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Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility

from Streetsblog New York City by Tanya Snyder

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We’ll spare you the calculus in the report. Here’s the upshot: “Roads cause traffic.”

Duranton and Turner: If you build it, you will sit in traffic on it. Photo: Arch and the Environment

Professors Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner analyzed travel data from hundreds of metro areas in the U.S., resulting in what they call the most comprehensive dataset ever assembled on the traffic impacts of road construction. They write:

For interstate highways in metropolitan areas we find that VKT [vehicle kilometers traveled] increases one for one with interstate highways, confirming the “fundamental law of highway congestion” suggested by Anthony Downs (1962; 1992). We also uncover suggestive evidence that this law may extend beyond interstate highways to a broad class of major urban roads, a “fundamental law of road congestion”. These results suggest that increased provision of interstate highways and major urban roads is unlikely to relieve congestion of these roads.

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The implications for this research are significant, especially as Congress considers whether to integrate performance measures into federal transportation spending decisions. These findings make a strong case that Congress should not allocate too many scarce resources to road expansion when that’s not a real solution for congestion.
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Continue reading “Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility”

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Traveling Through — History Loop Map moves toward production

From Frederick News Post
This past week, City Transportation Planner Tim Davis announced a $3,000 Tourism Reinvestment in Promotion and Product Program grant to fund the Ad Hoc Bicycle Committee’s History Loop Map project.
Davis will bring the project to the mayor and Board of Aldermen for approval, after which the maps will be printed and available at the Frederick Visitor Center at 151 S. East St.
"The ultimate goal of the History Loop Project is safe and healthy bicycling in the city, with great potential to encourage the bicycle tourist to stay overnight in Frederick County," Davis wrote in an email.
Stay tuned to fredericknewspost.com for a look at the bike loop, and a history lesson in the process.
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Let’s end the epidemic of preventable bicycling and pedestrian fatalities

From the League of American Bicyclists

Take Action!

Tell your Representative not to sacrifice the safety of bicyclists or pedestrians 

We learned last week, with the release of the League of American Bicyclists Fair Share for Safety from the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) report, and
Transportation for America ’s Dangerous by Design
report, that the federal government and many state departments of transportation have made a dangerous choice by prioritizing speeding traffic over the safety of people.

From 2000 to 2009, 47,700 Americans were struck and killed while walking and another 688,000 were injured.  Furthermore, since 2009, only half a dozen states actually dedicated Highway Safety Funds specifically to bicycle and pedestrian projects. This is clearly a national problem, as 67 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in the last ten years occurred on federal-aid roads eligible to receive federal funding for improvements.

Congress is currently contemplating the elimina­tion of key bicycle and pedestrian funding programs in the next transportation bill such as, Transporta­tion
Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and the Recreational Trails program.

Contact your Representative today and tell them that without dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects
and the Complete Streets Act of 2011, H.R. 1780, to ensure that all federally funded road projects take into account the needs of all users, states will likely reduce spending for safety features like sidewalks, crosswalks and trails.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

 

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Lesser fine for driver who hit bicyclist was [a police] blunder

[B’ Spokes: I would like to remind everyone of our Bicyclists Bill of Rights: "3. Cyclists have the right to the full support of educated law enforcement." With all the attention this crash gathered, you would think things would be doubled checked for accuracy. Whether this was a "simple" mistake or part of a long trend of what seems to be Baltimore Police going easy on at fault motorists who injure/kill cyclists, I cannot say but in either case I am disturbed, if you are too write your city council rep. https://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/citycouncil/ ]
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from Getting There by Michael Dresser

The Baltimore woman whose driving errors led to a crash that left bicyclist Nathan Krasnopoler in a coma with possibly permanent brain injuries has resolved the traffic charges against her by paying $220 – about half the amount she would have been fined if the Baltimore police had not erred in writing the tickets.

Jeannette Marie Walke, 83, pleaded guilty May 11 to negligent driving and failure to yield tight-of-way to a bicyclist in a designated lane. There was no indication in court records that she chose to appear in court. Such charges can be resolved by sending in a standard fine by mail.

Nathan Krasnopoler, a Johns Hopkins University student, collided with Walke’s car Feb. 26 when she turned in front of him on University Drive near the Homewood Campus. According to his family, he retains brain stem function but is not expected to regain consciousness. The Krasnopolers have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Walke.

Walke could have been fined $400 had not the police officer who wrote the tickets blundered.

The negligent driving fine was assessed at $140 rather than the $280 allowed under state law for cases involving a crash. On the failure-to-yield charge, she was fined $80 rather than the $120 she could have been assessed for an offense that contributed to an accident.

Terri Bolling, a spokesman for the District Courts of Maryland, said the officer wrote in the higher amounts but failed to check off the boxes indicating the charges involved a case that led to an accident and personal injury.

Bolling said that when the boxes are not checked, the fines default to the lower, pre-set amounts. She said the staff that enters the data into the court’s electronic system is not permitted to check the boxes or correct the amounts because the tickets are legal charging documents.

The police error comes after the department acknowledged mishandling the case up front by initially saying no charges would be brought against the driver. After a public outcry led by bicycle advocates, the police conducted a more thorough investigation and the State’s Attorney’s Office decided to charge Walke with the two traffic offenses.

Andrew G. Slutkin, the Krasnopoler family attorney who filed the civil suit, said he was surprised to learn that Walke had been charged the lesser fines. He said that while the family didn’t want to see the driver jailed, they believed it was important that she be charged because they felt she was “legally and morally responsible for the collision.”

“The family believes the fine should be the maximum available under the law,” Slutkin said. “If anyone deserves a break, it’s not this defendant.”
Continue reading “Lesser fine for driver who hit bicyclist was [a police] blunder”

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When Bikes And Cars Collide, Who’s More Likely To Be At Fault?

by ELIZA BARCLAY
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Ed Beighe, who mans the Arizona bike blog Azbikelaw, crunched some numbers on fault from his state and found that 44 percent of fatalities from bike-car crashes in 2009 were determined to be the fault of the cyclist, while 56 percent were the fault of a motor vehicle driver. The most common collision was when a driver struck a cyclist from behind.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety published data on contributing factors in bike-car crashes. It found that in 2009, cyclists were at fault in 49 percent of crashes, while drivers were at fault in 51 percent. Failing to yield to right of way was the most frequent cause of the snarls.
And the Washington Post recently mentioned a 2004 report from DC showing cyclists more likely than motorists to be at fault in a crash.
But a older study from Hawaii had a different conclusion. Using police-reported crash data from 1986 to 1991, researchers found that motorists were at fault in approximately 83.5 percent of incidents, whereas bicyclists were at fault in only 16.5 percent of incidents.
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Continue reading “When Bikes And Cars Collide, Who’s More Likely To Be At Fault?”

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Md. comptroller calls for gas tax freeze over summer holidays

"It would lose us $2 million a day — that’s $6 million for three days. But I think it would be a big boost for the state’s economy and most of all, it would just give our citizens a break (from high gas prices)."
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[B’ Spokes: Do you really want to know what would be good for the economy? Give away $6 million in bikes, cargo trailers, racks and panniers. Empower the people to spend money and a verity of goods and services without sinking so much into just one thing that mostly profits out of state business.
Or maybe we should look at every parked car as someone begging for a hand out because they can no longer afford to be a profitable member of society by going lots of places like they once did. So cyclists could unite to form a chartable society and take some of that money we save and give it to "the poor" cars in the form of little gas cans and printed on the side of the gas can something like: "We know owning a car is expensive so here is enough gas to get you to the store and back so you can spend your money on more important things then just gas. Or you could go out and buy a bike like we did and save even more."
Of course giving away little cans of gas is silly but so is gas tax holiday. If you want to give people a holiday, how about $6 million worth of six Flags or Movie discounts? Why does the auto industry and only the auto industry benefit from such "deals", what’s wrong with spreading some anti-inflation around? It’s not like the price of gas is the only thing that got more expensive.
Assuming we get people to buy as much gas as they are saving in tax, that’s $5 million that Maryland is giving to the middle east and other places that produced the gas and less then one million will stay in the local economy (See "Cars, good for the economy".) It’s like co-opting "buy from local farmers markets because it’s good for the economy" with "buy anything but locally produced stuff." ]
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Catonsville Cyclists Ride For Rails To Trails

By Ed Davis – Patch

Ever wonder what happened to the "Streetcar Named Desire"? The car itself is living a life of retirement in New Orleans, but if Catonsville Rails To Trails had its way, its old trolley line would now be a bike path.

On a pleasantly warm, partly cloudy day on Sunday, local area bike riders got together at the Catonsville Farmers Market to embark on a 14-mile ride hosted by Catonsville Rails To Trails, an advocacy group for the conversion of old streetcar lines to bike paths. The ride was free, and went at a relaxed pace, covering the distance in about two hours.

The bike route interwove neighborhood streets with old trolley lines that have been turned into walking and biking trails. The organization has been working for more than a decade on the goal of re-purposing these relics of a bygone era, along with lobbying for more bike lanes on local streets and easier walking access on bridges and highways.

Patch got on its saddle and took pictures and video of the outing, and worked up some good healthy sweat in the process.

[There’s pictures in the linked article.]
Continue reading “Catonsville Cyclists Ride For Rails To Trails”