The Life-Sized City Blog

San Francisco visualisation from Connecting the City. I had an email conversation with Andy Thornley from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and he dropped me this link to Connecting the City website about the visions for making San Francisco a more liveable city. It includes interesting visualisations of what the city could/should look like regarding bicycle infrastructure and liveable streets. Great stuff. The modal share - when asking people about commuting - is at 3.9%. Which puts San Francisco at #4 in the US . However, an SFMTA report surveyed San Franciscans as part of its 2008 State of Cycling Report and estimated that about 6% of all trips take place in San Francisco by bicycle. San Francisco is, in my mind, the Great Bike Hope for the US. Lots of positive energy, political will and visionary advocacy. The Board of Supervisors declared a new goal of 20% of trips in San Francisco by bicycle in 2020 and the Mayor has signed it so let's cross our fingers for ...

I'm way behind on so many things. I finally had the chance to edit this little film that I shot in San Francisco in October 2009. By fantastic coincedence, my lecture tour was on the same day as the Halloween Critical Mass bicycle ride. I took part with some friends , riding my Biomega borrowed from the W Hotel . I was meant to borrow a Danish Bullitt cargo bike from Erik Zo , who was kind enough to offer it to me, but not knowing where I'd end up in the course of the evening, or with whom and what not, I decided against it. I didn't want to be the man who got the bike stolen. :-) In lieu of borrowing the bike, Erik gave me a lift from the lecture back to my hotel. The bicyle ride was quite brilliant, I must admit. It was definately more 'in your face' compared to the critical mass I was in in Budapest in September, but it certainly wasn't aggressive at all. The whole Halloween angle, with people dressed up in crazy costumes added to the festival atmosphere. T...

I've not seen such cool bike parking in ages. At my hotel in San Francisco - the W Hotel - they have three Danish Biomega bicycles for guests to use free. Okay, three isn't much, but it's what they do with them that counts. It's like a museum the way they hang them up on the wall like that. You ask the valet for a bicycle and he walks over with a crank and proceeds to lower - slowly and cerimoniously - the bicycle to the ground. Now THAT is style over speed! I rode the bicycle during the Halloween Critical Mass and the next day, too, with some friends. A one-speed on the hills of San Francisco. Easy peasy. Here's what other bikes I've been riding whilst travelling .