Cities, Counties, and Countries

Hey, so it turns out the all-powerful @BicycleLobby didn't actually scale the Brooklyn Bridge and plant white American flags at the top. That was two all-powerful German artists.

Like many cities in America, Cleveland grew into its own as a streetcar city. In the early part of the last century, hundreds of miles of streetcars connected all corners of the city as well as its inner suburbs. The streets where tracks carried passengers -- Lorain, Superior, Euclid -- were the circulatory system of the city, around which neighborhood life was organized.

About two dozen residents attended a San Jose Department of Transportation (SJDOT) community meeting last Wednesday, where staff gathered public input on four upcoming bike lane and sharrow projects planned for east San Jose streets. Five other projects, which will add bike lanes and sharrows to streets west of downtown -- and, to the chagrin of some, replace some parking along Park and Lincoln avenues with continuous bike lanes -- will be presented at a community meeting this Wednesday at Gardner Community Center, 520 West Virginia Street, at 6 pm.

Clarence Eckerson shot this great interview with Mary Beth Kelly of Families for Safe Streets and Claes Tingvall, director of traffic safety for the Swedish Transport Administration.

32-year-old Shahriar Rahimzadeh was struck and killed by the driver of a red 2000 Volvo S40 sedan while walking across El Camino Real at Almendral Avenue near his home in Atherton two weeks ago. It was exactly the type of high-speed, fatal collision that could have been prevented either by crosswalk improvements that Caltrans is dragging its feet on, or by the comprehensive redesign of El Camino proposed by the town's draft bicycle and pedestrian plan. That plan still awaits approval from the Town Council, more than four months after its review in April.

Copenhagen just keeps finding fun ways to make it easier and more convenient to bike. On a tour with Mikael Collville-Andersen, CEO of Copenhagenize Design Co, I was able to tour some new innovations that have been implemented since I was last in Copenhagen four years ago.

On August 6 and 13, San Jose Department of Transportation officials will present plans to improve traffic safety on ten streets that its Bike Plan 2020 identifies as key links in the city's proposed 500-mile bikeway network. The improvements include new striping for both conventional and buffered bike lanes, bike detection for traffic signals, sharrows, sidewalks and curb ramps, and the removal of some turn lanes and curbside auto parking.

Santa Clara County is still operating under plans that assume it can build its way out of traffic congestion by adding more lanes of traffic, plus new overpasses and underpasses, to the county's 62 miles of expressways -- dangerous arterial roadways that were "upgraded" decades ago with freeway-like ramps and overpasses. This is in stark contrast to the 21st-century approach taken by other cities and transit agencies in the region, which are planning for reduced traffic volumes by centering future urban growth around transit corridors and high-quality networks for walking and bicycling.

San Jose Mayor or City Council candidates Sam Liccardo, Raul Peralez, and Don Gagliardi all made appearances at last Friday's San Jose Bike Party, pitching improvements to bicycling conditions on the city's streets as integral to public safety. An estimated 2,500 Bike Partiers rolled out from Arena Green Park in downtown San Jose on the 18-mile, patriotically-themed "Stars & Stripes Ride" through the city's East Side.