[B’ Spokes: I love the idea of extra measures to get drivers to stop and yield to trail traffic (like they are legally obligated to do.) I would love it if Maryland also took up the attitude of "Let’s observe the actual behavior." instead of through some sort of hocus-pocus under the guise of engineering (that time and time again it has been shown that a lot of so called cause and effect "facts" are just plain wrong or at least more complicated then generally assumed.) ]
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WTOP
WASHINGTON – The zigzag white lines on Belmont Ridge Road in Ashburn are supposed to warn drivers of the popular W&OD bike crossing.
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However, Dittberner also says drivers are slowing down and yielding more. A VDOT study, conducted by the department’s research arm, affirms his statement.
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https://www.wtop.com/159/2977309/Debate-on-experimental-safety-measures-on-Va-road
(This link also has a picture of the treatment.)
Governors Get on Board With Smart Growth
by Tanya Snyder, DC Streets Blog
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Yesterday, a bipartisan group of six governors and ex-governors celebrated the new support of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities – the collaboration of HUD, DOT, and EPA — for the Governor’s Institute. This kind of collaborative work, among federal agencies and with the states, is “common sense writ large,” said U.S. DOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari at the event. “But it wasn’t done in the past.”
States are where the rubber hits the road, he said, and the federal government needs to help them take smart action.
The Institute’s staff advises states on everything from agriculture and economic development to transportation and housing. They hold workshops in states, hosted by the governors themselves, to give specific advice tailored to the needs and particularities of that places.
Its prescriptions are well grounded in the smart growth philosophy. For example, the Institute’s 14 policies for transportation include strategic planning, a “fix-it-first” approach, and complete streets. They evaluate communities based on street grid connectivity and transit-oriented development, not old-school criteria like vehicle level-of-service.
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But the economic question goes far deeper than just temporary construction jobs. As William Fulton, vice president for policy and programs at Smart Growth America and former mayor of Ventura, California, blogged this week on CNN.com, “Where businesses go, where houses go, where roads go, where sidewalks go, where farms and natural spaces go – all of these things collectively affect a community’s economic performance and the cost of providing services there. Put things closer together, the services cost less. Put things farther from each other, the services cost more for the jurisdiction and its taxpayers.”
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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/08/02/governors-get-on-board-with-smart-growth/
From A Governors’ Guide to Growth and Development
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Transportation departments generally rank the performance of roads by their level-of-service, but employing this standard can inadvertently discourage or block development in urban core areas, because they typically rank low on standard level-of-service measures. Many jurisdictions, for example, have responded to growing traffic congestion by developing performance standards to ensure that traffic speeds are maintained as areas become more developed. But these standards ignore the role that walking, biking, and transit play in more densely developed areas. Design decisions based on high level-of-service performance measures can end up serving only the motorist at the expense of the very communities that the road is supposed to serve. Decisions made only for the peak hour may tune the roadway to work well for motorists during those hours, but render the road over-designed for the rest of the day and ineffective for all other users. To remedy this, state transportation departments should review how they apply level-of-service standards and, if necessary, work with local governments to revise how the level-of-service is measured.
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Man on bicycle taken to hospital after car accident
[B’ Spokes: Typically from my experience "bike collided with a vehicle" means the cyclist was right hocked and the police are looking to make sure the driver faces no charges. Shameful if you ask me but there is not enough information to state this one way or the other but then why the statement in favor of the motorist?]
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The Capital Gazette
A 54-year-old was taken to the hospital after the bike he was riding collided with a vehicle Sunday afternoon in Pasadena.
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they found the man suffering from serious but non-life threatening injuries, fire department spokesman Division Chief Michael Cox said.
Preliminary reports from police indicate that the man was involved in an accident with a Lincoln Town car, police spokesman Justin Mulcahy said.
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Annapolis Police catch 2 bicycle thief suspects
Annapolis police said they charged a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old in two separate bicycle thefts on Monday.
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When officers located Cain a short time later, he admitted that he had been riding the bike but told officers "it should be OK because I gave the bike back to the guy."
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New Maryland signs emphasize cyclists’ right to the road
[B’ Spokes: if there is a road where you think this sign would help contact the appropriate government agency (and cc’ing the appropriate bicycle advocacy organization would not hurt.)]
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by Jim Titus, Greater Greater Washington
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The meaning of "share the road" has evolved. For decades, the law required cyclists to keep as far to the right as practicable. This made sense when most cyclists were children proceeding slowly. But at higher speeds, riding too far to the right is hazardous. Drivers and pedestrians are not looking for fast vehicles close to the curb, and cyclists can’t see them emerging from driveways, cross streets, or parked cars.
When lanes are too narrow for a car to pass a bike safely, too many drivers try to pass bikes within the lane anyway. So on those roads, it is safer for a cyclist to ride near the center of the lane, according to Maryland’s Driver Manual.
Section 21-1205(a)(6) of the Maryland Transportation Code says that a cyclist may ride in the center of a narrow lane. But many drivers learned to drive (and bike) back when cyclists were supposed to simply keep to the right. And on any given road, drivers and cyclists may have different perceptions about whether the lane is too narrow to share. So "drivers and cyclists often must guess what the other is going to do," says Shane Farthing, Executive Director of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association.
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"The signs will increase safety by providing drivers with a warning about where bikes may be," says Dustin Kuzan, SHA’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. A study in Austin, Texas found that placement of similar signs has little impact on where cyclists ride. But drivers moved to the left as they passed bikes enough to increase the median passing clearance by 3 feet.
John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic agrees: "These signs are a really good idea. Bicyclists have the right to use the full lane on narrow roads. As drivers, we are operating the heavier vehicle which can seriously injure a cyclist. So it is up to drivers to avoid a collision. But drivers need information about where the bicyclist might be riding, and these signs will help."
"The signs may also decrease hostility between drivers and cyclists by informing all road users that cyclists have the right to be in the center of the lane," Kuzan adds.
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Read more: https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/15264/new-maryland-signs-emphasize-cyclists-right-to-the-road/
The Grave Health Risks of Unwalkable Communities
By Richard J. Jackson And Michael Mehaffy, The Atlantic Cities
America is facing an alarming epidemic. In 1960, fewer than one in 10 American children were overweight or obese, but today, that number is one in four. Formerly very rare (and very serious) childhood diseases like Type 2 diabetes have become increasingly common.
It’s not just kids who are being affected: a quarter of adults are now obese, way up from one in 10 in 1990. That’s contributing to soaring health costs – over $190 billion a year, or 20 percent of all health care spending, according to a recent Cornell University study.
What’s the cause? Some analysts point to the growing consumption of junk food and sedentary lifestyles, and they’re certainly right. But there’s also evidence of a close correspondence between obesity and unwalkable, car-dependent neighborhoods. People in these neighborhoods are likely to be more sedentary, heavier and less fit, a deadly combination that begins when we are young.
For those over 40, a little experiment is telling. In our talks, we often ask our audiences how many of them walked or biked to school. Most hands usually go up. Then we ask them how many of their kids, grandkids or friends’ kids now walk or bike to school. Almost no hands go up. We have wrought a huge change in the lifestyles of our children, one that is taking a tragic toll. We chose to do it when we created unwalkable (and unbikable) suburban environments. No wonder our kids stay indoors, or worse, get lured into a drive-through lifestyle, with rafts of fast food and little activity.
Safe, walkable neighborhoods are not just an amenity, they’re a matter of life or death. They create environments where we can live active, engaged lives. And more walking brings more social interaction, more time outdoors, more recreation, more smiles and more "life" in every sense.
But in modern times, aren’t we stuck with these car-dependent neighborhoods? No, we aren’t.
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https://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/06/grave-health-risks-unwalkable-communities/2362/
How to Stop Auto Accidents by Buster Keaton
Share the road
[B’ Spokes: Too good not to share.]
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By William Browne, Waldorf, So MD News
To answer the letter writer John Limerick [“Bicycling laws,” Maryland Independent, July 18]: It is legal for a cyclist to ride on any road in Maryland regardless of speed limit as long as it’s not strictly prohibited. Maryland law 21-1205.1 (a) (1) states: Cyclists may operate on the shoulder of a roadway where the posted speed limit exceeds 50 mph unless otherwise prohibited.
For instance, when entering I-95 signs are posted “no cyclists, pedestrians etc.” All of the roads listed in your letter are perfectly legal places to ride a bicycle. Cyclists are not excused from the rules of the road unless it’s a closed event. As far as “riding on the shoulder” goes, just because the shoulder looks safe and open while you fly by at great speed doesn’t mean it’s not littered with broken glass, debris and potholes. If that’s the case, cyclists are forced to ride near the white line.
The cycling event you are refering too was probably Bike MS, an event that raises money for multiple sclerosis research. Like any large event, permits are granted and roads closed and cyclists/motorists protected by police during these events.
Not everyone in Southern Maryland is blessed with an automobile. Some people are forced to walk or ride a bike and some choose to do this because they want to be healthy or like to help the environment out.
I would suggest getting on a bike and riding to the local grocery store and back home. See how difficult it is and how abused you feel at the end of your trip. You are just one of hundreds of motorists who whiz by, yell obsenities, throwing things and performing dangerous maneauvers with their vehicle all because you have been incovenienced for 15 seconds by the scourge of the earth “cyclists with attitudes.” How dare they infringe on you.
This is a small example of what’s wrong with our country today. No one can be inconvenienced by another party without taking it personally or berating that group altogether.
https://www.somdnews.com/article/20120727/OPINION/707259837/-1/share-the-road&template=southernMaryland
Ungridlocked
By Nicole Gelinas, City Journal
Mayor Bloomberg’s transportation reforms have unclogged New York’s streets and made them safer.
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Though drivers in New York City are a minority, outdated traffic engineering long allowed them to reign unchallenged, with clogged streets and too many accidents the results. Over the past five years, however, the city, led by transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, has devised ways to reduce that dominance. Through several new initiatives, mostly outside Times Square, New York has been rationally using its limited physical space to get more people moving more quickly—and that means not in automobiles. New York has achieved its improvements on the cheap. Better still, the changes have saved lives.
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Another way that New York has tried to relieve subway pressure over the last four years is installing more bike lanes. Today, the city has 270 miles of bike lanes, including 20 miles of lanes in which a physical barrier—a curb or a parking lane—protects bikers from drivers. Commuting by bike has risen dramatically, with 24,000 people pedaling into the core of Manhattan in 2010, compared with 15,000 in 2007. This makes good fiscal sense. It has cost New York City about $15 million, including federal funds, to create the new bike lanes. To give subway riders more room by building more subways, the city would have to spend billions.
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New York’s transportation policy isn’t just about getting people from Point A to Point B; it’s about keeping them safe from transportation-related injuries. The city is already doing a good job of this, with vehicle-caused deaths in the city plummeting over the last two decades. “The numbers speak for themselves,” says Sam Schwartz, the Koch-era traffic commissioner known to tabloid readers as “Gridlock Sam.” In 1990, accidents on New York City’s streets claimed the lives of 701 people, including 366 pedestrians—more than one per day. Over the next decade, though, the number of people killed in accidents fell 46 percent, and it fell another 38 percent between 2000 and 2011. Last year was the safest ever for New York drivers, passengers, and walkers, with vehicles causing just 2.8 fatalities per 100,000 residents. You’re more than twice as likely to be killed by a vehicle in Los Angeles as in New York; Atlanta is deadlier still.
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New York’s new bike lanes also enhance safety—not just for bikers but for pedestrians and auto occupants, too. Crashes on city streets that have bike lanes are 40 percent less likely to result in a death or serious injury, in part because the lanes force drivers to go more slowly. Bike lanes also lead drivers to pay more attention to the road. On Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, crashes have fallen 56 percent since the city installed bike lanes.
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https://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_nyc-transportation.html
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B’ Spokes: A very well written article, with lots of positive (and a few not as good as hoped) aspects. But what I get from this article is how traffic engineers once thought they had to set the "dial" to maximum driver accommodation on every single street, NYC is finding a lot of benefits on setting the "dial" to maximum for pedestrian accommodation or bicycling accommodation, even if it means taking away space from cars.
How far will we walk to go somewhere? It depends.
B’ Spokes: I have always contended that the [bike|walk]ability depends on what is on the side of the road as much as what is on the road and this post by Kaid Benfield seems to back me up (at least as far as walking goes.) We need planning and zoning that services people and not just cars. We need to pay attention to walk appeal as well as bike appeal. We need to lose the idea that people can/should always [begrudgingly] drive there and that’s all that needs to be done.
For more info and examples: https://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/how_far_will_we_walk_to_someth.html