THE REVOLUTION IS COMING...
Bicycle Manifesto - 50 % Of All Streets To Be Converted Into Bikeways.
Modern cities were made for cars. Older cities are used as if made for cars with the exception of small pedestrian zones turned into shopping malls. Neither of them accommodates bicycles.
In recent years, in certain cities we have seen the introduction of bicycle lanes. This is a good start but by far not sufficient.
What this Bicycle Manifesto demands can be summed up in one sentence: 50 % of all streets of any city should be reserved for bicycles and electric bicycles. These special lanes should be called bikeways.
Only high speed highways as well as pedestrian zones should be exempt from this rule. Motorcycles or scooters that don't run on batteries or exceed the speed of 32 km (20 miles)an hour should not drive on bikeways. Nor should there be pedestrians allowed.
With this rule, we don't have to ask or beg for more courtesy and respect towards cyclists, and pedestrians don't have to fear bicyclists when they step onto their bike lanes so often stolen from pedestrian territory. Bike lanes don't belong on sidewalks and they shouldn't ornate streets. Bikeways should be like separate street lanes that are clearly separated from car lanes and pedestrian walk ways.
Traffic engineering theory has to acknowledge that cyclists (including e-cyclists) are a growing class of species that cannot be viewed as lawless fast pedestrians or powerless car drivers.
What is to be gained and what is to be lost with such a 50 % solution ?
The introduction of pedestrian zones in the 1960s and 1970s in northern Europe was not an easy imposition. People were too much accustomed to drive up everywhere anytime a day. But the reality behind pedestrian zones is that these traffic less city areas became open air shopping malls hence the economic gain justified for the inconvenience for traffic.
This shopping mall logic explains why there aren't any significant pedestrian areas in major American cities: In the same era pedestrian zones sprang up in nearly every German, Swiss and Austrian city, the American dream lead middle class people on newly built highways into suburbs and right next to shopping malls without giving much attention to inner cities that started to decay.
Given this precedent, what would there be gained if existing streets would have to be divided and shared equally with cyclists? For sure, there wouldn't be any more shopping. There might be even less consumption since cyclists can't fill up trunks and backseats. But the gain would be a massive improvement of the quality of life with 50 % less air pollution, healthier, slimmer and hopefully happier people who suffer less from strokes, heart attacks and obesity than car drivers.
If cycling is made safer and more efficient, more people would ride on their bikes. More cyclist on save bikeways will inspire more people to ride and the perception of the city changes: people would discover that their cities can easily be cross by bike.
In this game electrical bikes -e-bikes -are not an alternative to bicycles but an alternative to cars. The car traffic would for sure be diminished and the pattern of transportation will change. Even consumption and cooking habits might change as smaller open air markets with fresh and locally produced products can have a renaissance and invite people to cook differently. In most cities cyclists move as fast or even faster as cars do today.
If bikeways become a reality travel time will be reduced for even cars since many people will opt for bicycling or e-cycling. The use of e-bikes offers pure biking and/or electric assisted biking which guarantees effortless mobility that can compete with the comfort of heated cars.
Generous bikeways will be not only the alternative to the current mostly dangerous bike reality but will be an invitation for more cyclists to hit the road and more cars to give up on driving.
This all will lead to an improvement in the quality of life, to environmental gains, to finally further changes in urban politics and urban transportation which need to be implemented. We need better bike parking facilities, effective bike sharing programs, i. e. cheap rent a bike networks throughout the city.
Bicycle and tricycle traffic combined with e-bike technology can be made so effective that even regular and bulky goods, products and services - taxis, kiosks, etc. - can be offered by bicycle as it is still the case in China and in places where developing and developed economies meet. Bicycles are not very economic and nonpolluting modes of urban transportation but also very quiet.
Given the implementation of bikeways that share all available streets equally with cars, easy riding on bicycles will guarantee easy living thanks to cheap, much healthier and environmentally friendly transportation. Once the infrastructure is in place, a massive re-thinking will take place and people of all ages and in all physical shape will resort to bicycles or e-bicycles.
Rainer Ganahl , New York, January 2011
some important technical data on e-bikes taken from the latest NY Times article Gaining a Toehold for the E-Bike By BRAD STONE Published: January 16, 2010
The earliest e-bikes of the 1990s got about 15 miles on a single charge. The Eneloop’s battery can power the bike about 46 miles before it needs to be plugged into an outlet and recharged for around three hours; it also partially recharges when the rider brakes or coasts downhill.
The federal government resolved the legal obstacle with legislation in 2002, classifying any two-wheel, pedal-driven bike with a maximum speed of 20 miles an hour as a bike, which does not need turn signals or licensed riders.
In the 1990s, ....Their bikes had heavy steel frames and the same lead acid batteries used in automobiles, which themselves could weigh 80 pounds. The entire Eneloop weights about 50 pounds.
This manifesto is open for suggestions and discussions:
just email me: useabicycle @ yahoo.com
I AM DISCUSSING THE CONTENT AND DEMANDS OF THIS MANIFESTO IN BOLOGNA WITH ITALIAN POLITICIANS AND THEORETICIANS AS PERFORMANCE (january 2011)
MORE DISCUSSIONS ARE TO BE HOLD - PLEASE MAKE THESE DISCUSSIONS HAPPEN FOR A BETTER WORLD
Johan Hartle: 1/12/2011
Das Manifest ist schön. Klingt sehr ernst. Ich denke mal darüber nach, ob mir etwas ("im Ton Angemessenes") dazu einfällt. Noch klingt es etwas nach Bürgerinitiative (sorry).
(translation by RG: the manifesto is nice. sound very serious. I m thinking about it whether I can say something appropriate. So far, it sound somehow civil actionism /citiicens' initiative(sorry)
my answer (rainer ganahl)
It should be pointed out that futurism can be now and doesn’t have to be funny, aggressive, or pure poetry. This manifesto proposes peaceful solutions in a non-poetic way, not pataphysical or imaginary solutions laid out in the style of Alfred Jarry, a big poet and biker which whom I identify or in the manner Marinetti did - adoring war and destruction... Times will come where cyclists don't have to resort to anger when it comes to unfortunate incidents with cars because of failed urban politics. Marinetti's writing inspired the futurist artist Boccioni to make the painting cyclist - a high speed racer, most likely on performance enhancing drugs - provided as well by Alfred Jarry (Perpetual Motion Food). This bicycle manifesto is not into speed but into questions of conviviality (sustainability and traffic solutions. It is the opposite of what a Futurist Manifesto wants. But interesting enough in 1908, Marinetti was involved in a small car accident, after trying to avoid two cyclists on a road just outside Milan. ... that made him so angry that he sees war as they only 'human hygiene'. He went on Futurism "will glorify war - the world's only hygiene - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.”
Brad Alexander 1/14/2011
hey rainer,
clearly the text comes across as highly utopian, not necessarily naïve of course, but there are a few things lacking.
my question is, how do you make the decision WHICH urban problems need to be, and can be, solved by the transition to bike lanes. How did you decide which issues you would like to address in this manifesto? This assumes, in a somewhat non-scientific analysis, that were 50% of auto-streets to be turned into bikeways, half of the normal traffic would need to be either diverted or not exist. This 50% decrease of auto-traffic leaves 50% of its population in a position to ride a bike. What happens to that remaining population, stranded, if they are unable to ride a bike... perhaps too old, handicapped in some way, for some reason unable to ride a bike...
could there exist some form of bicycle public transportation?
this isn't a critique of the manifesto, so i write it half-jokingly, but it occurred to me that half the population might be left "stranded" if they cant ride a bike, which makes me think about some form of bicycle public service/transportation. just a thought.
i imagine that in the discussion in bologna, skeptics might ask about specific situations which would require you to solve something that you might not be interested in... it might be helpful to make more clear the function, and guidelines or boundaries of exactly what such a manifesto should address. being more clear about the aims and interests of the idea, as to avoid questions which would make the discussion become annoying or nit-picky or less exciting.
my answer (rainer ganahl)
many thanks for your answer. Let me answer point by point: Which issue do I want to address: clearly - the bikeway issue. a special protected area reserved for bicycles only. all other effects on urban politics is conseuqential. will follow. I only mentioned shopping attitude and health issues.
your second point addresses the concern what to do with the rest of 50 % percent of cars that don t properly fit in the streets anymore due to 50 % shrinking space for car ? Nothing ! they would hopefully stay at home, stay away or also convert to cycling. as I mentioned above. A lot of people would convert to cycling should there be viable options and securte bikeways. Also, as I pointed out, electric bicycles are not ment to be an alternative to traditional bicycles but to cars and public transport. simply speaking, when it boils down to convinience the bike should become the better and cheaper option than a fuel based car.
As mentioned I do also address the probabilty of 3 wheeled electric taxis if they don t exceed 32 km (20 miles)an hour. but don t forget, when we get to a point where regular cars become under attack and more and more looking like a bad option we will also see more flexibilities in public transportation that also is already about to go electric. but they can drive on regular streets.
last but not least, I just saw again the film De Sicas classic Bicycle Thieves and what is surprising is that we barely saw car on the streets but lots of bicycles. At that time., it was looked at as a sign of poverty but today it can be looked at as a smart and intelligent option and hopefully makes car drivers look a bit ackward. don't forget. since the urban professional and creative class embraces again the city and wants to live in the center -- and not anymore in the fancy suburbs - cars look really suburban, provincial, far out of the center. And that is somehowalso an effect that can be used to inspire people to use bicycles. Bikes are cool.
in bolzano already a reality.. at least for 400 meters
useabicycle.com
neon, 2006
discussion in bologna of my bicycle manifesto
with Luca Conti, Bonito Oliva, Cristiana Perella, me (Rainer Ganahl),
