Bicycle Highways
Interesting article in Slate about “bicycle highways” by Tom Vanderbilt:
“In the world’s top cycling cities, one finds not muscular riders harried and buffeted by passing cars, but all manner of people—young, old, carrying groceries, carrying kids—riding on networks that have been designed for them. In the Netherlands, for example, where no new road is built without a provision for cycles, cyclists ride on paths with a minimum width of 2.5 meters (which must be 1.5 meters from the road), get their own green lights, and find parking (if not always enough) at train stations and even bus stops. And even within the cycling-happy Netherlands, as David Hembrow has noted, the cities that have better infrastructure—and not necessarily the most densely populated ones—have higher cycling rates. And what’s the annual cost of the world’s best cycling infrastructure? By Hembrow’s estimates, it is roughly 30 euros for each Dutch citizen—well less than a tank of gasoline.”
