Vienna

I recently went to Vienna for a bicycle conference. The conference was great as was the city of Vienna. Of course, I expected Vienna to be a nice city with great food and palpable history. There are rows upon rows of impressive stone buildings fronted by bronze and stone statues. Vienna has a lot to commemorate. It was besieged by the Turks twice, once in 1520 and again in 1683. It was home to Mozart, Freud, Klimt and the Hapsburg dynasty. It has great beer, good food, awesome sweets and friendly people. It struck me how most Viennese spoke great English. I sometimes feel guilty that I'm not able to speak the language of the country I'm in, however, I've come to realize that it's much easier to learn other languages when you live in countries that are the size of states rather than the size of continents. Vienna is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary and most Austrians are at least bilingual if not trilingual.

Increasing pedestrian space

The street as one's living room

Protected sidewalk cafe

  As an American, I immediately begin making comparisons between American cities and European. And now that I live in Japan, I add Japanese cities to my points of reference. It's easy to get caught up in the pleasantness and beauty of European cities and forget something important about them. The reason they are so pleasant is because they are designed as if people mattered. Sidewalks are wide and tree lined. Cafes, an extension of inside to outside space and vice versa, are everywhere, the central plaza is closed to cars all year round and elsewhere, priority is given to bicycles and public transportation of which I saw a number of modes: bike-share, subway, trams, articulated buses and trains. 

 European cities are proof that city life doesn't have to be unpleasant if you put people first. I believe that it's only a matter of time before the United States wakes up to this fact as well. In fact we're already starting to see signs of it in New York and Washington D.C. with their popular bike share programs, widening space for pedestrians and cyclists and shrinking room for cars. With the Republican mayor of Indianapolis introducing a connected cycle network in just the past year, we're seeing a real sea-change, proof that people friendly transportation is possible given some foresight and the political will.

People, bikes, trams, cars layout

Bike pedestrian path