Hey if you have an old or used bike laying around please drop it off at capital this weekend we need bikes for the Annapolis rec and parks revolution bike program !we give u 15% off a new bike or $20 dollars off any acc. purchase of $100 or more.
Capital Bicycle located in Annapolis, Maryland. We are a full Service Bicycle Shop featuring Specialized Bicycles. We have a dedicated cycling fitness studio so you can keep spinning on your bike all year.
HRS M-F 10-7, Sat 10-6, Sun 11-4
Join many of Baltimore’s civic and political leaders to discuss who we are, where we’re going, public safety, and political literacy this Saturday from 9a-5p at MICA’s Brown Center-Falvey Hall.
from Stop the Maryland Unsafe Driver by Driver
This website [https://stopthemud.org ] was created to give Marylanders a place to vent, to discuss, to express their opinions about unsafe driving in our state. It was also created to call attention to the senseless loss of life, the mayhem, and the injury on our highways by referring readers to articles at various news organizations. I hoped that creating a site that highlighted unsafe driving in Maryland that the site would attract readers that would participate and encourage comment and debate.
The site is useful in that it does alert Marylanders to some, but not all, of news stories documenting the carnage on Maryland roads and highways. StoptheMUD wants to encourage readers to create an account (it is free) and join the discussion. Our Mingle interface gives you a “Facebook like” user experience that includes a StoptheMUD.org with your chosen username.
Public awareness of unsafe driving is important. By acknowledging we have a serious problem we can each individually make the effort to change our driving behaviors. The state will not do it for us. We, each and every Marylander must make the choice to drive safely. Hopefully by creating a place where we promote individual responsibility we might notice a difference.
I created this site after my wife was involved in a high speed collision that cold have killed her. Two drivers turned in front of her on the highway. One blew a stop sign making a right turn and another made a left turn in front of her without looking for oncoming traffic. Both drivers admitted as much. She crashed into both cars deploying her driver’s side airbag.
Because it was dusk, the MSP officer cited my spouse for failing to turn on her headlights. The following day we met with our insurance adjuster at the accident scene as dusk came upon us. The other drivers COULD have seen my wife’s car if they had bothered to look, but it was just dark enough that the law was not on our side. The egregious behaviors of the unsafe drivers were not even considered.
We learned a couple of things after that collision. In Maryland, there is no contributing responsibility law. The other is that you cannot trust a police a office to tell the truth in court. The officer that cited my spouse for not having her headlights on claimed he was at the accident scene, at dusk, the day after the crash to determine whether the other drivers should have seen my wife’s car. Well we know he was not there because we were and he wasn’t. My spouse was so shocked when the officer made his claim in court that she was afraid to tell the judge that the officer was not telling the truth.
So you see that if we are going to eliminate dangerous roads we have to count on ourselves to make the behavior changes. We cannot depend on the police.
Please join the discussion at StoptheMUD. Comment on the articles or create your own account and Mingle with us. Let’s deal with a problem that is causing loss of life in our state. Continue reading “STOPtheMUD: Join with us to end the madness.”
Scheduled for Monday, January 10 from 1:00 to 2:30 PM in the Bentley Conference Room on the 2nd floor at MDOT.
Maryland Department of Transportation
7201 Corporate Center Drive
Hanover, MD 21076
Meeting is open to all. This is a joint meeting of two MBPAC subcommittees, Legislative and Government Affairs and Commuting and Transportation. The purpose is to go through the legislative issues once again for the purpose of addressing concerns and making tentative recommendations.
On Streetsblog.net by Cap’n Transit posted an interesting point:
"I don’t think that the fate of the world depends on our ability to build or maintain large contraptions"
I agree that the value of a project is not related to the cost of the project. Too many times "we" make the mistake that because its expensive it must be worth doing. We are reaching a point where the cheaper options often have the most value as we have supersaturated what can be done with big expensive stuff. And too many are thinking the only way to fix big expensive stuff is with even bigger and even more expensive stuff. The ICC is a good example of the wrong kind of thinking "because it’s really expensive it must be good." We need to start thinking differently, we need to understand that in heavily traveled corridors, providing transit options provides more utility and bang for the buck then just highway capacity expansions. Continue reading “Not all infrastructure is worth replacing”
A happy partnership is forged between IMBA, MORE, and the Baltimore City Parks and Recreation Department this afternoon. The Mountain bike organizations will be putting together a plan for trails and tracks in Leakin Park.
There are those that oppose extra width on roads and bike trails for bicyclists because of the “environmental damage they do by increased impervious surface.” Which is like opposing LED power indicator lights for “excessive” power drain while still using 100+ watt incandescent bulbs and driving a vehicle that gets less then 20mpg. Fix the bigger problems first! This article from Sustainable Stormwater Management highlights fixing a parking lot. This is a nice jester but why do we still build parking lots with absolutely no thought for the environment and no one is complaining about that?
[B’ Spokes: You could say that Smart Growth is a way of preserving biking on country roads as well as making urban areas more bikeable. Granted this is not the focus of Smart Growth but it is way we support it.]
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"Gerrit Knaap, director of the center, said there are "a few bright spots," notably the preservation of land and recent promotion of development around transit stops in the Baltimore and Washington areas. But overall, he said, "the evidence suggests that we haven’t really bent the curves [of growth] in ways we hoped we would."
The study, underwritten by the Abell Foundation, assessed trends in population and employment, transportation, housing and development and in natural area preservation through 2007. It comes on the eve of a daylong state forum Friday on sustainability convened by Gov. Martin O’Malley, who ran for governor in 2006 on a pledge to strengthen Smart Growth policies. The session is meant to help the O’Malley administration shape its approach to environmental protection, farming and growth over the next four years." Continue reading “State making little progress with Smart Growth, study says”
Update: Otis Rolley – We need your contributions by January 13th so we can include them in our January 20th reporting totals! Contribute online – and give whatever a transparent, better Baltimore is worth to you: https://otisrolley.com/
As an outside observer it’s hard to state who has done what as City Government is a complex interaction of personalities and interests. But when we were developing the Baltimore Bike Master Plan we got a lot of help from Toole Design Group, which the City paid for under the principle if you are going to do something do it well. Sure there were corners cut to keep the cost down but we did get some critical elements into our plan that I think other cities miss, in short it was done well and without excessive costs.
I mention this as Otis Rolley was in charge of Planning at that time under the O’Malley administration and starting the process of making Baltimore into all that it could be seemed to be a major drive from his office. Baltimore has so much potential to be more then what it is, terms like “New Urbanism” and “Sustainability” are more then buzzwords, they embrace what has shown to work over a long period of time, the concepts are not about other peoples financial gains but your quality of life. They stress a way to look at the system as a whole rather then focus on just small bits and hope the rest will follow.
I should also mention that I have ridden with Otis several times on the rides that start from City Hall. He is aware of the handlebar perspective as well how much of the city you can see by bike and have a fun time doing it.
All BAHC supporters/HC Bicycle Riders are invited to a general information meeting/question & answer session on Wednesday January 12, 2011 from 7:30 – 9pm at the George Howard Building, 3430 Courthouse Drive, Ellicott City, MD 21043 in the C. Vernon Gray Room. This ‘hot stove’ bicycling session is intended to provide an overview of BAHC and County Government Plans for 2011 which effect bicyclists and to allow you to provide us with your ideas and concerns before the riding season starts. We will also have as a guest Carol Silldorff Executive Director of Bike Maryland (formerly One Less Car) who will provide information on the the bicycle-related legislation agenda for 2011 Maryland Legislative Session and Bike MD’s Feb 22, 2011 Bicycling Symposium in Annapolis.
Agenda:
* Discuss results/info from January 12th Howard County Bicycling Advisory Group Meeting: Road Repair Plans for 2011, schedule for developing a HC Bike/Ped Accessibility Master Plan, BAHC Training & Education Plans, Bike To Work (School?) Day May 20th, and ideas for bike lanes/routes intra/inter-Columbia/County
* Discuss Bike Maryland 2011 Legislative Agenda
* Open Q&A and suggestions for BAHC 2011 agenda/activities
Please try to attend if at all possible – we want and need your inputs on how to support the Howard County Cycling Community better!
