solutions.
Chloe – How do we take quality of life and quantitate it?
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