because at least I am safe doing it in my 3000+lbs vehicle.
Baltimore City Parking Authority – Alternative Transportation
Yes, it’s true.
The Parking Authority of Baltimore City wants you to leave your car at home.
Living in Baltimore City provides you with lots of alternatives to using your car for either your daily commute to work, or for running errands. According to the EPA website, leaving your car home just two days a week can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1,600 pounds per year. In Baltimore City, you can walk, bicycle, use public transportation, take a cab, rent a car or join a Car Sharing program (coming soon!) to make Baltimore cleaner and greener. Make 2008 the year you reduce your carbon footprint!
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Hagerstown considers becoming Hub-and-Spokes City
[Note a lot of negative comments on the Herald’s site.]
plan to make its streets more welcoming for bicycle riders.
The plan includes designated bike lanes, as well as roads that bicyclists and motorists would share.
A network of bike-friendly routes would help people who ride for recreation or transportation, a draft of the plan says.
The whole network could take years, as the city does a little at a time around road projects.
The city is asking for public input on the proposed plan. A public hearing will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
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A Cure for Nature Deficit Disorder-Technology? (or the bicycle?)
Riding my bicycle down the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail, I passed a small family group. Mom was on her cell and Dad engrossed with his blackberry. Just another example of societies disconnectedness to the natural world, I thought. Reading Louv’s Last Child in the Woods (https://richardlouv.com/) has had a deep impact on me and I can not resolve this. What was once taken for granted, days of childhood play and exploration over local hill and dale, has been replaced by endless hours in front of a screen.
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Court to Cops: Stop Tasing People into Compliance
While not a follow up to Cyclist tased while leaving an airport by bike the decision may be of interest:
By David Hambling – Wired
The use of Tasers has become increasingly controversial over the last year, following high-profile cases such as the Tasering of a 10-year-old girl who had refused to take a shower and video of a 72-year-old great-grandmother who was Tasered following a driving offense. Now a federal appeals court in San Francisco has set down new rules for when police officers are allowed to use Tasers. In particular, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tasers can’t be used simply to force a non-violent person to bend to an officer’s will. The court’s reason was that Taser’s X26 stun gun inflicts more pain than other “non-lethal” options
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Facebook Page Encourages Violence Against Cyclists
If you’re on Facebook, click here to see the “There’s a Perfectly Good Cycle Path Right Next to the Road…” page set up to advocate intentional violence against cyclists. Probably set up as a joke, it now has over 31,000 fans. There are only four posts, all in November 2009, so my hunch is it’s not an active page, but the number of fans it has is alarming. [Ah but comments on those 4 posts are very active.]
Scroll to the bottom left of the page and click “Report Page” and let Facebook know you think it’s inappropriate content.
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Just trying to cross the street
I can’t stop thinking about the Johns Hopkins University student who was killed in that fatal hit and run accident on Friday.
The news hits close to home because while I was in college, just up the street from JHU, a friend of mine was hit by a car by Loyola. The driver kept going. Fortunately, my friend survived the accident but her life was changed.
Now, I often drive past JHU or Loyola en route to work. I can attest to the fact that it’s certainly an odyssey to cross St. Paul Street or Charles Street or University Parkway at times. As a driver, I’m extra vigilant in that area because I know students are making their way to class, runners are out for a jog, parents are strolling their kids through the neighborhood and there are people just trying to make it home after a long day.
I often think of my classmate Melissa who shared her story in class one day. I have the image of her walking with a cane to class in my head. Even though she was the victim of a hit and run, she had no animosity toward the driver. The only thing Melissa said is that she wishes the person who hit her would have stopped just to show they cared, and that they valued someone else’s life. As police search for the driver who struck Miriam Frankl, her friends are probably wishing for the same thing.
If there’s any good that comes from tragedy, you hope people take a little more time when driving. You hope drivers are more aware. You hope drivers will be courteous to pedestrians, and that pedestrians will be courteous to drivers. You hope no one else is hit while just trying to cross the street.
A response The worst part of this incident is that the police have a suspect, they just won’t arrest him. Not surprisingly, the guy has multiple DWIs…:
I’m an idiot drvier in Maryland and this is my story
Apparently this driver almost right hocked a cyclist (2nd most frequent bike accident) but "a officer saying that he wa doing a investigation.i told him what happen and he said not to worry that the other person have no case."
Thank you Maryland police for making the roads safer, not!
Traffic law = to protect drivers from criminal charges when breaking the law with their car.
Car insurance = to protect drivers from financial harm when breaking the law with their car.
Criminal traffic law = Keep the fines low so more can go to the plaintiff in a civil suite
Civil law + Contributory Negligence = Any degree of contributory negligence would bar the plaintiff from collecting damages.
I mean seriously there has to be something for an "educational moment" like a good brow beating or something on record that this guy goes around cyclists in a "possibly" unsafe manner. Something, anything, pretty please?
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Dear Mountain Biking Enthusiast:
Dear Mountain Biking Enthusiast:
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with a number of you to discuss the issue of mountain biking at our reservoirs. At that meeting it was determined that a new task force would be convened to review and revise the current Mountain Biking Plan. The task force will have broad-based representation so that all interested groups have the opportunity for input. Please note that our Watershed Rangers have not ticketed mountain bikers for going off-trail, they have enforced, and will continue to enforce, all other regulations including after-sunset trespassing.
I thank all of you who have taken the time to write. I am confident that by working together we can protect our reservoir lands as well as enjoy the recreational opportunities they afford. Please share this message with your fellow mountain bikers.
Sincerely,
Sheila Dixon
Mayor
Baltimore City
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The art of abandonment
A interesting read for those into urban revival but what struck me was this opening about a car centric city in all its spectacular gray:
IT IS January 2007 in Detroit; 8am, so morning is just starting to moan across the sky. Detroit is on the far western edge of the eastern time zone; winter days are short. You are preparing to head downtown from an Oakland county suburb—West Bloomfield, maybe, Southfield or Farmington Hills. To get into Detroit from any of them you’ll take the Lodge freeway. You have to: Detroit has no commuter trains, no subway, metro or underground. In the Motor City, you drive. So you trundle along on the Lodge, the morning growing lighter but not sunnier, the sky becoming the same nondescript grey as the tarmac, when, at the Lodge’s southward turn, where it meets the Davison freeway coming from the east, something unusual catches the corner of your eye.
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