Month: December 2011

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Mount Vernon vs. Jones Falls Bikeway

[B’ Spokes: This is a must read to get a feel for the overall goal we would like to accomplish for Baltimore. Here are just some highlights:]
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Desolate Jones Falls Bikeway blows opportunity to create a livable Mount Vernon neighborhood
BY GERALD NEILY

Trying to make the city safer for cyclists sounds like a laudable goal, but the city has once again shown that it is oblivious to its most important priority – neighborhoods.
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Bicyclists have been among the greatest victims. Bikes should be an ideal transportation mode for the historic high density neighborhood, except that the streets are overwhelmed by cars.

The solution is straightforward: Divert as much traffic as possible into the underutilized Jones Falls corridor just to the east, to free up the local residential streets for humans, bikes, and above all, peace and quiet. But the city has never seen fit to do any of that.

The city’s latest solution is to move the bikes out of the community, not the cars.
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The city should concentrate as much heavy traffic as possible into corridors like the Jones Falls – on the expressway as well as next to it. Then the city should focus on creating calm, normal, livable environments in its neighborhoods and "people places" like around the Inner Harbor. This is best for traffic, best for bikes and best for people. If this is not done, all will become increasingly dysfunctional.
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Continue reading “Mount Vernon vs. Jones Falls Bikeway”

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Slip and Fall Verdict Reversed: Sovereign Immunity Strikes Again

[B’ Spokes: It amazes me how many ways Maryland law blames the victim, like Government has no responsibility to maintain a safe path when exiting a train… well until it was appealed in this one case.]
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from Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals turned back another injured victim under the archaic "Really, do we still have that in 2011?" doctrine of sovereign immunity.
Plaintiff alleged she suffered an ankle injury when she slipped and fell on a wet platform after exiting a train at the Cheverly Metro station in Prince George County. The defendant, the beloved Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, made all the usual – and appropriate defenses. You knew the platform was wet, didn’t you? You even saw a yellow warning cone that the platform was wet, right? No one appeared to have mopped the floor to make it wet, did they?
Plaintiff’s lawyers got creative and did some research. They found out that WMATA used a cleaning agent "Super Shine-All" to clean its train platforms. The coefficient of friction on the floor, plaintiff argued, was such that no one should have been surprised that the woman would fall. In a trial before Judge Maureen M. Lamasney, a Prince George’s County jury agreed and awarded damages (I’m not sure how much).
Continue reading “Slip and Fall Verdict Reversed: Sovereign Immunity Strikes Again”

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Legalize Changing Lanes to Pass a Bike in No Passing Zones

By jtitus – WABA

An Opportunity to Help Motorists and Cyclists: A “Change-Lanes-and-Pass” Rule

My neighborhood has many polite drivers who wait behind me as I ride on two-lane MD-953, which has double yellow (no passing) lines the whole way. I am usually in the center of the 10-ft lane, pulling a trailer with my daughter.  Even when I don’t have the trailer, 95% of the drivers wait until the oncoming lane is clear, change lanes, and pass.  And when I am riding toward the right side of the lane for some reason, the vast majority still change lanes to pass.

Countless drivers have probably done you the same favor on another road. But they are technically breaking the law.

We think Maryland should legalize changing lanes to pass a bike riding in a no-passing zone. Not only are these drivers being safe, they actually enhance safety.

Why would cycling organizations initiate a reform that increases motorists’ rights? Aside from the fact that it probably will make us safer, cyclists probably understand this issue better than motorists. Cyclists have discussed many “rules of the road” that make sense for motor vehicles, but do not enhance safety when applied to bicycles. We would love to see those laws reformed. In some cases we may lack the political power to compel the changes we hope to see. But we probably do have the power to secure the right to change lanes and pass a bike when there is a double yellow line. So I think we should.

But Let’s Not Go Too Far: The “Partly-Cross-the-Line and Pass” Rule

By coincidence, some other Maryland advocates are considering a similar reform, but they would go even farther. Their idea is to allow drivers to cross the double yellow line to pass bikes, without the requirement to fully change lanes. This “partly-cross-the-line and pass” rule seems to be motivated by the observation that some cyclists ride far enough to the right so that a car barely has enough room to squeeze between the bike and the yellow line, and some drivers do. This rule would allow motorists to move only partly into the adjacent lane to pass the cyclist by the required three feet.

We prefer the requirement that the motorist fully change lanes. Motorists frequently report difficulty in gauging the three feet of space they are required to leave when passing, so why not apply the normal requirement that motorists change lanes? It is an existing behavior with clear rules and expectations. There is no need to encourage drivers to pass while occupying parts of two lanes.

Additionally, the requirement to change lanes before passing would discourage the idea of “squeezing” around others—whether the cyclist or a potential oncoming motorist. Finally, the State of Maryland will soon start erecting signs that say “Bicycles May Use Full Lane”. We think that “change lanes and pass” better reinforces the message of those signs, than partly crossing the line and sharing the lane.

Over the next few weeks, advocates in Maryland will be deciding which approach to take. While WABA took a major role last year in the promotion and passage of the Maryland vehicular homicide law, this year WABA intends to play a supporting role to Bike Maryland, which frequently leads statewide efforts to enhance cyclists’ rights through state legislation.

(Jim Titus is a member of WABA’s Board of Directors from Prince George’s County)

    Continue reading “Legalize Changing Lanes to Pass a Bike in No Passing Zones”

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    Just look at all those !@# not stopping at a red light. [video]

    Found via Stop The Maryland Unsafe Driver

    [B’ Spokes: Just look at all the motorist who fail to come to a complete stop BEFORE the stop line. This is the area used by pedestrians and cyclists and this motorists behavior creates a very life threatening situation at intersections. It is no surprise to me that pedestrians avoid crossing at intersections because given the fact that motorists are not stopping when they should it is safer to cross mid-block, yet the police will target just the pedestrians and do not see the motorists behavior as wrong or illegal when it is very wrong and very illegal.]

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    What is the single best thing we can do for our health?

    [B’ Spokes: For me this is strong evidence that our public streets should not be for cars only. From watching this video I have two ideas how government can encourage more exercise, make everyone get a dog or put in bike lanes. The reason for my assertion of the latter is that if there is no place to walk to, walking is hard, but even in places with a low walk score you can get to a lot of places by bike. You just need to get out there and move, and making it fun does not hurt.]

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    DOES SHOVELING SIDEWALKS COST TOO MUCH FOR CITIES?

    [B’ Spokes: It amazes me that in the winter schools were not shoveling their sidewalks, businesses were not only not shoveling their sidewalks put plowing the parking lot snow onto the sidewalks, a bit different then Canada ]
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    from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
    -> According to a Mar. 17th Macleans article, "Many Canadian cities* plow their sidewalks, as well as roads. Like drinkable water and street lights that work, clear sidewalks are a basic municipal service in these urban centres. And yet numerous other cities have abandoned their sidewalk plows and dumped the job on residents instead. Is this fair?…"
    "Cities that require citizens to do their own shoveling frequently cite the heavy cost of sidewalk clearing and limited budgets. But sidewalk plowing appears to be one of the great bargains of municipal governance. Winnipeg, for example, manages to keep its sidewalks free from snow and ice for $2 million a year, or less than $7 per household. Try finding a teenager willing to shovel your driveway just once for $7, let alone a whole season…"
    * Canadian cities that plow sidewalks: Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, the majority of Metro Toronto, Winnipeg, to name a few.
    Continue reading “DOES SHOVELING SIDEWALKS COST TOO MUCH FOR CITIES?”

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    Road Rage: A Symptom Of Much More Than Bad Traffic?

    by PATTI NEIGHMOND – NPR (highlight)
    "Oddly," says AutoVantage official Michael Bush says, "in Washington, D.C., you’re four times more likely to have somebody drive into you on purpose than anywhere else on the planet."
    https://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/12/143457950/road-rage-a-symptom-of-much-more-than-bad-traffic
    [B’ Spokes: Since Baltimore’s crash rate is near DC’s I wounder if you can say the same thing here?]