bicycle planning - Green Prophet

Tel-O-Fun (Finally) Brings Bike Sharing to Tel Aviv

Karen Chernick — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:26:42 +0000

Thanks to Tel-O-Fun, now Tel Aviv urbanites with the tiniest of apartments can bike around without the storage hassle.

Despite widespread announcements that it would open its city-wide bike sharing service in April, Tel Aviv’s Tel-O-Fun finally got kick started in May (but, to its credit, in a bigger way than originally intended). 150 stations and 1500 bikes were made available for shared use by the public earlier this month in an effort to encourage the already growing trend of cycling in Tel Aviv. (Biking has become such a popular mode of transportation that some cafes offer free bike rentals alongside delicious coffee.)

The service brings an almost kibbutz-like attitude to pedaling – users pick up bikes when they want them and where they want them, and drop them off as soon as they’re done with the idea being that the bikes should be readily available for anyone and everyone.

With Tel-O-Fun still very new, though, the service isn’t as easy to use yet as it hopefully will be. Only annual subscribers to the service can currently use the bikes, but the daily and weekly subscriptions are set to open soon as well.

It is also doesn’t look as safe right now as it hopefully will turn out to be. Tel-O-Fun supplies bikes (some of which are even equipped with kids’ seats), but not helmets. The service offers helmets for personal purchase through its website, to be delivered by mail, but daily and weekly users who want to pick up a bike on a whim and go will not have helmets available to them at the Tel-O-Fun stations.

These issues aside, it is yet to be seen if Tel Avivians are going to go for the bike-sharing thing the way that people in European cities such as Paris, Barcelona, and London have.

In the two weeks since the service went live, this Green Prophet has only seen one person on a Tel-O-Fun bike. Admittedly, I’m a little wary to try it myself until the daily and weekly subscriptions become available. But once they do, I have a feeling that more people are going to be riding around on those (appropriately colored) green bikes.

: Tel-O-Fun

Image via: Victor Bezrukov

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An Insider’s Experience of Exploring Beirut by Bike

Karen Chernick — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:48:06 +0000

What it’s really like to explore Beirut (and especially the new Waterfront District) by bike.

Lebanon – and Beirut in particular – have been making efforts recently to improve the availability of eco-friendly forms of transportation. A campaign this past summer gathered 150 cyclists in Beirut to demonstrate how easy it could be to bike through the city. And, in order to provide tourists with alternatives to bus tours or trekking around in personal rented vehicles, a new tour company – BeBeirut – has started offering walking and running tours. It appears as though Beirut is becoming a friendlier place for those who like to travel using their own two legs.

We recently took a virtual bike tour of the city, thanks to the blogger over at This is Beirut, and got an insider’s scoop on what it’s really like to traverse the new bike path along the developing Waterfront District.

It is apparently very easy to find a bike rental along the new path, and there are a few “Beirut by Bike” stalls along the way where kids’ and adult bikes can be rented by the hour.

But while the This is Beirut blogger was impressed by how easy it was to rent a bike, she was slightly disappointed by the concrete austerity of the new Waterfront District and called it “surprisingly underwhelming.” “By the way my friend had described it,” she said, “I thought it was going to be something truly magnificent, and instead, it looked like a construction site. I was hoping to see some greenery… some trees… SOMETHING to look at… but instead you see rubble, rubble, and more rubble.”

The silver lining, though, was the fact that the municipality chose to include biking and jogging lanes in the new area in the first place. Hopefully the existence of the biking and jogging lanes will encourage people to go down to the Waterfront District by foot instead of by car.

As the This is Beirut blogger says, “That’s a great step in the right direction, don’t you think? The lanes are clearly demarcated with different icons, and there are even guards in place to make sure that no one is using the lanes for any purpose other than what they are meant for.”

Images via: This is Beirut

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Egyptian Bike Rack Design Competition Part of 350.org’s Global Climate Change Work Party

Karen Chernick — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:08:11 +0000

The (designing) pen is mightier than the sword – protest climate change by thinking of cool bike rack designs.

To protest the rise of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, global organization 350.0rg organizes a climate solution day each year. These protests, demonstrations, and pro-active events take place all over the world, including the Middle East. This year, 350.org is coordinating a climate solution day called the “Work Party” for October 10th (10/10/10) and events have already been planned all over the region (including an event organized by the UAE’s Green Sheikh). If the name “Work Party” sounds strange, 350.org explains that its intention is to convey to politicians that “we’re getting to work – what about you?”

In Egypt, although many events will take place, one of them has an eco-design spin in the form of a bike rack design competition.

Cycling has been increasingly active in Egyptian cities such as Cairo, Alexandria and Mansoura, and so more (and more stylish) bike racks are definitely in order.

The competition began on September 19th and will end on October 8th, with the winners to be announced on October 10th. Anyone and everyone is invited to submit designs that will encourage even more Egyptian cycling, and the winning designs will be installed in Cairo in two locations – inside Smart Village and in front of the Sawi Culture Wheel.

The designs must follow the guidelines outlined in the poster above – meaning, you can’t go crazy and the design still has to be functional. But functional doesn’t necessarily mean boring.

For more information about the competition or to submit a design please email sarah.rifaat@gmail.com or visit the competition’s Facebook page.

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