Literature recommendations by Heike Bunte, translation Jan Kranczoch from HPV Germany
Designing for Cycle Traffic. Report from the International principles International Cycling and practice Conference It is generally known that human powered vehicles are efficient and comfortable means of mobility, suitable for everyday use on even longer distances. With regard to their wide range of construction, most HPVs are apt to share the existing cycling infrastructure outside and inside our cities. This creates an enjoyable feeling of unity with the ‘regular’ cyclists, but in many cases also imposes troublesome restrictions – at least in the majority of European countries including Germany, still showing wide gaps of spacious, future-oriented cycling facilities. In his book professor dr. John Parking (UK) proposes and discusses ways to enhance the cycling infrastructure with attention to all types of human powered vehicles. Inevitably, the popularity of HPVs will rise together with safer, faster and more convenient traffic conditions for cyclists. John Parkin: Designing for Cycle Traffic. International principles and practice, 2018, ICE Publishing London. Cold print, 228 pages. ISBN 978-0-7277-6349-5
Many friends of bicycles and other human powered vehicles visited the festival weeks in Mannheim during summer 2017, celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of Drais’ fabulous invention: A twowheeled single-track device, propelled just by the rider´s muscle power. In fact, besides the HPV world championships, the city hosted numerous conventions and seminars throughout the entire year, dealing with this milestone of human mobility. One of these events was the International Cycling Conference (ICC), prominently initiated by the German Federal Environmental Agency and supported by the ECF (European Cyclist Federation). The jubilee was important enough to be mentioned by The New York Times and even by publications in China. However, the excitement about the onset of the third century of cycling is curbed by a deplorable stagnation of infrastructural developments – at least true in Germany. The question still is how the awareness about all well-known benefits of human powered mobility can be turned into substantial changes of our everyday habits. The ICC outcomes, summarized in the report Framing the Third Cycling Century – Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice will perhaps serve some answers or at least explain the contrasts between insights, claims and reality.
With a volume of 185 pages (12 Mb of data), it compiles various technical contributions, their interpretations and a general conclusion, and is available free of charge at https://www.umweltbundeamt. de/publikationen/framing-the-third-cycling-century. Taking into account that organizing the ICC conference with more than 350 attendees was also funded by the ECF (and hence by its affiliates like the national HPV associations), we should hope and appreciate that these financial contributions will pay off in future. < Available free as download PDF
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