HIDDEN TRANSPORTATION SAFETY SOLUTION: PUBLIC TRANSIT

-> A new American Public Transportation Association study shows that a person can reduce the chance of being in a crash by more than 90 percent simply by taking public transit instead of commuting by car. (The Hidden Transportation Safety Solution: Public Transportation: http://bit.ly/2d54b9m) Traveling by public transportation is ten times safer per mile than traveling by auto. The authors reveal that transit-oriented communities are five times safer because they have about a fifth the per capita traffic casualty rate (fatalities and injuries) as automobile-oriented communities. This means public transit cuts a community’s crash risk in half even for those who do not use public transit. Public transportation communities spur compact development, which reduces auto miles traveled and produces safer speeds.

Cities that average more than 50 annual transit trips per capita have about half the average traffic fatality rates as cities where residents average fewer than 20 annual trips. Since Americans average about 1,350 annual trips on all modes, this increase from less than 20 to more than 50 annual transit trips represents a small increase in transit mode share, from about 1.5 percent up to about 4 percent. That equates to an increase in transit mode share of less than 3 trips a month per person. http://bit.ly/2cm4tw9

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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UT DOT: ADD EXTRA WALK TIME TO SIGNAL DURING PEAK PERIODS

[B' Spokes: Alt headline: Armed crossing guards improve safety. ]

-> The Utah DOT announced its new technology that allows school crossing guards to add an extra 10-15 seconds of "walk" time on a crosswalk signal for students walking and biking to school. This increases safety and allows traffic to continue moving smoothly and efficiently throughout the day. Installation costs about $20 per crosswalk, plus 30 minutes of an electrician’s time. http://bit.ly/2cizX4p

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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BIRMINGHAM, UK: OVERTAKING DISTANCE ENFORCEMENT

-> The Guardian reports on a new cycling safety initiative launched by West Midlands Police, in partnership with Birmingham City Council in the United Kingdom. A plain clothes traffic officer on a bike teams with a colleague in a police car up the road to pull over drivers that give the cycling officer less than 1.5m space (nearly 5 feet) when overtaking (a distance that increases for faster speeds and larger vehicles). That driver will be offered a choice: prosecution, or 15 minutes’ education on how to overtake a cyclist safely. The worst drivers, or repeat offenders, will simply be prosecuted. http://bit.ly/2cCiule

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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ZIPCAR LAUNCHING BIKE-SHARE AT 15 COLLEGES IN 2017, PLANS 100S MORE

-> Car-sharing service Zipcar is partnering with a bike-share company called Zagster to launch bike-sharing services on 15 college campuses. Zipbike won’t officially launch until January 2017, starting with 10 schools and then spreading to a total of 15 by the end of the year. The goal is to make Zipbike the standard for bike sharing on hundreds of campuses nationwide over the next few years. Students and faculty can rent out cars and bikes using one app and one membership. http://bit.ly/2d1L2Jx

[B' Spokes: I think I just got a glimpse of the future.]

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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FHWA STRATEGIC AGENDA FOR PED & BIKE TRANSPORTATION

-> At Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place last week FHWA unveiled its Strategic Agenda for Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation. The agenda will guide the Agency’s bike-ped work over the next three to five years to help reduce pedestrian and bicycle fatalities and serious injuries by 80 percent in the United States in 15 years, strive for zero pedestrian and bicycle fatalities and serious injuries in the next 20 to 30 years, and increase the percentage of short trips by bicycling and walking to 30 percent by the year 2025. (Short trips are defined as trips 5 miles or less for bicyclists and 1 mile or less for pedestrians.)

FHWA identified capacity building, policy, data and research actions to achieve each of the following goals:

Achieve safe, accessible, comfortable and connected multimodal networks throughout the US
Improve safety for people walking and bicycling
Promote equity throughout the transportation planning, design, funding, implementation and evaluation process
Get more people walking and bicycling.
http://bit.ly/2cZfKjE

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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Our Zeal for Child Safety Might be Misdirected

by Amanda Merck.

There is no doubt people are zealous about children’s safety; we are zealous about children’s health.

What if these two groups of enthusiasts worked together?

They would reduce time spent riding in a car:

To reduce unintentional injury and death due to motor vehicle crashes; and
To increase time spent walking and biking to reduce obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Motor vehicle traffic crashes are the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for children age 5 through young adults age 24 and the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for children ages 1-4, after drowning. Keep in mind, this is with the latest advancements in child safety seats.
...

[B' Spokes: And I'll add for emphases: "That's by in large children *in* cars not out of them biking or walking."]

http://www.communitycommons.org/groups/salud-america/changes/our-zeal-for-child-safety-might-be-misdirected/
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Join us for an open house meeting on the Security-Ingleside Project

The Baltimore County Departments of Planning and Public Works are holding a citizen input open house meeting on proposed on-road bicycle improvements in the Westview Park area. Called the Security-Ingleside Loop, Phases I and II, the bicycle improvements will consist of bike lanes and sharrows on several roads in the area.

The meeting will be held:

Thursday, September 29, 2016
7 to 8:30 p.m.
Southwest Academy (in the library)
6200 Johnnycake Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21207

Phase I of the project is funded through a grant from the Maryland Bikeways Program. The roads included in the route are Crosby Road east of Rolling Road, Johnnycake Road and Ingleside Avenue. Funding for Phase II, which includes Crosby Road west of Rolling Road, Pleasant Valley Drive and Chesworth Road, will be sought in the near future. When completed, the bike route will connect residents with the Gwynns Falls Trail.

Please visit www.baltimorecountymd.gov/bikeproject to see a map of the route and engineering plans of the proposed improvements.

Via http://us13.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe3fe80c9847dda98e596a049&id=bc169ad8e7&e=6ea05f8923
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Edward Humes on How Transportation Overkill Is Killing Us

Via New York Times

...
In the transportation world, there’s something called the “first mile/last mile problem.” It’s a euphemism for forms of mass transportation, like the bus or the train, that require riders to go to stations or bus stops. Americans prefer to move door to door. They want to close one door and find themselves in front of another.

This is one of the reasons why we, as a society, are so car-dependent. Only a system built on trucks and automobiles can do this.
...

In terms of public health, the National Safety Council’s data on car crashes showed that in 2015, 38,300 people died and 4.4 million were seriously injured.

Why are the numbers so high?

Because everything we do is designed to produce them. We have fictitious speed limits, because the roads are designed to allow vehicles to travel much faster than stated. We have vehicles capable of achieving far higher speeds than the posted limits. Given this, people go too fast. And speeding, we know, is one of the major causes of fatal crashes.
...

A pedestrian struck by a vehicle going 40 miles an hour has a 10 percent chance of surviving, and one struck by a car at 20 m.p.h. has a 90 percent chance. So when we post a 40-mile maximum speed limit on a boulevard where pedestrians walk, we’re saying that in the event of a crash, a 90 percent mortality rate is acceptable.

These decisions matter. Each of us, over a lifetime, has a one-in-113 chance of dying in a car. That’s crazy, isn’t it? So we bolt extra safety devices onto our vehicles, seatbelts and airbags. Those are all great, but they don’t get to the fundamental problem: We drive way too fast to survive collisions. The bottom line is that speeding is one of the major causes of fatal crashes.
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/science/edward-humes-transportation.html
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