[There’s some pics around Baltimore in the article]
Via Comeback City
There are some good crosswalks out there, but there are heck of a lot more that are pretty mediocre. Many have the striped paint worn away and are in dismal shape. Others are in okay condition, but just not prominent enough to forcefully convey to oncoming drivers that road space is for pedestrians too! The sad state of crosswalks extends to the heart of cities, even areas that garner walkscore.com ‘s prestigious “walkers paradise” rating. Next time you are on a walk, notice the street crossings. Are they prominent? Are they in good condition? Do they slow car traffic?
In health circles, advocates preach that walking is good for your health. That is not true if you get mowed over by a car, truck, or SUV. Walking can be deadly. In 2009, 4092 pedestrians were killed and 59,000 injured in the US according to walkinginfo.org According to the New York Daily News, “about 19% of the 770 pedestrian fatalities from 2005 to 2009 (in New York)- roughly 150 deaths-were people crossing at an intersection with the walk signal in their favor.” Over the five year period, 335 deaths occurred at intersections controlled by traffic signals. To me, this means crosswalks are not doing a good enough job, and there is room for innovation and upgrades.
In the 2010 Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State, prepared for the Governors Highway Safety Association, the study makes no meaningful analysis regarding the quality or type of crosswalks in pedestrian safety, nor does it dive into vehicle speeds or road design in areas where pedestrians frequent. It does offer impotent conclusions like “pedestrian fatalities are affected by the amount of walking” and “no single countermeasure can make a substantial impact.” Pedestrian infrastructure deserves an out of the cubicle analysis.
Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City, argues walkability is the single factor to attracting and retaining business and entrepreneurial talent. Surely, playing frogger from one side of the street to the other is not part of the recipe for Speck’s walkable prosperity. Kaid Benfield has a persuasive post about poor walking conditions across America where he points out, that in 1973, sixty percent of American kids walked to school and by 2006, kids walking to school had dropped to 13 percent. Should walking to school in America be an unusual thing? I don’t think so.
I write this post, because crosswalk (and street) design does not consume enough of the discussion about safety, walking for health, or economic revitalization. It should. Pedestrian planners are often not the ones with the big influence at DOTs or MPOs and their influence is not heard enough. A notable exception may now be Los Angeles. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is championing the investment of 53 “Continental Crosswalks” starting implementation near transit lines and schools. These crosswalks will have a vehicle stop line, have wider stripes, and be more prominent than LA’s other 5250 crossings. LA has recognized the challenge and is beginning to overhaul its pedestrian infrastructure.
If your town, suburb, or city needs better crosswalks, let people know. It may save someone’s life. I’ll conclude with a slideshow of good and not so good crosswalks.
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https://comebackcity.us/2013/02/08/americas-inadequate-crosswalks/
“Holy moly, there’s so many people who need this food."
As an urban farmer, Arthur Gray Morgan was shocked by how much food was tossed away at the end of a farmer’s market.
Morgan thought, “Holy moly, there’s so many people who need this food.”
So he founded Gather Baltimore.
Now Morgan and a group of volunteers are bringing healthy food access to neighborhoods throughout Baltimore. They harvest, pick up donations from local stores and collect unsold produce from the farmer’s market and deliver it to local communities – for free.
Gather also partners with local organizations who historically had to pay for the food that helped them meet their missions. Organizations like Moveable Feast, St Vincent De Paul’s Beans and Bread, the Franciscan Center, the Oliver community, and various churches who provide meals to the people who need it most.
The need for this service is immense, so Morgan recently purchased a refrigerated food truck to scale up the program and increase their delivery schedule.
He needs our help to pay off the loan and keep the truck on the road and making deliveries.
Recently, Gather delivered 4000 pounds of potatoes to Moveable Feast. Then, 4 tons of fresh vegetables days later. Imagine how many people benefited from this food. It wouldn’t have happened without the truck or Gather Baltimore.
How can you help?
Gather Baltimore delivers the food where it’s needed the most. They get this food for free but need a reliable way to deliver to local communities and organizations.
Your gift will enable them to continue making these critical deliveries, paying for the fuel, maintenance and insurance needed to keep the truck on the road.
Bicycling Means Business: How Cycling Enriches People and Cities
by Tanya Snyder, Streets Blog
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Business Is Booming, Thanks to Bikes
As Janette Sadik-Khan told the Women’s Bike Forum, businesses on Eighth and Ninth Avenues in New York saw a 50 percent increase in sales receipts after protected bike lanes were installed on the corridor. On San Francisco’s Valencia Street, two-thirds of the merchants said bike lanes had been good for business. If a business has a bike-share station out front, bike-share users are more likely to patronize it.
Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns told the story of a Memphis neighborhood where people, without authorization, spent $500 on paint and made their own bike lanes. Six months later, commercial rents on the strip had doubled, and all the storefronts – half of which had been vacant – were full.
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One Mile of Wider Asphalt = 600 Miles of Bike Lanes
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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/03/08/bicycling-means-business-how-cycling-enriches-people-and-cities/
Upcoming used bicycle collection at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
Tour dem Parks, Hon!
Sunday, June 9, 2013
8:00 AM
Carroll Park
1500 Washington Blvd., Baltimore, MD
Register today for the 11th Annual Tour dem Parks, Hon!
Discount, early bird registration (until April 1st) is $35 for adults, and $20 for kids 15 and under. Save $15 by registering early!
https://www.tourdemparks.org/Joomla/index.php
The annual bike ride that winds through Baltimore’s parks and neighborhoods for a close-up view of Carroll, Patterson, Herring Run, and Druid Hill Park, as well as some quietly tucked away gems. Proceeds support Baltimore’s parks, environment and cycling groups.
Discount, early bird registration (until April 1st) is $35 for adults, and $20 for kids 15 and under.
Tour dem Parks, Hon! is Sunday, June 9th, 2013. We are capping registration at 2,000 riders, so sign up early! This annual bike ride through Baltimore’s parks and neighborhoods offers a close-up view of regional parks like Carroll, Patterson, Clifton and Druid Hill, as well as some quietly tucked away gems. Participants choose from 4 routes: 14 miles (the family ride on the Gwynn’s Falls Trail), 25 miles, 35 miles, or a metric century (64 miles). All rides start and end in Carroll Park
Discount, early bird registration (until April 1st) is $35 for adults, and $20 for kids 15 and under. Save $15 by registering early! Proceeds support Baltimore’s parks, as well as environmental, “friends of parks”, and cycling groups. Tour dem Parks, Hon! is fully supported with rest stops and ends with a jazz barbeque. Visit the website to register or for more information.
Race Pace Busts Bike Thief!
By Race Pace, via Facebook
A series of events unfolded at one of our stores yesterday…it went a little something like this:
-Mr. Thief brings a bike to a local shop, who notes shifty eyes and a fishy story, and that shop refers the customer to our store.
-Our staff greets the guy and begins the stall process.
-Another of our mechanics contacts the manufacturer, who tells us the shop that originally purchased it.
-We call that shop and get contact info for the person who bought it last month
-We call that customer, who didn’t know his bike had been stolen, and they call the police to file a report.
-We call the police, and they drop by to pick up Mr. Thief and his pocket full of drugs.
Blam! The streets are safer – go bike them!
The Law of Unintended Consequences in Government Regulations: Example Transportation
By Klaus Philipsen, Community Architect
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ISTEA was the landmark legislation that tried to put transportation planning and funding on a much sounder footing:
- It recognized that transportation policy should be more about moving people and less about moving cars. To this end it stressed that it was supposed to be “mode blind” and “intermodal”.
- It recognized that there can be efficient and inefficient ways to move people and so it stressed efficiency.
- It recognized that traffic doesn’t know jurisdictional boundaries and needs to be approached regionally. So the law required Metropolitan Planning organizations (MPOs).
- The law tried to eradicate unwarranted “wish list” projects by requiring “Major Investment Studies”.
- The law understood that car focused transportation has environmental impacts and mandated linkage to the Clean Air Act. It required transportation projects to show that they did not worsen air quality in “non-attainment areas” or they couldn’t be funded.
- One of the most enlightened elements of the law was the objective to address not only the supply of transportation infrastructure but also the demand by requiring “demand management” strategies
- One of the most effective demand reduction strategies is a change in land use patterns and ISTEA clearly highlighted the link between land use and transportation.
- Finally, the Act recognized that outcomes need to be measures and included specific metrics to do that, for example VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled).
In short, the law was a dream for fiscal conservatives and for enlightened planners alike: To the former for its aspirations towards efficiency, to the latter for the goal of solving transportation, air quality and land use problems rather than just building stuff. But, with so many good intentions, one can easily guess that not all went by the plan. Reality took a different route.(For Robert Fuentes’ of Brookings assessment of ISTEA read here).
I remember ISTEA well. I had just been appointed to a Maryland State Planning Commission Committee (resulting from the 1992 Maryland Growth and Resource Protection Act, an early smart growth legislation). At the same time, highly motivated by the new law I started consulting with the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) which was the newly anointed regional MPO. I co-authored a manual for public involvement under ISTEA. Most interesting, though, was a pilot project in which the six member jurisdictions of the MPO dealt with the land use-transportation nexus: They modeled the impacts land use changes would have on transportation performance.
I soon learned first hand that provincial interest in project funding would easily trump any effort of finding a rational planning approach. Carroll County, for example, found it much more important to get its own freeway (“we are the only county in the MPO that doesn’t have one”) than protecting its open spaces from development. The other counties with rural areas, Anne Arundel County, Harford County and even Howard County were not very enthusiastic about shifting growth towards existing infrastructure either. When the modeling study clearly showed that 10% growth reallocation made traffic perform better than the billions of anticipated transportation projects, the pilot project became a hot potato. Chairman Stoney Frailey had to promise the participating counties that this study result would not become public. And so it happened, the study was terminated and remained unpublished.
With the intent of ISTEA in plain view “work-arounds” and “pseudo compliance” began to proliferate. What surprise, then, that in spite of ISTEA and all the following transportation bills since then, the reality of how transport projects come about remained the same to this day: In Maryland a “road tour” organized by the State Highway Administration (SHA) in which local politicians and administrators tell the agency which projects they want. And precisely those projects wind up in the Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP). Non attainment? No problem, the region will get waivers and extensions. Major investment study? Sure, it will show how well the dream project will perform. Intermodal? Efficient? Conforming with equity and social justice? Paper after paper will be written. A cottage industry of consultants and administrative employees knows precisely how to provide all the required reports. The projects remained the same, the justifications changed.In this manner Maryland built the Inter County Connector and doubled the lane capacity of I-95 north of Baltimore to name just the two most expensive road projects that a rigorous application of the ISTEA metrics should have prevented. Meanwhile construction for new transit projects such as the Red and Purple Lines remain unfunded.
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Maybe Congress should learn from the Disabilities Act when it considers again how it wants to make transportation investments more effective. Mobility and mode choices as civil rights? This isn’t as far fetched as it may sound considering that by far more than half of the US population doesn’t have access to cars because of age, disability, poverty or choice. Consider that the age pyramid will rapidly increase that portion of the population even further. Consider that fossil fuel is powering almost all of our mobility options. Given that climate change, increased demand and rising cost will make that source less and less desirable, wouldn’t it behoove us well to consider better land use that reduces demand for trips? Or a transit option for everyone? Walk and bike options for shorter trips in cities, towns and villages? Or proof that our scarce dollars really improve mobility and have the largest possible benefit?
These questions track the exact issues ISTEA tried to address. As frustrating as it is, we cannot give up on those goals. In spite of the “law of unintended consequences” the alternative, continued waste and inefficiency is not only too frightening, it is beyond our means.
https://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-in.html
Exercise, less sitting time, linked to better sleep
By By Patricia Reaney, MSN News
https://news.msn.com/science-technology/exercise-less-sitting-time-linked-to-better-sleep
Foods That Heal
To mend muscles and fix fractures more quickly, look no further than your local market.
By Kelly Bastone, Bicycling
WHEN AN INJURY SIDELINES A CYCLIST, the natural reaction is to cut back on calories until it’s time to ride—and burn energy—again. But the healing process demands fuel, too. "It’s like fixing a house," says sports dietitian Cynthia Sass, RD, CSSD. "A crack in the foundation requires raw materials to patch things back together, and in the body those raw materials come from what we eat."
Proteins, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants help heal wounds, relax stressed tendons and mend fractured bones more quickly. So in addition to your doc’s advice to elevate and ice, choose the right combinations of foods to speed recovery and get back on your bike. Here’s where to aim your cart at the Stop & Shop.
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https://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/foods-heal?cm_mmc=Facebook-_-Bicycling-_-Content-Slideshow-_-foods-heal
Bike Symposium News: More Politics than Policy
By Ron Cassie, Baltimore Magazine
The breaking news from the 16th Annual Maryland Bike Symposium was more political than legislative or policy focused.
Del. Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County), chair of the state’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Caucus and a longtime member of state’s Green Caucus, confirmed what he’s long been openly mulling — that he will be a candidate to become Maryland’s next attorney general in 2014.
Cardin, of course, holds uncle Sen. Ben Cardin’s old seat. Montgomery County state Sen. Brain E. Frosh has previously announced he will run for attorney general in 2014. Current Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is expected to be a leading contender for governor in 2014, along with Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman.
Coincidentally, Ulman, pictured above (right) with Race Pace Bicycles owner and Bike Maryland board president Alex Obriecht, delivered the keynote address at the symposium, hosted by Bike Maryland, and was received warmly by the bicycling community. Ulman, who initiated the Healthy Howard program to increase access to health care in the county, also created the Howard County Office of Environmental Sustainability and has supported efforts to expand safe bicycling in the county, including the development of the county’s first Bicycle Master Plan.
Legislatively, in terms of bicycling bills, there doesn’t seem to be much moving in Annapolis this session.
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https://www.baltimoremagazine.net/bikeshorts/2013/03/bike-symposium-news-more-politics-than-policy