The Life-Sized City Blog

This post is by one of Copenhagenize's finest, Rachel.  She's been involved in quite a few of our projects, including the next Copenhagenize Index for bicycle-friendly cities. By now we all know (or have at least heard) that cycling is beneficial for cities, and the benefits range from improving health to decreasing congestion. For those who aren’t on board yet, some of the findings we developed here at Copenhagenize should help change your mind. We can talk on and on about the various benefits that come with bikes, but when it comes to municipalities actually implementing policies and infrastructure, the conversation will inevitably turn to numbers. How do the real costs of driving a car compare with the costs of riding a bike? We believe we have developed a comprehensive cost analysis to properly compare these modes of transport. With Christine Grant spearheading this effort, we were able to come up with a cost analysis that incorporated typical factors such a...

Update: 26 November 2013: New photos of Ubatuba bicycle parking added! Scroll down. Denir, from the Books & Bicycles blog in Brazil sent us these shots from his holiday to the Brazilian town of Ubatuba . It's a surfing mecca and is even nicknamed 'Capital do Surf' so signage in the town is often surf-related. Which also applies to the 'ciclofaixa' or bicycle lanes in the incredibly bicycle-friendly city. Painted lanes, sure, by they are nice and wide - see the red/yellow markings at bottom right in the first shot. Having realised I'd stumbled upon a potential holiday paradise, I did a spot of googling. The name Ubatuba alone just sounds like a surfer paradise and could be worked into 50 different Beach Boy songs. I found this article, in Portugese , about the city wherein it says that 80% of the students of this school ride bicycles to school each day. Impressive. And staying at a little pousada like this one is about €70 a night - about the sa...