London

In a potent demonstration for safer streets, 1,000 Londoners staged a "die-in" with their bikes in front of the city's transportation offices Friday. ABC producer Meredith Frost snapped the above image, which has been going viral on the Internet. The protest lasted a brief 15 minutes.

A few weeks after SF Mayor Ed Lee displayed a total lack of commitment to the city's Bike Strategy, London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced an aggressive $1.3 billion plan for a comprehensive bike network, including protected bike lanes.

While San Franciscans eagerly await the repeatedly-delayed launch of the Bay Area's small-scale bike-share pilot program, which has now been downsized to a minuscule 700 bikes (350 of them in SF), Supervisor Scott Wiener says San Francisco needs to take the initiative to move ahead and launch a "full-scale system" throughout the city by next year.

[Editor's note: This post comes to us from Streetsblog NYC, but San Franciscans may also find the video useful (and exciting) in anticipation of the launch of the Bay Area's bike-share system in August.]

Remember the Times of London's "Cities Fit for Cycling" campaign? Earlier this year one of the most prominent dailies in the UK launched an all-out blitz to make bicycling safer in British cities, complete with a comprehensive policy platform. The campaign is for real: The Times is now getting London mayoral candidates on the record with their bike policy positions.

Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking that boils down to the dictum that what's good for drivers must be bad for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is interesting because it often isn't true.