Riding the City
Protected Cycle Lanes Fail at the Junctions, Not the Straights
The easy part of building for cycling is the section between junctions. Almost all the design difficulty and almost all the…
Riding the City
What makes a city rideable, and how riders cope with the ones that are not.
20 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Riding the City
What Makes a City Rideable Has Little to Do With Weather
The cities with the highest cycling rates are not the warmest or the flattest. What they share is a set of design decisions that reduce the risk and effort of an ordinary trip.
More in Riding the City
Riding the City
Somewhere to Leave the Bike Decides Whether People Ride
Parking is the least discussed part of cycling infrastructure and one of the most decisive. A journey by bike is only as practical…
Riding the City
Painted Lanes Are Not Infrastructure
A line of paint costs almost nothing and appears on every progress report. What it changes about the physical situation of a rider…
Riding the City
Slowing the Traffic Helps Riders More Than Another Cycle Lane
Most streets in any city will never get separated infrastructure. What can change on all of them is how fast and how much motor…
Riding the City
A Cycle Route That Goes Nowhere Carries Nobody
Journeys are made between real origins and real destinations. A high-quality section that connects neither is used only by the…
Riding the City
Bike Share Solves One Problem and Creates Another
Shared bikes remove ownership, storage and maintenance from the rider. They add availability, redistribution and parking problems…
Riding the City
Hilly Cities Became Rideable When Motors Got Cheap
Gradient was the one barrier that better infrastructure could not remove. Electric assistance changed the calculation in places…
Riding the City
Riding a City That Was Never Designed For It
Most riders will never live somewhere with a coherent cycle network. The techniques for coping are different from the techniques…
Riding the City
One-Way Streets and the Case for Riding Both Ways
One-way systems were designed to move motor traffic. For anyone on a bicycle they add distance, and contraflow permission has…
Riding the City
Winter Cities That Keep Riding, and How They Manage It
Snow and ice do not stop cycling in places that plan for them. What stops it is a maintenance regime that treats cycle routes as an…
Riding the City
Delivery Riding Changed What Cities Have to Plan For
A large population of riders now works on two wheels under time pressure. That has altered traffic patterns, kerbside demand and…