By John Stevenson, international editor
If you
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Bike Map Baltimore
I just moved to Baltimore 4 weeks ago – and one of those weeks was spent having fun in Santa Fe New Mexico, so it doesn’t count. I didn’t really think to check up on the bike transportation network before I moved to town and was shocked to find 1) the buses have no bikeracks! and 2) there is no real bike network with city-incorporated lanes, paths, and signed routes, and 3) no city bike map. Just this last weekend I saw my first bike path on my way to Hampden (I have no car by the way) and got really excited. I went to the library and searched online but found no bike map other than the one published by a UMBC student over 5 years ago.
I just finished working for the City of Rockville, MD producing their 2007 CIty Bike Map, showing bike lanes, paths, and signed road routes. I just transferred to Towson U. and would like to keep doing the same. Since I have access to the necessary software at school, I would like people to help me identify and map out the appropriate routes for the map. Does anyone want to help? Does anyone know someone already working on a project like this so I can help?
Thx, and happy riding in this crazy place.
Victor
What makes biking so cool
If you read this blog regularly then you know that the enforced biking of this project is one of the happiest adaptations we
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Artist and Activist Happy Hour at Baltimore Theatre Project
On Friday – Oct 5 6:00-
Cy.Fi Speaker, a Wireless iPod Dock for Your Bike
If you want to wake up the neighbors and bother everyone with your music while you ride your bike, the cy.fi wireless iPod dock is the bike speaker for you. And as a special bonus, it looks like an orangutan’s ass! Working with the old-school iPod nano (and probably working with any iPod with a dock connector), it’s a wireless speaker, and no, it’s not using Bluetooth. It’s using the Kleer Audio transmission that claims to be 10 times more energy efficient than Bluetooth.
The Cy.Fi speaker is about the size of a deck of cards and mounts on your handlebars. It spreads its stereo sound to let to the left and right, and makes it so you don’t have to wear earphones that might obscure important noises of impending danger. Get more speakers, and one iPod can broadcast its signal to everyone in your riding group.
The company says the Cy.Fi’s transmission is 100% lossless, sent from your iPod tucked safely away in your pocket. You can also control volume and skip tracks right from the speaker. Available sometime in 2008, it’ll cost you $149.
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Teen To Stand Trial In Bicyclist Shooting
(AP) PHILADELPHIA An 18-year-old man who fatally shot a 14-year-old bicyclist who wouldn’t get out of his way was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on homicide and weapons charges.
…
Law was bicycling with friends on July 14 when a car driven by Meyers pulled up behind them on the narrow South Philadelphia street and began honking for them to get out of the way, police said.
Four of the five bicyclists obliged. Law, however, got off his bike and walked around to the passenger side of the stopped car, and he and Meyers argued briefly, according to police. The boy was killed with a single bullet to the chest that passed through his lungs and heart, according to a coroner’s report.
Officer Joseph Acavino, who was in uniform but in his own car on his way to work, was behind Meyers’ car when the shooting occurred. He testified that as Meyers’ car inched up to where Law stood on the side of the road, he saw the driver’s arm extend toward the rolled-down passenger side window and he heard a gunshot.
"Tykeem Law, with both hands, grabbed his upper chest area. He looked at his chest and looked at the car," Acavino said. "He looked to his right and to his left, then he went back on his heels and fell backward."
The car sped off before running a stop sign and being broadsided by another car about a block away. Police said they found a loaded .22-caliber revolver on the ground next to the driver’s side door.
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Studies show diesel smog increases chances of deadly blood clots.
By Ewen Callaway
Study after study has shown a connection between smoggy days and an increase in deaths. Now two experiments, one on mice and the other in men, clarify why. Diesel fumes, they find, encourage blood clots that can bring on heart attacks and strokes.
The study in people helps to prove the correlation between heart problems and a city’s poor air quality and hints at the role of clotting in this process. And the work in mice exposed to smog suggests that the immune system kick-starts the process.
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Annual study shows traffic congestion worsening in cities large and small
Bike thief arrested @ JHU
Thanks to the vigilance of Johns Hopkins Security Officers, one of our most nefarious criminals, the bicycle thief, is off the streets, caught in the act by security cameras!
The following report is from JHU security, dated 9/26/07, please forward on to interested persons.
ARREST for Bicycle Theft / CCTV Observation — Unit Blk. E. University Parkway – On Sept. 26th at 3:41 AM, a CCTV monitor observed a male carrying a backpack and walking suspiciously to and from the shuttle stop bike racks.
Campus officers and off-duty Baltimore police officers working overtime for Hopkins located and stopped the suspect. Baltimore Police responded and discovered the suspect was carrying a large butcher knife, mace and in his backpack, bolt cutters, vice grip pliers and a bicycle tire pump.
The suspect was subsequently arrested for possession of a deadly weapon and for the bicycle theft that occurred on from Sept. 16th from the Wolman Hall, west side bike rack.
Hollywood Bus Driver Attacks Cyclist, LAPD Handcuff Cyclist (and Wife!)
[As having more then one MTA driver drive in a similar manner around me and received similar comments from MTA drivers that I don’t belong on the road (implied that they have a right to run me off the road) this article is very disturbing. While negotiations are still continuing with MTA to include routine how to drive safely around cyclists training I would like to remind everyone this is a very real problem not just locally but nationally as well. BTW all professional drivers and drivers convicted of aggressive driving in Maryland are taught … (are you sitting down) cyclists are obstacles, which should do wonders for their tolerance of us on the roadway and our safety.]
A cyclist westbound on Hollywood Boulevard hears a loud horn behind him as he rides in the right side of the #2 lane, alongside a row of parked cars and dangerously close to the door zone.
The motorist with the heavy horn hand turns out to be Metro Bus Driver #XXXXX and she passes the cyclist so closely that his left hand touches the side of the bus as it speeds past him. The number #1 lane is empty and nothing serves to prevent the bus driver from changing lanes to pass the cyclist except for a failure on her part to acknowledge the cyclist
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