Transportation Pre-Assignment

For my transportation pre-assignment, I chose to watch several videos about bike infrastructure in Denmark and the Netherlands. The videos specifically piqued my interest in children and how biking affects them and their way of life. 

While working for my internship recently, I was putting on a cycling event that attracted a lot of kids. While talking to a young (maybe middle-school-aged) girl about cycling, she said “I love biking, I have so much freedom”. Freedom, specifically for kids, is something that I think the U.S. has lost sight of, especially amid technology. Cycling provides a sense of freedom to a child, expanding their world and their ability to travel without an adult. 

During my time in Europe, I would like to observe the way kids who have grown up biking interact with each other, their environment, their family, etc. and how that may be different from many of the kids we see today who have never been able to travel by themselves. I would also like to observe Danish children to see if they can problem-solve better and/or are more independent due to their ability to travel/commute on their own at a younger age than American children.

A video focused on “Building cities around bikes” specifically mentioned cycle superhighways with a brief description of what they were: a cycle route, where the commuters’ needs have been given the highest priority, such as a smooth ride with fewer stops and increased safety. The main purpose of the cycle superhighways is to create better conditions for cyclists, and to connect work, school, and residential areas, to make it easier for commuters to bike instead of using a car. I am looking forward to cycling along one of these superhighways and seeing all the infrastructure for bikes that are thought-out and efficient. 

For a cycle route to be categorized as a 'cycle superhighway', it must comply with a set of quality measures such as air pumps, footrests, safer intersections, green waves, and traffic lights timed to average cycling speed. I wonder what classifies a “safer intersection” (to be determined later on).