Tag: promotion

Bike To Work Days have a positive correlation with cycling rate

January 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Today is Winter Bike To Work Day in Chicago at Federal Plaza. If the results below are true, we should hold this event weekly during the winter! Held on January 20th to celebrate the coldest temperature on record, in 1985.

I was looking for research on why more people don’t ride bikes, or why they don’t ride bikes more often. I started my search on Professor John Pucher’s website at Rutgers University and found this about Bike To Work Days and other promotional events.

There is some evidence that BWDs increase bicycling beyond the event. The number of “first time riders” has increased in many programs: in Seattle, from 845 new commuters in 2004 to 2474 in 2008; in Portland, from 433 in 2002 to 2869 in 2008 (LAB, 2008). In San Francisco in 2008, bicycle counts at a central point were 100% higher on BWD and 25.4% higher several weeks later; bicycle share was 48.3% before BWD, 64.1% on BWD, and 51.8% afterwards (LAB, 2008). In Victoria, Australia, 27% of first time riders on BWD were still bicycling to work 5 months later (Rose and Marfurt, 2007).

Read it on page 8 of this PDF. I thank John for distributing all of his work for free online so that those without expensive journal subscriptions (or those who lost it by graduating college) can read the latest in bicycle research.

Here’s me surveying an attendee at the 2009 Bike To Work Day Rally in Chicago’s Daley Plaza. The results of the surveys taken each year by the Chicago Department of Transportation are not published.

I value photography

December 10, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I’ve made photography a very important feature of this blog. The photos help me tell the story. I spend an equal time taking and processing photos for the blog as I do writing it. I take over 200 photos each week. When I travel, I take 1,000 photos. Of 5,814 published photos, almost 64% have been added to the map, bringing more context to the subject and allowing it to be discovered geographically.

I think photography (and photos) is an important aspect of quality urban planning. When talking to the public and trying to get across your ideas, photos and other graphics make a vision come to life. They demonstrate what is and what could be. The right photo will invoke, without prompting, passion and enthusiasm – support you might need. The wrong photo may do the opposite, or have no effect at all. Take as many photos as needed so you ensure they will intimate the feelings you need for your project, or story.

What’s the story here? It could be several things. Simply, that it snowed recently. Or complexly, that while growth in this area has been phenomenal and immediately recognizable (most of the visible buildings starting at the blue-topped one and going south did not exist 10 years ago), our 100 year-old electric interurban train still runs.

I take photos for two reasons: to share on my blog, and to share them publicly, worldwide so that anyone who needs a photo can find it. A variety of my photos have been used to narrate events and ideas in organizational publications (with and without attribution), websites, and even a book!

I want my readers to take photography seriously. I don’t want you to be discouraged by that term, either. Don’t think you need a good camera or know how to take good pictures. Begin today and take one photo per day for a year. In one year, you will be an extremely proficient photographer (or “picture taker”). You’ll be able to tell your story, without a caption, in little time.

Read more about my photographic arsenal:

This photo tells us about the practice of designing malls, and designing malls for dense cities (like Chicago, where it’s located). The escalators are designed to get you in fast, but getting out requires a bit more walking.