Loch Raven Update
We have been working diligently with the City to produce a more contemporary and up to date ‘Recreational Trail Use Plan’ which would allow greater access for mountain bike users while providing a more sustainable trail network. Our plan was delivered to DPW on September 20, 2010, however, we have not received any feedback NOR any response to our follow-up inquiries.
Despite early promises to abstain from enforcement until an updated ‘Recreational Trail Use Plan’ could be agreed upon, we are receiving reports that the watershed rangers are now enforcing the 1998 Mountain Bike Plan with an increased presence at Loch Raven and written warnings to those users that are found in violation of the Watershed Regulations based on that 1998 plan, as well as the dissemination of false information.
We are in the process of organizing our response, so please stay posted here [actually there], as we will be releasing an official update by the end of next week. Thank you for your patience.
You can view the draft version of the plan that we submitted to DPW
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Americans need to walk more and peer-to-peer car sharing
[B’ Spokes:The bit that got my attention from Streetsblog Capitol Hill]
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Using pedometers to collect data on 1,136 Americans, researchers found that they averaged 5,117 steps a day. (A mile is roughly 2,000 steps.) Meanwhile Australians averaged 9,695 steps a day, the Swiss clocked in at 9,650, and the Japanese puttered about at 7,168 paces.
The report’s lead author, David R. Bassett of the University of Tennessee, blames America’s poor performance on its auto obsession and lack of public transportation: “People do have to exercise,” he said. “But our overall environment does not lend itself to promoting an active lifestyle.”
Bassett told Reuters, “Five thousand steps is really pretty inactive,” estimating that Americans would need to walk for another 30 to 40 minutes per day to catch up to other countries. Interestingly, findings were similar for suburban, urban and rural dwellers. Maybe some suburbs and rural areas are more walkable than others, and some cities less so.
Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Portland offers a tutorial on peer-to-peer car sharing, following California’s actions to remove legal hurdles to the activity.
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You’re free to mow down pedestrians in Prince William
from Greater Greater Washington by David Alpert
In Prince William County, apparently it’s completely legal to kill any pedestrian, anytime, if they are in the road but not in a crosswalk. All you have to do is not drive away afterward and be sober.
Image from Google Street View near the spot of the crash.
This morning, a pickup truck driver and possibly also the driver of another box truck hit and killed a man crossing Virginia Route 234 near US-1 in Dumfries.
We don’t know all the details. Did the man suddenly run out in front of the truck, or was he crossing at a place where there is poor visibility? It’s early in the morning, so maybe the sun was in his eyes. Maybe the pickup truck driver couldn’t have avoided the crash.
Or, perhaps it’s a clear stretch, and the driver was just speeding up to try to make the light, or on his phone, or trying to eat a breakfast sandwich at the same time.
But at least from the article, it doesn’t appear that Prince William County police care. Spokesperson Jonathan Perok simply told Potomac Local, “Since the victim crossed where there is no cross walk, the fault of the death lies with the pedestrian.”
Whenever we write about pedestrian safety, some commenters accuse us of being absolutist, of believe it’s always the driver’s fault. It’s not. Sometimes it’s the driver’s fault, sometimes the pedestrian’s.
But local police are the ones who are usually absolutist. Lt. Craig Royal, head of the MPD crash unit, told the DC Pedestrian Advisory Council that in pedestrian crashes, in his experience the pedestrian has always done something wrong. Even if that’s usually correct, that attitude means that police aren’t really going to try to decide. They’ll just assume it’s the pedestrian’s fault.
After all, the pedestrian is dead. The driver isn’t. Identifying fault requires an investigation which is a lot of work. And if they do blame even one driver one time, they’ll probably catch a bunch of political flak from all the drivers who don’t want to be afraid they might face charges if they hit someone.
There’s political support for arresting drunk drivers and hit-and-run drivers, so the police do that. Or at least they do sometimes; at other times, it’s still too much work. Drivers who simply aren’t paying attention face no risk at all.
Pedestrians have a responsibility to act safely. But drivers also have a responsibility to be taking reasonable care not to kill people. The police at least owe it to everyone to conduct an investigation and avoid coming to a hasty conclusion simply because the pedestrian isn’t in the very limited spaces that have been allocated to them. In many suburban areas, there are simply not enough crosswalks in places people need to cross.
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2nd child in stroller hit by vehicle in MoCo
By Washington Post editors
For the second time in three days, a child in a stroller was struck by a vehicle in Montgomery County, Crime Scene reports.
About 3:30 p.m. Monday, a woman was pushing a stroller carrying a child of about 3 years old near the corner of Sligo Creek Parkway and University Boulevard West. The stroller was hit, but the child wasn’t ejected.
The woman and child were taken to local medical facilities. Capt. Oscar Garcia, a spokesman for the county’s Fire and Rescue Service, said their injuries appear to be "serious but not life threatening."
On Friday, a 16-month old girl was hit by a SUV while she was inside a stroller in Aspen Hill.
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Bike/ped issues, change from 2007 to 2008
Injured Persons
| 2077 | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|
| Pedestrians | 70,286 | 68,832 |
| Bicyclists | 17,685 | 18,011 |
Distribution of Transportation Fatalities
| 2077 | 2008 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Percent | Number | Percent | |
| Pedestrians | 4,699 | 10.8 | 4,378 | 11.1 |
| Bicyclists | 701 | 1.6 | 716 | 1.8 |
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While 33 men were rescued from a Chilean mine, 6500 people died on American streets
From Biking in LA
Like everyone else, I kept an eye on the TV since the rescue of the Chilean miners began late Tuesday night.
My spirits soared when Florencio Avalos reached the surface, the first of 33 miners to be saved. And I’ve said a prayer of thanks for every one who has been brought out safe and alive, and rejoiced when the rescue capsule was raised for the last time and the final rescuer stepped out.
But let’s put this in perspective.
In the 10 weeks since the 33 miners were trapped on August 5, the world watched in rapt attention as an international team of rescuers literally moved the earth to bring them out.
But during the same 10 weeks, over 6,500 people died on American streets, based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In the same period, roughly 850 pedestrians and 140 bicyclists were killed in motor vehicle collisions.
By my count, 12 cyclists were killed by motor vehicles here in Southern California alone since August 5 alone; another died as the result of a collision with a pedestrian.
And no one even noticed.
No massive press response. No live coverage.
No 24/7 media watch tracking the safety of every motorist, cyclist, pedestrian and transit user throughout their journey, and breathlessly reporting when each arrived safely at their destination. Or breaking the tragic news to the world when one of the 33,963 people who were killed on our streets last year didn’t make it back again.
Those same statistics tell us that of the millions of people who will leave their homes today, 93 won’t return.
It could be you. Or me. It could be someone you love, or someone you barely know. Someone who once crossed your path, or someone you’ll never meet.
It’s just collateral damage. The price we’ve come to accept for the privilege of getting from here to there. 93 people every day. 651 every week. 2830 every month.
Roughly one person killed on American roads every 15 minutes.
And it touches virtually every life in this country.
So when does it become unacceptable? When do we reach the point when we decide as a society that the price is too high, that the last death was one too many?
And we’re willing to put the same effort into saving the 33,000 that we put into saving the 33.
I’m already there.
I thank God the miners are safe.
And I’ll be just as glad when the rest of us are.
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Hey, I want a tax free subsidy too.
from Streetsblog Capitol Hill
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Cato’s free parking severely distorts transportation prices. The market price of commuter parking in the commercial garage closest to Cato is $255 a month, so Cato’s free parking subsidizes the cost of driving to work by $255 a month. Because employer-paid parking is a tax-exempt fringe benefit, Cato pays the free parkers a tax-exempt subsidy of $3,060 a year ($255 x 12).
…Cato’s free parking reduces the out-of-pocket cost of driving to work by two-thirds….
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Car independence in DC
A bit from from Greater Greater Washington
50.4% of DC residents commute without an automobile. Boston beats us by a hair (50.8%) and New York beats us by a bit more (65.8%). Only 22.9% of commuters in Portland, a city often lauded as a model of good planning, commute without an automobile. Even Baltimore does better at 25.2%. (Transport Politic)
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Still more evidence of the network effect in bicycle safety
from Streetsblog.net
I have heard some criticism of Jacobsen’s 2003 study that showed that, for cyclists, there was safety in numbers, but it’s good to see a couple of other studies that seem to validate it.
As ridership goes up, crash rates stay flat. It’s happening in Portland (see page 11 of this report [PDF]). It’s happening in New York City.
The phenomenon, dubbed “safety in numbers,” was first identified in 2003, in an academic paper by public health researcher Peter Jacobsen [PDF]. After being asked by officials in Pasadena, Calif., if their city “was a dangerous place to bicycle,” Jacobsen began looking at crash data from various communities where bicycle ridership had fluctuated over time.
What he found surprised him: The number of crashes involving bikes correlated with the number of riders in a community. As ridership fluctuated, so did the crash rate. More riders, fewer crashes; fewer riders, more crashes.
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