#infrastricture

Les zones Uvira-Fizi, coupées de Bukavu. Faut-il penser à la province Uvira-Fizi? Mon point de vue.

RDC: ́ . Très déplorable et frustrant. La toute première fois que j’ai pensé qu’il serait mieux de soutenir ceux qui veulent se battre pour que Uvira-Fizi deviennent une province à part. Bukavu a démissionné depuis longtemps de ses responsabilités à l’égard de Uvira-Fizi. Nous avons toujours des gouverneurs Bashi irresponsables et voleurs pour qui Uvira-Fizi ne comptent pas. Comment expliquer…

Uvira_RDC: Embouteillage monstre au pont de Mulongwe, les jeunes démobilisés viennent au secours

Pendant les heures de pointe, un embouteillage s’observe au pont de larivière, il faut au moins une heure pour y traverser. Cela est causé par deux trous sur le pont qui font à ce que les véhicules aient une difficulté à y traverser.

C’est la raison qui fait qu’un groupe de jeunes démobilisés disponibilisent un fer dur pour permettre aux véhicules, même les camions poids lourds d’y traverser…

Uvira – RDC : Inauguration provisoire du Pont de “déviation” de Kavimvira

[br] La population d’Uvira et les usagers de la R5 en particulier sont soulagés ce vendredi 20 May 2016 de l’inauguration provisoire du Pont dit de “déviation” par l’Administrateur du territoire d’Uvira Monsieur Samuel Lunganga Lenga sur autorisation du Gouverneur de province en mission à kinshasa.

Signalons que plus d’une année (Avril 2015 – May 2016) que ces usagers traversent la rivière…

Here are some articles I came across recently. I appreciate that talking about "women" is an easy way to frame the conversation, but really, it's about anyone who wants to ride slow/casually/non-aggressively for any reason - asthma, old age, handicaps, or just because. (Not to mention, there are plenty of women who are perfectly comfortable going fast and riding in traffic.)

I think in the US we tend to lump all cyclists into the same group, and then assume that because the tiny bike lanes in the middle of the street are OK for some cyclists, they're OK for all of them. That's fine if you only want fast and confident cyclists to ride, but what if the goal is to get more people riding? I realize Lincoln is not New York, but I have talked to many people who work or go to school in downtown Lincoln that have told me they would commute by bike, but are scared to ride in the street (especially during rush hour.) I do ride in the street, but continue to be very nervous about it at certain intersections and times. 

How to Get more Bicyclists on the Road - Scientific American

"An emerging body of research suggests that a superior strategy to increase pedal pushing could be had by asking the perennial question: What do women want?"

"In the U.S., men’s cycling trips surpass women’s by at least 2:1. This ratio stands in marked contrast to cycling in European countries, where urban biking is a way of life and draws about as many women as men—sometimes more. In the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips are made by bike, 55 percent of all riders are women. In Germany 12 percent of all trips are on bikes, 49 percent of which are made by women."

"First, studies across disciplines as disparate as criminology and child ­rearing have shown that women are more averse to risk than men. In the cycling arena, that risk aversion translates into increased demand for safe bike infrastructure as a prerequisite for riding."

"Although researchers have long examined the bike infrastructure in Europe, they have only just started to do so for the U.S. In a study conducted last year, Dill examined the effect of different types of bike facilities on cycling. The project, which used GPS positioning to record individual cycling trips in Portland, compared the shortest route with the path cyclists actually took to their destination. Women were less likely than men to try on-street bike lanes and more likely to go out of their way to use “bike boulevards,” quiet residential streets with special traffic-calming features for bicycles. “Women diverted from the shortest routes more often,” Dill says."

On her bike: why women won’t ride - crikey

"Last week my colleague told me that she was selling her bike. She likes the idea of cycling and has no actual hostility towards her bicycle it’s just, as she says “our roads are too dangerous for females”."

"A while ago I conducted focus groups with women in Brisbane to find out why the bicycle was the “elephant in the room” and what planners really needed to do to make riding acceptable. Unsurprisingly, I was not surprised with the answers I heard at coffee shops, at my yoga class and at work: women didn’t want to ride because of a lack of safe and dedicated cycle infrastructure, traffic fears, personal safety fears and topography. What Australian women wanted was complete separation from parked and moving cars."

"I visited 21 ‘cycling cities’; the famous ones in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany as well as the lesser known ‘icons’, such as Bogota in Colombia, to discover first-hand what infrastructure had transformed a city into a ‘cycling city’. What I found was that each city had its own unique network of bikeways, but there were common themes including: 4.0 – 5.0 metres of ‘usable’ cycling space, complete separation from motorised traffic, a consistent level of service as well as high quality streetscaping and signage. All of the cycle routes in all of the cities were designed with cycling in mind — they were direct, quick and traffic free."

"'Normal' people — women, children, seniors, families, tourists — weren't riding bikes and so in an attempt to 'get more people cycling more of the time', we were building more skinny, unprotected, on-road cycle lanes and not surprisingly the vicious cycle of people not riding was continuing."

(Karin's note - I don't really like the defining of "normal people" as everyone but men up there. I would say instead, "People who are not uber fit and fast cyclists.")

"Research (Munro 2010) suggests that 46% of regular cyclists think Sydney roads are ‘unsafe’ but 84% of non-regular bike riders in Sydney say they would start riding a bike if they could use separated cycleways."

Why More Women Don’t Ride Bikes (And What We Can Do About It) - Infrastructurist

"One stubborn fact has plagued the cycling ranks since, well, since biking first became de rigeur: Far more men ride than women. In fact, as many as three times more bike trips are made by men than women in the U.S., according to research by John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers."