Already a prolific contributor to the Streetsblog Flickr pool, BicyclesOnly has recently put together a StreetsWiki guide to "Urban Bicycling With Children." The entry kicks off with a look at some of the less obvious benefits to biking with kids:

Bicycling with children initiates so-called "virtuous cycles" that further promote bicycling. Parents who bicycle with their children may be encouraged to bicycle more often because of their children's enthusiasm for bicycling. Adults bicycling with children tend to zealously guard their children's safety, becoming potent advocates on the road and with government for improving bicycling safety. Motorists tend to drive less aggressively when they are aware of children bicycling nearby. Children who bicycle regularly will be more likely to bicycle as adults. In all of these ways, urban bicycling with children promotes bicycling and bicycling safety generally. 

As Enrique Penalosa has said, "The measure of a good city is one where a child on a tricycle or bicycle can safely go anywhere."  Parents can help realize this vision of a good city by bicycling with their children and making sure that they are safe.

After the multi-generational turnout for New York's first Summer Streets Saturday, the audience for this type of information should be on the rise.

Which reminds me, there's a new wiki entry on Summer Streets that's just begging to be filled out. I'm sure there are plenty of Streetsbloggers out there who can chip in. All you need to contribute is a Livable Streets account.

Our friend Sean Roche sent us a link to this brain-bending video of John McCain stumping in Pennsylvania. Just before the 1:00 mark, after McCain gives an ambiguous plug for electric cars, he unloads this doozy:

"I was with Governor [Tom] Ridge yesterday, and we visited a General Electric plant in Erie that makes -- guess what? -- locomotives. That's not viewed as, quote, high tech, is it? But you'd be amazed at the product, of the thousands of workers that are working there and building a locomotive that over half of their business is through exports, because they build the best locomotives in the world in Erie, Pennsylvania."

As Sean notes, high tech and well-made as Erie-produced trains may be, a more significant factor in the plant's export ratio could be that "because of decades of terrible transportation policy, there's not much of a market for locomotives in this country." And who do the folks in Erie, PA have to thank for that? Why, Senator John McCain, for one -- who, as perhaps the most outspoken opponent of domestic rail in Washington, has done everything in his power to cripple the very industry those "thousands of workers" depend on for the well-being of themselves and their families.

But hey, if McCain is elected president and finally succeeds in putting Amtrak out of business, maybe all those GE employees could get jobs building the Car of the Future.

From a tipster comes this story of what happens when a cyclist tries to conduct business using the "vehicles only" windows at the Commerce Bank branch on Prospect Park Southwest at Park Circle.

I have been a customer for almost seven years now, and last week I came to deposit a large amount just as the inside bank was closing. As I couldn't get in, I went around on my bicycle to where the vehicle tellers were located. There were four tellers sitting there chatting and doing their nails, and when I asked to make the deposit, they kept repeating that it was "for vehicles only." Confused, I looked around, and there were no cars waiting.

When I pressed the woman on why I couldn't, in 30 seconds, on a bicycle, make a deposit, she sat there and robotically kept telling me it was for vehicles only. When I really loudly asked for a reason, she looked around and said, "Why, a car may run you over while you sit here and make a deposit!" Unbelievable! I was extremely pissed off. At least she did me the favor of giving me a reason to bike around the park three more times (to work out my anger).

It's outrageous that in one of the world capitals of public transit and bicycle riding, with daily news of how fuel prices are skyrocketing and how congestion threatens New York City's economy, that Commerce Bank would not only refuse to serve me on a bicycle, but explicitly encourage vehicular traffic.

Outrageous, yes. But not surprising -- except maybe for the fact that Commerce Bank is also the primary sponsor of the Five Boro Bike Tour, and sponsors a similar event in Philadelphia. So while the company is attaching its name to popular cycling events, it's also plopping down suburban-style drive-thru outlets in urban neighborhoods and denying service to city-dwelling customers who travel by bike.

You know a city is getting serious about tackling traffic when a new report comes out measuring how much gridlock costs the region.

In New York, it was the 2006 release of Growth or Gridlock, which pegged the annual price of traffic at $13 billion, that set off a public debate about congestion pricing that continues to this day. In London, the business group London First issued a similar report spurring Mayor Ken Livingstone to adopt a congestion charge. Now Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council has released "Moving at the Speed of Congestion" [PDF], which estimates that excess traffic costs the region $7.3 billion per year.

Chicago is already in the process of implementing performance parking and launching its first BRT routes (using federal funds New York would have received had Albany approved congestion pricing). The new report indicates that local policy makers will be urged to go further, perhaps in the direction of congestion pricing, though not necessarily a London-style cordon.

"The report shows that if we do look at pricing it has to be with a regional focus, not just in the city," says Mandy Burrell of the MPC. "There needs to be a menu of solutions that work collectively across the region."

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Click through for this cartoon by Gary Varvel of The Indianapolis Star, referencing the now infamous tussle between John McCain and Paris Hilton. (And click here if you have no idea what we're talking about.) While the 'toon itself bears a ring of truth, the bigger irony may be that the presidential candidate who's now promoting perhaps the most feasible and immediately effective energy plan is no longer in the hunt.

Welcome to the second installment of our Summer Streets photo tour. This pic comes courtesy of BicyclesOnly, who says Park Avenue South is "one of the more dangerous roadways to bicycle on in Manhattan. Without the cars, it's a playground for these two."

More pics after the jump...

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With fall approaching, colleges across the US are encouraging students to come to campus without their cars. In Atlanta, Emory University is selling $250,000 worth of bikes, at a discount, to students and faculty. CNN reports that bike-share programs have started or will soon launch at Duke, the University of Washington, and at least two public universities in Illinois.

Meanwhile, at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, freshmen who pledge to come to school without a car will receive a free $300 mountain bike, along with a helmet and lock.

The college's president, David Joyce, says the project was meant to avoid building a parking garage, but its side effects are beneficial: less pollution, more exercise and savings on gas.

The timing was right, Joyce says: "We were either extremely brilliant or extremely lucky."

High schoolers are getting in on the act as well, with bike and pedestrian projects underway at campuses from East Hanover, NJ to Marin County, CA. Are you listening, Bridgewater-Raritan administrators?

Photo of Emory employees by John Bazemore/AP

Inwood: Lots of cyclists, precious few bike racks. Discuss.

Have you joined a Livable Streets group yet? Groups are a great way to connect with other activists on a specific project (like this one), or to discuss livable streets issues in your area. Don't see a group dedicated to your subject of choice? Start one!

Inwood Livable Streets, which covers my neighborhood, is one particularly active group, taking up topics ranging from the dearth of bike racks way uptown to a hazardous public staircase on Broadway and 215th Street. With 23 members as of this writing, Inwood Livable Streets counts the chair of Community Board 12's Traffic and Transportation Committee among its ranks.

Creating or joining a group only takes a minute. Become an LSN member to get started.

Photo: Brad Aaron

We excerpted this essay from reader Jen Petersen to lead off our first Summer Streets photo gallery yesterday afternoon. Her full account follows.

If New York City's inaugural Summer Streets event on August 9th was any indication, it seems that bikes and pedestrians do just fine without cars. Here's why, as observed from the seat of a peregrinating pedicab:

1) With cars completely off the route, cyclists, walkers, runners, skaters, rollerbladers, and 'others' (see above) had plenty of space. Instead of our normal elbow-to-elbow jostle for the scraps of an automobile-packed Avenue, we spread out over all the traffic and parking lanes, and found that when we’ve got room, we do pretty well together. A Park Avenue 'for' cars means the less prioritized modes are unfairly pit against each other in a sort of low stakes turf war. But at Summer Streets, there was no need to squabble over the scraps.

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Reader Jen Petersen sends this shot of the intersection of Lafayette and Spring on Saturday, along with her observations of how pedestrians, cyclists, and everyone else shared the road during Summer Streets:

In the absence of special pavement markings delineating lanes for walkers, runners, cyclists, rollerbladers/skaters, people with children (and strollers), and others, we had to be responsible for our footprints. The burden of regulating our interactions and avoiding altercations was on us; NYPD was only keeping the current conflict-free where it met automobiles at transverse streets. And so it seems when we travel at more-or-less the same speed, and the journey is itself the destination, we somehow figure out how to use each other as signposts. Now if we could just figure this out on a workday, in all five boroughs...

More reader-submitted photos after the jump, and more to come tomorrow...

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While press coverage of Summer Streets has been generally positive, tales of the miffed muffler shop owner and complaining cabinet maker are bound to continue, as reporters hunt for naysayers to "balance" out their stories. But what will be the economic reality of Summer Streets? Here, Streetsblog Publisher Mark Gorton gives his account of Saturday lunch with the family at an outdoor café on Park Avenue and 51st Street.

The host told us that he could seat us, but that they couldn't put our order in for at least a half hour because the kitchen was so backed up. He said on a normal Saturday they would have had three or four tables occupied, but there were about 30 tables filled. He pointed and said, "Look, even the manager is taking tables." We were happy to wait, so we sat and ate. As I looked around the café, only a couple tables looked to be filled by bikers. My guess is that lots of people who would never have bothered to walk along Park Ave. on a Saturday suddenly found it an interesting place to be.

Most of the stories we've seen reflect Mark's experience: In general, businesses which rely on foot traffic expected and/or received a boost from Summer Streets. Streetsblogger Larry Littlefield has suggested altering the route to exclude more car-dependent enterprises, like furniture stores. What else could, or should, the city do -- if anything -- to take such businesses into account? And how did (or will) Summer Streets affect your spending habits?

Photo: Ben Fried

Pedestrians and cyclists appreciate Grand Central Terminal from a new angle during Summer Streets.

This Saturday I took the train into Manhattan with my girlfriend, Jessie, and got out at Broadway-Lafayette. I'm not much of an early riser on weekends, and Jessie had worked late the night before, so we didn't arrive until about 10:30. Summer Streets was already in full swing, but I didn't appreciate right away just how much Lafayette Street had changed from its typical state.

After a minute or two, it struck me. Not only was the middle of the street occupied by a steady stream of people on foot and on bikes, but all those people were making hardly any noise. Simply by subtracting the ambient ruckus of car and truck traffic (let alone the honking and exhaust), the street had become a much more pleasant place.

We ambled toward Spring Street, getting accustomed to having all this space and to watching people on bikes ride past us. We weren't pushed off to the margins, and for once it didn't feel like we were second-class citizens of the road. Were there times when one of the faster bike riders came a little too close for comfort? Yes, but it happened rarely, mostly when we were walking downhill on some of the route's narrower segments. The more time we spent walking around, the more at ease we felt.

The description "people on foot and on bikes" doesn't begin to capture the full variety of users who turned out. There were people in wheelchairs and parents pushing strollers. People training for marathons and people just taking in the scene. People on recumbents, fixies, and training wheels. Civility prevailed everywhere I looked, even when the street got a little cramped.

Bike lessons on Spring Street.

After making a detour to Mott Street for coffee, we watched the bike lessons and aerobics classes at the Spring Street rest stop, then turned around and headed north. (We tried to snag free bikes from one of Bike and Roll's "Bike-Share" stations, but we were about an hour too late.) A few more impressions:

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