Not Just Bikes

Hi NotJustBikes,

I just left a comment on your Switzerland video, but I’m not sure if you’ll ever see it. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to consider taking a trip to China and checking out their walkable/cyclable infrastructure & their accessibility to trams/metros/trains?? I really, really think you’d fall in love with every city you could possibly go to there.

I recommended 3 youtube channels to you in the comment I left: Walk East, CN Walking, and Colorful World. Watch just the first minute or so of these videos & you’re going to fall madly in love with these cities!!! Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Nanning, Nanjing, Harbin, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, … the list goes on and on; these cities are BEAUTIFUL!!!

I’d love to see a video or two on China if you ever decide to go. If you go, I recommend cities like Shanghai, Zhuhai, and Suzhou. I say these cities because of the size: Shanghai, with respect to their population, is HUGE, (24.8 million) Suzhou is in between these two countries (~8.4 million), and comparatively speaking, Zhuhai is very small (2.5 million).

The thing that’s fascinating to me about all of these cities though is that they are all so well taken care of; they’re all so clean, so sleek, so modern, robust, efficient, and cutting edge in just about every way. Their train lines, walkability, & accessibility are truly unheard of to me as an American who’s not had a chance to leave the country yet.

I really hope you see this post & consider taking a trip. Godspeed!

EDIT: This is a photo of the Zhuhai Opera House!!

Friend comes over to Europe for a month from Saudi Arabia where he gets his PhD now. He will work, study and we will travel to Netherlands for a week. Instead of renting a bike for a month we decided to buy used one, service it ourselves and then sell it or just gift to someone who would use it and love it. All together we will spend less than €50. And it's so much fun!

I think it's genius and should be part of the sustainable travel culture.

Random photo of a train model to click bait 😜

The candidate supported by NJB and RM Transit on NJB’s podcast, The Urbanist Agenda, won!

Crossgeposted von: https://feddit.de/post/1016130

The EU needs more high-speed trains.

There is an EU petition going around to get the European Commission to put in place a legally binding act to establish a European high-speed train network, connecting EU capitals, as quickly as possible.

The link to the petition, as well as the site with more information, are in the pinned post.

These official EU petitions are actually meaningful, and are not your typical online petition, as they require confirmation of identity (e.g., through DigID). It is only open to residents of the EU.

Please consider signing it if you are a resident of the EU.

Obviously this initiative would only be part of the solution. What we really need are more regional trains throughout Europe, and better public transit for everyone.

Nevertheless, a trunk of high-speed train routes between capitals would go a long way towards building a viable alternative to flying and driving within Europe. Just as the Shinkansen (literally "new trunk line") do in Japan.

My point here is: don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Please sign and share the petition, and let's get the EU committed to trains.

Petition: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/035/public/#/screen/home

More information: https://www.connect-capitals-hsr.eu/

Jason of Not Just Bikes on YouTube

Was wondering what urbanism-related books people might have read or heard about. I've personally read Walkable City by Jeff Speck, which I found enjoyable and informative. I've also heard of the books written by Charles Marohn (Confessions of a Recovering Engineer and Strong Towns). What others are notable?

You can read Walkable City for free here: http://www.petkovstudio.com/bg/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Walkable-City.pdf , though it's missing anniversary edition content. Don't be scared by the page count, it's only actually like 200.

And wow; being able to walk places is amazing 😍! It's so freeing to not need a car for everything. I the US I live close enough to work to walk, but the terrible design of the stroads makes it very unpleasant. I want to stay here, I don't want to go back to the car dependent suburbs 🙁.

Unfortunately the trip was planned by my parents and we've spent a lot of time in a car traveling to places. I don't mind pretty scenery, but multiple 6 hours days of car travel is boring. And really I wanted to see the urban design, not the country side.

Thought I'd kick start this community with a question.

For me (Madison WI) we have some pretty good signal engineering, at least for North American standards. Signal cycles are getting shorter and shorter, leading pedestrian intervals are pretty much standard for every intersection Traffic Engineering touches, and no turn on red and protected left turns are getting added more and more. We're also adding (good) transit signal priority with BRT. TE also recognizes that smaller intersections (fewer lanes) can lead to better intersection efficiency due to shorter cycle times, which is great.

Lately one of the problems is we're limited by the software the traffic signal vendor computers have. For example, shortening read clearance times remains a challenge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KPGVP85WpU) because red clearance intervals are a fixed time in the signal vendor software and not table-based. :(

I thought I would start up this community due to the recent post by Jason in r/notjustbikes.

Same rules apply here, however this is an unofficial community.