Get on the Bike Bus!
Category: Cycling
, Society
, Transit
In Sydney, Australia multiple groups of commuter bicyclists have gotten organized and adopted routes with scheduled stops calling themselves a "bike bus".
The brilliance is the purposeful combination of the age-old tactic of safety in numbers, social interaction, and scheduled stops along the routes to include others in the pack of riders. After about a year of group rides the number of riders in each group or “bus” has significantly grown. Perhaps it can be said that timid riders are encouraged to commute on bicycles when they can cluster with lead riders who provide confident leadership within the flow of car traffic?
In Amsterdam and San Francisco groups of bike riders organically form as they wait at some of the more busy traffic signals. The riders that travel along the main arteries of bicycle traffic in these cities seem to automatically form packs as they navigate around the cities’ centers. In Bolder, Colorado certain high-traffic intersections have underpasses that allow riders to quickly and safely bypass automobile traffic at these locations. Boulder cycling enthusiasts like Alfred Sawatzky have been inspired to brilliantly post interactive Boulder cycling maps that can be used to choose the shortest bicycle path to an intended destination.
Posted by Tom Deem at October 26, 2007 11:00 AM
The Boulder maps seem rather low-tech. Every city needs something like this: http://kevytliikenne.ytv.fi/?lang=en
Posted by: Antti Rasinen at November 13, 2007 9:01 AM
It sounds like a really good idea, especially for less confident riders. Mind you, safety in numbers could also mean danger in numbers. I suppose the other problem is that cyclists will tend to be going from different places to different places which may explain why the bike bus is so small.
Posted by: Patrick Crozier at November 15, 2007 3:27 AM
New York City has a nice map that someone has made using google.
Posted by: Ethan Arpi at December 4, 2007 12:42 PM
