10/10/10 Global Work Party Bike Ride
Time Sunday, October 10 · 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Location Streets of Baltimore
Created By Baltimore Bicycle Works
More Info In conjunction with the 10/10/10 Global Work Party initiative, BBW is planning a bike ride through Baltimore to promote and celebrate the bicycle as a mode of transportation. The 10 mile route will follow the Jones Falls Tail north into surrounding neighborhoods ending in Druid Hill with music, food and discussions. All are welcome to join, helmets are required.
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Tea Party TV
By Aaron Naparstek
It’s football season and that means it’s the only time of year that I’m watching the same television programming as guys who like Sarah Palin. If you’ve got 180 seconds to kill and you want a concise, entertaining glimpse at the American collective unconscious, here were the three most outstanding ads of the day…
Dodge Challenger Freedom:
Perhaps you are unaware of this piece of American history. Just a few years after the original Boston Tea Party, George Washington led his Continental Army into battle against the British Red Coats on a winter day somewhere near Lake Tahoe. The snobby, elitist looks were wiped right off the British officers’ faces as they saw the Americans charging over the hill with their 475 horsepower, 6.4 liter HEMI’s, rocking 11 miles per gallon.
Bo and Luke Duke drove a Dodge Challenger too, just like George Washington. They called it The General Lee because, you know, General Robert E. Lee was all about freedom — unless you happened to be the property of a Southern plantation owner. Electric cars? High speed rail? Let the Chinese figure out that shit. Because “Here’s a coupla things America got right: Cars and freedom.” Yes, they actually came right out and said it. The only way this ad could be more brilliant is if it’s airing during NBC’s new show, “Outsourced.” Incidentally, Chrysler is now owned by Italians. Watch…
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Two Breeds Of Biker [video]
2009 Bicycle Commuter Rates in U.S. 70 Largest Cities
Baltimore, MD
Rank by Population -> 19
2009 Rank by Bike -> 25 [13 point increase!]
2008 Rank by Bike -> 38
Percent Change Bicycle Commuting 2008 to 2009 -> 72% <<<<—!!!
Share of Bicycle Commuters 2009 -> 0.99%
Share of Bicycle Commuters 2008 -> 0.58%
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Traffic court is a joke
Let me put this another way. If we create laws that are tough on traffic offenders then it makes it more diffucult for them to take a plea. If they don’t plea then the defense attorny’s have to spend more time in court. There is also the thought that if laws get tougher then there will be less offenders, less offenders means less cleints, less cleints means, wait for it, "LESS MONEY". People I’m a cop and see this every day. The court is a joke. I have arrested hundreds of DWI offenders and I’m one of the top DWI enforcement officers in this state. Over the years I have only had "ONE" person go to jail for a DWI offense. ALl the others pled guilty, were granted probation before judgement (PBJ), paid a modest fine, attended a victim impact panel, got there license back and laughed all the way home. Trust me one this one, I have over 20 years experience at this, the courts in this state are a joke. But wait thats not all, even if you did get a good sentence on an offender, chances are it won’t last long. In Maryland we have "Reconsideration of Sentence". Thats right, 30 days, 6 months, 6 years later, an "ATTORNEY" can go back to the judge or if that judge is retired or has died, another judge and ask that the sentence be changed. Thats right someone can kill your love one in a DWI related crash, get a sentence and years later without your knowledge hire an attorney to get his sentence changed or reduced. As long as you got the "MONEY", and yes these guys are making the laws in this state. FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE
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Investigative Series on Transpo Safety Overlooks Most Vulnerable Travelers
from Streetsblog Capitol Hill by Angie Schmitt
Anyone who’s ever navigated a crosswalk at a major suburban arterial, or pedaled forward while a semi-truck speeds past at arm’s reach, knows what it’s like to travel dangerously. So it’s disappointing to learn that a new investigative report on transportation safety skirts over the perspective of cyclists and pedestrians.
A new report explores transportation safety, mainly from the perspective of the windshield. Photo: News 21
In their 21-part Traveling Dangerously in America series, the Center for Public Integrity and News 21 take a critical look at the federal agency responsible for major crash investigation and safety recommendations: the National Transportation Safety Board. The report exposes a lack of coordination between government transportation agencies and offers specific recommendations — for planes, trains and automobiles.
Richard Layman at Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, points out the oversight:
The series misses important mobility safety issues concerning walking and biking — mobility modes that don’t typically involve the National Transportation Safety Board, which focuses on high profile accidents involving railroads, transit, airlines, highways, and other infrastructure.
So systematic and systemic failures in dealing with pedestrian and bicycle related accidents, such as weak accident investigation procedures on the part of most local police departments, where police officers, perhaps without intending to do so, tend to favor the motor vehicle when investigating, and gaps in the law that favor motor vehicle drivers at the expense of pedestrians and bicyclists, remain unaddressed.
There is no equivalent of the NTSB advocating for fairer treatment and greater concern when it comes to pedestrians and bicyclists.
The report does, however, make some recommendations that could improve bike and pedestrian safety by holding motorists to higher standards. For example, the series presses for the installation of black boxes inside motor vehicles that would record data that could be used to determine fault in an accident.
Layman also makes the point that local blogs, like WashCycle and Greater Greater Washington in the DC area, are drawing attention to the issue of bicycle and pedestrian safety even as government agencies and the media sidestep the topic.
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Why an additional road tax for bicyclists would be unfair
This is the first installment of a regular column about all things bicycle by Elly Blue.
"Should cyclists pay a road tax?"
That was printed on the side of one of Portland, Ore.’s MAX light rail trains as it sailed back and forth across the region for six months in 2009.
The question was designed to provoke, and it did. "We already do!" I would grumble every time I saw it.
It’s true. And, fair being fair, we overpay.
Say you own a car. You’re shelling out an average of $9,519 this year, according to the American Automobile Association (most other estimates are higher). Some of those costs — a percentage of gas, registration, licensing, and tolls — go directly to pay for roads. And it hurts. You doubtless feel every penny.
The thing is, that money only pays for freeways and highways. Or it mostly pays for them — a hefty chunk of change for these incredibly expensive, high maintenance thoroughfares still comes from the general fund.
Local roads, where you most likely do the bulk of your daily bicycling, are a different story. The cost of building, maintaining, and managing traffic on these local roads adds up to about 6 cents per mile for each motor vehicle. The cost contributed to these roads by the drivers of these motor vehicles through direct user fees? 0.7 cents per mile. The rest comes out of the general tax fund.
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Teen bicyclist hurt in hit-and-run crash
CROWNSVILLE — County police are trying to identify a hit-and-run driver who struck a teen bicyclist near the Maryland Veterans Cemetery on Saturday night.
The 16-year-old boy from of Glen Burnie was riding his bicycle with three friends west on Sunrise Beach Road near the entrance of the cemetery around 8:15 p.m. when he was struck from behind by a pickup truck, police said.
The truck kept going and was seen swerving into oncoming traffic as it sped away. The teen was taken by ambulance to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
Police are seeking to identify the hit-and-run vehicle and the driver. The vehicle may be a maroon GMC Sahara and has damage to the front passenger side. Anyone with information is urged to contact county police at 410-222-8610.
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Losing sight of what matters in America Do we value ‘value’ or just value ‘cheap’?
By Mary Newsom
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And in recent days I’ve written about the new greenway along Charlotte’s Little Sugar Creek. Not a few people have told me how they hate to see the “waste” of public money on things like the greenway’s stone bridges (actually, that stone is inexpensive molded concrete), public art and the rockwork clock tower (clock donated by the Rotary Club). It’s as if people here are so unused to places that celebrate the public that they think it’s wastefully lavish for a public park to hold anything nicer than cinder-block buildings and utilitarian metal bridges.
You’re probably wondering how these things – voice mail and airline travel and parks – are related. To my eye, they all illustrate something about America today: Americans have stopped believing that value is something everyone deserves.
We’ve stopped valuing workers. The country apparently no longer believes people who work hard deserve wages that pay them enough to afford the rent or a modest mortgage, or deserve a pension to keep them from penury in retirement. We’ve stopped expecting those things from employers – or at least they’ve stopped providing them. We’ve even stopped valuing public schools, stopped expecting them to have mowed lawns and drinking fountains that work.
What we value, instead, is cheapness. Rock-bottom prices. Low taxes. So we get tomatoes that taste like crunchy sponges, but at least we don’t pay a lot for them. Instead of percale bedsheets made in the USA we buy sheets made in countries most people couldn’t find on a map, with seams that dissolve within weeks. We buy food with no taste, clothes that unravel and appliances we have to junk after five years. Our public schools have knee-high crabgrass. People get hacked off if our public parks look better than pesticide factories. But at least they don’t cost us too much.
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