Blog Roundup 8/2012

If a week is a long time in politics, then it's an eternity in bikeblog land. Last week we were mourning the passing of A View from the Cycle path, this week we celebrate its return - good news for the Lazy Bicycle Blog, Vole o'Speed and As Easy as Riding a bike, who explains why it was such a useful corrective to have. David Hembrow explains his decision in a corker of a post - well, we would say that - (and reminds us all - ahem - of some licensing and copyright basics) while Bicycle Dutch has been busy resurrecting some old video posts with a welcome reminder of what a real cycling superhighway looks like.

It's not often we link to blogs from Northern Ireland (it's not for lack of trying - if we're missing some, let us know) but there were four corkers this week from the Place blog asking whether Belfast can learn from Copenhagen, New York or Dublin, whether it has what it takes to become a cycling city, if it's a bicycle city in the making, whether cycling could help it regenerate - and other questions expecting the answer yes.

Meanwhile the debate in parliament still provides food for thought from Cycalogical - and even hope that things might change from War on the Motorist. As ministers write to every council in England and Wales, Cyclists in the City is not impressed - but having been to Labour's cycling summit, is pleased to find that cycling is becoming boring. Meanwhile, up in Scotland, Magnatom is looking longingly at the Assen school run and reminds all Scottish cyclists to save the date of 28th April. Kim Harding's already drafted up a manifesto.

As they already know in New York, complete (and safer) streets start with better design. War on the Motorist explains what's wrong with the current guidelines while Lovelo bikes asks what our roads would look like if Health and Safety built them (and while we're on the topic of health and safety - particularly health - here's a public health warning for all you chaps). Failing HSE, Pedestrianise London continues to redesign London with turnoffs onto minor roads and the Telegraph discovers woonerven (but not Dutch plurals). In the here and now, A Grim North finds an actual real decent piece of bike infrastructure right here in the UK ...as long as you don't mind doing battle with the A6 to reach it. All this might make motorists feel a little beleagured as a previously despised minority seems to be getting all the goodies but as the guy in this piece says at the end "We're not catering to cyclists ... we're creating cyclists".

With the police considering manslaughter charges over Kings Cross, Transport for London says the safety of cyclists is paramount. Really? asks As Easy as Riding a Bike. Meanwhile the Road Danger Reduction Forum looks at some high profile crashes in sobering detail and the assaults with a deadly weapon just keep on coming.

As 'Londoners on Bikes' grows in momentum, Green Jenny Jones is interviewd in Cycling Weekly (other mayoral candidates are available). Cycling Intelligence wonders if cycling in London is levelling off while Adam Bienkov gives us that revolution in full. Could it be because TfL's engineers had this chap in mind when they designed London's cycle lanes? The Year Zero enjoyed it too. On a smaller, but more practical note - if you do cycle in London you might want to check out these contraflow plans and add your voice to their survey.

What London needs, of course, is roads fit for princesses to cycle on - could our cycling monarchy be coming at last? Unlikely, although the Queen outs herself as a Boris Bike fan (from the safety of her Daimler) and at least her jubilee is to be appropriately marked with 60 more km of Jubilee walk and cycle way. Equally regal in its way are these musings from the peacock throne in a totes brill piece from the aptly named Tot Brill.

Other cities are available too: in Edinburgh, there are plans to tackle pollution by putting cyclists and pedestrians first as SEPA warns the Scottish government that it may miss its air quality targets. In the North East, Karl McCracken throws down the gauntlet to the entire Tyne and Wear metro system while in Bournmouth a local paper almost considers cycling as a sensible transport option, shock. In Cambridge, it looks as though cyclists are cycling unlit less (while the Dutch are just cycling more, full stop). In Bristol, Bristol Cars is pleased to see the council's money put to good use.

Away from the cities, in the Scottish borders your support is needed for the Upper Tweed cycle paths, while in Bath the Two Tunnels route is getting its lighting trialled - all the sort of routes that might be a gold mine for rural economies.

We all know you should never feed the trolls but how about fisking them? War on the Motorist deploys extreme sarcasm while Karl McCracken utterly fails to get the point of the internet by going and spoiling a perfectly good story by checking some facts. Meanwhile the real trolls, sorry bailiffs, are after Australia's leading helmet scofflaw Sue Abbot.

Original Green looks at the other cost of speed - sprawl with some surprising comparisons. Elsewhere it takes a parking lot to raise a village - but America may have reached peak car as densities rise (and radical plans are put in place to take a whole lane from cars in New York. Further north, Ottawa eyes the title of North America's #1 cycling city with (guess what) interlinked cycling infrastructure the way to go. Over in Germany, tomorrow never comes but sometimes 'next year' does leaving People Powered wondering why they bothered while in Boston a nice crossing is ruined by drivers failing to yield.

On to the perennial Plus ca change department with daily newspapers awakening to the peril in the streets... in 1912 while in the 1890s women gained strong legs, strong nerves and strong language - presumably as some hackney cab turned left across them without indicating.

Are e-bikes changing the way we commute? Not in New York, they're not.

The excellent City Cycling returns with a load of good articles including all the things proper cyclists never tell you. The equally excellent Bikeyface gets asked all the wrong questions while the Cycling Silk poses an unanswerable one.

And finally, while local councils prove that for every simple problem there's an overcomplicated and ultimately unworkable solution in Africa, people use one of the world's simplest and most elegant solutions to our transport needs to carry well, pretty much everything.