Strida Folding Bike; don’t leave home without it
Two customers of savedbybikes.com sent this photo of themselves in Madrid with their Strida bikes, which they brought with them from their home in Canada to Spain.
We were delighted to see the picture and read their email message:
“Here we are in Madrid on our last day. We were 5 weeks in the north of Spain and used the bikes almost everyday! We won’t be going to Europe again without them. No problem with Air Canada …” “We love the bikes and so many people stopped to ask us about them.”
Thank you so much Roger and Myra.
What Women Want
As “an ‘indicator species’ for bike-friendly cities” – women being more risk averse than men – perhaps planners should consider what women find important.
Until women feel it is safe and easy to jump on a bike and head through town, the North American ratio of men: women cyclists (now 2:1), isn’t going to inch towards Europe’s ratio (1:1) anytime soon. As the lack of women riders generally indicates relative safety, this is a big part of the reason why North American statistics for trips by bicycle are also so poor compared to those of Europe. Less than 2% of trips are by bicycle in North America, while many European cities are well into double digits.
Have a look at this article from Scientific American.
Thanks to a feed via Momentum Magazine for sourcing this article.
Car Free Day
September 22; Toronto was the first city in North America to host a Car Free day. Started in 1999 in France as “In Town Without My Car!”
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…
