Category: Biking Elsewhere

by Ben Fried
Earlier this week, Ken Archer at Greater Greater Washington posted this revealing graphic showing the relationship between the amount of driving we do in the United States and the death toll on our roads. Even as conventional traffic safety techniques have made driving less deadly, the rise in miles driven knocked back those improvements. It wasn’t until our collective mileage flattened out that safety gains could be fully realized. Thousands of lives were saved when the growth in driving came to a halt.
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Continue reading “Why Isn’t Traffic Reduction a Top Public Health Concern?”

July 27–VIRGINIA BEACH — When Jermaine Wilcox last spoke with his big brother Friday night, all Jeremy Wilcox could talk about was the biking trip he’d planned for the next day.
"He couldn’t wait to go on it," said Jermaine Wilcox, 18. "He was just talking about how fun they were."
The conversation was the last the two would have. Jeremy Wilcox, 21, passed out and fell off his bike while riding through Maryland’s Oxon Cove Park on Saturday morning. He struck his head on a tree and died at a nearby hospital, said Mark Brady, spokesman for the fire and Emergency Medical Services departments in Prince George’s County, Md.
The medical examiner’s office in Maryland said Monday that Wilcox died of "multiple injuries." But the heat might have played a role in him losing consciousness, Brady said. Temperatures were in the mid-90s Saturday, but humidity made it feel more like 100 degrees outside, he said. Medics at the scene said Wilcox exhibited signs of heat-related illness.
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Continue reading “Medical examiner: ‘Multiple injuries’ killed Va. Beach cyclist”

Continue reading “Efforts to end Distracted Driving continue”

"I’ve had a serious injury and NEED Help!" she typed.
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Fazzina says she tried calling another cousin on her cellphone but couldn’t connect. Desperate, Fazzina tried Twitter, the social networking site, on which more than 1,000 "followers" had signed up to receive her tweets.
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At least half a dozen people, most who had never met her, picked up their phones.
Mary-Ellen Harper, director of fire and rescue services for the Farmington Fire Department, says her department got calls from California, New York and Chicago.
Within minutes of sending her tweet, Fazzina says she heard an ambulance siren.
In areas such as state parks, with spotty cellphone coverage, it’s not unusual for people to be able to send instant messages or 140-character tweets when they can’t make voice calls, says David Redl of CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry group.
"If you are at the edge of a (wireless) network, you’ll have fringe coverage enough to get a text message through," Redl says.
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Continue reading “Injured Cyclist Uses Twitter For Rescue Help”

Dewey Beach, Del. — A 20-year-old man from Olney, Maryland was critically injured when he crashed his bicycle into the Jolly Trolley.
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Continue reading “Bicyclist critical after crash into Jolly Trolley”

One of the most ridiculous arguments ever by a guy a few pounds short of having an automatic coronary. And oh ya, those “few” extra pounds will get you what you deserve too.

lazobic (opposite of aerobic) via JS

by Will Schroeer
In his New York Times blog yesterday, Edward Glaeser asks for nuance and careful thinking on the question of whether countries should spend their way out of the recession: there’s no one answer, and we need to look carefully at the situations different countries are in. Similarly with different kinds of public spending. Some work, some don’t.
It’s a good argument, but one he then fails to apply to infrastructure. “[P]ublic spending on roads or high-speed rail can be extremely wasteful,” he writes, lumping them together. “Infrastructure is serious business, and it is impossible to spend quickly and wisely.”
Certainly it is possible to waste money on roads or tracks. But it is simply untrue that we can’t spend both quickly and wisely, and one wonders how it is possible to both recognize that infrastructure is important and then speak so falsely about it.
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Cornell economist Robert Frank points out: “The potholes in the roads do more damage to vehicles each year than it would cost to fix them. That’s just ridiculous that we don’t fix them.” The first year, the investment produces jobs and saves money in auto repairs; every year after, the money saved on auto repairs is free.
Fixing potholes is the very definition of spending both quickly and wisely, and poo-pooing that investment because it might increase the size of the public sector, as Glaeser does, is the very definition of not taking our infrastructure seriously.
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Even faster and possibly wiser than fixing potholes is operating the buses we have already bought, and that people use to get to work each day. Lack of money is forcing systems across the country to cut routes and in one case shut down altogether, instantly converting their users from productive workers into unemployment recipients.
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Glaeser has plenty of company in noticing that state DOTs build too many roads that produce low returns while they let existing ones deteriorate. The last time Congress sent states flexible transportation stimulus money, too many states missed too many opportunities to spend it well. Congress should help the states take advantage of opportunities to make high-return transportation investments by sending additional transportation stimulus money, but only if it guides that money thoughtfully to places where it will produce real returns. Otherwise, not.
Continue reading “Now available: guaranteed high-return investments”

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The bill, which amends the state’s Environmental Conservation Law, requires state agencies to comply “to the extent practical” with specified smart growth criteria as they prioritize infrastructure projects, including:
* Advancing projects in already-developed areas and projects consistent with local governments’ plans for development.
* Prioritizing projects related to existing infrastructure over expansion.
* Protecting New York’s natural and historic resources.
* Fostering mixed land use, compact development, and affordable housing near jobs.
* Providing mobility through transportation choices and reducing automobile dependency.
* Coordinating planning among government jurisdictions
* Ensuring predictability in land use and building codes.
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Continue reading “New York passes bill to make infrastructure investments smarter”

by washcycle

Continue reading “Bike More. Drive Less.”