Comments on: John Pucher is Published

By: Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:13:09 +0000

[...] made a big deal about Pucher’s research in the past, and I’m absolutely thrilled that Momentum took the opportunity to ask Pucher to rework his [...]

By: Terry Lowe

Terry Lowe — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:19:04 +0000

Momentum Magazine will be publishing John’s rewrite of his “Making Cycling Irresistible” academic article as “Cycling For Everyone” in three parts, beginning in the next issue (#35), which will be out in late August, 2008. We think John’s ideas are important, and in need of wider exposure, especially here in North America.

Ride safely, y’all.

Terry Lowe
Editor, Momentum Magazine
http://www.momentumplanet.com

By: Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | Bicycle Friendly Business Program

Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | Bicycle Friendly Business Program — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:45:44 +0000

[...] I like the idea. Why not? As long as we make sure that the North Central Texas Council of Governments knows that lots more people will voluntarily bike to work if we have the appropriate bicycling infrastructure. [...]

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:45:04 +0000

That is, thanks for commenting, Tara.

Sometimes the words I type don’t quite catch up to my thoughts.

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:11:21 +0000

Thanks, Tara.

I and I’m sure thousands of other folks can identify with your exact situation.

This research is so important because it means we can speak with authority when we’re trying to get these things implemented. We can say:

“Look - we have the top experts in the field releasing study after study telling us exactly what we need to do to make our towns more bicycle friendly, less car- and oil-dependent. They are professors at some of the top urban planning programs in the world, with 30+ years of academic research combined with practical experience, they’ve studied the best and worst cycling towns in the world, and they say we need x, y, and z. This is peer-reviewed research from world-renown scholars, with hard data to back it up. It’s worth our absolute attention. Now, all that’s left for us to work out, is exactly how and how quickly we’re going to make x, y, and z happen.”

And your experience puts a human face on that research.

One aspect of policy I’m hoping we can address as a community is this idea that any new development, and any redevelopment, should have to provide full, separate bicycle access on a separate path that tracks the major routes into and out of those new (re)developments.

This is what I mentioned, here:

http://googlemapsbikethere.org/2008/05/25/the-big-initiatives/#7

It’s just a restatement of what John Pucher said about Germany’s land use policies (which I need to make a note of in that post) in the Q&A session of the presentation he gave at SFU.

Good luck on your continued journies to run errands. Hang in there. Every ride is an act of advocacy/activism, in my opinion.

By: Tara

Tara — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:20:07 +0000

Wow. I stumbled across this blog and I can’t get over how timely this post is. I live in a suburban area. In order to run errands today on my bike, I had to take a circuitous route to the store. I have a terrific, brand-new shopping plaza with a great supermarket 2 miles away from me and no safe direct way to get there. I have a mall about four miles away from me. Can’t get there for the same reason. The two main highways that take you there have no space for bikes. No continuous sidewalks or shoulders even. I would love to bike more places but it’s not physically possible.