World Wide Wednesday: Exit signs, China’s golf obessesion and the decade’s most expensive transit projects

Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

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• Planning a bike trip using Google Maps is about to get much easier as the company is set to launch a new bike trip planner service in 150 US cities. According to the Chicago Tribune, the new service will provide cyclists with step-by-step biking directions that “factor in the length of the trip, changes in elevation and even fatigue”.

• Is Japan’s pictorial green “Running Man” sign more intuitive then North America’s lettered red “Exit” sign? In an ongoing series on signage, Slate Magazine weighs in on the international debate over the Exit Sign.

• The Guardian UK hosts a slide show of inventive ways artists and designers have re-imagined the bicycle.

• The Infrastructist Blog details the 10 most expensive transit project of the last decade, including San Juan’s 10.7-mile-$2.63 billion rapid transit Tren Urbano line.

• A photo essay on Foreign Policy looks at China’s unlikely “golf boom” and the social and environmental stresses the course construction frenzy is placing on the landscape.

picture of Emergency exit sign at the Frankfurt Airport by Markus Tacker