Montreal prologue

Habitat from Expo 67, Montreal.

This post is just the prologue to a 4 part series on cycling in Montréal. I visit the city usually 2 to 3 times a year and have been doing so for the past 17+ years, and as such have sometimes taken the push for cycling, and separated infrastructure, for granted.

On the other hand, I simply may have not appreciated it, noticed it, or been unable to take pictures. Now with the opportunities that Bixi opens up, I am able to get a first hand picture of the bike share program, as well as the routes that make it safe for a less experienced cyclist, to get to many destinations in the city using a Bixi.

• Part one will be some pictures and thoughts on a commuter cycling highway along the famous Habitat 67.
• Part two will be some of the separated infrastructure of the city, from the eye of a Bixi.
• Part three will be just on Bixi, from Fall 2009 and Fall 2010, what they seemed to have learned, and what improvements are perhaps needed, as well as impressions on use.
• Finally part 4 will deal with bicycle parking in the city, and the variations of parking stalls that are used.

I will attempt to spread them out, and by breaking them up I hope to be able to post a little bit shorter posts on each one, and be able to go a bit more in-depth. I will plan to start posting part one later next week, and attempt to post one every week or so. However, finals are coming up, as well as my graduation, so there will most likely be a delay in part three and four at least.

Thanks for reading!

New bags (well new use for old bags)

Jim sent me some new bike bags the other day. Well new for me, very used for him. He got a new pair so had these sitting around. My Breezer does not have the Topeak track rack system so I was stuck with the improvised tied inner tubes holding the bag on. Now though I can put my backpack (and 15lb computer) in one side pouch, any books or stuff in the other and still have the ability to carry my Topeak bag on top locked in with 2 half's of a inner-tube. Its quite the setup for sure and makes me look like I am a long distance traveler I think, but none the less. It gets weight off my back, which makes things even nicer for the ride in and home. It allows my construction chic vest to be more visible at night and really anchors that rear wheel on the bike.

Overall, very much a win, and I get to reuse a product, and put it to good use.

There will be pictures of my new bike in the wild soon, and also with the current bag configuration.

Hit 31mph on a bit of downhill stretch with a nice tailwind coming in this morning.

I have about nine posts in draft mode that are waiting to be finished and posted. They will happen soon, but this week is a bit crazy, as it’s nearing the end of the term.

If you need a distraction, check out Ecovelo. He put up an article on crank lengths, which truth be told, I had not even thought about. Even provides a nifty little calculator to determine what your ideal crank length should be.

Denver also launched their bike share scheme thorough B-Cycle today, with 500 bikes.

Campus Survey

Well as I mentioned here, I have funding for the first part of my bike rack implementation program, I am waiting on the head of facilities to get back from surgery and then finalizing with him and ordering will happen. The plan is to have the racks and be able to install them around Earth Day, which gives about 4 weeks. The first step to that though, is finding the places that cyclists find most lacking in current parking. I am in the process of creating a survey with the head of Human Resources on campus that would do just that, and a little bit more. I am aiming this at students as well as teacher/staff and want to know how they ride their bike (or if they do). What reasons they may not or don’t even bring a bike to campus, where parking is inadequate, and finally bike sharing.

A couple years back a bike share system was started as a senior project, it was well intentioned, but fell victim to the "tragedy of the commons." The bikes were free for anybody, basic recycled models and could be used at any time anywhere. Very soon, they were found trashed all over town, in the river, in the lake, messed up, destroyed and its usefulness never came true.

So with that in mind my proposal, which I don't think I will be able to implement before I leave, but hopefully can get others interested in, involves personal ownership with payments of a non refundable, and refundable deposits and participants are given a bike to take care of for a term or year. This is a question for both students and staff as I feel there is demand for bikes on campus for commuters that may travel to and from campus by car due to their living distance.

I also mention the bike-commuting stipend from the federal government, for staff and teachers, and if they knew about it or would offering this program make them more willing to commute by bike.

I am moving ahead with this and I have received support on all fronts for this so far, this is a good use of time while I wait to finalize the racks and get them to campus.

There will be more on this, including the finalized questions, shortly as I hope to have everything finalized by Monday.

To DC I go

Jim and I have both had a very busy two weeks, my midterms came up and well Jim is just slacking he is so busy :P I am sitting in NYC Penn station waiting for my 5:45 Amtrak train to Washington DC for vacation. I will be showcasing the Solar Decathlon currently going on as well as cycling in DC including the just opened DC bike storage outside Union Station. I will also have pictures of the DC bike share scheme and the DC metro, which I feel is second best on the east coast, only to Montreal. So for now stay tuned for more updates and have a safe and happy Columbus day weekend.

-John

Friday Infrastructure (on Sunday!!): The Tram Life

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First of all, I would like to apologize for not updating this for a week. This was a very busy and hectic week and Jim was going to post some food things up but unfortunately stuff came up for him as well and he was unable. None the less, I would like to rectify this situation and work harder to update with new and interesting things. If you have something you would like me to look at or think about please feel free to send me links to my email or post in any of the comments. I read a whole lot of things ever week but it takes a lot of time and as class work mounts, the time I can dedicate to keeping up with it, unfortunately is sacrificed. Without further ado, I present you the usual friday infrastructure post, but new and improved on a sunday (yeah it will happen again, but I will try to not let it)

Today we are across the channel and down the coast to Barcelona! Quite a wonderful city, very bikable with a nice bike share, but only for city residents last I checked. They also have a very nice metro/tram transport system that is laid out nicely and with easy to read signage. Of note, I do not read Spanish nor do I speak any of it, however I was able to find my way around quite nicely. That may have been due to the amazingly useful google maps and google street view but none the less. There was a great organic vegan restaurant hidden on a back street I found which was simply amazing, I will do a post on them later this week, once I find them again.

The tram lines in Barcelona are separate from the underground metro lines, they do however connect in and form a nicely integrated system. Tram lines can be found on the western edge of the city and these are lines T1, T2, and T3 (yes the “T” is for Tram) in the Eastern side the lines are T4, T5, T6. to get from either end of the lines, a subway must be taken and unfortunately 2 transfers must be made, but the system was not designed to work tram-tram it was designed to fit into the subway system and to integrate that system better into the urban environment.

The line that I followed and took pictures of is the T4 line which starts (or ends? or both!) at the Olympic Village near the waterfront. Pictured below is the google street view of this.

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Note it is a duel line system running both ways next to each other. The end is concrete, however it changes to grass fill very quickly as you move north along the edge of the “Parc de la Ciutadella” which houses a zoo, museums, a 1700’s citadel (for which the park is named), as well as water displays, walking and biking paths and planned gardens. Its very nice, lots of people were out the day I was there.
Although not in this picture...
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In this picture note the markings on the road showing the space the tram takes up when it is moving through the intersection. There is a great deal of space given to make sure that a car or lorrie is not ending up stuck on the rails.

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I would like to point out the bike share scheme in Barcelona, Bicing , the system is for residents only and consists of 3000 bicycles throughout the region. It has been in place for 3 years now and has been quite successful. Of note these are the same bikes (practically) that are used for the “SmartBike DC” bike share scheme.

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Bicing website, in spainish


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There are 4 elements I would like to mention regarding this image. One, note the bike lane on the right hand side in the sidewalk. The lane is stripped and is “one way” in the direction of car travel. While this is not ideal, the sidewalk space is large enough to accommodate this lane and mixing does not seem to be too much of a problem. Two, note there is no car parking along this boulevard, but there are trees and it is common to see mopeds and bicycles chained up to these as impromptu parking. It would have been simple to put in staple racks between them, like Vienna did, however it works, I guess… Three, note the ground painting on the lower left, the arrow points in the direction to look first for oncoming trams, very useful especially as it is in the opposite direction of the cars. Four, note the space between the road and the rails. This is good to have for people who cross the road and have to wait for the tram. I am unsure if the road and tram walking lights are timed and triggered together, it would be smart if they were but I have no idea. This space also provides access to the tram stations in the center of the road, these are on slightly raised platforms as the trams are the traditional modern European low floor design, and as such the debarking height is not much more then the normal sidewalk. It would be nice to se a bollard of some kind on the corner of the cross walk next to the tram tracks for a bit of protection from automobiles , but it is not really critical.

To get back to the main image, it is taken at the Olympic park stop end, I can tell this due to its timestamp when I took it, however I have no idea where exactly or where I am looking to see solar panels on the roof, as can be seen in the upper center. I really enjoyed Barcelona and wished I had spent more time there and not gone on, I only spent one full day, and it was certainly not enough.
Google Maps
Transports metropolitans de Barcelona network map (in pdf)