An Optimistic Look at Transportation

The Financial Supervisory Service has commissioned the Korea Insurance Development Institute to assess the risk ratio for insurance products covering bicycle accidents by November.
Non-life insurers can develop insurance products for cyclists once the risk ratio is established, including premium and insurance money.

Korea Times

Streetfilms

Bikes To Rwanda’s aim is to provide cargo bicycles to co-operative coffee farmers in Rwanda. The goal is to improve quality of life in these communities through a bike workshop and maintenance program that provides transportation resources for basic needs and enhances farmers' productivity.

Bikes to Rwanda

Davis has been ranked as the city with the highest percentage of cyclists by Bikes At Work.
20% of trips made in this city are by bike and many are by, or with small children.

Bikes at Work

Portland, Or. and New York are building the future with a device called a 'Bike Box' which clearly prioritizes cyclists at intersections where turning cars have compromized safety.

The Vice Mayor of Copennhagen, Klaus Bondam, has been intricately involved in the "We Cycle to Work [Vi cykler til arbejde]" campaign in Denmark. The Vice Mayor handed out 20,000 morning rolls and leg bands to bicycle commuters who rolled past.

Copenhagenize

Four new laws aimed directly at the behavior of car drivers were passed unanimously by their City Council. After the vote, Mayor Richard Daley told the Chicago Tribune, “We are committed to making Chicago the most bicycle-friendly city in the country, and safety is a very critical part of the plan.”

Chicago Tribune

The local authority in Paris has deposited 20,000 heavy-duty bicycles in 750 or so special racks around the city and anyone who wants one simply swipes his or her ordinary travel card and pedals off wherever they want to go.

The BBC

On Sundays Bogota residents enjoy Ciclovias, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic where residents come out to walk, bike, run, skate, recreate, picnic, and talk with family, neighbors & strangers. The innovative concept has influenced cities all over the world.

Street Films

In what appears to be the strangest bit of cycling news, comes this bit from Italy.
The record for cycling underwater has been broken by Italian Vittorio Innocente who succeeded in pedalling 213ft (65m) under the Mediterranean.

The Daily Telegraph

Biking to work is now cool way to commute.
There's an increasing trend in North America to see bicycle commuting as an acceptable concept as increasing gas prices, and to some degree ecological awareness, bring people face to face with the realities of transportation.

The Edmonton Journal

Vice Mayor Klaus Bondam together with the Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard have been attempting to implement road pricing in Copenhagen in order to limit the amount of motorised traffic. However national politics are not quite as open minded as local politics (we in the U.S. can sympathize). So he has now proposed something City Hall calls 'Intelligent Traffic Control'. It involves setting up sensors that measure air pollution in Copenhagen and the levels of pollution they report will regulate the traffic heading into the city.

Copenhagenize

Bikestation Long Beach offers attended indoor bicycle parking (free during regular business hours), professional repair services, a bike shop, bike loaners, and bike rental.

BikeStation

In addition to the previously mentioned Ciclovia events throughout North and South America, the City of Portland has decided to work with neighborhood groups and a coalition of city agencies to close NE Alberta Street to car traffic for the monthly Last Thursday art event.(1)

In Madison, Wisconsin during the July 2008, a test unit for the “Trek Stop” cycling convenience center has been turning heads. Users could stop by anytime to put air in your tires or buy basic small items like a tube, patch kit, water bottle, energy bar, chain lube, etc, out of the vending machine.(1)

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