Category: Biking Elsewhere

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Paris: the street is ours!

Apparently in Paris lying ped signals is not the norm, or how Human Transit puts it:

“The truth will sound silly, but it’s striking how green these signals are. It’s simple: the default setting for pedestrian signals is green, and they turn red only when your safety requires it. (In Sydney, where I currently live, the opposite rule applies. There, pedestrian signals are always red, but if you push a button and wait patiently, often for a nearly complete cycle of the signal, wondering if you’ve submitted an application to some bureaucrat who will get to it after his lunch break, you’ll finally get green for a few seconds. But don’t blink or you’ll miss it and have to start again.) “

So I tried to look up the pedestrian fatality rate of Paris for comparison. What I did find is an article “Switzerland rates poorly in pedestrian safety” where a similar argument is put forth as our local Street Smart Campaign and some counter arguments not that far off then mine:

“People should be made more aware that pedestrian crossings are not automatically safe zones,” said TCS spokesman Stephan Müller.

Speed restrictions?
However, the Swiss Transport and Environment Association says the solution to saving lives lies elsewhere.

…
He said it was too one-sided to point the finger solely at motorists. “Pedestrians can’t simply stroll out onto the zebra crossing,” he said, adding that the Tempo 30 scheme – locally imposed speed limits of 30km/h in residential areas – didn’t make the roads safer because it was poorly observed.

Too general
Steinmann rejects the notion that Swiss drivers are more aggressive than those in other countries, but says in most cases the driver is to blame for pedestrian deaths.

“If motorists drive too fast, the [pedestrian’s] right of way is disregarded,” she said.

So how bad is Switzerland compared to Maryland?
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For comparison Maryland’s fatality rate would break the top of the chart at 20.6.

At 20.5 per cent, the number of pedestrians killed as part of the total Swiss road deaths was significantly higher than the European average of 14.6 per cent, the study found. Only Britain did worse, with 21.3 per cent.

To compare, Maryland’s per cent of the number of pedestrians killed as part of the total road deaths is 19.6 per cent and the US average is 11.7 per cent.

So in Maryland it does look like the street belongs to cars.
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This Is Where You’re Fat

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By Andrew Price

…
The report also notes the relationship between income and weight: “35.3 percent of adults earning less than $15,000 per year were obese compared with 24.5 percent of adults earning $50,000 or more per year.” Part of the problem there is that a salad costs more than a Big Mac. So that’s something to remedy. More cycling and walking would help, too.

…
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Research Roundup — health impacts & Road Diets

by Darren

There are a number of notable new reports out that are worth looking at this week. Here’s a quick summary.

Bicycling health benefits outweigh risks

Dutch researcher Dr. Jeroen de Hartog and his colleagues have published a new study, “Do The Health Benefits Of Cycling Outweigh The Risks?” that concludes that the health benefits of bicycling are “substantially larger than the risks of cycling relative to car driving.” The authors quantify the risks and benefits and determine that the increased physical activity gained from switching from driving to biking lead to “about 9 times more gains in life years than the losses in life years due to increased inhaled air pollution doses and traffic accidents.”

Road Diets decrease crashes

The Federal Highway Administration released a study (PDF) using data from the Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) that shows that reducing four lane roads to three lane roads with center turning lanes and bike lanes in both direction can improve safety without reducing annual average daily traffic (AADT) volumes for roads with under 20,000 AADT. (For more on road diets, here’s the classic Road Diet reference, PDF, by Dan Burden.)

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Bicycling Ban in Black Hawk Update

Adventure Cycling has an update to their route because of the recent cycling ban in Black Hawk Co. If I am reading it correctly the options are to avoid the area completely (including the Rocky Mt National Park) or walk your bike through town which some of the distance has no shoulder or sidewalks. Yep like that’s going to make things better having cyclists walk in the roadway rather the ride.
And in the words of Adventure Cycling: "We continue to encourage you to support Bicycle Colorado in their bid to overturn the ban via legal and legislative means. If this ban is allowed to stand, a precedent will be set with statewide ramifications that we’d rather not think about." https://bicyclecolo.org/articles/black-hawk-bike-ban-pg1118.htm
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Yes, You Can Move the Needle on Public Support for a Gas Tax Hike

by Ben Fried

gas_tax_graphic.jpgPublic support for increasing the federal gas tax rises if revenues will be spent to combat global warming. Graphic: Mineta Transportation Institute

Last week, USA Today reported rather gleefully that the U.S. gas tax has never been lower. Having remained unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, American drivers are now paying half as much in inflation-adjusted gas taxes, per 1,000 miles driven, as they did in 1975. We can pretty much forget about investing in new and expanded transit systems — or even just holding up our bridges — as long as this is the case.

USA Today also cited a recent national survey by the Mineta Transportation Institute, which pegged public support for a 10-cent gas tax increase at a paltry 23 percent. Thanks to a post from Streetsblog Network member TrailBlog, penned by Steve Schweigerdt of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, we have a more complete — and interesting — picture of what this survey actually revealed. Schweigert reports from a recent panel discussion about the survey:

A couple key points from the survey were that:

  • Linking transportation tax to environmental benefits will increase support, specifically if the tax helps address global warming.
  • Support for gas taxes can be significantly increased with good program design.

The panelists portrayed the gas tax increase as a needed short-term fix, but a restructuring of transportation financing is necessary for long-term investment in the system. William Millar [of the American Public Transit Association] reminded the audience that we shouldn’t assume that the way things are can never change. We spent the last 60 years building the system we have, he said, and we can spend the next 60 building a better system.

You can download the survey results here. Of particular note: Support for the 10-cent gas tax hike rose to 42 percent if the revenue would be spent to reduce global warming. The survey also gauged public opinion on a mileage tax, finding that support increased from 21 percent to 33 percent if the rate would vary according to the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

Tellingly, Americans seem more willing to tax everything they purchase than to pay for transportation infrastructure by taxing driving: A half-cent national sales tax enjoyed the highest support of all the options given, at 43 percent.

But the big takeaway from the Mineta survey is that a national gas tax hike gains support if you make a strong case for how the revenue will be spent. Should some national political figure come along and deliver a compelling public message that we need to raise the gas tax to invest in cleaner, more efficient transportation, move us away from oil addiction, and keep our existing infrastructure from falling apart, who knows, maybe you could break the 50 percent threshold.

Of course, seeing as how most Americans mistakenly already think the gas tax goes up regularly, and gas prices have fluctuated within a 24-cent range in just the last three months, you could also reach the conclusion espoused in this classic Infrastructurist post: Just raise the g-dd-mned gas tax already.

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The Return of the Bicycle

By Lester R. Brown
The bicycle has many attractions as a form of personal transportation. It alleviates congestion, lowers air pollution, reduces obesity, increases physical fitness, does not emit climate-disrupting carbon dioxide, and is priced within the reach of the billions of people who cannot afford a car. Bicycles increase mobility while reducing congestion and the area of land paved over. Six bicycles can typically fit into the road space used by one car. For parking, the advantage is even greater, with 20 bicycles occupying the space required to park a car.
Few methods of reducing carbon emissions are as effective as substituting a bicycle for a car on short trips. A bicycle is a marvel of engineering efficiency, one where an investment in 22 pounds of metal and rubber boosts the efficiency of individual mobility by a factor of three. On my bike I estimate that I get easily 7 miles per potato. An automobile, which requires at least a ton of material to transport one person, is extraordinarily inefficient by comparison.
The bicycle is not only a flexible means of transportation; it is ideal in restoring a balance between caloric intake and expenditure. Regular exercise of the sort provided by cycling to work reduces cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and arthritis, and it strengthens the immune system.
World bicycle production, averaging 94 million per year from 1990 to 2002, climbed to 130 million in 2007, far outstripping automobile production of 70 million. Bicycle sales in some markets are surging as governments devise a myriad of incentives to encourage bicycle use. For example, in 2009 the Italian government began a hefty incentive program to encourage the purchase of bicycles or electric bikes in order to improve urban air quality and reduce the number of cars on the road. The direct payments will cover up to 30 percent of the cost of the bicycle.
(more)
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