Biking in Baltimore
Cronk, 45, gets more serious when talking about the need for bicyclists and motorists to be better educated about one another, and serious about the car that pulled in front of her. Police have not found the driver. Cronk assumes the case will not be solved.
https://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home2/52721963-183/cronk-car-driver-lake.html.csp
from How We Drive, the Blog of Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt
My latest Slate column explores the concept of “rolling speed harmonization” on a Colorado highway.
As one report describes it, speed harmonization “holds that by encouraging speed compliance and reducing speed differential between vehicles, volume throughput can be maximized without a physical increase in roadway dimensions.”
The concept plays, in part, on one of traffic engineering’s core truths: Big speed differentials are dangerous. This is laid out in the “Green Book,” the bible of the American Association of Surface Highway Transportation Officials. “Crashes are not related as much to speed as to the range in speeds from the highest to lowest,” the book states. “Studies show that, regardless of the average speed on the highway, the more a vehicle deviates from the average speed, the greater its chances of becoming involved in a crash.”
"As with so many great American leaders across the fields of industry and business who were the children and grandchildren of immigrants in the 19th century, Kimmell took his cue on how to get ahead in America from his forebears. Kimmell’s father, for instance, was an imaginative capitalist. “As a young man, around the turn of the 20th century,” Kimmell’s son-in-law and current Kimray chairman Tom Hill recalls, “Garman, Sr., would pedal a bicycle from town to town in rural Maryland. He carried a projector and a sheet on the back of it. After setting up, he’d charge a few pennies for people to come see a movie.”"
Continue reading “So Much to Give: The Legacy of Garman Kimmell”
[B’ Spokes: I’m including this article because of the author.]
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The Sun has invited participants at the Occupy Baltimore protest in the Inner Harbor to contribute articles about their experience, views and goals. This entry is written by Meredith Mitchell, a co-owner of Baltimore Bicycle Works, a cooperatively run bike shop in Baltimore. …
from There, I Fixed It – Redneck Repairs
https://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThereIFixedIt/~3/LNt4x4wkQf4/
The survey is part of the Cycle MD campaign.
Please feel free to distribute the link throughout your networks.
By James Corless
Campaign Director, Transportation for America
To pit the lives of people on foot or bicycle against the lives of people driving across our bridges – and they are often the same people — sets up a false choice. Transportation for America shares the concern of many members of Congress who believe we must be investing in the repair and maintenance of our roadways and bridges, but not at the expense of the safety of other users of the road.
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Continue reading “A false choice”
From Life hacker
Your daily commute costs a lot more than what you pay each trip to the gas station. Personal finance blogger Mr. Money Mustache details the true cost of commuting, walking through how to calculate the time and financial burden of a "not too bad" commute, breaking down some of the most common misconceptions about what you sign on for with your daily drive to the office.
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They brushed off the potential commute, saying "Oh, 40 minutes, that’s not too bad."
Yes, actually it IS too bad!
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there’s $19 per day of direct driving and car ownership costs.
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After 10 years, multiplied across two cars since they have different work schedules, this decision would cost them about $125,000 in wealth
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Continue reading “The True Cost of Commuting”
It amazes me how naive "professional" transportation folks are on the issue of who pays for the roads and how to "fix" the system.
By Greg Cohen President and CEO, American Highway Users Alliance:
"The second argument is that funding bicycle paths from the Highway Trust Fund is a diversion of highway user fees, since the fund is made up of tax receipts from motor vehicle users."
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"A relatively small user fee on these sales and on new tires could provide the dedicated funding that would keep bicycle infrastructure investments stable and growing, and eliminate the most persuasive objections from bicycling opponents."
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We already have a tax on our bicycles and tires the difference is our tax goes into a general fund while motor vehicle tax goes into a special fund just for "them" and NOT for emergency response services and police services that motorist use, that bit is paid for by what cyclists contribute to.
We would be all for a system just like motor vehicles, take our tax from the general fund and put it into a special fund.
You can see the problem, they want to double tax us and yet no tax "keeping up with inflation" increases for motor vehicles let alone start double taxing motor vehicles with a "use tax" plus a sales tax.
Continue reading “Bicyclists Should Support a Dedicated Trust Fund”