Infographic: Your Pre-Ride Bicycle Checklist
- Aaron Kuehn contributed in Culture, Transportation and Infographic

This infographic is a collaboration between GOOD and Aaron Kuehn (@AaronKuehn)

Do you know how to prep your bike for a ride? Whether you’re a bike newbie and prefer to loop around the park or a longtime enthusiast who bikes across the city, it’s important that your bike’s parts function properly so that you stay safe and make the most of your ride. Here’s a pre-ride checklist to get you started on the right track. Once you’re set up, you may be inspired to get around by bike more often. Make sure you’re always prepared by downloading your own copy of the Pre-Ride Bicycle Checklist infographic here.

Join us for our Fix Your Street Challenge on the last Saturday of May. Click here to say you’ll Do It and be sure to share stories of transportation innovation all month.

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Citizen Building Block #19: Walk 30 Minutes Every Day
- Alissa Walker wrote in Building Blocks Of Citizenship and Transportation

Walking is an easy way to improve personal health and build stronger cities. Just 30 minutes a day spent walking can reduce the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease by lowering body fat, bad cholesterol, and blood pressure. And regular walking can increase energy, helping to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Plus, walking connects us to our neighborhoods, creates equitable communities, and promotes economic development. For those who are physically able: Incorporate more walking into your commute or explore a corner of your city as a pedestrian. Go ahead, get out there on foot for at least a half hour a day—you’ll be glad you did.

Senegalese Buses are Awesome: Check Out This Pimped Out ‘Car Rapide’
- Mary Slosson wrote in Global Citizenship and Transportation

They’re ubiquitous in Dakar: the bright blue and yellow car rapide buses that criss-cross Senegal’s capital city. 

For the uninitiated, Senegal’s most popular form of public transportation can be chaotic and overwhelming. The buses, custom made from discarded vehicles by the city’s brilliantly inventive mechanics, chug along the streets with the back door open and the driver’s assistant shouting out the route.

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Citizenship Building Block #18: Try Biking to Work
- Zachary Slobig wrote in Transportation, Cities and Living

Commuting sucks. ‘Mega commuters’ endure 90 minutes each way to punch the clock. More Americans fall into that category than there are residents of Copenhagen. Why point to that Danish city? It’s got the busiest biking street in the Western world—the result of years of public pressure and infrastructure investment that reshaped commuting habits. The arguments for bike commuting are familiar: healthier for you and the environment; saves you tons of cash; often faster than driving or taking public transit. Here’s another: it’s an opportunity to see your city or town without looking through a pane of shatter-proof glass. Another: it’s a lot of fun. In many places it can seem too dangerous to bike to work—no bike lanes and a gauntlet of taxi doors and four-wheeled aggression. A suggestion to mitigate those concerns: find at least one bike buddy. There’s strength (and safety) in numbers. So go ahead and try it. This week, saddle up and ride a bike to work. It might become a habit.

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Turns Out Bike Lanes Are Really Good for Local Business
- Meghan Neal wrote in Business, Transportation and Cities

Good news for bike activists: Making a safe place on streets for cyclists (and pedestrians) boosts sales for the small businesses in the area.

This according to a recent report from the New York Department of Transportation. The study found that on commercial blocks where new bike lanes were built, the businesses saw a nearly 50 percent increase in sales.

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Join us for our Fix Your Street Challenge on the last Saturday of May. Click here to say you’ll Do It and be sure to share stories of transportation innovation all month.

Citizen Building Block #17: Take Public Transportation
- Stef McDonald wrote in Building Blocks Of Citizenship and Transportation

If you have a car, you know the convenience of getting in and driving directly to where you want to go. You might enjoy this enough to wonder why you should bother taking public transportation at all. But you can give back and gain so much by taking the train, bus, subway, or ferry. Start with the environmental benefits of leaving your car behind in favor of public transit: reducing carbon emissions and our collective use of non-renewable oil. It can be good for people, too. Without having to fill up at the pump, you can save money on gas and vehicle maintenance. And without having to pay attention to the road, you’re free to read a magazine, prepare for a presentation, or study for an exam. When you’re sharing a ride on public transit, you can interact with other passengers—or discretely eavesdrop on conversations. You can daydream or doze, solve a crossword puzzle or play a word game with friends on your smartphone. Do it for a day, a week, or simply more often.

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The GOOD Fix Your Street Challenge
- GOOD HQ wrote in Transportation

On the last Saturday of May, we’re urging the GOOD community to take action with our Fix Your Street Challenge. What’s that? Commit to doing something to fix your street and snap a few before and after photos while you’re at it. Click that button below to say you’ll ‘Do It’ and tag those photos using #Goodstreets or send them to us by email at community at goodinc dot com before June.

Looking for inspiration? We’ve got it right here, with good ideas, tips and resources.

Illustration by Kate Slovin

A Pop-up Fake Train Station in Miami to Show the Benefits of Public Transit
- Adele Peters wrote in Transportation, Miami and Cities

Wish your city had better public transit? Here’s one way to help get your neighbors on board as fellow advocates: build a temporary, fake train station to give a real-life demonstration of what a bigger system might look like. Last week in Miami, a group of students from Florida Atlantic ran the Purple Line project, a pop-up “train station” near unused tracks.

The pretend train station included extra features of urban life that tend to grow up around transit centers, like a farmers market, musicians, and cafes. It also included a “transit confession booth” where residents could share rants about the current state of public transportation in Miami. 

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Making it Hyperlocal: The Story of a (Partially) Homemade Pair of Slippers
- Adele Peters wrote in Design, Transportation and Diy

When Gaspard Tine-Beres was a design student at the Royal College of Art in London, he had an assignment to make a truly local product: something not only made near the designer, but consumed locally too. He thought about what he needed himself, and since he happened to be living with friends in a poorly-heated house in the dead of winter, he was inspired to create a warm (and sustainable pair) of slippers. In London, it was easy to find local manufacturers who used leather. When Tine-Beres later moved to Paris, he wanted to keep the project local, and found a manufacturer using leather and wool felt in his own neighborhood.

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This post is part of the GOOD community’s 50 Building Blocks of Citizenship. This week: Measure Your Carbon Footprint. Follow along, join the discussion, and share your experience at #goodcitizen.

Images courtesy of Gaspard Tine-Beres and Ruben Valensi.

GOOD Ideas for Cities: Designing Guerrilla Bike Signage

How to make a city’s streets more comfortable for bikers? A team from New Orleans went ahead and installed their own bikeway signage.

 I always wondered why it was so difficult for drivers to just pay attention and not be assholes. Then I moved to Los Angeles and got a car. Here, we do not operate our vehicles so much as we hang out in them. Hunkered in my sedan, I’m now comfortable juggling an iced coffee and the radio dial while “courtesy” honking the car in front of me. Only when I jump back on my bicycle do I become a little bit scared about the person that I become when I’m behind the wheel. 

What Drivers Really Think About Bikers: The History and Psychology of Sharing the Road

Today marks the beginning of Bike Nation, GOOD’s weeklong celebration of pedal power. We’re not the only ones who are excited—biking is more popular than ever. But when it comes time to divvy up the nation’s transportation budget, cyclists and pedestrians tend to get the short end of the stick.

Check out our infographic about Americans on two wheels—and why Congress should help them out.

San Francisco Will Pioneer Electric Bike Sharing

San Francisco is putting a new spin on car- and bike-sharing services. With federal backing, the city is partnering with a local car share service to offer members access to electric bikes, too. 

Check it out on GOOD→ 

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It took six months for Colin Rich to take this time-lapse video of L.A.

Gorgeous. (via Echo Park Now)

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A lovely video featuring the city we call home. 

Any urban bicyclist can share with you the frustration of having to avoid people and cars blocking what should be clear bicycle lanes. Sometimes it can make you want to destroy all the impediments with a tank. Today, in Vilnius, Lithuania, mayor Arturas Zuokas lived out the fantasy of every bike messenger forced to dodge a Dodge (or BMW or Toyota) on their daily route.

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