As a general rule, the propensity of non-bicyclists to give biking a try is inversely proportional to the average velocity of the bikers they see on the street. If you live in a city where women in wedge heels are steering their old steel bikes around their daily errand route, there’s really nothing intimidating or scary about the prospect of getting on a bike yourself. If it’s all hipsters on fixies, by contrast, that just makes biking feel all the more alien and stupid.”
— Reuters blogger Felix Salmon reflects on the Slow Bike movement
This battle is about so much more than a few city clerks on Bromptons — or whatever the stereotype of the London cyclist is this week — having to deal with more hostile traffic on the way to the office from Waterloo. Blackfriars represents a battle over the very basics of what sort of a place we want London (and Britain) to be. By driving these great roads and massive junctions through the centre of our cities we are not just sacrificing — sometimes literally — cyclists and mass cycling. We are destroying a chance to step towards a fairer, more pleasant and more liveable city. And with that we are falling behind the progress of the rest of the world and sacrificing London’s future as a competitive world city. And all to avoid inconveniencing the pampered powerful few, and to accommodate a bunch of wasteful business practices.”
Dr. Gridlock: Cyclist vs. motorist for right of way »
Cyclist vs. motorist for right of way
by Robert Thomson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2010; 5:46 PMHow should a cyclist on a city street respond to an impatient driver? During my online chat Monday, a cyclist described such a scenario. Later, a traveler wrote in to question my response. Here’s the chat comment that started this:
“I was cycling on the K Street service road on Sunday afternoon when I was approached from behind by a motorist who repeatedly honked her horn and threatened to run me off the road.
“Despite the fact that the main road was clear of traffic, this continued for five blocks. I then made a right turn and watched the motorist accelerate down the service road with no apparent intention of turning or parking. I’m not very familiar with the area - so why was it to the motorist’s advantage to drive across the city on the service road instead of K Street? Does the service road allow you to avoid a traffic signal or something similar? If the K Street service road is unacceptable for cycling, then what is an acceptable crosstown cycling route?”
I replied that the situation was just plain weird. We shouldn’t be looking for any road rules or for any better understanding of how drivers behave from this incident.
Dear Dr. Gridlock:
Surely the cyclist must share some of the blame for not yielding the right of way to the motorist who was legally using the service road. The cyclists actions were not only selfish, but even dangerous.
He or she could have taken the moral high ground and engaged in safer behavior by pulling aside, instead of being apparently annoyed and pigheaded by refusing to yield to the bigger and heavier automobile.
The cyclist might follow the example in this anecdote: In the nation’s capital before the Civil War, the sidewalks of Washington were mostly narrow wooden boards with deep mud on either side. One rainy afternoon a leading Northern abolitionist senator confronted a prominent Southern congressman on one of these narrow boards with room enough for only one man to proceed. The congressman shouted belligerently, “Move aside, sir, I do not make way for scoundrels!” The senator, stepping gently into the mud, replied with a bow and a wave of his hand, “Ah, but I do.”
Hugh O’Neill, The District
If I were cycling on K Street with someone out of control in a car behind me, I would have pulled over. But I was reluctant to offer that as official Dr. Gridlock advice for such situations.
I won’t tell my readers they must always get out of the way or pay the ticket or accept thefederal pat-down in the airport security line. Generally, that’s not how we make progress.
The bike rider on the K Street service road in the heart of downtown Washington had the same legal right to the lane that the driver did. I could no more advise the biker to pull over than I could tell a driver in the right lane of Interstate 95 to pull over to the shoulder if an aggressive driver were honking behind him.
When I said so to O’Neill, he had a good response: “Common sense, and the instinct for self preservation would dictate that the cyclist defer to the car no matter who is at fault. As my mother used to say when us kids were about to take dangerous self-righteous chances, ‘You’ll be right, dead right, but dead just the same.’â”
I turned for more advice to experts on city cycling and safety.
Jim Sebastian, the bicycle program manager for theDistrict Department of Transportation, agreed on the road rule: Cyclists as well as motorists have the right to be in the K Street service lane. In general, cyclists should ride as far right as practicable but can take the whole lane if it’s narrow or they are avoiding hazards, such as parked vehicles. Sebastian said he often bikes in that lane without problems.
Glen Harrison, who directs the bicycle education program at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, agreed that the cyclist had the right to use the lane and noted that this person could have used the main travel lanes on K Street. So could the car driver.
Referring to the original comment from the cyclist, Harrison extended the teachable moment: “The key words here are ‘… threatened to run me off the road.’ This puts the situation into negotiating with an aggressive driver (instead of a case of usage rules) and the best advice for any vehicle operator, pedestrian, etc. is to steer clear of these kinds of illegal vehicle operators.”
Dr. Gridlock also appears Thursday in Local Living. Comments and questions are welcome and may be used in a column, along with the writer’s name and home community. Write to Dr. Gridlock at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. By e-mail: drgridlock@washpost.com. His blog: washingtonpost.com/drgridlock. On Twitter: drgridlock.
Over the years I have become pretty comfortable and confident riding amongst the four-wheeled death boxes, but I don’t think most drivers are comfortable with bicycles in the road, judging by how wide a berth they give me. I want them to give me a safe margin, but not so much that they endanger their lives and the lives inside the other four-wheeled death boxes in the oncoming lane. I try to be gracious toward the clueless, but slip now and again, especially with drivers who block a crosswalk, or don’t bother to look BOTH ways at an intersection (invariably they are only looking in one direction, and it isn’t mine). I always assume someone will do the wrong thing, and I prepare accordingly. Most often I assumed correctly, but am pleasantly surprised when proved wrong.”
— John Burnham, bike commuter (via bikecommuters.com)
REDLANDS: Bike club plans memorial for fallen rider »
posted by PE News on November 11, 2010 1:01 PM
A memorial bike ride and ceremony is planned on Saturday to honor of Paul “Lynn” Pletcher, 70, who was killed Nov. 4 when he was hit by a vehicle while riding his bike in Beaumont.
The Redlands Water Bottle Transit Company will lead the ride, which will depart at 8 a.m. from Stell Coffee and Tea Company on Barton Road in Redlands and travel to the accident site on Champions Drive near Cherry Valley Boulevard.
The riders will conduct a short ceremony and leave a ghost bike chained at the scene. Ghost bikes are painted white and usually have a sign with the name of the person who was killed and the date of the accident.
Members of the Redlands Water Bottle Transit Company may establish an annual Lynn Pletcher Memorial Ride starting next year. Funds raised would go to a charity or the Yucaipa High School Scholarship Fund in his honor. Pletcher, who was retired, had worked for the Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District more than 20 years.
— JAN SEARS
jsears@PE.com
October 25, 2010:
Dia de los Muertos celebrations at the Domenici Education Building in Albuquerque, New Mexico: an ofrenda for cyclists was created by artist Jacobo de la Serna. Jennifer Buntz and Steve Mathias of the Duke City Wheelmen furnished the ghost bikes.
Each orange card has the name of a New Mexico bicyclist killed in crashes with motor vehicles. Some as young as 6 years old.
(photos and info via facebook pages of Jennifer Buntz and friends)
Imagine the future: livable streets.
About the Livable Streets Initiative
With the majority of the world’s 6.5 billion human beings now living in cities, building healthy, livable and affordable urban environments is critical to the mission of today’s global environmental movement.
The Livable Streets Initiative is an online community for people working to create sustainable cities through sensible urban planning, design, and transportation policy. We provide free, open source, web-based, resources to citizens working to create a greener economy, address climate change, reduce oil dependence, alleviate traffic congestion, and provide better access to good jobs in healthy communities.
We believe that people make a city great. Yet, so many of the world’s great cities dedicate too much of their precious, limited public space - their streets - to motor vehicles rather than people. We are working to redesign our communities around public transportation and walkable, bikeable streets. We are transforming parking lots into public plazas, busy intersections into town squares, and congested highways into bike paths. We are taking back our cities, one street at a time. We invite you to join us!
( image via nevver:
These “Can You See Us NOW?” t-shirts were donated by a family who lost their 34 year-old son to a hit and run driver in 1998 while he was cycling on NM Highway 313. All proceeds will go to future ghost bike placements in New Mexico. The shirts are availabe for $15.00 from Albuquerque area bike shops:
The Bike Coop - The Kickstand - Fat Tire Cycles
Albuquerque’s Duke City Wheelmen: Can You See Us NOW?
Sunday, September 19th
This bike ride is meant to honor cyclists who have been killed in NM in crashes with motor vehicles and raise awareness of cyclists on NM streets and highways. It is about remembering but also about celebrating cycling and what it means to us.
Help support the efforts of the Duke City Wheelmen Foundation to place ghost bikes and improve the motoring public’s awareness of bicycles on our streets and highways.
On-line registration deadline: September 18, midnight.
Custom musette bags from Hincapie Sports for the first 350 people.
Click HereIn person registration & packet pick-up:
2:00 to 3:30 pm September 19 at High Desert Yoga, 4600 Copper NE Albuquerque, NMFor more information contact
Jennifer bikefunsafe@gmail.comThis will be a slow ride so all can participate.
We will have a full police escort.
Helmets are required.
Clothing consistent with the “Can You See Us NOW?” theme is encouraged.Brought to you by the Duke City Wheelmen Foundation and BikeABQ.
New Mexico Sports On Line is acting as an agent for Can You See Us Now
Advocates Call on SFMTA to Take Immediate Steps to Fix Masonic Avenue »
A week after a 21-year-old German tourist on a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver on Masonic Avenue, the first death of a bicyclist in the city this year, advocates who have been working for years to calm the major arterial are calling on the SFMTA to make immediate safety improvements.
The SFMTA recently unveiled four long-term options to fix Masonic, but in light of Nils Linke’s death Friday night, and with the bike injunction finally lifted, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Michael Helquist ofBIKE NOPA and other advocates are urging the agency to take action sooner rather than later.
“We’ve been really happy and encouraged to see the long-range vision the MTA is putting forward in terms of the four options that have been presented at the community meetings. We think this is really going in the right direction but with the recent tragedy this past weekend we feel like it really underscores the need to make some immediate improvements,” said Renée Rivera, the SFBC’s acting executive director.
She would like to see buffered bike lanes installed immediately, on a trial basis, in both directions of Masonic Avenue between Ewing Terrace and Fulton Street.
Ghost bike memorial for Nils Linke killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike at Masonic and Turk, SF.
London Cycle Hire Stats »
The Telegraph published an interesting graph showing London cycle hire usage plotted against temperature and rainfall. The data suggests usage is related to temps and rainfall (not…
check out St. Louis BicycleWORKS »
Mission Statement:
The primary objective of BicycleWORKS is to increase the probability of positive life outcomes for “at-risk” youths in the Saint Louis area. This is accomplished by providing them the incentive and opportunity to develop their academic, vocational, and social skills through our Earn-A-Bike Program.
The Organization:
Saint Louis BicycleWORKS is an entirely volunteer-run 501(3)c not-for-profit organization. A Shaw Neighborhood resident founded BicycleWORKS in 1988 to give area “at-risk” youths a place to develop skills, interact with peers and caring adults, and safely challenge the limits of their abilities. In 1996, the BicycleWORKS’ board of directors decided to increase the scope of its mission by expanding beyond the bicycle. Computers were introduced as a new teaching tool and ByteWORKS was created based on the BicycleWORKS model. This year we added BookWORKS, a literacy enhancement program where kids improve their reading and writing skills by creating books. The collection of all these programs is known as BWORKS. We share basic organizational infrastructure, such as a board of directors, insurance, finances, bookkeeping, and physical location. Otherwise, we operate independently towards the common goal of improving lives of Saint Louis youth.
Arizona advocates erect first ghost bike in Tempe
by Carolyn Szczepanski on May 27, 2010
On May 10, Chris Volpe, a 24-year-old student at Arizona State University, was killed when he collided with an SUV on University Drive in Tempe. Local cycling advocates, including members of the Tempe Bicycle Action Group, reached out to Volpe’s family and, in short order, created a striking memorial calling attention to the tragedy. Last week, the activists erected the first Ghost Bike in the Tempe area. But it’s far more than a simple white bike chained to a light post. Admire the artistry in the picture to the right (byPatrick Leahy) or visit the TBAG blog to read more. Unfortunately, there may be more memorials to come: Just one week after Volpe’s death, another cyclist was killed by an SUV driver.
