by Lawrence Morgan

These bikes and bike trails are for fun and work

When people see videos, have signs put up (like the ones I suggested for going around KU, for a starter - which I would call the Amos Lawrence trail), they really begin to respect biking and walking, and they change their view about having to have a car for going everywhere.

Here is the complete streets video for NYC.

You can see the green painted bike lanes in the above video.

The next video comes from Ottawa, Canada. It shows you how to drive with the bike lanes in place. This is part of the infrastructure Lawrence needs to adopt, or something similar.

There is an art to making bicycle videos

There is an art that goes with the making of bicycle videos. Recently in many cities people have been making videos with a lot of thought behind them, and original music.

Why can't that be done in Lawrence? Lawrence has plenty of budding filmmakers and musicians. And equally important, with good videos come more bike lanes and trails!

Below are several bicycling videos from American and European cities. You not only can see people biking and walking in the videos, but you have a great view of the cities, too. One of the great things about biking and walking is that you get to see things as you move along, instead of constantly having to keep your eyes peeled for traffic.

Here are completely segregated bike lanes in the Netherlands: What a shame we don't have that on I-10, but policymakers back then essentially didn't consider bicycle lanes at all.

Note the digital counter

This is a very impressive video of bicycle lanes in Copenhagen. Note the bicycle digital counter. It's one of the "extra" infrastructure items Lawrence could create if we had a number of bicycle lanes.

There are 750 places to pick up and leave bicycles in Paris, and there are thousands of bicycles for rent throughout the city at these locations.

If people can see small but great films and signs (graphics), then this helps to sell people on bicycling. It makes them get out of their cars, and it brings tourists to the towns, cities and parks. When something is done well, people will flock to it.

Tourists come to towns throughout Kansas

The tourists enjoy themselves, and at the same time they spend money. That will help all Kansas towns which incorporate bicycling and walking along trails, not to mention the health improvements which will take place for many people. See, for example, the video below on Iowa. This is what I hope for eventually in Kansas. Could you see trails linking up Kansas towns across the state?

Some cities have made very nice videos. I've given a few below.

For example, bicycling in Seattle:

And here's a video from Ottawa, Kansas (nicely done by the Ottawa Herald):

Explore nature first hand

People can also explore nature through bike trails. It gets them close to wildlife, flowers, things that they never see while inside the house watching the TV. And it's great for kids, too!

This is the ElDorado Bike Trail in Kansas.

Here is an example of the Arkansas biking experience.

Here is the Oklahoma FreeWheel.

Even though it's cold in Chicago, there are people on bikes:

And here is biking and walking in Pittsburgh on a warm day:

All of the above offer some great views of each of the cities, as well.

And the last thing is perhaps the best thing...

Bicycles and people create the community. Once you have seen the video below, of Ciclovia, which takes place in Bogota, Columbia, you will have a completely different idea of what community is about. Lawrence has done this to some degree - but never this extensive. It is like the people say in the video, "We feel more connected with each other and with the city."

I have also put the video in Spanish here, because some day I hope we will have a day's or week's summary of news and especially local, creative items, in Spanish as well. There surely are people out there who speak Spanish (and even other languages well) who would volunteer for such an effort...

And the town would mean so much more to those people who know some English, but who know Spanish as their native language.

Please refer to my previous post,

and to the outstanding article by Karrey Britt,

We need to establish a bicycle and bicycle-community forum, on a separate page, on well commons!

And then we need to get out, and walk and bicycle!