This story is being discussed by some of my friends College student’s turtle project takes dark twist where some drivers go out of there way to run over turtles.

But it seems a fair amount of my cycling friends are helping turtles get to the other side of the road safely.

By taking as few as one in 100 drivers from those key areas off the roads, commute times could drop by more than 15 percent for the region, researchers say. That would shave off about ten minutes each way for people whose commutes are currently an hour.

I’ll add that cyclists could easily be this one in 100 drivers. Of course the implied problem is how to get more people to bike in car centric areas (key areas), At least that’s how I read it.

WTOP report.
Continue reading “Study: Shaving time off drivers’ commutes is simple”

[B’ Spokes: Note this is in Europe where they pay a higher gas tax then what we do.]
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Every car in Europe produces external costs of an equivalent of 1,600 Euro (on average) annually in noise, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and accidents, not covered by liability insurance. This is the key figure of a new study called “The true costs of automobility: External costs of cars” that was put together and presented in the European Parliament by Prof Becker, Chair of Transport Ecology from University of Dresden. Becker deplores that the basic principle of a market economy – the polluter pays the full costs him- or herself – is not applied: “These costs are charged to the whole society, to other regions and to future generations”, he says.
Becker’s other main findings include:
* For the EU-27, the overall sum of uncovered costs related to car use amounts to € 373 billion per year, the equivalent of roughly 3.0 % of the EU’s GDP or the GDP of Belgium. The report also gives detailed national figures for each of the EU-27 Member States.
* On average, every EU citizen pays € 750 of subsidies per year.
* Per vehicle km (vkm), external costs equal 13 Euro-cents on EU-average.
* 41 % of these external costs are due to accidents and 37 % to climate change. The remaining 22 % divide up on air pollution, noise and other effects.
The study did neither take congestion nor the full health costs – due to physical inactivity – into account. The main economic benefit of cycling is on the health side, due to physical exercise. Using WHO’s Health Economic Assessment Tool for Cycling, ECF calculated a health benefit of € 108 – 118 bn in reduced mortality at current levels of cycling in the EU-27.[i] Reversing this argument, door to door car journeys are a major reason for sedentary lifestyles – 35 % of the population in the WHO European region is insufficiently physically active. The WHO warns that child obesity will become one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century.[ii]
“That is what the fair deal [for cars] is about”: In efficient societies and market economies, “prices have to provide the right signals in order to increase efficiency and avoid irrational mobility choices,” Becker’s executive summary concludes.
About 50 % of all car trips in Europe are shorter than 5 km, a distance that could be easily cycled in many cases. ECF therefore fully supports the opinion of the author that external costs of motorized transport should be as completely and as quickly internalized as possible.
https://www.ecf.com/news/car-users-pollute-but-do-not-foot-the-bill/

by Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog
…
AS: What is the biggest mistake cities make?
JS: I’ve repeated it so much I hate to tell you the same thing, but it’s the honest truth. The biggest mistake cities make is to allow themselves to effectively be designed by their director of public works. [Or the director of transportation.] The director of public works, he or she is making decisions every single day about the width of streets, the presence of parking, the question of bike lanes. And he’s doing it in response to the complaints he’s hearing. But if you satisfy those complaints you wreck the city.
A typical public works director doesn’t think about “What kind of city do we want to be?” They think about what people complain about, and it’s almost always traffic and parking.
The one thing we’ve learned without any doubt, is the more room you give the car the more room they will take and that will wreck cities. Optimizing any of these practical considerations — sewers, parking, vehicle capacity — almost always makes a city less walkable.
AS: What do the effective cities do instead?
JS: …
Cities need specialists that help define what make them a great city. Is it going to make you a great city having an 18 minute commute versus a 20 minute commute? Or is it going to make you a great city to have a smaller carbon footprint and more transportation choices?
…
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/19/author-jeff-speck-on-walkability-and-the-one-mistake-that-can-wreck-a-city/
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[B’ Spokes: I don’t know about you but I keep thinking about Baltimore and the "reason" why they removed some of our bike lanes in the "biggest mistake" section. We need to start thinking differently!]

News:

AA President calls for end to ‘Two Tribes’ mentality
Road.cc: AA President calls for end to ‘Two Tribes’ mentality that divides cyclists and motorists

Edmu…
read more

AA boss: Cyclist-hating drivers are absolute idiots
The London Evening Standard: AA boss: Cyclist-hating drivers ‘are absolute idiots’

– AA president …
read more

Truth the first casualty in BBC’s War on Britain’s Roads?
Road.cc: Truth the first casualty in BBC’s War on Britain’s Roads?

Balance and objectivity also report…
read more

AA president’s branding of cyclist-hating drivers as “idiots”
Road.cc: AA president’s branding of cyclist-hating drivers as “idiots” wins fans on social media

…
read more

Continue reading “BICYCLELAW.COM UPDATES FOR DECEMBER 19, 2012”

If you are looking for a tax deductible charity donation and a chance to win a bike… here you go:
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/12/give-to-streetsblog-and-streetfilms-and-you-could-win-a-new-bike/

Highlight:
All good information. But black boxes don’t always work if it was a pedestrian or a cyclist who was struck.
Event data recorders are part of the airbag safety system. They’re what tells the airbags to deploy. And if the crash isn’t forceful enough to trigger the airbags, the EDR doesn’t record the data.
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/17/new-black-box-rule-isnt-enough-to-hold-drivers-accountable-for-ped-crashes/

By Ashley Halsey III, Washington Post
Deaths behind the wheel of an automobile fell last year to the lowest level since the Truman administration, but there was an increase in fatalities among bicyclists, pedestrians, motorcycle riders and big-rig truck drivers, according to federal figures released Monday.
…
The number of bicyclists killed increased by 8.7 percent and pedestrian deaths were up 3 percent.
“Our culture is beginning to move away from driving and toward healthier and greener modes of transportations,” said Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “We need to be able to accommodate all these forms of transportation safely.”
…
https://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-10/local/35745525_1_motorcycle-deaths-highway-deaths-seat-belt

In an effort to help those who are writing and commenting on bike master plans here is some helpful advice from Richard Layman:
"One element frequently left out of bike and pedestrian plans is a discussion of maintenance, and setting level of service standards for maintenance, especially for the winter months, in those parts of the country where snow is likely."
And I’ll add sweeping of bike lanes to that as well.
Read the rest of Richard’s post here: https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/level-of-service-and-maintenance.html