by JIM BERGAMO / KVUE News

The Round Rock School District is rolling out a new way to make fitness fun. The program combines biking and computers.

Friday afternoon, the Patsy Sommer Elementary School will become the first school in Texas to join a unique bike to school to program. By then, something will sit at the top of a pole in the schoolyard that the kids will think is really cool. It's called a RFID reader, and its "readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic" is designed to help cut down on the obesity epidemic.

"It is really an epidemic of inactivity, kids need an hour a day minimum and they do not get that in PE," said Leslie Luciana, the Director of Advocacy and Community relations at Bicycle Sport Shop.

The cul-de-sac is perhaps the quintessential symbol of suburban America. Perhaps millions of them have paved over greenways throughout the country. Hailed for their safety (no traffic that can run over kids) and prized by developers because they allow more houses to be built into oddly shaped tracts and right up to the edges of rivers and property lines, planners and town officials are beginning to realize their downside.

Early last year the state of Virginia became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future development.  Similar actions have been taken in Portland Oregon, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. What they are beginning to realize is that the cul-de-sac street grid uses land inefficiently, discourages walking and biking, and causes an almost complete dependence on driving, with attendant pollution and energy use. Furthermore, town officials are beginning to realize that unconnected streets cost more money to provide services to and force traffic onto increasingly crowded arterial roads, which then, in many cases, need to be widened (more tax money).

SENATE BILL 624 Vehicle Laws - Bicycles and Motor Scooters - Rules of the Road

Synopsis:

Authorizing a person operating a bicycle to ride the bicycle in or through a crosswalk in specified locations under specified circumstances; requiring a vehicle to yield the right-of-way under specified circumstances to a bicycle that is in a crosswalk; authorizing, under specified circumstances, a person who is operating a bicycle or motor scooter to use the roadway even if a shoulder is present; etc.

NU'UANU — Police officers were out in force yesterday morning at Pali Highway and Dowsett Avenue, primarily ticketing drivers who failed to exercise due care in the presence of pedestrians.

The "pedestrians" in this case were police officers assigned to HPD's Traffic Division. They wore civilian plainclothes and took turns venturing across the six-lane highway in a marked crosswalk at an intersection where there is no stoplight.

It is the same intersection where Hideno Matsumoto, 81, of Nu'uanu, was fatally injured Jan. 12 while trying to cross the busy thoroughfare .

"We try to do this once or twice a month," said Capt. Keith Lima of HPD's Traffic Division . "We had four pedestrian fatalities (on O'ahu) last month alone. That's four too many." [Note: Maryland averages over 9 pedestrian fatalities a month and maybe an enforcement once a year.]
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FISCAL AND POLICY NOTE House Bill 140 Bicycles, Mopeds, and Motor Scooters - Minors - Protective Headgear

"State Effect: Potential significant general and federal fund savings beginning in FY 2011 for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) to the extent the bill reduces debilitating injuries from bicycle and motor scooter accidents.
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There is insufficient data at this time to estimate the number of traumatic head injuries that could be avoided and the resulting potential savings to the Medicaid program.
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Ya, right. We all know fat lazy people make less demands on general and federal funds then healthy active people. And it is far more cost effective to harass cyclists off the road then to actually make the roads safer for them to ride. [/sarcasm]

See "Robert Hurst on Maryland's Proposed Mandatory Helmet Law " http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20100205083216676 for more info.

I have a theory that people tend to take on a significant aspect of their environment and for Maryland crabs do seem to be a significant cultural icon. So I wounder does the following description fit?

Crab mentality, sometimes referred to as crabs in the bucket, describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Singly, the crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each other in a useless "king of the hill" competition which prevents any from escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy in human behavior is that of a group that will attempt to "pull down" (negate or diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the others, out of jealousy or competitive feelings.

This term is broadly associated with short-sighted, non-constructive thinking rather than a unified, long-term, constructive mentality. It is also often used colloquially in reference to individuals or communities attempting to "escape" a so-called "underprivileged life", but kept from doing so by others attempting to ride upon their coat-tails or those who simply resent their success.

It describes a desperate lust to pull other people down, denigrating them rather than letting them get ahead or pursue their dreams. It is an unwillingness to allow someone to get out of dire or bad life situations, often being foiled by friends and family members who keep sucking them back in. This trait can strike at several levels of life, like in office environments, particularly on promotion. It is a reflection of the famous saying “we all like to see our friends get ahead, but not too far ahead.”

No sooner had Yale University posted a news release saying it had earned platinum-level LEED certification for its new forestry building, Kroon Hall, than the Yale Daily News uncovered a dirty little secret about two other LEED-certified buildings at Yale: They were built with showers and changing rooms for bike commuters, which helped them earn their LEED certification, but bike commuters had never been given access to them. Nor had anyone else.

Those had been priorities for the departed Sheila Dixon, who among other things pushed through one-and-one recycling, expanded bicycle lanes and shepherded the development of a sustainability plan for the city.

Rawlings-Blake already has signaled that she's got different watchwords for the city under her mayoralty - "better, safer, stronger." And she's indicated she plans to focus on public safety, education and economic development.

In a recent wide-ranging interview with the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun before becoming mayor, Rawlings-Blake didn't seem inclined to make a wholesale departure from the policies and initiatives of her disgraced predecessor, but indicated she might put her own emphasis and stamp on them.

When asked if she might be planning to change any of Dixon's policies, particularly the "cleaner and greener" initiative, Rawlings-Blake replied; "These are values that you know most Baltimoreans share. You can package it differently ... but we care about crime, we care about grime, we care about jobs, we care about educating our kids. And that's my focus."
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