Earlier this week on my ride home I stopped at a red light, waiting to make a left turn, when I heard a woman’s voice say, “excuse me.” I ignored it once but she politely persisted, so I finally turned to see a woman in a large four-door sedan with her window all the way rolled down in the lane next to me. I said hello and she asked me if I felt safe on my bike. “Sure,” I said. “Not me. Not enough protection,” she said, gesturing to her car and the traffic around us. Before I had a chance to reply with more than a shrug, the light changed and we were on our way. I believe her. I am sure that woman does not ride because she considers it too dangerous. I’ve been talking to a researcher in New York City who is tired of people asking her why a woman who doesn’t ride her bike around the city would be interested in studying bicycling. Her answer, in large part, is a great desire to ride and a strong discomfort with riding with traffic. Neither of these women are alone.
Yesterday, Peter Jacobsen, author of the famous “Safety in numbers” study, and two others researchers published a paper called “Who owns the roads? How motorized traffic discourages walking and bicycling.” The paper gathers the available evidence on traffic’s impact on levels of active transportation. They found that the “real and perceived danger and discomfort imposed by traffic discourage walking and bicycling. Accurately or not, pedestrians and bicyclists judge injury risk and respond accordingly. Although it can be difficult to measure these effects, observed behavior provides good evidence for these effects, with the strongest association being an inverse correlation between volumes and speeds of traffic and levels of walking and cycling.”
Here are some findings taken straight from the report:
* In the USA, 14 percent of people on crosswalks ran rather than walked across the road. In a study of driver behavior at Zebra crossings, only 5 percent of motorists yielded to pedestrians.
* When the roadways are equipped with sidewalks, nearly four times as many people walk. More than six times as many people walk along two-lane roads as four-lane roads.
* Men and women bicycle as different levels, possibly reflecting different attitudes to risk. In communities with low levels of cycling, more men than women bicycle, but, as the number of bicyclists increases, the sex differences diminish.
* For children who live within a mile of school, the share of children walking or bicycling to school dropped from close to 90 percent in 1969 to 31 percent 30 years later.
Alarming as these findings may be, the authors observe that traffic can be made less dangerous and more pleasure with relative ease, compared to changing land use patterns and population density. Traffic calming measures, lower speed limits, congestions pricing, proper bicycling facilities, and otherwise prioritizing the safety of non-motorized users can all be implemented without major changes to infrastructure. And if we make these low impact, low cost changes we can expect higher rates of cyclists; and then increased safety from those numbers.
Finally, the authors rightly question the use of fear-based advertising in safety efforts, calling for more research into the discouraging impact such campaigns have on walking and bicycling. Our friend Mikael at Copenhagenize would agree. If there is a dampening effect then, overall heath can be hurt by reducing physical activity.
Continue reading “Does Traffic Discourage Walking and Bicycling?”
Cannondale Dutchess follow-up
No Chain, handle bars are the lock and nice lines, the ultimate commuter bike?
Wytze’s graduation project for Cannondale from Eelke D. on Vimeo.
"I Lost 331 Pounds"
[ I love inspirational stories like this; Scott could only walk 10 steps before needing a rest but some how a bike gave him the motivation to continue. An excerpt from the article:]
Brown, based in Minneapolis, built a steel bike for Cutshall and delivered it in early 2005. But Cutshall was so afraid of breaking it that it sat in his hallway for months, gathering dust. Finally, on Thanksgiving Day, he had an epiphany. He prepared a feast for his family, and only ate a few bites. Then, he took his bike outside and rode 1.9 miles. It took him three hours. From then on, he was hooked.
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NPR ‘Road Rage’ Case Highlights Cyclist Vs. Driver Tension
Bicycling magazine called it “the road rage incident heard ’round the cycling world.”
A driver in Los Angeles was recently convicted of using his car as a weapon against two cyclists. And the case is focusing attention on the often uneasy relationship between motorists and bicyclists who have to share the road.
It happened last year on the Fourth of July, on a steep, narrow road in L.A.’s Mandeville Canyon. Cyclists Christian Stoehr and Ron Peterson were riding side by side when a doctor who lived in the neighborhood came up from behind in a sedan.
“There was an exchange of words,” Stoehr recalls. “He then accelerated within five feet in front of us, pulled over and slammed on the brakes.”
Stoehr says there was no time for them to stop. He was thrown over the car and landed across the road. But Peterson didn’t have time to swerve.
“And he went right in through the back window of the car,” says Stoehr, adding that Peterson crashed headfirst. “I think they found his teeth in the back seat.”
The impact severed Peterson’s nose and separated Stoehr’s shoulder. Christopher Thomas Thompson, the driver of the car and a former emergency room doctor, was arrested and put on trial. The jury found him guilty of six felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon: his car. Thompson now faces 10 years in prison.
“For someone to do this to you on purpose, it’s unfathomable,” says Peterson, a cycling coach for the University of California, Los Angeles. He says he still can’t feel his nose, he now wears false teeth, and he will forever have scars.
…
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TIME Magazine features Dangerous by Design report on pedestrian safety, culminating three weeks of coverage nationwide
By Sean Barry
–newspapersThis week’s issue of TIME Magazine topped off three weeks of nationwide coverage of Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design report ranking communities according to the risk for pedestrians.
The excellent TIME piece opens with the tragic story of Ashley Nicole Valdes, “a smart, pretty 11-year-old girl” who was killed while crossing the street in Miami earlier this year and became “a heart-wrenching symbol of South Florida’s notoriously reckless car culture.”
Florida was identified in the report as being the most dangerous for pedestrians. “You see all these people getting run over,” said Ashley’s mother, Adonay Risete, “and you ask yourself: What’s happened to us as people here? We need to get tougher and change attitudes.”
The phenomenal response to Dangerous by Design is a hopeful sign that change may be under way.
More than 150 newspapers, 300 TV broadcasts and 50 radio programs have covered the report, co-authored by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, since its release three weeks ago. The report’s findings speak to the need for action: America has a pedestrian fatality rate equivalent to a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing every 31 days. This decade alone, 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under 16 – have been killed while walking or crossing the street.
We could make great strides on pedestrian safety by adopting “complete streets” policies, ensuring that roads are designed to be safe and accessible for everyone who uses them, whether motorist, bicyclist, transit rider or pedestrian. You can help by asking your member of Congress to support the pending national Complete Streets Act.
Continue reading “TIME Magazine features Dangerous by Design report on pedestrian safety, culminating three weeks of coverage nationwide”
A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers (Part I)
An interesting article that touches on what might the future hold after peek energy and makes a strong case that bicycles (with certain modifications) have a lot to offer for a wide variety of uses and appeal to a lot of different types of people. There is a short discussion that while electric cars are a step in the right direction it is a small step, as it takes a lot of energy trying to utilize a one ton apparatus to haul just one person.
Continue reading “A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers (Part I)”
Anne Mustoe: headmistress and round-the-world cyclist
It is an exceptional author who can supply a book with three appendices so varied as a technical specification of a bicycle, a timeline of the life of Cleopatra and an ichthyological listing.
Admirers of the intrepid former headmistress turned round-the-world cyclist Anne Mustoe were well accustomed to such precise, detailed and charming information in the books in which she chronicled what she termed her “new career”. When she resolved to cycle round the world, Mustoe was 54, somewhat overweight and unfit, and without any idea of how to mend a puncture. She had not ridden a bike for 30 years, wobbled when she tried again, and she hated camping, picnics and discomfort.
Yet, inspired by the chance sighting of a solitary European man pedalling across the Great Thar Desert while she was riding a bus through Rajasthan on a holiday in India, she “traded in the Kurt Geiger shoes and the Alfa Romeo” for a pair of trainers and cycle clips.
Her Condor bicycle, customised for her by a mechanic with a workshop in the Old Kent Road, was bought for her as a leaving present from the girls at her school, and she was still riding it 22 years and about 100,000 miles later on her last cycle trip this year.
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RESOURCES from the National Center for Bicycling & Walking
-> “STATE HIGHWAYS AS MAIN STREETS: A STUDY OF…”
“…Community Design and Visioning;” WSDOT Research Report; by Nichols, Payne, Gear, and Miller; Washington State Dept. of Transportation, Office of Research & Library Services. Oct. 2009 (general info and link to 895kb pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/yjs4u55
-> “TRAVEL DEMAND IN THE CONTEXT OF GROWING DIVERSITY…”
“…Considerations for Policy, Planning, and Forecasting;” by Heather Contrino and Nancy McGuckin; TR News 264 Sept-Oct 2009. (general info and link to 741kb pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/yjrf3tu
-> “REALIZING THE POTENTIAL FOR SUSTAINABLE AND EQUITABLE…”
“…T.O.D.: Recommendations to the Interagency Partnership on Sustainable Communities;” a Policy White Paper by Reconnecting America. November 18, 2009 (473kb pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/ydmvatz
-> “MAKING THE LINK FROM TRANSPORTATION TO PHYSICAL…”
“…Activity and Obesity;” by Daniel A. Rodriguez, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Summer 2009 (563kb pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/y926bcj
Continue reading “RESOURCES from the National Center for Bicycling & Walking”
ROAD DESIGN AND DRIVERS’ SPEED CHOICES
"This report describes an investigation into whether or not physical characteristics of the roadway and the roadside environment are associated with actual vehicle running speeds, and how actual vehicle running speeds are associated with the occurrence and severity of motor vehicle crashes in conjunction with other roadway and roadside characteristics.
"Actual vehicle running speeds were observed at about 300 locations in urban, suburban and rural areas across Connecticut, at locations without horizontal curves or traffic control devices. Only vehicles traveling through the section unimpeded either by leading or turning vehicles were observed in order to get true free flow traffic speeds. Roadway and roadside characteristics were observed, and statistical prediction models were estimated to learn more about how free flow vehicle speed, roadway and roadside characteristics and crash incidence and severity are related. The factors associated with higher average running speeds are wide shoulders, large building setbacks and a residential location.
"The factors associated with lower average running speeds are on-street parking, sidewalks and a downtown or commercial location. These findings suggest that drivers slow down where the road feels ‘hemmed-in’ or there is noticeable street activity, and they speed up where the road feels ‘wide open’ or street activity is less noticeable. This finding is not surprising, but these relationships are quite strong in the observed data, and it is a useful result to isolate this short list of factors that are significantly correlated with actual vehicle running speeds.
"These findings demonstrate that through careful, intentional selection of roadway and roadside design elements, it is possible to influence the running speed of traffic on a road. It appears that drivers indeed take cues from elements of the roadway and roadside environment to decide how fast to drive and these cues are independent of the posted speed limit and other considerations that might be important to the community for reducing speeds.
"So the good news is that it is possible to influence drivers’ choice of speed through design of roadway and roadside elements; but the bad news is that many existing roads cue drivers to travel much faster than the posted speed limit and the community would like."
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Report, petition call for safer roadway planning
From the Fast Lane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Last week, our friends at Transportation For America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership released a valuable report called Dangerous By Design. Yesterday I met with James Corless of t4America and a few of his colleagues from other interest groups about this report and its conclusions.
Now, “Dangerous By Design” has turned a lot of heads and for good reason. It shows that 11.8% of all traffic fatalities in America are pedestrians.
Look, no amount of engineering to make the insides of our vehicles safer for occupants is going to protect pedestrians and bicyclists. We need safer roadways. We need roadways designed to account for the needs of everyone who uses them, whether driving, walking, or riding in a wheelchair or on a bicycle.
The great thing about this Complete Streets approach to road planning is that it’s actually cheaper to plan for multiple road uses ahead of time than to retrofit roadways after they are built and someone gets injured or killed.
The problem with this approach is that it does cost a little extra up front. And states and communities facing budget shortfalls may be tempted to let road safety features–wide sidewalks, safe crosswalks–get cut along the way.
But, as much leadership as DOT can offer, only Congress can authorize federal funding for such programs. And, as the petition urging my leadership on safer roadway planning reminds us:
“The Transportation Bill comes around just once every six years, and we can’t afford another six-year delay on building the 21st Century transportation system our country craves.”
That’s why, when we hold our upcoming open meetings on new transportation legislation, I urge all of you who care about this important issue–from experts to everyday pedestrians–to come forward and tell us how strongly you feel about this. Then, we can let Congress know how much momentum is truly behind safer road planning.
So please stay tuned as we announce the dates and locations of these meetings and please visit the websites of the organizations who visited me yesterday (I’ve listed them below) to see what you can do to raise your voice on this important issue.
Continue reading “Report, petition call for safer roadway planning”