cmdalbem (u/cmdalbem)

kiliantics · 3 years ago

I am in the process of planning a trip and wanted to visit a city that was bicycle friendly. I figured there must be some index or metric that I could use to compare cities. There are such numbers to compare things like air quality, traffic, cost of living, etc. But I couldn't find any kind of standard for bikeability or walkability. The only related measurements made are for how long an average trip takes for cars.

Without a good measurement, we won't have something to point at to force cities to be better. And making these changes is an urgent must right now for the climate of course and just for the average standard of living, which seems to be going down everywhere due to the sizes and quantities of cars that are arriving in cities lately.

I really support this kind of work and hope it grows. Here is another nice project I found using OSM during my search:

https://pasaentuciudad.com.mx/ranking-cyclability-in-europe-...

cmdalbem · 3 years ago

Your point is super important, but fortunately there is actually a lot of research and debate on this topic. The most common misconception is that it's enough to talk about the absolute total length of cyclable paths, but I simple to understand that's not the best metric to compare cities.

I'm the designer and developer of CicloMapa [1], one of the tools presented in the video. The project is a partnership with ITDP, which is an international organization that created and constantly measures a metric called People Near Bike (PNB) [2]. In summary takes into account if the infrastructure is really serving people that live nearby.

Another metric we use, at least for some brazilian cities, is IDECICLO [3], which analyses the quality of the existing infrastructure in terms of access, comfort, safety etc. It's a very holistic metrics, but compared to PnB is way more complex to measure and more prone to subjectivity.

[1] https://ciclomapa.org.br/ [2]https://itdpbrasil.org/pnb/ [3] https://plataformadedados.netlify.app/ideciclo/

rococode · 4 years ago

Video walks on Youtube. If you haven't heard of them before, they're simple first-person videos where the filmer walks around some area with a stabilized video camera - no talking, just walking. I've really missed traveling and watching video walks while exercising has been a great way to satisfy that travel craving a bit and also trick my brain into experiencing some semblance of normalcy (not sure I could remember what a crowded street feels like otherwise haha).

I'm partial to Japan so my favorite channel has been Rambalac [1], and I recently also started watching another channel with the very creative name JAPAN 4K [2]. There are tons of other channels and places too, for example I recently watched a few in Lisbon [3] and Seoul [4] and Copenhagen [5]. They're very relaxing and fun to watch and going from place to place with no cuts captures the usual tourist experience quite well. If you like traveling you can probably find some that are interesting to you!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/Rambalac/videos

[2] https://www.youtube.com/user/keikaikeikaikeikai/videos

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXlFDpaQ1ec

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqj7l0Xk0Ho

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl69sN5PtgM

cmdalbem · 4 years ago

That's amazing to hear so many people are getting so much happiness from this kind of videos! It was this same feeling that inspired me in the beginning of the pandemic to create a website with all the best videos I found out there, and I invite you all to take a look:

https://escapista.app

It's like a live TV that streams this kind of videos 24h/day. Just tune in, choose what category you prefer and enjoy :)

(disclaimer: it's completely free, open source and all views and ad revenue goes to original content creators. I earn nothing with it, it's all for the love for this kind of content and the potential positive impact it can have in all of us stuck at home at these challenging times)