Complete Streets for Baltimore County

Via David Marks on Facebook:

Last night, the Baltimore County Council passed a Complete Streets resolution that aims to include bicyclists and pedestrians as we build out our transportation system. Councilman Tom Quirk sponsored and I was a cosponsor.

Special Traffic Enforcement Officers – Citywide Jurisdiction

There is no doubt in my mind that we need more Traffic Enforcement Officers to improve safety but wait, what? We need more officers just to direct traffic?

Well while Artscape was setting up I noticed tons of people running red lights to create gridlock from hell and hardly an officer to be seen. Well that’s not exactly true, there were officers situated at every closed crossroad on Mt. Royal, sitting and just maintaining a presence just in case something might happen but the gridlock happening a block away was ignored. So we need more officers to correct that… I guess.

But do officers directing traffic improve throughput? Mythbusters says no.
https://youtu.be/OvoFjirrgYA?t=4m24s

So while I agree we need to address gridlock with enforcement but still there is a huge need for traffic safety enforcement beyond just not obeying a traffic signal or directions from an officer. Baltimore City is over represented with car crashes involving bike/peds, this is a huge quality of life issue that is being ignored.
https://mhso.mva.maryland.gov/TrafficSafetyData/_benchmarkreports/PedestOnFootBR-12Aug1-13.pdf
https://mhso.mva.maryland.gov/TrafficSafetyData/_benchmarkreports/BikeOthPedalBR-12Aug1-13.pdf

But do the police have time to address traffic safety or other general public safety measures? They say no.
https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2013/11/26/inside-city-hall-why-police-dont-walk-the-beat-and-other-riddles/

Well if you get hit by a car you can always call 911 and get a positive result. Wrong, I was hit by a car while walking across a driveway and the officer responded that "unless I see it, I can’t issue a ticket." and evidence is growing that not only are the police not out there watching for bike/ped issues, they are rather clueless on what the laws are for bicyclists and pedestrians. "And remember to watch for cars, you don’t want to be dead right." [Sheesh, not even close to good safety advice.]

So which brings me to City Of Baltimore Council Bill 13-0262 which states in part:
"A Special Traffic Enforcement Officer has no power to issue citations for moving violations other than for a failure to obey lawful traffic direction and control devices."

They are expanding who can appoint and where they can enforce, all good things but I seriously wish they also expanded what they can enforce. The idea that only the police can enforce all criminal laws plus all traffic laws is just crazy.

We need to change the mindset in city hall from roads that are defined by just how many cars can go by per hour, to roads being public space and as public space have zero tolerance for bullies that threaten and hit those they don’t like in "their" space.

Text of the bill: https://bikemd.org/files/public/documents/BaltimoreBillSTEO.pdf
To follow the progress and more info: https://legistar.baltimorecitycouncil.com/detailreport/?key=5962

New Report Finds Climate Change Caused By 7 Billion Key Individuals

By The Onion
WASHINGTON—In a landmark report experts say fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the global warming crisis, new data published this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that the phenomenon is caused primarily by the actions of 7 billion key individuals.
These several billion individuals, who IPCC officials confirmed are currently operating in 195 countries worldwide, are together responsible for what experts called the “lion’s share” of the devastating consequences of global warming affecting the entire planet.
“Our research has proved conclusively that, year after year, the acceleration of the rate of global warming and the damage caused by this man-made acceleration can be clearly linked to 7 billion main culprits,” explained lead author Dr. John Bartlett, noting that many of these individuals have links to climate change going back nearly a century. “Worse, the significant majority of damage was done within the past two decades, when the consequences of climate change were widely known and yet these specific individuals did nothing to curb or amend their practices.”
“Now that we’ve done the hard work of identifying the key players responsible for this crisis, we can move forward with holding them accountable,” Bartlett added. “And it is my opinion that we need to regulate these individuals swiftly and decisively before they do any more damage.”
According to policy analysts, urgent regulation is needed in order to monitor and govern the behavior of these targeted individuals, who experts say collectively commit as much as 100 percent of violations to the environment each year.
Researchers have isolated numerous instances of environmentally harmful activity committed by these 7 billion perpetrators in the past few decades alone, identifying practices such as using electric lights, shipping packages, traveling by car, traveling by air, buying clothes, washing clothes, using heat, using air conditioning, buying food, buying water, eating meat, commuting to work, shopping, exercising at the gym, disposing of waste, operating computers, operating televisions, operating other household electronic appliances, and showering—alarming activities that experts say show no signs of remitting.
In addition, IPCC officials confirmed that billions of pounds per year in waste products can be traced to these 7 billion individuals alone.
“We’re actually looking at a situation where a select group of individuals—7,125,985,886 of them, to be exact—are singlehandedly responsible for global warming and are refusing to do anything about it,” author and activist Dan Cregmann told reporters, noting that these culprits have a horrible track record of following recommended environmental guidelines and disclosing their total energy consumption. “Many of these offenders have of course pledged goals for fighting climate change and going green in their daily operations, but statistics show these proclamations have been largely ineffective and halfhearted at best.”
At press time, IPCC officials confirmed that, since their report was released this morning, 153,007 more individuals had been added to the list of top contributors to global warming.
https://www.theonion.com/articles/new-report-finds-climate-change-caused-by-7-billio,34658/?ref=auto

VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER – COMPARISON OF “GROSS NEGLIGENCE” WITH “CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE”

[B’ Spokes: If I am reading this right “the community’s general sense of
right and wrong” is that it is perfectly fine to pass a cyclist via the oncoming lane with limited visibility (motorist can’t see past the crest of a hill.). I think we need to get on MVA’s case to provide better instruction if that is indeed the case.]


VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER – COMPARISON OF “GROSS
NEGLIGENCE” THAT IS AN ELEMENT OF VIOLATION OF
OFFENSE DEFINED IN CRIMINAL LAW ARTICLE §2-209 WITH
“CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE”

December 21, 2011
The Honorable Joseph I. Cassilly
State’s Attorney for Harford County


The New York court also differentiated between “negligence,”
as used in civil cases, and “criminal negligence”:

Criminal liability cannot be predicated on every
act of carelessness resulting in death ….. The
carelessness required for criminal negligence is
appreciably more serious than that for ordinary
civil negligence[;]the carelessness “must be such
that its seriousness would be apparent to anyone
who share[s] the community’s general sense of
right and wrong”…. Criminal negligence thus
requires “some serious blameworthiness in the
conduct that caused [the death]”… or some
culpable “risk creation” ….

https://www.oag.state.md.us/Opinions/2011/96oag128.pdf

Shifting Gears: Commuting Aboard The L.A. Bike Trains

[B’ Spokes: It would be nice if we could start something like this here,]
****************************************************************************
by ALEX SCHMIDT, NPR

Enter L.A. Bike Trains — an organization that arranges commutes by bike in groups. Each Bike Train route has an experienced conductor who serves as a guide. Insua especially likes that these volunteer conductors offer new riders door-to-door service from their homes to the train.
"He came and picked me up from my house," Insua says. "[He] went out of his way to get me to bike for two or three weeks. Then I was conditioned. Then I was brainwashed."

https://www.npr.org/2013/12/01/248063342/shifting-gears-commuting-aboard-the-l-a-bike-trains

Is Cycling the New Golf?

BY RESONANCE
Cycling is much more than an amenity or a status symbol or a reason to buy, although it can be all those things. It’s wellness on two wheels. And wellness is, as the New York Post recently reported, the new cronut of travel and recreation. Compared to that, golf is child’s play.

For us, the message was clear: increasingly, the future of recreational development – and, in the bigger picture, tourism – will be happening on two wheels, not in a golf cart.

So while cycling fitness is edging out golf’s technical finesse as a status symbol amongst the leisure elite, cycling is also gaining ground as a lifestyle. The news is full of stories about bike lanes, bike sharing and Bike to Work. According to the League of American Bicyclists, commuting by bicycle increased nearly 50% between 2000 and 2011 – the time frame in which the oldest Millennials entered the work force. In the past five years, the number of golfers in the U.S. has dropped by 13%, according to the National Golf Foundation and there are a million fewer private golf club members today than there were in the early 1990s.

https://www.resonanceco.com/blog/is-cycling-the-new-golf/