Wednesday, June 21, 2017

The Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway, and fighting climate change by battling autocentrism.



This video makes me want to cry with joy (it's been far too long), then lash out with anger.

You go over there and see what's readily possible in the sense of co-existence.

You come back here and jostle for space with a semi rig on a cowardly Rosenbarger sharrow. Fuck autocentrism.

Biking the Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

Unless you live under a rock and don't ride a bike, you know that the Dutch have some of the best bicycle infra design on this Earth of ours.

While attending the Velo-city 2017 conference in the Netherlands I got to ride (3 times!) the Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway. Imagine being able to bike 18km (about 11 miles) between two medium-sized cities in your country and not have to stop once for cars?

Then there's this.

"To fight climate change, cities also need to fight personal cars, and all the infrastructure they require."

To Fight Climate Change, Cities Need to Battle Cars, by Henry Grabar (Slate via CityLab)

It sounds obvious. But it requires changing the way we build.

Mayors can fund transit, build bus and bike lanes, end free parking, and reform building codes that require it. (Though they mostly don't.) But ultimately, the only way to combat American automobile dependency is to reform the way we build, and in particular, to help avoid low-density settlement patterns that make it impractical or impossible for Americans to get anywhere without a personal car.

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