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It’s a bike-friendly world

New York City Commissioner of Transportation Janette Sadik-Khan was having trouble getting to work on time. In a city where the average car on Broadway travels at 5 km an hour, the cycling guru found the best way to beat the traffic crawl is on two wheels.

On Wednesday, April 22 Sadik-Khan came to Toronto for the Walk and Bike for Life conference to give Mayor David Miller some tips.

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NYC trumps Toronto with over 476 km of bike lanes. Commuter cyclers in the Big Apple grew by 35 per cent last year, and traffic fatalities are the lowest they’ve been since 1912.

Sadik-Khan introduced bicycle only road days. This August, cars will be shut out for good on Broadway in Times Square and Herald Square.

But the wheels have been turning in other major cities around the world. Check out these innovative ideas on how to create bike-friendly cities:

Launched in 2007, the Paris Vélib‘ is the largest bicycle rental system in the world. Swipe your credit card or get a monthly pass to hop on one of 20,000 bicycles at 1,500 stations across the city. Just one problem. If the space age monsters seem a little out of place in the City of Love, their wacky design also made them great novelty items to be stolen, shipped to Eastern Europe and Africa, chucked in rivers, vandalised and smashed to bits on YouTube. 3,000 Vélib’s were jacked in the first year. That hasn’t stopped Montreal from adopting their own self-serve rent-a-bike system BIXI this spring with 3,000 new bikes and 30 pay stations.

Ask any sweaty-faced peddler. Hills can be brutal. Especially after a long day at work. Enter the Trampe. You can spot the skinny rails snaking uphill in the city of Trondheim, Norway. Just swipe your key card, place your foot on the lift and it does all the work. With the heavy machinery built underground, they save space and the embarrassment of having to roll off your bike halfway uphill and push the bastard the rest of the way.

With 7,000 bikes stolen in the GTA every year, it might be time for Torontonians to trade those rusty locks in for a new parking system like the one in Kasai Station, Tokyo. You place your bike on the rack. Push a button. And a giant robotic claw shoots out and grabs your trusty two-wheeler, storing it underground with over 9,400 others. The whole process only takes 23 seconds. Only in Japan.

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