Biking in Baltimore
The Daily Show: CNN reminds viewers that texting while driving is dangerous and announces their new iPhone application for real-time traffic reports.
And now in real life:
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) survey of 32 state DOTs finds that 26 states (or 81%) are now using Twitter to communicate with travelers when major traffic incidents
Let’s keep up the mixed messages America!
By Robin Chase, CEO, GoLoco, Meadow Networks
“User pays” was the foundational concept and an interesting one to reflect on. The question notes that current gas taxes inadequately cover even simple maintenance requirements on existing roads, yet the phrase resonates strongly with drivers. They sincerely believe that they have paid for all that is required with their gas taxes at the pump.
If the road user really paid what driving costs to maintain, what driving costs to widen and build new, what driving costs in police forces, emergency personnel and equipment, lifetime effects of accident road deaths and injuries, watershed destruction, groundwater and run-off pollution, excess asthma rates, higher incidence of heart disease and negative effects for those living near highways, congestion, and CO2 emissions (etc, my list is truncated), we wouldn’t be in the unfunded situation we are in today.
Also, if “user pays” included all those “externalities” (so many things in quotes), it would seem perfectly appropriate for the gas tax to include pedestrian and sidewalk improvements, mass transit, electric charging stations, and environmental remediation efforts because all of those things are attempts to mitigate the real and costly negative impacts caused by the car-driving users.
At the end of the day, if we take political realities into account, the one thing I ask for is for drivers to truly understand what their fuel tax is actually paying for, and what is quietly and covertly being subsidized by their other taxes. Because we haven’t included these costs in the gas tax, we are using local, state, and government money brought in from other sources to cover the difference. When we say we don’t have enough money for education, or welfare, or parks, or elderly programs, we need to recognize that this shortfall is in part because we are paying for all sorts unfunded car-related expenses with non-gas-tax dollars.
Continue reading “But cars pay for roads…”
An “acquaintance” asks me almost every time he sees me if I still do all that crazy biking and running. … In a nutshell he said I needed to grow up and act my age. Quit running around and riding a bicycle like some little kid. He went on to claim that the only reason I do all that crazy “shit” is cause I’m in denial of my age. Huh? Boy (“Man” I guess I should say) who knows what kind of ragging I would have taken if he knew I was vegetarian. The whole scene got pretty annoying and I left.
This “acquaintance” is about 5 – 7 years younger than me, at least 70 lbs overweight, on blood thinners, has high blood pressure, and pre-diabetic. I guess he is acting his age. It seems the “norm” these days is to be kept alive by a handful of drugs. It’s generally accepted as part of “getting old”. Am I missing something? Why is something as simple as exercising and eating healthy such a difficult concept to grasp? Why is taking care of what we have been given so abnormal that people have to critize it? Why is it the accepted norm that living life on drugs (or as we like to call it “medicine”) is inevitable after 50? Umm sorry I digress. I guess he annoyed me more than I thought.
Back to this age denial thing. I know how old I am. But what does “old” mean? Sure I’m not anywhere near as fast as I was 30 years ago. But 30 years ago I couldn’t run 100 miles or mountain bike for 24 hours. …
Continue reading “Act your age”
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is vowing to make his department more responsive to the rights of cyclists, responding to growing complaints from bikers who say the city isn’t doing enough to protect them from careless and aggressive motorists.
Beck made his pledge Wednesday during a City Hall meeting with bicycle advocates, who want the department to do more to crack down on motorists who don’t respect cyclists’ right to the road.
Beck said bike riders are "our most vulnerable commuters" and that the Los Angeles Police Department needed to do a better job of protecting them.
"We hear you, we know we need to do a better job for you," Beck said.
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Continue reading “LAPD Chief Charlie Beck vows to better protect cyclists”
When travel speed increases by 1%, the injury crash rate increases by about 2%, the serious injury crash rate increases by about 3%, and the fatal crash rate increases by about 4%. The same relation holds in reverse: a 1% decrease in travel speed reduces injury crashes by about 2%, serious injury crashes by about 3%, and fatal crashes by about 4%.
Continue reading “Lower Speed Limits Increase Safety”
From: Google Maps Bike There
Google is facing space problems at its worldwide headquarters, nicknamed The Googleplex, in Mountain View, California (about half-way between San Francisco and San Jose). Check out the story and a video report here:
Internet search giant Google has asked the city of Mountain View to allow homes and storefronts to be built near its headquarters.
At a City Council and Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night, officials considered a letter from Google. The letter said the company wants plans for a stretch of Shoreline Blvd near its headquarters to include more housing.
Every day, fleets of buses coming from all over the Bay Area take Google’s employees to their offices. Google said in its letter that building more homes nearby would be more sustainable.
In the video, notice all the cars. Notice how wide the roads are, with the unbuffered, unprotected, non-grade-separated, split-by-gutters bike lanes. Notice how loud the cars are — even blocking out much of the audio in the video clip. As beautiful as the Mountain View area is, including and especially the Googleplex area, it seems shocking that anyone would allow cars to so completely overwhelm a place of such natural beauty. It’s really a crime.
Google has talked a lot about renewable energy and all sorts of very high-tech ways for us to live better and greener, and they’ve done quite a bit — relatively speaking, with bikes — but they’ve not done enough. Google can save and profit from becoming more bike-friendly. People, including potential genius future employees and their families, love bike-friendly.
At some point, we need to convince someone high up at the company that bikes are a serious, if old-fashioned, technology. Bike technology can solve many of Google’s growing pains.
Bikes can also make a place a great place to be — a great place to work, play, live. I just returned to San Francisco after a quick weekend in Fullerton/Los Angeles — a very car-dominated place, relatively speaking (and I’m still completely enamored with LA culture and LA people). On my Monday morning bicycle ride into work in SF, I just thought, “Wow — so civilized.” Or, more accurately, “Wow — so much less uncivilized.”
All the talk of ’sustainability’ really misses that important aspect of bike culture vs. car culture — quality of life. In the video, a person walking their dog near the Googleplex says, “…I wouldn’t want to live here.” Ouch.
Police will not charge a Christchurch businessman who made online threats against cyclists.
Sign of the Takahe owner Richard Freeman claimed he had put two cyclists "into the curb" [sic] with his Hummer and would "nail" cyclists.
His comments prompted a complaint to police.
However, Canterbury road policing manager Inspector Al Stewart yesterday said there was "insufficient evidence" to charge Freeman under the present legislation.
Freeman told The Press yesterday common sense had prevailed.
"The police have investigated and have seen it for what it [the complaint] is." He said his comments had been edited and "twisted" to make him look like a monster.
Stewart said Freeman had denied any intent to frighten, threaten or intimidate cyclists through the media after the high-profile coverage his comments received.
Stewart said the situation did not represent the overall relationship between the city’s cyclists and motorists.
"Although there will always be people on both sides who want to vent their frustrations, the majority of road users, both cyclists and motorists, are reasonably tolerant of each other."
Freeman apologised for his comments last month.
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Continue reading “Police decide against charges”
NYC recently passed bike parking regulations which seem pretty cool till you run across garages that do double speak in order to pass inspection but still deny parking for cyclists.
Continue reading “"Ya we take bikes but we don’t have any racks."”
By Ginger Ninjas
Between bicycle music festival venues, the crowd and bands pedal around town on a big social ride. Two things that make these rides unusually cool beyond how cool it already is to pedal with hundreds of other revelers: recorded music and live music. In either case, it’s a bonus to have the music signal broadcast so that any rider with a receiver and a speaker can be part of creating the rolling soundscape. If the music is recorded, we call it Soul Cycling; if it’s a real-time musician or group, we call it Live On Bike.
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And there is this marching band on bikes!!!
Continue reading “Basic Live On Bike Setup”
