Weekend reading: "How to get a city cycling."

Thanks to W for the link. In New Albany, we know quite well how NOT to get a city cycling: Let John Rosenbarger design streets on behalf of the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party.

Following are ways to promote cycling through infrastructure and design, so as to encourage the alteration of habit.

How to get a city cycling, by Katia Moskvitch (BBC)

It all started with dead horses, during 1816 – the “year without a summer”. Temperatures had plummeted around the world, because of the eruption a year earlier of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora. It was among the most violent eruptions on Earth in recorded history, and the fallout of dust and sulphur caused crop failures across Europe. As horses died of starvation, the German inventor Karl von Drais came up with an idea to replace horses: a contraption with two wheels but without pedals. It was the predecessor of today’s bicycle.

Back then, it had a different name: draisine – or velocipede in French. Pedals came in due course, and soon the two-wheeled mode of getting around became popular.

Today, it’s known as the most efficient method of self-powered transportation by far.