Month: October 2011

Posted on

Triadelphia Mill: Do NOT Ride! Shredded & Not Adequately Signed

via: https://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/FriendsofBAHC/

See Stuart Lamb’s report and warning below. The County did warn us about repaving work on Green Bridge and Triadelphia Mill but the word did not have get out to everyone who rides these roads. PLEASE let any rider you see in area while riding know to avoid this area and send this to all listserves and all riders you know.

Vigo (CTA)/Bob Reid (MMTC): It is especially important to push this out to triathletes since road work is on the roads they normally train on.

Mark DeLuca/Bill Malone: Please have road crews investigate any issues with warning signs.

Captain McKissick: I would appreciate any information you can provide on condition of cyclist and any contact info.

I will put out word when road work has been completed and roads are again safe to ride.

Jack

Jack Guarneri
Bicycle Advocates of Howard County
________________________________________
From: Stuart Lamb

Cyclist injured today, shook my Garmin to death, water bottle ejected! The road from the Triadelphia curve where is becomes Triadelphia Mill (below Roxbury) to the end at Green Bridge road has been severely milled, very dangerous, 90% swept (luckily) but is really NOT ride-able on a road bike.

I was nearing the end of a metric century, climbed Roxbury, sharp right on Triadelphia, flew down to the curve and saw the 6” drop where the road essentially ends and becomes a horrible mix of carved up asphalt, old potholes, gravel. Vibrated me nearly off the road and very dangerous with cars trying to overtake constantly but having to weave to avoid holes.
Apparently, part way up Green Bridge has been repaved and I did the right/left jog to remain on Triadelphia Mill which is in terrible condition but has not yet been milled (if it is going to be?). I climbed out and finished my ride.

I came upon two HoCo police cars near the bottom of the hill just before Green Bridge. I was telling them how the signage (if there was any) was not visible to me coming from Dorsey and therefore I made it to the bottom before I knew it was torn up. I also reported to them a vehicle description and license number so they could send a letter to a honking, hassling driver from the morning departure. Then I noticed the bicycle.

They informed me that a young woman from Catonsville, out training for a big Tri (he said; in CA? San Fran?, “she won’t be making that trip…”) had not descended the hill as carefully as I had approaching them and wiped out. They said she was “flown” to shock trauma so I am assuming they mean by helicopter. Her bike looks familer, a dark blue painted SEVEN with a very tall headtube, Garmin 205/305 on stem, was lying next to the road & cars. I made sure they knew to take it and protect it (valuable).

There was one generator driven reader sign but it had been towed and parked at the park halfway through the torn up section (useless). It says the road work is to begin on/or about 10/25 which was the announcement we got from BAHC.

Oh well, started early.

Stuart

Posted on

Philadelphia Streets

by Gary Toth

…
Both engineers and citizens participated in the evaluation, and the experiment was judged a resounding success at all levels. Crashes for all modes went down. Most notable was a 34 percent decline in crashes that resulted in injuries requiring a trip to the hospital. Surprisingly, crash rates even went down for motor vehicles, which is attributable to elimination of speeding by the 15 percent of the motorists who used the extra lane to dangerously weave in and out at well above the speed limit.

Cycling rates on the street increased, riding on the sidewalks decreased, pedestrians felt safer — and all of this was accomplished without reducing travel times and traffic volumes.

…

BEFORE:

Spruce Street before. Photo: City of Philadelphia

AFTER:

Spruce Street after. Photo: City of Philadelphia

Continue reading “Philadelphia Streets”

Posted on

The problem isn’t the gas tax, it’s sprawl

From the Baltimore Sun

No doubt many will write decrying a proposal to increase Maryland’s gas tax. They will assert that taxes adequate to maintain our transportation system would impose an unacceptable burden on our citizens. However, they are complaining about a symptom, not the disease. They should be complaining about land use policies promoting sprawl and transportation decisions that starve public transportation, leaving our citizens with no alternative to continued addiction to gasoline.

Those meeting their transportation needs by walking, biking, using the bus or rail aren’t vulnerable to oil-price driven increases in the cost of gas or proposals to increase gas taxes.
Continue reading “The problem isn’t the gas tax, it’s sprawl”

Posted on

Station North wants you to visit and stay a while

[B’ Spokes: Something to bike to.]
**************************************
Arts district to offer more events to encourage after-work traffic

By Liz F. Kay, The Baltimore Sun

…
"Final Fridays" — a program of events to be held the last Friday of each month — will feature entertainment and will be funded with part of a $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"The goal is to get all the people who often pass through Station North on their way to have a reason to stop here after work on Friday," said Ben Stone, executive director of the district, which includes parts of the Charles North, Barclay and Greenmount West neighborhoods.

Most of the shows at the area’s theaters and music venues start between 9 and 11 p.m., Stone said, explaining that Final Fridays’ goal was to keep people in the area until those shows began.

"There’s a gap, and this is an attempt to fill that gap," said Stone, who added that the Final Fridays events would continue for a year.

Also, the first 150 people who arrive at Final Fridays will receive a "Sta-Note" — a $2 gift certificate that more than 10 area businesses have agreed to accept during Final Fridays.

Early birds will be able to redeem them for $2 off a book at Cyclops or $2 off coffee or food at the Station North Arts Cafe. They could also lower the cost of cover charges at Single Carrot Theater or the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.
…
The event will kick off on Oct. 28 with a free performance by the band David Wax Museum, as well as acts by local musicians.
…

Continue reading “Station North wants you to visit and stay a while”

Posted on

Report: 40,000 People Died On Ferris Wheels This Summer

So reads the headline from the Onion, can you imagine the outcry against Ferris Wheels if that was true? But the number of deaths is reminiscent of the number of annual highway deaths which somehow people find acceptable. A lot of people are dying yet enforcement of traffic laws are a low priority or worse have strong public opposition as if their battle cry was "We have a right to put others peoples life at risk just for a little fun of playing bumper cars."
Onion: "…and 17 fell victim to the Ferris Wheel Slasher, who is evidently still at large."
I wounder if this alludes to drunk drivers who get off easy even after multiple convictions, if so the number would be closer to 8000.
Onion: "Approximately 18,000 riders slipped out of their safety restraints and fell, suffering repeated traumas as they hit each spoke of the moving wheel on their way to the ground,"
This description stands in sharp contrast to our white-washing the description of crash types. Can you imagine if we changed "Distracted driving" to "Texted "LOL" while sending a human body flying like a rag doll across the road to be flattened by a two ton personal conveyance favored by the obese and lazy."
Continue reading “Report: 40,000 People Died On Ferris Wheels This Summer”

Posted on

Transportation Enhancements Beats Back Another Assault

I found it interesting that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) "amendment would have kept TE funds from being used for landscaping, historic preservation, museums and welcome centers and other currently eligible uses he characterized as “low-priority.”
"If the overall funding level stayed the same and the number of uses competing for that funding was reduced, McCain’s amendment could potentially mean more money for bike/ped projects"
But it has been tabled and is essentially dead.
Personally I see that as good news on what direction things are going but a lot of people like the other uses so if you want to know more about that see: https://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/10/19/transportation-enhancements-beats-back-another-assault/

Posted on

Bicyclists, government, CA working on making [Howard ] county more bike-friendly

[B’ Spokes: A lot of good momentum is happening in Howard County. What I am quoting can be said about the entire state ]
*******************************************************************************************************************
"We don’t have any kind of local network we can knit together," he said. "We need to be able to establish routes … that get us from the west to the east, from the north to the south, in more of a grid pattern for cyclists."

Read the full article: https://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/howard/news/community/ph-ho-cf-bikes-1020-20111018,0,475787.story