Category: Biking Elsewhere

Continue reading “Wishing you all a joyful season!”

from Road Rights By Bob Mionske
One of the most egregious violations of our right to the road is the “buzz,” when a motorist passes a cyclist perilously close—so close that buzzes frequently become rear-end collisions.
Some motorists are simply so inattentive while driving that they don’t even know that they are passing a cyclist. Other motorists don’t understand what a safe passing distance is.
But many drivers who buzz cyclists know exactly what they are doing. Vigilante motorists who disagree with the laws that give cyclists the right to the road attempt to force us from that road, by using their vehicles to intimidate their victims.
Every state requires that overtaking vehicles must pass at a safe distance. If the overtaking vehicle cannot, the law requires the driver to wait until the pass can be safely executed. Thus, buzzing a cyclist is against the law in every state. It is never legal, under any circumstances.
Despite the law, drivers who buzz cyclists are rarely ticketed, because buzzes rarely occur in the presence of police. But even if the police do observe a violation, it can still be difficult to get a conviction. The law requires passes to be made at a “safe distance,” but what does that mean, exactly? A driver who is accused of making a pass at an unsafe distance can argue that the passing distance was safe for existing conditions—even if the pass resulted in a collision. It’s then up to the judge or jury to decide what is safe.
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Read more: https://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2011/12/22/buzz-kill/

[B’ Spokes: Talk to any bike messenger company, we are already there with too much car traffic downtown. The problem will only get worse over time as we add more cars (increasing at a rate faster then the population) the congested area for cars will only get larger as there is not enough money or space to expand capacity.]
https://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/in_the_future_urban_bikers_go_faster_than_cars/

by alima
Traffic engineers are being marginalized and viewed as anachronisms, like Mad Men from a bygone age. As Christopher B. Leinberger, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and professor of planning at the University of Michigan, writes in a recent NY Times op-ed, “traffic engineers dismissively call [bus and light-rail systems, bike lanes and pedestrian improvements] ‘alternative transportation.’”
In saying so, he, and planners around the world, are being dismissive of me and my profession. We are the GEICO Neanderthals of society.
And who’s to blame? Yes, we deserve a lot of it. We, as a profession, continued to build more roads, wider roads, and faster roads while knowing full well we were running out of capacity and making transport systems less efficient.
An example I’ve used time and time again in New York City is that the Brooklyn Bridge, when it was largely a rail and walking bridge, handled 430,000 people daily. In the 1940’s, we ‘modernized’ it by removing the rail; its daily person carrying volume dropped to 180,000.
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Continue reading “A Traffic Engineer’s Lament”

John Allen shares a bike ride through a street where pedestrian traffic has taken over. It amazes me how many businesses do not want anything like this where they are located. We seriously need to rethink what public space (also know as streets) is for and as much as there is a stress for expressways and fast travel there needs to be a similar stress to create locations with similar characteristics as shown. There is room for both, it does not have to be one way or the other.

https://twitpic.com/7vhrgz

from the Onion
WASHINGTON—The Department of Transportation released the findings of a new study Thursday indicating that in the entire continental United States, only four scenic routes suitable for nice, meandering drives and aesthetically pleasing roadside views still exist. "A recent expansion of Cracker Barrel restaurants cost us three scenic routes last year, with two others falling to people chucking used diapers out their car windows," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, pointing to a map depicting the four stretches of road that remain unblemished by development. "If you want to get away from it all and clear your head with a drive through the countryside, you’d better do it at these locations, preferably in next three months." In the course of the press conference, one remaining scenic route located in Wisconsin was rezoned to facilitate the construction of a methane-emissions plant.
Continue reading “Study: Only 4 Scenic Routes Left In Country”

– Personal vehicles taking K-12th grade students to school accounted for five to seven percent of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and 10 to 14 percent of all personal vehicle trips made during the morning peak period in 2009
– In 1969, 48 percent of K-8th grade students usually walked or bicycled to school. By 2009, only 13 percent of K-8th grade students usually walked or bicycled to school.
– In 1969, 89 percent of K-8th grade students who lived within one mile of school usually walked or bicycled to school. By 2009, only 35 percent of K-8th grade students who lived within a mile of school usually walked or bicycled to school even once a week
Continue reading “HOW CHILDREN GET TO SCHOOL: SCHOOL TRAVEL PATTERNS FROM 1969 TO 2009”

TheWashCycle has some good coverage of runny stops by motorist and cyclists alike.
https://www.thewashcycle.com/2011/12/friday-afternoon-commute-everybody-runs-sometimes.html

Construction zone man: he will save us from needless traffic delays by building more and more highway expansion projects at a cost of a “mere” several trillion dollars.

Photo from https://fastlane.dot.gov/2011/12/delaware-interchange.html There is a video at the end showing “how marvelous” this project will be in accommodating all the Dale Earnhardt Jr. wannabes without a pedestrian or cyclists in sight.