Portlanders on Tour

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting 13 visitors from Portland, Oregan, USA. Foreign visitors are always lovely but this group were far from tourists.

All of them were here for a single purpose: to survey and study our bike culture with the aim of gaining knowledge and inspiration for Portland. It wasn't just any ragtag group of Portlanders. It was an impressive army of dedicated and eager Portlanders.
A city councilor.
The Director of Portland Parks and Recreation.
A county commissioner.
A senior advisor to the President of the Portland Metro Council.
A doctor.
A professor in urban planning.
The executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance - an advocacy group.
Portland's City Traffic Engineer.
An architect.
A bicycle advocate.
A manager of the planning, parks and trails development division.
A corporate giving manager for a sportswear company.
The owner of Portland's largest chain of bike shops.

I find it amazing and impressive that such a group made the trip to Europe in order to exchange ideas and to find inspiration. Portlanders should be proud that they have such dedicated citizens working for a better bicycle future.

The group visited Amsterdam for a few days and spent a few days in Copenhagen. Both cities are inspiring to visit when studying bike culture and infrastructure. I have always felt, however, that Copenhagen can provide much more detailed inspiration in that the city's layout is more similar to American cities. In addition, the traffic culture here is more North American in its mindset. There is order on the bike lanes and little traffic anarchy and it has always struck me as a mentality that is more recognisable to North Americans or the Brits.

While in Copenhagen the group met with the city's Bicycle Department, the Transport Ministry and the Danish Cyclists' Federation. But not before we all went for an introductory bike ride just after they arrived. We rented bikes at Baisikeli, of course, where everyone got to choose they own style of bike. We did a huge tour of the major points of interest - regarding bike infrastructure - and while it's tricky leading 13 people on a bike ride, it was cosy and brilliant.

On the last full day of their visit I took them on another long ride to visit the outlying suburbs and to take the train with our bikes. I rode my Yahoo Purple Pedals bike this time and it took photos the whole way. You can see a slideshow of the ride from the bike's Flickr photostream here.

It was inspiring for me to meet such a great group of passionate individuals and to share experiences and knowledge with them.

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...

The New Question for 21st Century Cities

It's all so simple if we want it to be. For almost a century we have been asking the same question in our cities. "How many cars can we move down a street?" It's time to change the question. If you ask "How many PEOPLE can we move down a street?", the answer becomes much more modern and visionary. And simple. Oh, and cheaper. Let alone the fact that the model at the top can move 10 times more people down a street than the model at the bottom. When I travel with my Bicycle Urbanism by Design keynote , I often step on the toes of traffic engineers all around the world. Not all of them, however. I am always approached by engineers who are grateful that someone is questioning the unchanged nature of traffic engineering and the unmerited emphasis placed on it. I find it brilliant that individual traffic engineers in six different nations have all said the same thing to me: "We're problem solvers. But we're only ever asked to solve the sam...

The Race for Lithium for Electric Cars and Bicycles

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