Twin Cities Streets for People

According to the European Cycling Federation, if the whole of the EU cycled like the Danes, they could achieve significant emissions cuts.

If the EU cycling rate was the same as it is in Denmark, where the average person cycles almost 600 miles (965km) each year, then the bloc would attain anything from 12% to 26% of its targeted transport emissions reduction, depending on what forms of transport the cycling replaced, according to the report by the Brussels-based European Cycling Federation (ECF).

This figure is likely to be a significant underestimate as it deliberately excludes the environmental impact of building road infrastructure and parking, or maintaining and disposing of cars.

These figures are for the EU’s 2050 emissions reduction target.  The figures are even greater for 2020 targets.

Bikes are not a new technology that would require long adoption periods and high initial capital costs.  Almost everyone knows how to use them, and they are cheap.  They also have myriad co-benefits, not least of which is increased physical activity.  To get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should take a close look at the bike as a potential solution.

Using ECF’s study as a model and making some estimates, the Twin Cities metro could see some significant emissions reductions if we biked like the Danes, but getting there would be tough.  I’ll get to that, but first some initial thoughts on the Europeans.

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Another Twin Cities streets fatality, as a woman was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while walking her dog near a park in downtown Saint Paul this morning. This crash continues a deadly summer trend, with an elderly woman killed by an ambulance earlier this week, a man killed by a car while waiting for the bus earlier this month, and a cyclist and pedestrian killed along Park Avenue last month. Read more >

This post from Across the Great Divide made me think about how people report car crashes, particularly when a pedestrian, bicyclist, or driver dies in the crash. Do reporters call it an "accident" or a "crash"? Do they say that the person "was killed" or that the person "died"?

I remember reading recently about an attorney general in Florida who made headlines by trying to get drivers tried for murder instead of for vehicular homocide, in the interest of reducing inattentive driving. But it poses the question: if you are texting and speeding while driving a car, and hit and kill someone on a bicycle, are you guilty of murder? Or was it just an accident? Read more >