While car, truck and SUV (or, better said, car, lorry and 4x4) drivers in the UK are dealing with the new congestion charges that are coming to London, bicycle riders in the country can celebrate a huge increase in bicycle spending, £140 million worth, to be exact. The trouble is, that money is the funding given to Cycling England for three years of projects in all of England.

London mayor Ken Livingstone announced this week that a dozen segregated cycling highways and "borough cycling zones" will be built in some of the many "less-traveled" routes in the city. Livingstone told Cycling Week magazine that people in his city shouldn't get mad at the space being assigned to two-wheeled, human-powered transportation.

"People shouldn't assume that this is cyclists taking something away from people with cars. This is aimed at people with cars, getting them to give up their car and actually cycle. And everybody who switches relieves road space," he said. This is the kind of plan that will actually reduce congestion, something the congestion charge is supposed to do.

[Source: Cycling Weekly via EVWorld]

I'm not in favor of firefighters burning books but I really liked the vision of future transport in Ray Bradbury's scif-fi classic Fahrenheit 451. As you can see in the video above, Montag, a book-burning firefighter, must walk home quite a distance after taking the train. There are no cars on the road but you do see people riding bikes. I don't think I have seen a more green vision of the future of transport in a movie which is kinda shocking considering the novel was published in 1953 and François Truffaut made the film in 1966. Maybe I missed the point of the exclusive use of public transport and the complete exclusion of cars except for use by the firemen who burn books? Maybe it was commenting on the fascist, utopian views of a society that would burn books? I still think it's cool. What do you think Linda?

[Source: YouTube]

Want to know the hottest trends in bikes? Well, you have come to the right place. The picture above is Dekra's "chainless" bike which replaces your standard noisy, greasy chain with a totally self contained system. Not simple enough? Another popular trend are super simple fixed gear or track bikes that are single speed, do not coast (the wheel only turns when you pedal) and have no brakes. Not strange enough for you? How about "retrodirect" bikes which, unlike most bike where pedaling backwards either brakes the bike or does nothing, retrodirect bikes pedaling backwards moves the bike forward. A video of a retrodirect bike in action is below the fold.

How about a biking controversy over a speed record (yes, biking actually has a controversy that didn't involve doping)? Graeme Obree made a bike from washing machine parts with the innovative tuck position (where the handlebars allow the rider ride with their hands close to their body) and broke biking records. The world governing body of biking, Union Cycliste Internationale, said the position is illegal, so Graeme created the superman position which the UCI said was illegal as well. The whole story was the subject of a book and movie, The Flying Scotsman, and you can watch the trailer for the film below the fold.

Related:

• Bikes: safer than cars, not as safe as flying
• How commuting by bicycle can reduce your car insurance
• Paris launching citywide bike rentals (and they're cheap!)

[Source: NRP, YouTube]

And you'd think walking would be free.

Thanks to years of poor planning and an increasingly lazy (sorry, "busy") population, the U.S. federal government, through the Department of Transportation, is spending $612 million for a program called Safe Routes to School in about 20 states. This program sets out to "help build sidewalks, post traffic signs and find ways to make it easier for students to bike or walk to school."

While I like the result - parents and children biking to school together, kids tromping together in a little pack called a "walking bus" - it speaks volumes that we need to spend so much money to provide communities with sidewalks so it's safe for small children to walk to school. The AP's article on this program says that only 15 percent of kids "travel to school under their own power," so there's certainly a lot of improvement that's possible. While school buses make sense for kids who live far away from school, it's simply common sense to have kids in town get a little exercise at the start and end of each school day. Nobody tell Chris Goodall.

[Source: Daniel Yee, Associated Press]

There were a lot of cool bikes at AltWheels Boston 2007. The video above is all about the New Amsterdam Project (or NAP), a delivery service in Boston that uses bikes. NAP uses the same bike as the Royal Mail service, the largest fleet of bikes in the UK. The bikes are made by Cycles Maximus and can carry 600 pounds with the help of an electric motor. Below the fold is a video of more bikes at AltWheels; folding bikes, recumbent bikes, electric scooters, and more.

Smoking hot Jessica Alba drives a Prius. In a MTV Movie Awards acceptance speech, Jessica even suggested "practice safe sex and drive a hybrid if you can." Seems art imitates life because in her recent movie, Good Luck Chuck, her character drives a Prius as well. In the film, she gets a jump (Does a Prius ever need a jump?) from Chuck. Later in the same scene Jessica loses her pink skirt in a car door. On Jay Leno, Alba admitted to getting a speeding ticket. So I guess we can add her to the list of celebrities speeding in their Priuses. Appearing on Letterman, Alba said she was in a "state" in Amsterdam (hmmmmm......) recently and forgot how to ride a bike. You can watch the video of Alba on Leno and Letterman below the fold. Good Luck Chuck opens September 21.

[Source: Orlando Sentinel blog]

TomTom made the first GPS device designed just for bikes and scooters called TomTom Rider. GPS navigation is very green: There is nothing more un-green than getting lost and wasting fuel trying to find your way. Scooters and bikes are are also green and TomTom deserves the credit for bring the two technologies together. Now, TomTom has got a second edition of the TomTom Rider with new features.

You can watch the video above to see the features that makes it useful for bikers. It's waterproof so you don't have to worry about the elements. It has big buttons easily pressed while wearing bike gloves. There is voice control which work with a wireless headset. There are several other GPS devices for bikes by companies like Garmin but, like the iPod and other MP3 players, TomTom Rider just does everything a little bit better. Go below the fold to enjoy a funny TomTom ad.

[Source: Gizmodo]