baltimorespokes

Continue reading “How to change car culture into one of respect”

Every county needs this, not to mention it might be a good idea to review the states legislation as well. Though I’ll note there are issues I would tweak from my experiences with the Maryland. If I have the time and the encouragement I might do a critique but this is a good start.
https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/cs/resources/cs-aarp-statelegislationtoolkit.pdf

Continue reading “How highway expansion works in one simple picture”

[B’ Spokes: Is The Atlantic chiming in on our mandatory helmet bill? While they don’t come out and say it, it sure is timely on our issue. I’ll note the pro-helmet embedded video cracked me up, it basically says "I play a sport and I wear a helmet so you should too." Well all our bike clubs (those that do bicycling as a sport) require a helmet, so we have that covered. But then comes a (sport) car driver that wears a helmet and says you should wear one too. ROFLMAO our point exactly, helmets can make car drivers safer, so wear a helmet when you drive. 😉 ]
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By James Hamblin, MD, is The Atlantic’s Health editor.
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Cities like Washington, D.C., have great bike-share systems, where bicylces are everywhere for the taking. Decisions to hop on a bike are often impromptu. Who among us is never without a helmet? Or wants to carry one all day after a one-way ride — which is a common use of bike shares. Guilt, and safety concerns that surround helmet-less biking, make many in that situation choose to drive instead. Is that better?
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On that note, imagine we had to wear helmets while jogging. We would be safer. The helmets would inevitably save some lives, even if only by deflecting an occasional errant meteorite. But if we started ticketing all un-helmeted joggers, or giving stern looks to people running without helmets, what would that do for public health on the whole?
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Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury. But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems. On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles. That means more obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And — Catch-22 — a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule.
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Manfred Neun, president of the European Cyclists Federation and outspoken helmet law detractor, made a similar point in The West Australian newspaper last spring, arguing that dedicated bike lanes and reducing car speeds in urban areas would do more to protect cyclists than helmets.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/the-bike-helmet-paradox/273555/

Continue reading “Never forget one reason why we support bicycling… its the simple joy”

-> According to an article in the Feb. 22nd issue of Kansas Cycling News, "The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota recently released a report, Understanding Bicyclist-Motorist Crashes [https://bit.ly/Y1oqYp] that offers ‘A Comprehensive Look at Crash Data From 2000-2010 and Recommendations for Improved Bicyclist Safety.’ As you might expect, there is a lot of data to digest, but a few points jumped out: ‘Approximately one out of five crashes are hit-and-runs. Bicyclists sustained an injury in 87.0 percent of crashes. It is estimated that motorists sustained an injury in no crashes. Forty-one percent of crashes occur at intersections and another 40 percent occur within 50 feet of intersections. There is a clear correlation between the number of bicyclists and the crash rate. As the number of bicyclists has increased over the past decade, the crash rate has decreased. On streets and corridors with higher volumes of bicycle traffic, the crash rate tends to be lower than on streets with lower volumes of bicycle traffic. It appears that bicyclists and motorists are equally contributing to the causes of crashes."
"Most crashes are occurring at intersections along major arterials. Motorists are not seeing or yielding to bicyclists. Bicyclists are not riding in a predictable manner. Some of this is familiar stuff, if you’ve been paying attention. The ‘Safety in Numbers’ phenomenon — the more bicyclists there are, the safer each of them is — has been widely reported around the nation. A study in California, for instance, concluded that ‘a motorist is less likely to collide with a person walking and bicycling when there are more people walking or bicycling’ [Safety in numbers: more walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling: https://1.usa.gov/15PwBvh ]…"
Source: https://bit.ly/YhMabE
Title: "Stunning Numbers from Minnesota"
Author: Randy Rasa
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.

By Ron Cassie, Baltimore magazine
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However, Cardin, with Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, “saved” the legislation with an amendment that provided local governments direct access to most federal transportation funding — rather than being required to go through various state DOT’s — enabling them to build sidewalks and bike lanes, for example, to encourage and keep bicyclists and pedestrians safe. If the local communities so choose.
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https://www.baltimoremagazine.net/bikeshorts/2013/03/sen-cardin-embraced-at-nat-l-bike-summit
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[B’ Spokes: Just to note the state (MDOT) built up nearly $40,000,000 in unspent federal funds that could have been used for biking and walking projects. Not having to go through the state might just be a good thing. Ref: https://www.ta-clearinghouse.info/state_profile?state_id=23
Continue reading “Sen. Cardin Embraced at Nat’l Bike Summit”

[B’ Spokes: My argument goes something like this: It is totally illogical to put design elements from freeways where bicyclists and pedestrians are prohibited into urban settings where bicyclists and pedestrians are allowed. Charles Marohn argument has many more points then just bike/ped safety. He also makes an argument for separate designs rather then trying to mix the two, better roads that can accommodate fast travel for cars as well as streets that accommodate everyone equally (or even more so for bikes and peds.) Because when you mix the two, everyone loses.]

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By Charles Marohn, Strong Towns

If we want to build places that are financially productive, we need to identify and eliminate STROADs. A STROAD is a street/road hybrid and, besides being a very dangerous environment (yes, it is ridiculously dangerous to mix high speed highway geometric design with pedestrians, bikers and turning traffic), they are enormously expensive to build and, ultimately, financially unproductive.
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https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2013/3/4/the-stroad.html