Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: All Hail Kerr, Andy Kerr, Bicycle Colorado, bicycling, bike, bike law, BikeDenver, bikers, Colorado, Idaho stop, law and order
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/26/senate-bill-bicyclists-stop-signs/
Idaho Stop is something I’ve been promoting for many years—in Denver, a place where most riders already practice the technique, it makes even more sense than it does in Idaho—but to say my pleas fell on deaf ears is a bit of an understatement. The advocacy orgs like Bicycle Colorado and BikeDenver were big on the law-and-order stuff.
To hear the local advocacy groups now getting behind Kerr’s bill is extremely heartening. Extremely surprising and somewhat weird. But I’ll take it.
Idaho Stop. There is no fact-based opposition to it. It is proven to work, with decades of data. It makes life better for bicyclists, and so makes life better for all. But that doesn’t mean this will become law. Most people are still idiots about bikes, and even a substantial portion of cyclists are reflexively opposed to the idea, although that portion is clearly getting smaller and smaller all the time. If you’re still in that portion, get on out of it and into the other one.
ALL HAIL ANDY KERR! ALL HAIL ANDY KERR! VIVA LA KERR! AN-DY! AN-DY! AN-DY!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anti-bike bias, bicycling, bike, camaro, cycling, cycling fatality, Gothamist, hit and run, Matthew Von Ohlen, NYC, NYPD, pamphlet, urban cycling
http://gothamist.com/2016/07/04/cops_believe_driver_intentionally_f.php
RIP Matt Von Ohlen
Police are currently looking for the driver of the black Camaro who knocked Von Ohlen off his bike then ran over him, then sped away. If they find him/her, may give him/her a bike safety pamphlet.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycle history, bike, cycling, history, infrastructure, Los Angeles, Pasadena, transportation history
The crowd cheered. Bugles rang out. Within a year, Dobbins promised, something similar to Columbus’s short route to the Orient would rise above the hills of the Los Angeles basin. His “Cycleway” was designed to swiftly and conveniently transport people between a pair of key urban centers: the old colonial plaza in Downtown Los Angeles, and Pasadena, the burgeoning, modern suburb to the north that then rivaled the older city in size and ambition. The Dobbins route—which neatly anticipated and presaged the automotive freeways that now stretch across the region—would be a modern marvel. It would boast a state-of-the-art toll-collecting system. It would be elevated fifteen feet above the ground; the limited access would ensure that traffic flowed smoothly. “It can be said,” wrote the Los Angeles Times of the ground breaking, “that none of the new Southern California enterprises will …be more certain of financial success. The wheel must have a path of its own between these two cities.”
via An 1899 Plan to Build A Bike Highway in Los Angeles (And Why It Failed).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bike, bike share, biking, cycling infrastructure, Friedersdorf, NYC, Rabinowitz, urban cycling, WSJ
That’s right, Friedersdorf.
There is no one in America who objects more consistently than me to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiatives: This is a man who favors stop-and-frisk, racially profiling and spying on innocent Muslims, restricting the size of soda New Yorkers can buy, salt limits, a trans-fat ban, and a pervasive surveillance state. Left up to me, no one like Bloomberg would ever exercise political power. My disdain for his paternalism and disregard for civil liberties is what inclines me to defend his bike initiative. It is the least “totalitarian” major initiative that Bloomberg has undertaken, yet is denounced with some of the strongest language. If the critics were merely expressing their personal displeasure at the prospect of cities better suited to bike travel (or doubts about the efficacy of a particular policy aimed at making cities more bike friendly) that would be fine. Instead they co-opt the language of freedom and oppression, as if orienting cities toward automobiles is natural and libertarian, while bike shares and bike lanes are harbingers of tyranny.
That is vapid, paranoid, philosophically incoherent nonsense. By frivolously trafficking in it, I fear that Rabinowitz and friends will diminish all warnings about liberty and government overreach. Even the boy who cried wolf was invoking the specter of an actually frightening creature.
via The Paranoid Style in Bicycle Politics: A Bicoastal Freak-Out – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: auto traffic, auto-pedestrian, bicycle, bicycling, bike, car-pedestrian, collisions, denver, Denver-Boulder, hit and run, traffic accidents, transportation, urban cycling
Denver’s traffic not following national trends.
Denver’s auto-pedestrian accidents were up 46 percent for the first eight weeks of 2013 over the previous two years. Another grim statistic also stands out: Last year, the city had 13 hit-and-run fatalities, more than the previous three years combined.
[…]
After two years of averaging about 31 auto-pedestrian incidents a month, the average jumped to 44 a month in January and February, according to Denver police statistics.
Hit-and-run cases averaged 8.5 a month in January and February — after 4.8 per month in 2011 and 6.1 in 2012.
[…]
Over the past decade, about 1,600 accidents involving pedestrians or cyclists were reported every year, according to a study by the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
In the 10-county region, 17 percent of all fatalities were pedestrians, and 3 percent were cyclists.
via Spike in Denver's auto-pedestrian cases has officials seeking answers – The Denver Post.
These “jumps” are based on a mere two months’ of accidents. Gotta keep an eye out to see if it continues.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike, biking, cycling, e-bikes, ECF, EU, European Commission, human-powered transportation, motorbikes, motorized transportation, pedelec, urban cycling
Pedelec. A new word to me.
In a vote at the European Parliament today, MEPs have decided to keep the original European Commission proposal; only pedelecs with a maximum speed of 25 km/h and 250 watts power will remain exempt from motorbike regulation. Europe’s cycling organisations have welcomed the move, seeing it as a clear separation between bicycles and motorbikes
Filed under: Bike of the Day | Tags: Art of Cycling, art of urban cycling, bicycling, bike, biking, cycling, food, Raleigh, recipe for disaster, transportation, urban cycling, vintage bicycle
Upon closer inspection, looks like a recipe for disaster.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle safety, bicycling, bike, Bike accidents, bike commuting, Bike to Work Day, car versus bike, car-bike collisions, common sense, cycling, denver, energy, Linkhart, looked-but-failed-to-see errors, Mayor Hancock, transportation, urban cycling
He was my favorite mayoral candidate. He has almost no TV charisma, which is a major plus for a public official. He would have made a fine mayor. He liked libraries.
Fortunately, he’s fine, but the incident did prompt a conversation between council members and the mayor about road safety regulations and the interactions between cyclists and vehicles.
…During which, of course, scofflaw bicyclists somehow came out the villains, and education and/or reprogramming of scofflaw bicyclists was re-hurled to the tippy top of the bike safety priority list. This even though Linkhart’s crash (1) did not involve a scofflaw bicyclist and (2) car-bike crashes involving adult bicyclists typically do not. The most likely scenario for an adult bicyclist is to be caught out by another road user’s looked-but-failed-to-see error while riding lawfully. But hey, we’ve all seen bicyclists run lights right? People like Mayor Hancock make no attempt to understand the truth about urban cycling safety. Why bother — everyone knows it’s “common sense.” Common sense is good politics. Let’s not let any facts get in the way of our “common sense” about bicycle safety.
According to Linkhart, he was heading west on 23rd Avenue — on a bike route — approaching Downing Street when a pickup truck went to make a left turn and collided with him.
“I was going straight. He turned left in front of me, and…hit me across the side, and I fell down,” Linkhart recalls.
… Linkhart was scraped up badly, his bike got a bit bent and he had to get several stitches in his leg.
“I kinda went flying,” he said. “I kind of plowed into the sidewalk. I had a helmet, which didn’t help.”
Linkhart, going straight, had the right of way over the pickup truck, which was turning left.
23rd and Downing is classic left cross territory. I’ve been through that intersection a hundred times. Got to ‘keep your head on a swivel’ so to speak.
via Westword Doug Linkhart, ex-councilman, hit while cycling to Bike To Work Day event – Denver News – The Latest Word.
Filed under: Bike of the Day | Tags: 29-inch wheels, 29er, 700c, all terrain bike, bicycle, bicycling, bike, bike of the day, cycling, Flite, Flite saddle, Mike, mountain bike, mountain biking, MTB, off-road bike, pedalcycle, WaltWorks
Filed under: Bike of the Day, Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycle theft, bicycling, bike, bike of the day, bike rack, bike theft, Gary Fisher, mid range, mountain bike, mountain biking, MTB, The Art of Mountain Biking, Trek
I’ve often seen a mid-range Trek mtb parked at this spot, formerly occupied by a bike rack.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: active commuting, biblioteca, bicycle, bicycling, bike, biking, ciclista, ciclistas urbanos, cycling, gob mx, green transportation, Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico City bicycling manual, Mexico D.F., transportation, urban biking, urban cycling
(En Espanol)
http://www.sma.df.gob.mx/sma/links/download/biblioteca/flippingbooks/manual_ciclista_urbano/
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: active commuting, active transportation, bicycle, bicycle commuting, bicycling, bike, bike commuting, biking, cycling, gas taxes, transportation
And, it kills your back and hips. Which causes more stress.
The bit below about American cities not being built for active commuters. Not exactly true. Somewhat true. A lot of American cities are currently set up quite nicely to accept vast numbers of additional bike commuters should these autonomous individuals choose to take that step.
A 2011 study of 21,000 Swedish workers found those who commuted by car or public transit reported more stress, exhaustion and missed work days than those who walked or bicycled to work. But few American cities are built for active commuters.
“We’ve engineered physical activity out of our lives,” said Hoehner. “We need to change our communities and make improvements to the infrastructure to make the healthy choice the easy choice.”
via Commuting Drives Up Weight, Blood Pressure – ABC News.
There is a lot more to making a bike-friendly environment than “engineering” the built environment. Like what:
–The cost of driving in Europe is much higher than it is in the US, due to famously high fuel taxes and fees. We complain about 4$ gas. No Euro country has gas anywhere near that cheap, due to govt. fuel taxes.
–Laws and court proceedings in bike-friendly countries favor bicyclists and pedestrians.
–Culture is overall more bike-friendly.
It’s already an easy choice for many in the US. Let’s stop making excuses. There will always be room for improvement. The built environment will never be perfect here, and it isn’t in Europe.
I guess what I’m saying is this. We all wish for improvements in the cycling environment. If you complain about and push for better bike infrastructure, great! That helps. But I sure hope you’re doing it as a bike commuter, not as an excuse-making car commuter.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike, India, samajwadi, urban cycling
Here’s something you don’t see every day.
SAMAJWADI PARTY :: OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle commuting, bicycle transportation, bicycling, bike, bike commuting, bike path, bikeways, biking, Boulder, commuter bikeway, Denver-Boulder, MUP, transportation, US 36
Which is awesome.
The first phase of the project — from Federal to 88th Street — includes:
• Adding an express lane in each direction of U.S. 36, where bus rapid transit and high-occupancy vehicles can travel, free of charge. Solo drivers also will be able to use the express lane by paying a toll, the cost of which will vary by the time of day.
• Reconstructing existing pavement on U.S. 36 and widening the highway to accommodate 12-foot inside and outside shoulders.
• Replacing the Wadsworth Parkway, Wadsworth Boulevard (at West 112th Avenue) and Lowell Boulevard bridges over U.S. 36.
• Installing a separate commuter bikeway along much of the corridor.
via U.S. 36 from Boulder to Denver to get $311 million in improvements – The Denver Post.
Filed under: maps | Tags: bicycle, bicycle accidents, bicycling, bike, car-bike collisions, Cascade Bicycle Club, King County, reported accidents, Seattle
From the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017544092_bikemap19m.html
Filed under: Bike of the Day | Tags: bicycles, bike, Bridgestone MB-3, mountain bike
Lugged, thus made in Japan. TIG welded bridgestones were made in Taiwan.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, bike, cycling, exercise, Parkinson's Disease
Bicycling is really good for you.
Filed under: maps | Tags: bicycle, bicycling advocacy, bike, cycling infrastructure, Jefferson County, pedestrian, recreation, transportation
That’s Jeffco, Colorado, comprising the western suburbs of Denver. There are a lot of Jeffco’s around.
click for pdf
They are seeking comments here: http://www.jeffco.us/bike-plan
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 