Month: December 2009

(Photo from the Cooperative Social Responsibility blog.)

Via the Internet, Richard modified it slightly to include walking and transit.

Climate Change is Coming to Town

(To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town)

You better watch out, you better not drive.
You better walk, bike and ride transit I’m telling you why.
Climate change is coming to town.

We’re making it hot, we’re raising the seas.
Gonna feel life at a hundred degrees.
Climate change is coming to town.

If people keep on driving.
The poles will soon be lakes.
The air will stink like petrol fumes.
Walk, bike, and ride transit for goodness sake.

We’re making a list, we’re checking it twice.
We’re gonna find out who drives and who bikes!
Climate change is coming to town.
Continue reading “Climate Change is Coming to Town”

The highlight is sharrows and the sign “Bikes may use full lane” are in the new edition.

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National News

MUTCD Final Rule The Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) Final Rule was published in the Federal Register December 16, 2009. The MUTCD defines the standards used by road managers nationwide to install and maintain traffic control devices on all public streets, highways, bikeways and private roads open to public traffic. States must adopt the 2009 National MUTCD as their legal State standard for traffic control devices within two years. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published the new edition of the MUTCD at mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov. The MUTCD Web site includes a series of documents detailing changes from the 2003 edition and additional materials are available upon request.

Share the Road – Buses and Bicycles from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

The Chicago Department of Transportation and the Chicago Transit Authority partnered to create this training video for bus operators and bicyclists on how to safely share the road. With an overall theme of shared responsibility, the program provides guidelines for avoiding crashes at key conflict points such as intersections and service stops. CTA is using the video to train bus operators, and CDOT urges all Chicago cyclists to view the program and practice safe cycling. This project was funded in part with a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation, Division of Traffic Safety.

Low-tech Magazine refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution. A simple, sensible, but nevertheless controversial message; high-tech has become the idol of our society.

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The solution

While all these ideas are substantially better than many other inventions that are being designed these days (carbon capture technology, algal fuel and nanotech batteries spring to mind) this is not the way to go.

Cloverleaf found at plan59.comThe problem is not that there is a lack of good roads – enough of these exist to bike from here to Mars and beyond. The main problem is that these are occupied by automobiles that are not only dangerous but also very inefficient both in terms of energy use and floor space.

We don’t need any new infrastructure, what we need is to clear the existing infrastructure of inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient ones. In other words: give all streets, highways, cloverleaves and motorways exclusively to bicycles and all other human powered wheeled vehicles. Get rid of cars. Why make things so complicated if the solution is so simple?

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Continue reading “Low-tech Magazine – Cars: out of the way”