by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12. 3.10
TreeHugger - Cars & Transportation (bikes)

image credit MIT
For all those politicians who think that roads are for cars, here are some interesting data from Lyon, France: bikes are faster. According to MIT's Technology Review (via Grist) the Lyon bike sharing programme collects information on where each bike starts and stops, and how long it takes.
The data were analyzed by Pablo Jensen at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, who found:
Over an average trip, cyclists travel 2.49 km in 14.7 minutes so their average speed is about 10 km/h. That compares well with the average car speed in inner cities across Europe.
During the rush hour, however, the average speed rises to almost 15 km/h, a speed which outstrips the average car speed. And that's not including the time it takes to find a place to park which is much easier for a Velo bike than a car.