How the Dutch got their cycle lanes

By now everyone knows that the Netherlands has really great bike facilities because it’s such a common form of transport there. And obviously it’s a chicken-eggy situation, because the more people ride bikes, the more resources are allocated to them, which encourages more people to ride, and so on.

But how did the current bike culture start? This 6 minute video tells the story of how it happened. (Subtitles in English and other languages are available).

As the narrator points out, the situation wasn’t unique. A combination of economic circumstances, rising petrol prices and the public loudly asking for cycle paths isn’t impossible to achieve today. There are more and more cycling groups around the country, and we’ve all noticed rising prices already… the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

Bike paths raise your house value

I was reading in Crikey yesterday that the City of Sydney has found that local bike paths mean higher house prices. Given that bike paths are often controversial, this is a great sign that proves people do want alternatives to cars.

For some reason, there are people who oppose bike paths. I think it’s a bit odd, because the addition of a bike path doesn’t hurt them in any way. They claim that swapping car-parking for cycleways will reduce trade for any businesses along the street – as if cyclists don’t have money!

But when the paths were added to Bourke St in Sydney, businesses found that they weren’t losing any money, and that it made the street look better. A broad, tree-lined street with bikes is more attractive than a narrower one choked with parked cars and speeding traffic. It feels like a safer place to live, and entices people to ride to their local shops instead of jumping in the car to zoom off to somewhere else. Cycle paths help build a sense of community.

I don’t think that higher house prices are always a good thing – they prevent younger people from entering the market. But in this case, it’s evidence that people want bike paths and will pay more to have them.

As discussed in the Crikey article, we do need more data about this effect. If we don’t measure the effects of changing to more sustainable street design, we can’t prove that it’s better!  Check out the original post, it’s got lots of information about the benefits of cycleways and links to a video about Bourke St itself.

Interview: Jayride’s Rod Bishop

Have you heard of Jayride? It’s a website helping people organise a carpool online – just one of the examples of how the internet is helping people make green changes in their lives. It started in New Zealand and now it’s in Australia too, with 5,000 people joined up already.

Rod Bishop is the brains behind it, and he’s agreed to answer a few questions for us so we can learn a bit about how he did it…

What made you and Ross decide to start Jayride?

I came up with the idea for online ridesharing while working for an eco-tourism project in Laos around 2005. When I got back home I discovered that the idea already existed in Germany called mitfahrgelegenheit, which translates to “an opportunity to share a ride”. It looked fantastic so I set about building something for ridesharing in New Zealand. I’d never made a website before though, so my first effort was pretty awful. This is when Ross found me and we teamed up. Ross worked hard to help rebuild the site to be what it is today. And then most recently, we launched it in Australia.

Ross is motivated by creating something on a big enough scale that it becomes forever self sustaining. To me, that’s just an amazing thought: ridesharing on such a scale that it forever becomes an integral part of how people get around. I’d love to help make it happen.

Jayride looks like a pretty popular service so far. What areas does it cover already, and do you have plans to expand it further?

We cover the whole of Australia and New Zealand. Jayride is huge in New Zealand and is growing every day. In Australia we’re now picking up members in every state. New South Wales and Victoria have the most rideshares at the moment, especially with people driving between cities.  With the help of the Go Greener audience I hope we can help more people in WA!

When people first use Jayride, they’ll end up sharing a car with someone they’ve never met before. How do you solve the trust issue with this kind of online meeting-up?

Great question! Trust is an important part of what we do. First of all ridesharing online makes it much easier to meet people than hitchhiking. Our members first email each other, then call each other, all before meeting in person. You get a lot of opportunities to know and trust someone before you ever share a ride.

To message someone on Jayride, or to share your ride, you must be a member. It’s free to join, but membership ensures that we know a little about everyone who uses our site. We allow people to connect Jayride to their Facebook profile. When they do that, we check everything a member has told us against what they’ve told Facebook. If it checks out they get a special “trusted” status, letting other members know they’re a real and trustworthy person.

Lastly, and most importantly, we have never received a complaint about anyone on our site. I think that’s a pretty great track record! It seems like mostly our members are just cool, friendly, green people!

The internet has really helped people with things to share (like a car) find people who need a service (like a ride to work). It’s great for the environment because fewer resources are needed to keep us all happy. Do you think Jayride will have an environmental impact as it becomes more popular?

That’s why we do it! I really hope so. In addition to environmental impact I also hope we can open people’s minds to more sharing, especially at the local government level where ridesharing could help to reduce some of that awful gridlock.

Any final suggestions or thoughts for our readers?

My last note would just be to emphasise exactly how much money you save by carpooling. Most people don’t realise it would save you so much. And personally I find it’s a lot easier to be green when it also saves me buckets of money

Here’s a little simple math: Lets say that a carpool could save you $5 on the way to work, and $5 on the way back. That’s pretty normal, by the time you add up your petrol, parking, tolls, insurance, licensing and vehicle maintenance (tires, oil, repairs, and the rest). And lets also say you work at a normal 9-5 job.

By carpooling for a year you’ll save $2,400. That’s $5 x 2 (both ways) x 5 (days per week) x 48 (weeks per year). I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t go green for a free $2,400 every year.

I think you’re right! People are usually surprised by how much money they can save by doing the right thing Thanks so much for your time!

New electric car in Australia

Last week I got a bit of a treat from my friends Helmut and Eugenie. They showed up at our place in a shiny electric car, and we got to go for a ride.

Western Power is doing a trial of electric cars, so they can see what people’s usage patterns are. They let their staff take them home for the night, which I think is a great way of extending the trial throughout the city.

The car is a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which isn’t a great name in my opinion. It doesn’t roll off the tongue easily! But it’s a cute little car, perfect for trips around the city. It makes little beeping noises that reminded me of Nintendo computer games and lets you know how much charge you’ve got, as well as all the usual dashboard information. Eugenie’s bike was able to fit in, after the back seats were folded down. It’s definitely best suited to singles and couples rather than families.

Most people using cars are taking trips of less than 50km at a time. The i-MiEV can go for 160km before needing a 7-hour charge, either from your home power point or a special charging post. The charging posts can go in petrol stations or parking spaces.

You couldn’t go for a long country drive in this car, or haul around a pile of construction equipment. But how often do you need to do that anyway? If I had one of these, it’d suit our needs for 90% of the time – I’d probably start looking for car rental places that had utes or hybrids available for the rest of our trips.

So many hybrids are designed for families, and the all-electric Tesla is for speed-demons. It’s great to see something for the small car market, and I hope it’s got lots of competition soon! The ‘Customers of Tomorrow’ link on the Mitsubishi site lists the companies which have an i-MiEV now, so if you know anyone who works for them it might be worth asking if you can take one for a spin

Bikes in the Netherlands

Have you seen this video yet? It’s of an intersection in Utrecht in the Netherlands, and it’s exactly what I imagine for future of transport in Australia.

(Sorry, people who are reading this via email or RSS – I suspect the video won’t show up for you, you’ll have to visit the site to see it. Please do, it’s pretty interesting.)

Isn’t it great? People, buses, trams or light rail all over the place, with just a few cars here and there. People in suits, in dresses, bringing an extra bike to a friend (at 0:30), with kids on a back seat, with cargo trailers. Apparently one-third of all trips are made by bicycle, and I’m guessing quite a lot via public transport too.

How do they do it? Partly it’s because they’ve got a bike culture that assumes everyone aged 8 to 80 will be riding. Partly it’s good urban planning for mixed-use city centres, and good transport infrastructure that’s not built on the assumption that everyone will drive cars. And partly it’s because they’ve got nice flat land to ride on!

Although the weather looks nice in the video above, the one below shows that it’s not essential. These people are out riding even in the snow! Makes a drizzly Perth day seem pretty good by comparison…

About the 2:40 minute mark, you can see a bicycle ‘car-park’ near a train station where people can leave their bikes for the day.

As I always say, we already have what we need for a bright green future – we just need to get it done. If these people can do it, so can we.