As posted on RideThisBike.com

“Although a Strida folding bike may not seem like an ideal bicycle for long distance touring, Regis loves his. He has written that the belt drive and simple design makes the bike very reliable.”

You can take a look at  Regis’ blog. There are some stunning images there.

There is also a posting at VivaLaBike.com where they write:

“The Strida that he rides is a folding, single gear, belt drive bike. It’s designer Mark Sanders, designed the bike for urban commuters with the intention that the bike would be used for short commutes. However, we’ve found, and Regis has proven, that the Strida is a more than capable bike for long commutes and can withstand the rigors of the road.”

Here’s the video:

Here’s a post from EcoVelo which includes additional links.

We remind all mayoral candidates that it is time to implement solutions to the city’s gridlock and air quality crises, not simply use hack political judgement, satiating automobile driving voters temporarily to “uptick” your poll results.

A coherent, connected plan serves both bicycling and driver communities. From the  post:

These politicians need to get with the times. The types of folk who bike are not some fringe group of white males who bike because they want a rush. A wide range of people bike, particularly in downtown where the percentage of bike commuters is above 13% in some parts. Before you whip up the hate-on, Rossi, take a look at these people and try to explain to them why they don’t exist and why you think they should just buy a car.

Here’s some info on Montreal’s Bixis from NY’s Green Inc., and some more from I Bike T.O.

Lot’s of fascinating proposals are here where you can download pdfs of all the entries from Copenhagen’s bike share competition.

Thanks to TD Bank Financial Group for providing funding for this project.

The report is available here.

Please share this with others.

The corporation is just too big to apply common sense, to properly communicate within, and is indifferent to what travellers really think.  It’s not the issue that bicycles are green transport and as such, should be encouraged and welcomed. Air Canada is missing the key point here. They have a policy, appropriate for conventional bicycles that requires the passenger to pay a $50 fee to cover the cost of handling that unwieldly bicycle.  When it comes to bikes which fold up smaller than a snowboard, that do not require any special handling, the fee should simply not apply. Indeed, it often does not.

I have traveled on Air Canada with my Strida folding bike many times. Customarily I pay no fee, drop my Strida’s carry bag on the belt and pick it off the carousel on the other end, much like I do for many other items. Occasionally, when I have been told there is a charge for bicycles, I have had a discussion with the ticket agent in which I compare the Strida folding bike to many other items Air Canada accepts from me and thousands of others every day without a fee. Each time so far, I have not had to pay the fee.
A few weeks ago Yvonne Bambrick, Executive Director of the Toronto Cyclist’s Union, took a Strida folding bike to San Francisco on Air Canada. There was no fee requested on the flight down, but the $50 fee was insisted upon on the return flight.

Read some of the details of Toronto writer Lloyd Alter’s experience with, and impression of Air Canada’s policy in this Financial Post article. Lloyd Alter has stitched together a summary of the saga.

Interestingly while typing this post, I received two email messages from Air Canada offering me 15,000 bonus miles as part of a current marketing campaign to keep us all flying with them.

If the charter specifies good rules (or in our professional jargon, good institutions) millions of people will come together to build a new city.

People will be attracted there because of the benefits of interacting with everyone else.

In addition to the charter city as a special economic zone, why not consider the potential growth in population, quality of life, culture and therefore attraction of  investment and economic development of a special environmental zone. One where the “good rules” for the city are built around people instead of automobiles.  It would seem many would choose to live, work and invest in a city where the percentage of cars used to commute is the same as bicycles are now: some .5%, and bicycles and other active transportation methods take the current place of cars at some 90%.

The entire design of the charter city would not be auto-centric: much less hard space, roads, highways, bridges, overpasses, parking lots/garages etc.  And, the huge city budget dollars going to supporting the auto-infrastructure would be redirected to people. Sounds wonderful, new types of innovation around quality of place for people and better preservation of the environment.

There is a thoughtful quote contained in the article relating to barriers to change:

I think we’d do our jobs better if we just said what’s true without trying to be amateur politicians.

I did happily notice more people on the GO Train this morning. Participation in the event in which Car Free day is the final day of a week long event, has been growing steadily.

From the European Union Mobility Week press release: (http://www.mobilityweek-europe.org/)

In 2008, under the focal theme of ‘Clean Air for All!’, a record number of 2,102 local authorities signed the EMW charter and/or registered their activities on the campaigning site www.mobilityweek.eu. In terms of population, this translates into 220 million citizens in 39 countries potentially engaged by EMW 2008!
This was also an increase of nearly 4% on 2007 rates, with a good participation of old and new EU Member States, Accession Countries and EEA/EFTA countries. EMW’s successful campaigning model is also increasingly being adopted by countries outside Europe, including Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, with the major cities of Seoul, Rio de Janeiro, Taipei, Montréal, Yokohama and Quito all participants in EMW 2008.

We should be doing more with this here; many European Cities have free public transport for the day. Montreal has closed off some streets to cars…

Many thanks to the writer: Nathan Shaw, who took the time and effort to understand what we are trying to do here.

Nathan: “Saved by bikes; what exactly are bikes going to save?”

SBB: “Well, cities. Save them from cars. There are too many cars coming into North American cities on a daily basis.  In addition to the really awful carbon footprint, the money spent by cities on supporting the auto-infrastructure is enormous and unsustainable. So bikes can help save the city and by extension the planet”

We are targeting commuters who use an automobile for all or part of their commute, and asking them to consider some alternatives. We are certainly a for-profit company; anything else and we would not be able to continue to accomplish this mission. But at the same time, we know we are also doing the right thing.

Great piece, thanks for helping Nathan.

This building is one of only two in Canada that is LEEDS (The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certified. Northam is very serious about environmental commitment and they know it makes good business sense.

In a past life, I  leased quite a bit of office space throughout North America. I can tell you unequivocally that if I were making a decision to lease space today, any building’s environmental policies would weigh very heavily in the decision. I believe that should be, and is, more and more the case in the new world.

Northam Realty's Earth Week Prize

As further evidence of Northam’s commitment, they gave away a STRiDA folding bike to one of their tenants!