Frieker.org - Rewarding kids for riding to school

I saw a pretty cool idea in a short movie and the bike infrastructure in Boulder, CO. They call it Frieker. (Click here). Its a program to get more kids to ride their bikes to school. The program puts a computer chip in school kid's helmet. When the kids ride to school, they pass under a chip scanner that registers their ride. One participating kid at a school is randomly chosen to given $10 per week. There are year end prizes like iPods too.

Looking at their web site, Frieker is available to roll out to any school. Sounds cool.

Great video of my bike route home

I came across this in Street Films.

For anyone outside of San Francisco, this is a great view of the volume of bike commutes we get on the main thoroughfare through downtown. Depending on when you're on the road, its not always this busy, , but I think its pretty representative.

View here

2 Wheel 2 Obama

I just got a link to some great shots of the bike parking for the Obama inaguration in Washington D.C.

Check them out

What is LOS?

LOS - or Level of Service - is a metric used by planners and transportation engineers to measure how efficient a road is at support CAR traffic. Unfortunately, many projects that improve non-motorized transit end up being determine to have negative impacts under environmental review because they degrade LOS. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE of course.

This issue gets tied into bike facilities, because from a certain perspective, adding a bike lane have the "negative" impact of creating restricting car traffic.

For a very good analysis of how this all works, how it affects bike facility projects, and the movement afoot to fix it, see the always greate SF Streets blog:

Part I: How Long Will the City Keep Us Stuck in Our Cars?
Part II: Paradise lost: turning autombility on its head
Part III: California's Revolutionary Plan to Overhaul Transportation Analysis

Food Bank Bike Race

I was just at Freewheel Cyclery (the local bike store) and saw a poster for the Super Market Street Sweep. As I understand it, it looks likes it a charity event where bikers see how much food they can haul on their bikes and bring to the local Food Bank. I didn't hear about it when they did it in Dec, but seeing it now, it looks pretty cool. Great win-win. Publicizing bikes as a legitimate non-motorized alternate and helping feed some hungry people.

Cool bike light/lane

I see this on link from the Huffington Post's green section.

Click here

Brilliant idea.

Its funny because its true

Read here

Ode to a bike light

By far the best commuter bike light I've seen is Planet Bike's SuperFlash. For riding through an urban area where you just want a light to make sure you can be seen by motorists (rather than to illuminate your path) it seems like the best thing out there. I've had mine for over a year on the same batteries with daily use during the winter and its still going strong.

Commuter Checks for Cyclists

A great benefit for bike-to-workers was added to the last federal bail out package. Starting this year, employers can provide their workers with fringe benefits that give them up to $20 a month for biking to work. The idea is that this money defrays some of the cost of biking to work.

Accor, a company that administers commuter checks, already has a mechanism in place to piggy back bike commuter benefits with existing commuter checks. See their site.

As I learn more I'll post it here.

Inagural post

This is first post. 2 days before the presidential inaguration I'm laying down the inagural 2Wheel2Work post.

I sent an email to John Boehner today. Apparently he has been dissing the bicycle infrastructure projects proposed as part of Obama's stimulus plan. The American League of Cyclists has a great part of their site where they list any quotes from politicians or other notables who bad mouth cycling. No suprises when you look at the list.