Ontario - Province Releases New Cycling Strategy

Ontario has released a new cycling strategy to promote safe cycling and encourage more people to ride their bikes to work, school and recreation destinations.
The strategy presents a 20-year vision that supports cycling by encouraging and promoting:

• Healthy, active and prosperous communities
• Improvements to cycling infrastructure
• Safer highways and streets
• Improved cycling awareness
• Tourism opportunities

The strategy reflects input from the public and expert advice from cycling stakeholders such as Share the Road Cycling Coalition, the Canadian Automobile Association and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.  The government will release next steps to implement the strategy by spring 2014. Read more.

Pictou and Antigonish applicants awarded NS Moves grants

 Through Nova Scotia Moves, the province offers grants of up to $200,000 to groups supporting sustainable transportation at the local level, including municipalities, band councils, community benefit organizations and social enterprises. Read more.

Pistes cyclables: Montréal permettrait l'utilisation aux vélos, patins, fauteuils roulants et bicyclettes électriques

La Ville de Montréal veut mettre de l'ordre dans l'utilisation des pistes cyclables en proposant qu'elles soient réservées exclusivement aux vélos, aux patins à roues alignées, aux aides à la mobilité motorisée, aux fauteuils roulants et aux bicyclettes électriques. Read more.

Edmonton Bike ED Videos with LEGO & Humour

A new directed education and awareness campaigns about the infrastructure Edmonton is building, what they mean, and how people should be driving and biking on city streets. The most recent efforts on this are a series of stop-motion videos using LEGO to teach Edmontonians young and old about how to ride bikes and drive vehicles on city streets. For instance, see Dial S for Sharrow.

UK - Government shifts cycling up a gear

The Prime Minister announces the biggest ever single injection of cash for the country alongside plans to make roads safer for those on two wheels. With local contributions, the total new funding for cycling is £148 million between now and 2015. Read more.

Thompson MB - Healthy Living

When was the last time you had the chance to do something that was good for you, good for the environment, saves money and most importantly is just plain fun? For a lot of us leaving the car at home when we head to work, school or to do errands is like the weatherman actually getting it right, it is more the exception than the rule. Read more.

Video - A Montreal Intersection Morphs Into a Wonderful Neighborhood Space

On a Bixi bike excursion to get some ice cream in Montreal, my wife and I stumbled upon the intersection of Fairmount Avenue and Rue Clark, recently upgraded with colorful new street furniture, traffic calming treatments, and a two-way protected bike lane. The space is teeming with street life. See video.

U.K. - Bike & Go: road testing the new national bike hire scheme

A nationwide public bike sharing scheme launched this month, providing bikes at railway stations across the country. Read more.

Stadium bike spaces in Regina: Are 100 enough?

Winnipeg bike advocate says their 450 spaces fill every game. Read more.

6 Ideas Every City Should Steal From Barcelona

I've often remarked that the eight most frustrating words in the English language are "we could never do that in our city." You may think that Barcelona, like many great European cities, is just too different to teach us anything. Many lessons though, are transferable, scalable, and universal. Read more.

Video - Cycling Scotland - Horse

What a superb idea: treat cyclists as you treat horses on the road. It's simple and clear - we all know that you slow down and give horses a wide berth, so do the same to people on bikes. This lovely piece shows people being cared for just like our four-legged friends to emphasise the point. See video.

Bicycling: The SAFEST Form of Transportation

Of all the objections I get from people about why they can’t ride a bike to get around, perhaps the most frustrating is the claim that bicycling is too dangerous. Read more.

Bike Curious: How to Get Back on Your Bike

Marianne Helgers, a teacher in Brantford, ON, fondly remembers the family bike rides she and her three young sons would take around their quiet neighborhood. As her boys grew older, hockey tournaments and basketball practices soon replaced the rides. It wasn’t until much later, once her children grew older and began traveling on their own, that Helgers became intent on getting back on her bike. Read more.

Montreal’s Car-free Rue St. Catherine and Bustling Bike Rush Hour

The p.m. rush hour in Montreal is pretty thick with cyclists in the protected bike lanes. And, as in world's other great bike cities, you'll see many children and seniors riding. Good indicator species. See video.

Bike-Share Is Key to Closing the Cycling Gender Gap

More and more cities in the U.S. are getting bike-share. Chicago rolled out its 4,000-bike system this summer and the San Francisco Bay Area will be the next to launch, at the end of August (albeit with a mere 700 bikes). As bike share becomes an integrated mode of transportation around the country – and as bike retailers realize that women represent a huge and underserved market -- the gender balance just might start to shift here in a real and lasting way. Read more.

New bike share program launches in Kitchener-Waterloo

Waterloo Region's first community bike share program officially launches today. Run by The Working Centre in downtown Kitchener, the Community Access Bikeshare Program currently has two stations, eleven bikes and is accepting members. Read more.

Why you should take up skateboarding

What I’ve learnt from a painful and pointless hobby. Read more. 

Video - Glamour of bicycles

Photographer Lincoln Clarkes on his new book Cyclists. Watch video.

What Happens When a Town Puts People Before Cars?

Nearly three years ago, a Minnesota man named Charles Marohn published a piece called "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer" on the blog of his not-for-profit organization, Strong Towns. In it, he describes the priorities that he learned in his training as an engineer: first comes speed; then traffic volume; then safety; then cost. Read more.

New York - Riding Away From a Bar Crawl With Citi Bikes

Citi Bike, the city’s newest form of public transportation, is colliding with one of the city’s favorite pastimes: bar hopping. While ridership peaks during the day (for commuting to work, running errands and sightseeing), some New Yorkers are beginning to see it as a convenient way to explore the city’s night life. Read more.

How Walkable Is Your Neighborhood? This Mapping Data Juggernaut Now Knows

You may not know the name Maponics, but chances are, you use the company's services. Maponics provides mapping data--such as boundaries of neighborhoods, schools, ZIP codes, and subdivisions--to all sorts of map-hungry companies, including Twitter, Foursquare, Google, and Trulia. Now Maponics is expanding into providing walkability data with a new tool that measures factors that other tools often fail to consider: proximity to amenities and accessibility. Read more.

Adelaide Velo-city Global 2014

Velo-city is the world’s premier international cycling planning conference. The four day event offers delegates from around the world a chance to share best practices for creating and sustaining cycling-friendly cities, where bicycles are valued as part of daily transport and recreation. Conference details.

Since 1980 conferences have been held in cities including Copenhagen, Paris, Dublin, Brussels, Barcelona, Munich, Montreal and Vancouver. And most recently the conference was held in Vienna. We are delighted that Adelaide will be the first city in Australia to host the Velo-city Global event. See video.

Utrecht va construire le plus grand parking vélo au monde

La ville d’Utrecht aux Pays-Bas est actuellement en train de concevoir et de planifier sa nouvelle gare. Cette semaine, la ville a annoncé que la nouvelle gare permettra d’accueillir 12.500 vélos en stationnement sur plusieurs niveaux.

Skateboards for Work and Working Out

Amid the thousands of New Yorkers who walk, bike and run to get around the city, skateboarders are often overlooked. But a fervent bunch use their boards as their primary mode of transportation — and as a strategy for staying fit. Read more.

Philippe Crist – “21st Century Cities Won’t Work Without Cycling”

As an economist and administrator, Philippe Crist is responsible for several of ITF’s research initiatives and serves on the advisory boards for several transport, climate change and urban policy research programmes. A passionate and competitive cyclist, he delivered the keynote at ECF’s Velo-City 2013 conference. We have asked him what he thinks the future of mobility and cycling will look like. Read more.

New York - Bike store owners put their spin on new bike-share

New Yorkers, albeit many of them grudgingly, are gradually getting used to more pedaling passengers on those blazing blue Citi Bikes. But what about local bike shops? Is Citi Bike rolling up riders at their expense? Read more.

Parry Sound - October ride to celelbrate new cycling route

Wendall Fisher, chair of the active transportation committee, invited town council members and their families to the October 5 ride, as well as to an unveiling of the organization’s Parry Sound Area Outdoor Recreation Guide. Read more.

How to build the world's longest bike touring route: 8 questions for Jean-Francois Pronovost

The Greenway (Route Verte in Pronovost's native French) is a bike route network running all over the Canadian province of Quebec. On Monday [August 25], the vice president for development and public affairs at advocacy group Vélo Québec visits Portland to share lessons from this project and others in the first annual Ann Niles Transportation Lecture, a major new series produced by Portland State University's Institute for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation. Read more.

UK Starts ‘Nationwide Drive to Promote Cycling’

A week after the very successful RideLondon weekend, which saw thousands of cyclists thronging the best known streets of the UK capital, free of all cars, new funding was announced to promote cycling in many other parts of the UK. The bulletin came from Prime Minister David Cameron’s office and was entitled, ‘a nationwide drive to promote cycling in cities and national parks across England’. Read more.

Saint John - Skateboarders push back against proposed helmet bylaw

Some skateboarders in Saint John are upset with a proposed bylaw that would make wearing skateboarding helmets mandatory. City council is one step away from passing the new bylaw, which requires any person riding a skateboard to wear a helmet within designated areas, including the Station 1 skate park, and Harbour Passage. Read more.

Helmet laws should be enforced year round, says cyclist

A Charlottetown woman who was ticketed for not wearing a bike helmet, says police should enforce the law all the time. Read more.

Widen Main St.? Community Had Other Ideas, and Thrived

How did this Rust Belt village of 10,000 people resurrect itself from a 30-year slide? It started with a road. Read more.

Hollywood’s New Stars: Pedestrians

Everyone in Los Angeles has a ridiculous story about driving somewhere when two feet would have worked just as well. Mine features a celebrity. I once interviewed John Travolta at Paramount Pictures for an entertainment magazine, and when it came time for us to move from his trailer to the shooting location, a limo was summoned. Estimated distance of our chauffeured, temperature-controlled, Evian-sipping road trip: less than 25 yards. Read more.

Driving To Work Is Why You're Fat

Taking the car to work may be convenient, but it might not be good for you. A new study of about 20,000 commuters in the U.K. finds that people who walk or cycle to work are less likely to suffer from diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other problems compared to those who drive. Read more.

5 Reasons Pittsburgh is a Must-Visit City for Walkers & Bikers

Today, the smokestacks and steel mills that made the great city of Pittsburgh famous are mostly long gone. The “City of Champions,” as it is called, is now considered one of the most livable in the world, and many of the qualities that make it so also happen to make it a great city for biking and walking. Read more.

Phoenix - Draft Complete Streets Policy

The city of Phoenix Street Transportation Department is soliciting feedback on its proposed “complete streets” policy.  A complete street is a design concept that provides guidelines to ensure Phoenix roads, sidewalks and other streetscape elements are accessible, convenient and safer for all users, including motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.  A copy of the draft policy is available at the Streets Department website.  Read more.

Video - 1 in 5 Americans dies because of excess weight

New findings show that 1 in 5 Americans eat themselves to death. Columbia University researchers say more will die if the fat issue is ignored. See video.

Vancouver - Lawyer jogs over to cycling world

From a high perch, on any given day, you can see a growing number of commuters cycling into Vancouver’s downtown core. Beneath the thicket of office towers, bike lockers have sprouted everywhere. Read more.

Supporting Active Travel in Australian Communities - Ministerial Statement

This statement sets out how the Australian Government will work to increase the proportion of people walking and riding for short trips, and accessing public transport, in our communities. Download document.

Tools for Estimating VMT Reductions from Built Environment Changes

Built environment characteristics are associated with walking, bicycling, transit use, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Developing built environments supportive of walking, bicycling, and transit use can help meet state VMT reduction goals. But tools are necessary to understand how changes to the built environment may translate into changes in travel. Such tools can help optimize land use and transportation investments for reduced VMT and communicate such changes to the public. Read more.

Seattle Transit Blog: Business on NE 65th dramatically increased after bike lane was installed

Bike lanes are good for business. Or at the absolute very least, the removal of some car parking to improve biking and walking safety on commercial streets is certainly not harmful to business, as Seattle Transit Blog guest contributor Kyle Rowe found in his recent analysis of several bike lane projects in Seattle, including a section of NE 65th Street between Ravenna and Tangletown. Read more.

Amazon gives a push to biking downtown

Almost single-handedly, Amazon.com has driven the recent downtown Seattle office market boom. Now, at its massive, three-tower Denny Triangle development, the online retailer is raising the stakes for what companies can do to encourage bicycle commuting. Read more.

New skateboard shop opens in Grand Falls-Windsor

Two friends from Grand Falls-Windsor decided to open up a new skateboard shop in the town to fill the demand for gear after the town opened up its skatepark. Read more.

Public Transit is worth way more to a City than you might Think

In a new paper set for publication in Urban Studies, Chatman and fellow planner Robert Noland of Rutgers University use concrete numbers to make the case that transit produces agglomeration. They report that this hidden economic value of transit could be worth anywhere from $1.5 million to $1.8 billion a year, depending on the size of the city. And the bigger the city, they find, the bigger the agglomeration benefit of expanding transit. Read more.

Times Poll: New Yorkers Really Love Bike Lanes, Bike-Share, and Plazas

This morning, the New York Times released a comprehensive poll on what New Yorkers think of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and programs from his administration. Bike-share, bike lanes, and plazas got high approval numbers across boroughs, ages, races, and income levels. Many of the mayoral candidates might be hesitant to acknowledge it, but New Yorkers love their livable streets. Read more.

Thorold ON - Active students, citizens the losers in St. David's Rd. kerfuffle

Although it's one of the main roads leading to Brock University for vehicles coming off the highway, as well as those walking or cycling to the campus, most of the road does not have sidewalks or bike lanes. Read more.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality multi-use path plan thrown off track

Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s utility manager Mike MacKeigan said developing a pathway for pedestrians and cyclists at the edge of the rail line is a liability concerns for the railway’s American owner Genesee and Wyoming Inc. Read more.

Thunder Bay - Stats show bike lanes make streets safer

The man in charge of planning bicycle lanes in Thunder Bay says they've resulted in a big drop in cycling collisions. The city’s active transportation coordinator, Adam Krupper, said studies prove the value of bike lanes in Thunder Bay. Read more.

Real science lies behind the fad for standing up at work

Though all organisms tend to conserve energy when possible, evidence is building up that doing it to the extent most Westerners do is bad for you—so bad that it can kill you. Read more.

Winnipeg - Disraeli pedestrian bridge delayed due to long winter

A long winter has delayed the construction of the Disraeli pedestrian bridge. A civic spokeswoman confirmed that the opening date for the pedestrian bridge, formally known as the Disraeli Active Transportation bridge, was pushed back from the end of July to mid-September. Read more.

Welland - Region to add lanes when East Main is repaved

East Main St. will get new bicycle lanes along with a new coat of pavement before the end of the year. But the coordinator of an organization representing local cyclists is concerned that the bike lanes could lead to problems for cyclists along the busy street. Read more.

Toronto - Complete Streets Forum 2013: Summary Report released

TCAT is pleased to release a summary report of our sixth annual Complete Streets Forum 2013 that took place on May 27, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto. The Forum brought together delegates from diverse sectors to share research, best practices, tools and creative solutions to accelerate the adoption of Complete Streets. The summary report, beautifully designed and written by Emma Cohlmeyer, is an opportunity for Forum participants, presenters, and anyone who wasn't able to attend to take note of the take-away messages from this year's Forum. Read report.

Why American motorists are walking away from automobiles

Paul A. Eisenstein is Publisher of TheDetroitBureau.com and a 30-year veteran of the automotive beat. His editorials bring his unique perspective and deep understanding of the auto world to Autoblog readers on a regular basis. Read more.

Edmonton - Cyclists urged to look at locks as bike thefts jump

Edmonton police are warning cyclists to keep an eye on their wheels as bike thefts rise dramatically. Read more.

Winnipeg - Pressure building to reopen Portage and Main to pedestrians

In 1979, the city signed a contract with area businesses that closed the intersection to pedestrians for 40 years and built the underground concourse. The contract expires in six years and key players are talking about plans to reopen the famous intersection to pedestrians. Read more.

Crawlable Urbanism: Cities Are for Kids, Too

All of these child-friendly urban amenities are invisible to Kotkin. “We have embarked on an experiment to rid our cities of children,” he declares. The rent is too high, the yards are too small, the schools are too bad, the neighbors are too sketchy." Read more.

Chicago - Bikers, Pedestrians, and Jerks: How To Design Lanes For a New Lakefront Path

The city and state are looking into rebuilding the north section of Lake Shore Drive, and perhaps aspects of the landfill parkland to its east. According to reports in both the Sun-Times and the Tribune, users of the parkland who participated in public meetings are anxious to engineer a solution to another problem of flow: Conflict between different users of the Lakefront Trail. Read more.

USA E-Bike Market Doubles to 159,000 Units

eCycleElectric International Consultants (www.eCycleElectric.com) announces results of research into USA e-bike market size for 2013. During the one-year period July 2012 to July 2013, the USA electric bike market appears to have doubled over numbers published by Electric Bike Reports WorldWide for 2012. Read more.

Study: Cyclists Gravitate Toward Streets With Protected Bike Lanes

By now there’s not much doubt that protected bike lanes can be a game-changer for cycling in U.S. cities. Making streets feel safe to bike on boosts overall cycling rates, attracting people who otherwise wouldn’t even consider cycling. The safety benefits keep accruing as more people on bikes hit the streets, since drivers become more aware of the presence of cyclists and pay closer attention. Read more.

Bike Lanes & Property Values: Is There A Correlation?

As it turns out, experts say sellers and buyers would be wise to welcome bike lanes to the neighborhood. REMAX Around Atlanta's Maura Neill, a realtor who has specialized in the Atlanta market for more than 12 years, believes new bike lanes serve as a serious selling point that extends beyond individual property owners and makes Atlanta an attractive urban dwelling post on the national scale. Read more.

New Book - Promoting Walking and Cycling: New Perspectives on Sustainable Travel

Promoting Walking and Cycling: New Perspectives on Sustainable Travel explains why more people don’t make more of their journeys on foot and by cycle, and sets out what needs to change for them to do so. Many people want life less dominated by cars; this is how we get there. Read more.

Dubai’s RTA Completes 100km Of Master Bicycling Track Project

Dubai plans to construct 850kms of cycling tracks across Dubai in the next few years. Read more.

Vancouver, B.C., a relaxed getaway built for walking and cycling

Two things make Vancouver an ideal cycling destination for travelers. First, since the late 1990s the city has invested heavily in "active transit," mainly bike and pedestrian paths. The result is not just the scenic Seaside Greenway, but a network of connected bicycle paths that crisscross downtown. If you’ve never biked in a dense urban setting, Vancouver is the place to try. It’s safe, easy and a good way to get to places such as the historic Gastown neighborhood. Even the drivers seemed good-natured and accommodating about sharing the road. Read more.

Hip, Urban, Middle-Aged

The migration of baby boomers to cities, which started in the 1990s but slowed during the recession, is now regaining steam. According to online real-estate brokerage Redfin, more than a million baby boomers moved to within 5 miles of the downtown of the 50 largest cities between 2000 and 2010, while the same number of baby boomers moved away from neighborhoods located 40 to 80 miles outside those 50 cities' downtown areas. Read more.

Halifax - Senior takes a whirl on bicycle again

Decades after he tumbled from his two-wheeled, pedal-brake horse, Ron Golden got back in the saddle Friday. The 66-year-old retiree took advantage of a new recreational program provided by Halifax city hall targeting novice cyclists or folks seeking to resurrect skills. Read more.

Bike-sharing schemes take over Moscow while becoming global trend

Moscow, the city with the worst traffic congestion in the world based on TomTom’s Annual Congestion Index, introduced the first bike sharing scheme earlier in the summer. More than 300 bright red bikes lined along the Boulevard Ring and continued up to Kremlin offering locals and tourists the opportunity to experience a different aspect of the city. Read more.

U.S. - Feds move toward a green light for separated bike lanes

In a task order proposal request quietly circulated to selected contractors last week, the federal agency that oversees U.S. road design did exactly what many biking advocates have been urging it to do for years: It suggested that physically separated bikeways can be welcome improvements to American streets and kicked off a process intended to prove it. Read more.

Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

There are more bicycles than residents in The Netherlands and in cities like Amsterdam and The Hague up to 70% of all journeys are made by bike. Read more.

Everyone is a Pedestrian

Safety is the top priority of the Department of Transportation. Our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are working hard to raise awareness of the dangers to pedestrians, and to provide leadership, expertise, and resources to communities across America to combat these crashes. Read more.

U.S. Bike Route System Surveys & Case Studies

The response rate to the survey of state bicycle and pedestrian coordinators exceeded expectations and provided good information about the accomplishments and challenges with implementation of U.S. Bicycle Routes in various states. Common accomplishments and challenges emerged from the survey, and both can be used to better inform coordinators and others about best practices and recommended approaches in working on USBR designation. Read more.

Halifax - Transport officals consider crosswalk safety improvements

A Dartmouth safety advocate may finally get his wish for crosswalk improvements in the city. Transport officials said they’ll consider recommendations made by Norm Collins, who previously spearheaded a shelved Waverley crosswalk pilot project. Read more.

Walking to Work Cuts Obesity, Diabetes Risk

Compared with using driving a car or taking a taxi, walking to work was associated with a 20% reduced risk of being obese and a 40% reduced risk of diabetes, according to Anthony Laverty, MSc, of the Imperial College London, and colleagues. Those who cycled to work had a 37% lower risk of obesity and a 50% lower risk of diabetes. Read more.

Pedestrian And Bicycle Infrastructure: A National Study Of Employment Impacts

 In this study we estimate the employment impacts of building and refurbishing transportation infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. We ana­lyze various transportation projects and use state-specific data to estimate the number of jobs created within each state where the project is located. - Read more.

Newest Urbanism

Tactical urbanism refers to temporary, cheap, and usually grassroots interventions—including so-called guerrilla gardens, pop-up parks, food carts, and “open streets” projects—that are designed to improve city life on a block-by-block, street-by-street basis. Read more.

New York - The Complete-Streets Election?

The last time New Yorkers elected a new mayor, in 2001, twenty-first-century transportation policy was on no one’s agenda. Things have changed a lot—so much that Transportation Alternatives, which advocates for cycling, walking and public transit, is on the list of groups that will sponsor the official candidate debates this fall. Read more.

Bike lanes build the path to a more sustainable, livable Vancouver

Not only does it make the city more liveable and healthy, it also puts our urban transport system on a more sustainable path. Read more.

Enough with Bikes vs Cars – It’s about Better Cities!

In recent years, exaggerated and polarizing phrases like "anti-car" and "the war on the car" have been thrown around irresponsibly by media and politicians alike. I point that out perhaps because there is too much pitting of self-described "drivers" and "cyclists" against each other. Read more.

Windsor Police Planning E-bike Crackdown

Police say they recognize the changing habits of Windsor commuters and are planning the crackdown due to the large increase in the use of E-bikes over last year. Read more.

Why Cities Must Allow Us to Love and Leave our Cars

 More and more Americans are being attracted to places that offer the economy, excitement, and street life that cannot be found in the auto zone. To these people, malls are for teenagers, bicycles are cooler than cars, and a great night out includes being able to drink and not drive. Cites that have recently combined reinvestment in their downtown cores with the creation of transformative transit and biking facilities—like Portland and Denver—are the current relocation places of choice, for those who have a choice. Read more.

Study: Walkable neighborhoods have happier people

People who live in walkable communities are more socially engaged and trusting than those who live in less walkable areas, says a new study from the University of New Hampshire. Read more.

Drunk walking leads to pedestrian fatalities

Just as drinking and driving can be deadly, so can drinking and walking. Over a third of the pedestrians killed in 2011 had blood alcohol levels above the legal limit for driving, according to government data released Monday. Read more.

5 ways commuting ruins your life

“Many people aren’t aware of how much they actually spend on commuting,” says Rob Perks, transportation campaign director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-profit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Read more.

DVD - The Story of Sprawl

This 2-disc set is an unprecedented visual document of how sprawl happened, told through a series of historic films ranging from 1939's The City, created by famed planner Lewis Mumford, to No Time For Ugliness from 1965, produced by the American Institute of Architects. With specially-recorded commentary from notable authors, academics and architects like James Howard Kunstler, Andrés Duany, Jacky Grimshaw, and many more. Details.

Moscow plans thirty new pedestrian areas for this fall

The face of Moscow is changing at a blinding pace: Parks are being redesigned, trees are being planted, and a network of sidewalks is being created. What has prompted this surge of activity? Experts claim world trends in tourism are behind the initiative. Read more.

Have the suburbs hit a dead end?

In her new book, “The End of the Suburbs,” Leigh Gallagher argues that the suburban way of life, once the epitome of the American dream, is becoming increasingly undesirable. Capital Business reporter Jonathan O’Connell, who has questioned whether Washington can grow up with its 20-somethings, chatted with Gallagher this past week about how Americans choose to live. Read more.

Ferrandez veut que Montréal se réveille

De retour d'un voyage qui l'a plongé dans le cœur de la modernité de sept villes européennes, le maire du Plateau-Mont-Royal, Luc Ferrandez soulève la question : la vieille Europe est-elle en train de donner une leçon d'urbanisme à l'Amérique? Read more.

Venice Beach hit-and-run driver kills one and injures 11 on boardwalk

One person was killed and 11 others injured, some seriously, when a hit-and-run driver ploughed into a pavement packed with hundreds of seaside revellers on the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles. Read more.

Walking in London

Between 2001 and 2011 the number of trips made daily on foot in London increased by 12%. Nearly a third of the Londoners sampled made a continuous walk of 30 minutes once a week between 2010 and 2011 to get from place to place, rather than for exercise. Each day 6.2m walks are made across the city. Read more.

Lessons From Two of Canada’s Great Cycling Cities

When the annual Copenhagenize Index was released this year, carefully ranking 25 of the world’s most bicycle friendly cities, local advocates reacted with surprise and indignation at Vancouver’s omission. We are, after all, a city that talks endlessly about cycling, and one used to seeing itself near the top of such global quality-of-life lists. Having just spent two weeks on two wheels in Toronto and Montréal, I can definitively say that Vancouver isn’t even the best bike culture in Canada, and still has tremendous work to do to establish the bicycle as a normal and reliable mode of transportation. Read more.

Bike fitting basics

Bike fitting can involve many variables on getting it right. The following is a starting point for a basic bike fit for beginners and casual riders — those who occasionally commute for work or leisure. Read more.

Bike rack time limit outrages Vancouver cyclist

A Vancouver cyclist is outraged after finding a notice on her bike telling her she could not use a downtown bike rack. "At the end of the day I noticed I had a ticket on my bike and the ticket said that it was 15-minute parking only and if I did it again they would confiscate my bike." Read more.

Infographic: U.S. DOT Promotes the Health Benefits of Active Transportation

“Transportation investments that support active travel — like greenways, trails, sidewalks, traffic-calming devices, and public transit — create opportunities to increase routine physical activity, improve health, and lower health care costs,” writes U.S. DOT’s Todd Solomon. Read more.

Why Bike Sharing is Such a Game-Changer for U.S. Cities

Public bikes are not a mere amenity. They are a type of public transit that gives the same mobility as individual private transport, without the costs or the burdens. They also increase the flexibility of the transportation system. With bicycles eventually distributed all around the city, I could, in the future, use combinations of bike, cab, subway and private car. Read more.

Vancouver’s bike lanes have made it a city to watch

To many cities, building bike lanes isn’t about serving a small slice of the hipster set. It’s about showing that the city is planning for a different, more sustainable transportation future and serving an increasingly important demographic. “This is not a case of ‘Build it and they will come.’ We are seeing that we need to build something because they’re already here.” Read more.

Huntsville - No need for downtown cycling perks: Mayor

Huntsville mayor Claude Doughty says there is little point in improving cycling routes downtown when economic opportunities lie elsewhere. “I think we need to focus on biking and active transportation outside the microscopic urban core that we have,” said Doughty during a planning committee meeting in June. Read more.

Would You Ride a Bike Superhighway?

As people become more concerned with conserving the environment and improving our health, bicycle superhighways seem to be the ideal panacea. Would you commute on a bicycle superhighway if you had one in your city? Read more.

The Rise of The North American Protected Bike Lane

Another critical selling point for the political officials championing protected bike lanes is economic. Studies have shown that high-quality bike infrastructure can boost local commerce along the cycling routes, often dramatically. For example, after a protected bike lane was installed on New York City’s Ninth Avenue, NYC DOT recorded a 49 percent increase in retail sales along the corridor. Meanwhile, a Portland study found bike commuters spend 40 percent more at local businesses than their car-driving counterparts. Read more.

Measuring the Performance of Livability Programs

Livability programs are an inherently broad set of approaches intended to create communities with coordinated transportation, housing and commercial investments, with specific goals and objectives subject to local priorities and conditions. The current performance measurement programs of five relatively mature livability programs were analyzed based on the criteria for good performance measurement. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of each program, common themes and lessons learned were drawn from across the programs. Read more.