City Cycle Research Articles

COVID-19, Public Transportation, and Public Health Communication

Although necessary for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, public health and social measures (PHSMs) that restricted public transportation in cities diverted people to private motorized vehicle use, a trend that persisted despite evidence that public transit represented a low-risk COVID transmission environment. Mass transit and active modes of transportation in cities are key for preventing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries and for reducing traffic-related emissions. Under the Partnership for Healthy Cities, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Cali, Ho Chi Minh City, Istanbul, and Kyiv implemented communication campaigns to encourage and inform citizens how to safely resume use of public transportation and alternative safe, active transportation. Between July 2020 and March 2021, campaigns reinforced adherence to the 3Ws (wash hands, watch distance, wear a mask), and promoted walking and cycling as commuting alternatives. In total, the cities conducted social media campaigns, displayed posters (605), billboards (50), and videos (15) at bus, train, and bike stations, cycling lanes, and hospitals. Posters at bus stops in Buenos Aires were visible to 286,000 passengers/day, 16% of the city's passengers. Cali's social media campaign reached 1.7 million people. 70 km of new cycle lane added 1,527 cycling trips, preventing an estimated 266,920 tons of CO2 emissions. Bangkok's social media campaign reached 511,660 people and videos on television reached 1.75 million people. Ho Chi Minh City reached 48,000 passengers/day on public transport and totaled 4 million impressions on social media. Istanbul's social media campaign reached 20,000 people, promoted messaging on 50 billboards across the city's cycling network, and 4 Turkish cities replicated the campaign. Kyiv reached 800,000 transit passengers with 2,200 posters in metro stations. Simple and clear messaging is key for crisis communication and is essential to address overlapping public health and mobility priorities.Key messages Cities are at the forefront to use communication campaigns to promote PHSMs and transport alternatives when adapting COVID-19 responses to address negative impact on urban transport and mobility.Simple and clear messaging is key for crisis communication and is essential to address overlapping public health and mobility priorities.

РАЗРАБОТКА МЕТОДИКИ СОЗДАНИЯ ГЕОИНФОРМАЦИОННОЙ СИСТЕМЫ ДЛЯ АНАЛИЗА ВЕЛОИНФРАСТРУКТУРЫ В Г. НОВОСИБИРСКЕ

The article discusses the development of a methodology for creating a geographic information system for the analysis of cycling infrastructure in the city of Novosibirsk. A publicly available GIS for analyzing cycling infrastructure with an up-to-date database should ensure efficient control over the state of the city's cycling infrastructure, its use and development, as well as access to the cycling infrastructure information to all interested citizens with the ability to contribute to its improvement. To im-plement GIS in practice the following basic instruments were used: full-featured software for preparing mapping materials – ArcGis; JavaScript library, intended to display maps on websites – Leaflet. As a result the article represents technological scheme of GIS creation, gives the description of structural content for attributive information, offers the methods for analysis of the condition and development of cycling infrastructure, as well as describes tools for the creation of the interactive map with the help of Leaflet.

Bicycle Infrastructure in Participation Activity in the Łódź City

In the recent years, increasing popularity of multimodal transport is observed in high and medium developed countries. Besides public transport, bicycles are the key element in that form of communication mobility through urban areas. Bicycles are also desirable by city dwellers. Projects for cyclists are welcome, which is visible (for example) in participation activity in Łódź. However, some of these propositions are incorrect. The main aim of this paper is presentation and analysis of these realizations, base on cyclists' needs, their conflicts with drivers and city's cycling policy. Proposed studies will show directions of future changes to repair the current situation.

Spatial variability of on-bicycle black carbon concentrations in the megacity of São Paulo: A pilot study

In 2015, a controversial bicycle lane was installed on Paulista Avenue –a thoroughfare in the heart of the megacity of São Paulo with a high rate of motorised vehicles. For the first time, on-bicycle air pollution concentrations were assessed along this lane using black carbon (BC) as an indicator of fossil fuel combustion. We measured BC concentrations with a hand-held microaethalometer at a high temporal resolution, enabling the capture of fine spatial gradients along the route. Although this new link expanded the city's cycling network, our pioneering study showed that BC concentrations were large (mean 8.5 μg m−3) with extreme values reaching 24.0 μg m−3, comparable to concentrations found in many megacities. In agreement with other studies, we observed that concentrations decreased about 1.6 times on a section of the bicycle lane running through a calmer neighbourhood, which could indicate the potential to safeguard the health of cyclists by installing lanes with greater separation from main roads, such as Paulista Avenue. This pilot work paves the way to more detailed studies aiming to map out the spatial distribution of other traffic-related pollutants across the city's 458-km long bicycle network.

Regulatory Median Parking: A Case Study on Recanto das Emas Avenue, Brasília, DF, Brazil

This paper addresses the impact of median parking areas, implemented in 2007 along Recanto das Emas Avenue in Brazil's Federal District, on road safety. The analysis is grounded on Brazilian legislation, technical manuals, and data from the Statistics Division of the Federal District's Traffic Department (Gerest-Detran/DF) regarding types of accidents and traffic volume both before and after median parking in the area was regulated. The lack of a compulsory physical barrier and pedestrian traffic along the avenue are among the factors which have helped increase the number of accidents. Interference with the city's cycling network as well as parking policies also affect the application of sustainable mobility.

Bikes, helmets, and public health: decision-making when goods collide.

How ought public officials address policy choices that entail trade-offs between desirable public health goods? Increasing cycling improves public health both by promoting physical activity and by decreasing vehicle use, thus reducing vehicular emissions. Proponents of bicycle helmets argue that, used properly, they protect individual cyclists; however, there is concern that mandating helmet use may result in a decrease in cycling. In 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposed a bicycle helmet mandate, concerned that it would have a negative impact on the city's cycling rate, which he had sought to increase. The mayor did not explain his rationale, leaving constituents unsure why he opposed the proposal. This case study underscores the challenge of creating public policy in the context of competing public health goods.

Build It. But Where? The Use of Geographic Information Systems in Identifying Locations for New Cycling Infrastructure

ABSTRACT Concern over climate change, traffic congestion, and the health consequences of sedentary lifestyles has resulted in a surge of interest in cycling as an efficient form of sustainable transportation. In order to best serve the needs of current cyclists and attract future ones, methodologies are needed to objectively determine the optimum location of new cycling facilities. This article uses Montréal, Canada, as a case study to demonstrate various methods for locating facilities. This research can be beneficial to transportation engineers and planners since it uses readily available data sources to recommend additions and improvements to a city's cycling infrastructure.

"Look not big, nor stamp, nor stare": Acting Up in The Taming of the Shrew and the Coventry Herod Plays

In his 1945 study of Shakespeare's use of humoral psychology, John W. Draper noted that supposedly choleric Petruchio's strategy for subduing equally volatile Katherine to out-Herod Herod. (1) Though Draper doubtless intended his remark to be no more than metaphorical, I propose to take it literally. Shakespeare's Taming of Shrew, I shall argue, is subtly informed by a metatheatrical awareness of Herod and, more specifically, of styles of that distinguished his character on early English stage. That Shakespeare knew of conventions and characters of Corpus Christi cycle drama is beyond question. What remains unclear is whether his knowledge was derived, either wholly or at least in part, from first-hand childhood experience as an audience member. Although young Shakespeare may have developed a taste for live theater in Stratford itself, which frequently played host to licensed traveling players from 1569, (2) his home town had no tradition of Corpus Christi drama. But as many scholars have speculated, Shakespeare may have witnessed one or more performances of biblical cycle play staged during week-long Great Fair of Corpus Christi at nearby Coventry. He certainly had ample opportunity to do so. Although no longer regular annual event it had been before Reformation--it was not performed during plague years of 1564 and 1575, for example--the city's cycle play was staged on numerous occasions during Shakespeare's childhood prior to its discontinuation in 1580, when he was sixteen. The Coventry Fair was evidently a large tourist draw, attracting thousands of visitors and their purses. One seventeenth-century antiquary noted that the confluence of people from farr and neare to see that Shew was extraordinary great, and yielded noe small advantage to this Cittye. (3) As son of one of Stratford's leading local politicians in 1560s and 1570s, whose official administrative business took him to Coventry on several occasions, it is hard to imagine Shakespeare and his father not attending a nearby event invested with considerable civic and even national significance. In absence of any incontrovertible evidence that Shakespeare was an audience member at a performance of Coventry cycle, however, potentially illuminating points of contact between mystery drama and his own have been for most part neglected. (4) A passage in wedding scene of The Taming of Shrew--a play that contains more references to Warwickshire locations than any other by Shakespeare (5)--hints that he did see Coventry cycle, and that one of its episodes may have made a lasting impression on him. The specific connection I shall sketch between Coventry play and The Taming of Shrew differs from type of strictly intertextual relation conventionally adduced by scholars of source studies. I am proposing instead a relation of intertheatricality. This different relation, I shall argue, consists less in textual transmission--although there may be elements of that too--than in critical reproduction of a style of performance most notable for actor's over-the-top self-presentation, including exaggerated gestural techniques, dazzling costumes, and deafening verbal delivery. I shall term this style acting up. The phrase not only suggests hyperbolic tendencies of style, which required actor's volume knob to be decisively turned (loud delivery! loud body language! loud apparel!); it also captures something of socially transgressive behavior tyranny, shrewishness--that style was frequently employed to represent on early English stage. The phrase additionally hints at potentially transgressive status gap that so frequently obtained between player and his character; to impersonate a middle eastern tyrant or even a young woman from a rich Paduan mercantile family, player of provincial Corpus Christi stage and London commercial theater alike had to act up in a class as much as a histrionic sense. …

Urban growth and decline, budgetary incrementalism, and municipal finances: Milwaukee, 1870–1977

This article explores the way a city's cycle of growth and decline affects its expenditures and alters its underlying budget. Using Milwaukee as a case study, we find that in the growth phase of a city's development cycle the level of a city's debt influences expenditures because of large debt servicing costs on major capital improvements. In the decline phase, expenditures are reduced and the tax rate on property increases because the real property tax base declines.