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Making a place for bikes

At first glance, bikes and cities might seem like a bad mix. There’s so much traffic! Everyone is in such a hurry! Not to mention all those trucks and buses.

But for many city people, getting around by bike makes a lot of sense. Bikes are small, cheap, and easy to park. Biking is fun and good exercise. In cities around the world, more and more people are riding bikes and cities are finding ways to help them share the road.

Ways to Go

One of the simplest ways cities can help bikers is to make bike lanes. This is a traffic lane just for cyclists. Just like lanes for cars, bike lanes are marked with painted lines. Symbols and colours say, “No cars allowed!”

Cycle Cities

The Netherlands is a country that really likes bikes. There are bike lanes everywhere. So many people bike in the city of Amsterdam that they’re running out of bike parking spaces!

Copenhagen, Denmark, is another bike-happy city. It has five times as many bikes as cars. To help all those bikes get across the harbour, they built a long, wiggly path that goes right over the water. Because of the winding path it takes, it’s called “bike snake”. By separating bikes from other traffic, special paths like this make the streets less crowded.

Pedaling Together

What if you don’t own a bike? Or just want one a day? Many cities around the world have “ bike-sharing” programmes, a little like lending libraries of bikes.

In these cities, you’ll see large groups of bikes lined up at sidewalk stations. For a small fee, you can check out a bike at one station, ride it, and leave the bike at a different station. This lets people cycle around without having to worry about buying, storing, or repairing their own bikes.

In the Netherlands, some kids ride a bicycle bus. These specially made vehicles have seats for 11 kids and one adult driver. Each rider has her own set of pedals. If the group’s pedal power isn’t enough to make it up a hill, an electric motor can give the bus a boost.

The shepherd      （take）his flock of sheep out into the fields every early morning. One day, a wolf      （stray） into the fields, but it did not try to get near.

After a few days, the wolf            （don’t）hurt the sheep, so the shepherd

There was once a shoemaker. He was poor. He had nothing but just enough leather to make one pair of shoes. That night he put the leather on the worktable and went to sleep. The next morning, the shoemaker was very surprised to see a pair of shoes. Soon after, a customer came, and bought the shoes at a very high price. Then the shoemaker had enough money to buy leather to make more shoes. He cut out the leather at night, and wanted to make shoes the next morning . When he got up, the shoes were already finished. This went on for some time. The shoemaker quickly became rich. Whenever the old man saw his neighbours or the poor people in need, he would help them. One night not long before Christmas, the shoemaker and his wife decided to stay awake to see who helped them. At midnight, they saw some naked elves start to make shoes. And when the sun rose, they quickly hid themselves. The shoemaker and his wife wanted to show their thanks. They made the elves some clothes. The elves were very happy.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping. Ping lived with his mother and father, eleven aunts and seven uncles, three brothers and two sisters and forty-two cousins.There home was a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze River. All day Ping and his family would hunt for little fishes and other pleasant things to eat. One night, Ping didn’t go back home. As the sun rose higher in the sky, boats came. But nowhere Ping could see the wise-eyed boat. Suddenly Ping saw his mother and father and aunts, all marching one by one, up over the little bridge.As Ping reached the shore, the last of Ping’s forty-two cousins marched over the bridge and Ping was the last again. But he marched and there came the spank on Ping’s back. He was very happy to come back home.