Month: November 2011

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What Universities Can Do to Encourage More Cycling

Guest post by Cyndi Laurenti:


A
university isn’t simply an institution of higher learning, but one that should
aim to produce well-rounded citizens. For many schools this includes a greater
emphasis on student wellness and social responsibility, which can be addressed
by encouraging the use of bicycles among undergrads and PhD
candidates alike. Universities that
successfully promote cycling will find their campuses becoming more attractive
to the student body even as the pollution produced by cars is
reduced.

Promoting the use of bicycles requires universities to make
bicycling a safe, convenient, and desirable mode of transport to students. A
university that fails in any of these three areas will find their students
reluctant to embrace bicycling. Conversely, universities with effective plans to
encourage bicycle usage will find their students very receptive to a bicycling
lifestyle.

Schools must ensure bicyclists can safely ride around campus
without endangering themselves or others. The first and most important goal is
to make sure bicycles can share the roads with cars and pedestrians. This is
normally accomplished by having bicycle-only lanes and paths. In areas where
that’s impossible, bicycle lanes should be clearly marked and all students made
fully aware of the rules of the road as they pertain to cyclists. Maps can be used to help
students find bicycle-friendly routes.

In addition, safe bicycling
requires the creation and enforcement of driving regulations, and immediate
action against those who don’t abide by them. An unsafe bicyclist, pedestrian,
or driver can contribute to long-term reluctance among many students to bicycle.
However, if they can see the administration takes safety violations seriously,
students will become more confident about riding on campus.

Making
bicycling convenient generally requires the placement of bicycle racks close to
classes, dormitories, and dining halls. In addition, schools can provide
heavy-duty locks to prevent theft or insure that all bike racks are observed by
campus police, either in person or via CCTV cameras. Tufts University provides
a bicycle registry service to make theft less likely.

Some universities make
bikes available to students on a rental or even free basis. Edinboro
University’s “Green Bike” program allows students to make use of bikes while on campus for
free. This allows students with limited
finances to switch to bicycling while on campus, and encourages them to consider
purchasing a bike for off-campus use.

Finally, schools should attempt to
make bicycle use an attractive lifestyle. Stressing cycling’s contribution to
the environment, students’ social lives, and physical well-being can encourage
students to make use of bicycles. These efforts can help make student biking a
self-sustaining culture, as new students chose to adopt the practices of their
bicycling classmates.

Events like Indiana University’s “Little 500” can call attention to the benefits of bicycling. Schools can
also stress the financial benefits of bike ownership, especially given the
generally high cost of parking permits for cars. In these ways, students come to
see bike use and ownership as a natural and beneficial choice.

By
encouraging bicycle use, universities can reduce campus congestion and pollution
while encouraging healthy lifestyles among the student body. Doing so requires
schools to focus on improvements in both the physical structure of their
campuses and the adoption of policies to encourage bike riding. Both schools and
students will find themselves reaping handsome rewards from adopting such
bicycling-friendly policies.

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Good news (I hope.) Maryland Bikeways Program coming next year.

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The Maryland Bikeways Program is a Cycle Maryland initiative to support planning, design and construction of projects that create and improve bicycle connections in Maryland. The objective of this program is to facilitate travel by bicycle in Maryland, by better connecting communities with key destinations, like work, school and shopping.

The Maryland Bikeways Program supports the Governor’s Cycle Maryland initiative to promote biking as a fun, healthy transportation alternative that is great for our environment.  The Bikeways Program provides technical assistance and grant support for a wide range of bicycle network development activities.

https://www.mdot.maryland.gov/Planning/Bike/Bikeways.html

The good news:
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Wait, what? Not just trails? Well that is good news. (I hope, but there may be the possibility of on-road cycling facilities ONLY to connect trails like what we have had in the past.)


Application materials for the Maryland Bikeways Program will be posted in
March 2012. Completed applications will be due May 2012

OK that’s a bit of a wait but at least the wheels are turning.


How much money is available?
$10 million is available over the next three years.

Wow! O’Malley outside his first year has never spent $10 million in a year for all of Transportation Enchantments (TE) Programs (even though we get $12 million a year from the feds.) To put this number in perspective, here is Maryland’s TE spending history (Red is bike/ped projects):
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Quotes from: https://www.mdot.maryland.gov/Planning/Bike/Bikeways_About.html

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Making your bike glow down the road…

By K’Tesh via Bike Forums

I’m known locally for my bike’s reflective properties… I take a bike that looks like this:


2011 Trek Montare (near stock condition)

and make it look like this:


2011 Trek Montare (Using Avery blue, white, and black reflective films)

If anybody’s looking to do it themselves, here’s a quick little primer on how to do it…

First locate your reflective material. For the large areas, I’ve been using Avery and 3M Scotchlight self-adhesive reflective films for years now, but my supplier is shifting to another product from Oracal. It’s as good as the Avery product they say, and it’s cheaper (15″ wide $14USD/yd, 24″ wide $24USD/yd(ish)). It comes in a number of colors, and has a 1yd/color minimum purchase (3 colors = 3 yards = lots of coverage).

Continue reading “Making your bike glow down the road…”

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Charles County bike plans

Trails, trails and more trails but not a peep about bike lanes.
See our poll (https://www.baltimorespokes.org/polls/index.php?pid=2010010614524956&aid=-1 ) Only 12% want trails only.
This point is interesting:
"One mile of trail costs about $195,360 per mile at a cost of $37 per foot. One mile of road costs $1.58 milion or $300 per foot."
Should I point out that a bike lane runs about $75,000 per mile or $14 per foot and that’s at the high end? (per Safe Routes to School estimates.)
Seriously, bike lanes should be excluded from consideration? I guess so since MDOT will not allow federal funds for bike lanes to be spent on bike lanes in MD. 🙁
Think about it, 50% match of $37 per foot (trail) is $18 per foot or the locality can foot the whole bill for a bike lane at $14 per foot. So for $4 more per foot the locality gets $18 more in "value." in making the public happy. This is the problem with only funding one type of bicycle accommodation, rather then looking at best kind of accommodations where needed (near the same cost per mile no matter what solution is chosen) they are looking where they can fit in trails since that is encouraged and bike lanes are not.
You can read the article here: https://www.gazette.net/article/20111109/NEWS/711099637&template=gazette

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SHA math: 2 + 2 = 24

In Seat Pleasant, MD SHA is removing not one but two travel lanes (assuming 12′ wide each) and giving us 2′ wide bicycle lanes. Isn’t that nice?
Seriously, 2′ ??? Gee, I like getting whacked in the back of the head by a truck mirror as much as the next guy but…
What the heck happened to the recommended 5′ for bike lanes? What happened to "best engineering practices" (as required by law)? (See: https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20111025010622931 )
One major point on how we got rid of mandatory shoulder use is because of substandard widths and now they want to give us mandatory use bike lanes that are substandard in width???
Read the story here: https://www.gazette.net/article/20111110/NEWS/711109868&template=gazette

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Bicycle Travel Economic Impact Survey 2011

Greetings!
Adventure Cycling Association would like to invite you to participate in a special survey created by a team from the University of Montana. The survey is designed to help Adventure Cycling Association understand the spending patterns of touring cyclists and the economic impact bike tourism has on communities. If you have taken an overnight or multi-day bike trip in the past few years, please consider participating in this short survey.
The survey will take about 10-15 minutes to complete and is voluntary. Your responses will remain confidential and anonymous.
Please keep one, specific trip in mind when filling out the survey. We recommend using either your longest or most recent trip from the past three years.
Thank you for participating in our survey. Your feedback is important.
https://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22DMBS8FFH8

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"The door to 2 degrees will be closed forever" – by current transportation plans

by Mason Inman of The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University
The infrastructure built over the next five years could “lock in” enough emissions to push the world past its target for limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest annual update of energy trends, World Energy Outlook.
The Agency is “increasingly pessimistic” about the prospect for dealing with climate change, said deputy executive director Richard Jones.
…
https://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/11/10/only-five-years-left-to-make-transition-to-low-carbon-infrastructure/