Month: August 2013

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100 reasons why Baltimore is better than D.C. [Pictures]

B’ Spokes: Not much about bikes but still a laugh or two might be had.

"72. Salmon is something we eat, not a pants color flooding our streets."
"22. Jenna Bush moved here. So we stole her bike."
"11. Also, our subway is almost never crowded."
"6. We use common courtesy. Like striking up conversations with people. Or, you know, smiling."
"3. The British came to D.C. and burned it down during the War of 1812. The British came here and we stopped them from taking over the country. You’re welcome, America."
"1. This list was not hard to make."

https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bthesite/bal-100-reasons-why-baltimore-is-better-than-dc-pictures-20130809,0,7498621.photogallery

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Your Eyes Are on the Road and Hands Are on the Wheel — but Where’s Your Head?

Do you think that using a hands-free device is the safe alternative to driving while holding your phone or fidgeting with your car’s controls?
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Today, however, the AAA Foundation is challenging these perceptions with brand-new research on mental distractions, and the suppressed brain activity and impaired driving performance of motorists who are engaged in cognitively-demanding tasks – even when they keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.
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[From the linked study:]
Summary and Conclusions
The goal of the current research was to establish a systematic instrument for
measuring and understanding cognitive distraction in the vehicle, and this has been
accomplished. Using that instrument, we established that there are significant
impairments to driving that stem from the diversion of attention from the task of
operating a motor vehicle, and that the impairments to driving are directly related
to the cognitive workload of these in-vehicle activities. Moreover, compared to the
other activities studied (e.g., listening to the radio, conversing with passengers, etc.)
we found that interacting with the speech-to-text system was the most cognitively
distracting. This clearly suggests that the adoption of voice-based systems in the
vehicle may have unintended consequences that adversely affect traffic safety.
Ref: https://aaafoundation.blogspot.com/2013/06/your-eyes-are-on-road-and-hands-are-on.html

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MARC: Allow regular bicycles on trains, not just folding bikes [petition]

By Rino Sanchez
To be delivered to: The Maryland State House, The Maryland State Senate, Governor Martin O’Malley, The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama
Petition Background
MARC trains only allow folding bicycles, which are typically heavier and more expensive than regular bikes, and bikes are one of the best ways of making public transportation practical, by helping people make up for gaps and problems in that transportation system. Especially in this tough economy, allowing regular bicycles would enable more people to adapt to available public transportation, rather than waiting for transportation to adapt to them. In other words, this would allow Maryland to get the most bang for its transportation bucks.
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/marc-allow-regular-bicycles

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Transportation and Public Health

ABSTRACT
This article investigates various ways that transportation policy and planning decisions affect public health and better ways to incorporate public health objectives into transport planning. Conventional planning tends to consider some public health impacts, such as crash risk and pollution emissions measured per vehicle-kilometer, but generally ignores health problems resulting from less active transport (reduced walking and cycling activity) and the additional crashes and pollution caused by increased vehicle mileage. As a result, transport agencies tend to undervalue strategies that increase transport system diversity and reduce vehicle travel. This article identifies various win-win strategies that can help improve public health and other planning objectives.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031912-114502