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National Center for Safe Routes to School Announces 26 Spring 2012 Mini-grant Recipients

**To view this announcement on our [their] website, visit <a href="http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/about-us/newsroom/spring-2012-mini-grants">www.saferoutesinfo.org/about-us/newsroom/spring-2012-mini-grants</a>;.

(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) December 21, 2011 — The National Center for Safe Routes to School announced today the selection of its newest mini-grant recipients — a program made possible through the federal Safe Routes to School program. Twenty-six schools, municipalities and organizations from across the country will receive $1,000 to support projects designed to encourage students and their families to safely walk and bicycle to school. The mini-grant activities, many of which are driven by students, will occur during the spring semester of the 2011-2012 school year.
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MARYLAND
--Rodgers Forge Community, Inc. (Baltimore, Md.) will work with Rodgers Forge Elementary School to produce and distribute educational materials that encourage parents to allow their children to participate in walking school buses, to volunteer in walking school buses, and to organize &quot;bike trains&quot; for parents and children in the spring. These education and encouragement materials will also target increases in driver awareness, such as the need for drivers to look both ways for pedestrians and cyclists who may be coming from an opposite direction. Lawn signs will be posted at key locations throughout the community to enhance driver awareness and promote caution for children walking and biking to school. A new bike rack will also be installed in order to accommodate a recent increased demand for bicycle storage.
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Winter solstice

image

Dec. 22, 2011

A bicycle rests against a shrub during this time lapse photo of the first hours of winter in Myersville, Md. The composite photo is a compilation of 174 images exposed at 30 seconds each starting at 12:45 a.m. and ending at 4:13 a.m. The exposure was set at ISO 640, 30 second shutter speed at f3.2 with a 14mm lens and 1 minute 10 seconds between exposures. The winter solstice is the shortest period of daylight experienced in the Mid-Atlantic during the year. The streaks of light are stars appearing to move as the Earth rotates.

Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/winter-solstice/2011/12/21/gIQAYk7VAP_gallery.html#photo=34
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An Absurd Ending To The ICC Bike Path

By spokesman

The purpose of this post is to bring attention to an absurd situation concerning the construction of a proposed bike path in Maryland. The path would run parallel to a new road called the Inter-County Connector (ICC) but under the current plan, a continuous bike path will not be built. Montgomery County planners say a continuous 10-foot-wide asphalt bike path would cause too much damage to the ecologically sensitive parkland that will be traversed by the ICC when it is built. It seems that a highway is not an environmental problem, but a bike path is an environmental problem.

To make a long story short, here is how the situation evolved.
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The bottom line is that the environmental concerns could not stop the construction of a 6 lane 18.5 mile highway, but they did manage to kill the 10 foot wide bike path. This is not the outcome that the road opponents wanted. They wanted to kill the ICC. The ICC will go ahead but the bike path is a casualty of the battle over the road construction.

The Montgomery County Council is meeting on January 13 to discuss the construction of the bike path. Their plan is to have sidewalks and on-road bike lanes on secondary roads fill in the gaps in the ICC path. This approach will not result in a usable path. If you are local and want to e-mail the council here is information. For more background on the ICC and the bike path, here is a detailed history.

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LAB is looking for a few good men (the fewer good ones the better)

  • Do you have a vested interest in seeing Maryland in the top ten rankings irregardless of the facts?
  • Are you willing to exaggerate, state falsehoods and vehemently oppose all those who disagree with this lofty goal?
  • Do you agree that Maryland's mandatory bike lane law is equivalent to states that have no mandatory use laws? (To be fair, LAB "might" change that this year.)
  • Do you believe that telling truck drivers to "tap" the horn at bicyclists is telling them their responsibilities towards bicyclists? (I could go on but you get the idea.)
  • Do you like getting zero feedback on any questions or concerns you might have?

If so the League of American Bicyclists is looking for you to become a reviewer for their Bicycle Friendly America Program!
-= Or =-
Join me in respectfully having Maryland withdraw from this program till such time LAB responds to our feedback from last year and provides objective goals that will actually help make Maryland a better place to bike. I have been three years patient and still no response from LAB (sans just one issue) this total lack of communication has to end!

How this has workout out (just one example) is that LAB was of zero help in getting our new Drivers' Manual because our old one was good enough by this program. Maryland's ranking will not improve because of this and Maryland will be not be given kudos from LAB for working with the cycling advocates and getting this done.

So I have to ask, "Then what's the point of LAB's Bicycle Friendly America Program if this is the kind of result we get?"
-= The Ask =-
Write Nicole@bikeleague.org and ask to kindly respond to our issues or remove Maryland from the rankings.

Write president@baltobikeclub.org and respectfully ask that the Baltimore Bicycling Club stop giving extra money to LAB while they are blatantly refusing to work with Maryland's advocates.

If you are a LAB member I encourage to support The Alliance for Biking and Walking (The Donate button is on the left) rather then LAB and tell Nicole you intend to remove your financial support for LAB.
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Slip and Fall Verdict Reversed: Sovereign Immunity Strikes Again

[B' Spokes: It amazes me how many ways Maryland law blames the victim, like Government has no responsibility to maintain a safe path when exiting a train... well until it was appealed in this one case.]
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from Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals turned back another injured victim under the archaic &quot;Really, do we still have that in 2011?&quot; doctrine of sovereign immunity.

Plaintiff alleged she suffered an ankle injury when she slipped and fell on a wet platform after exiting a train at the Cheverly Metro station in Prince George County. The defendant, the beloved Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, made all the usual - and appropriate defenses. You knew the platform was wet, didn't you? You even saw a yellow warning cone that the platform was wet, right? No one appeared to have mopped the floor to make it wet, did they?

Plaintiff's lawyers got creative and did some research. They found out that WMATA used a cleaning agent &quot;Super Shine-All&quot; to clean its train platforms. The coefficient of friction on the floor, plaintiff argued, was such that no one should have been surprised that the woman would fall. In a trial before Judge Maureen M. Lamasney, a Prince George's County jury agreed and awarded damages (I'm not sure how much).

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Just look at all those !@# not stopping at a red light. [video]

Found via Stop The Maryland Unsafe Driver

[B' Spokes: Just look at all the motorist who fail to come to a complete stop BEFORE the stop line. This is the area used by pedestrians and cyclists and this motorists behavior creates a very life threatening situation at intersections. It is no surprise to me that pedestrians avoid crossing at intersections because given the fact that motorists are not stopping when they should it is safer to cross mid-block, yet the police will target just the pedestrians and do not see the motorists behavior as wrong or illegal when it is very wrong and very illegal.]
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Maryland Drunk Drivers: Where the Drunks Are Driving

from Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

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Drunk driving is a big risk factor for car accidents. It never occurred to me to look at where in Maryland drunk driving is the greatest. So I read with particular interest these statistics on the number of drunk driving cases in Maryland in 2010, sorted by county, as well as the number of DWI cases tried in court in 2010 and the resulting verdicts:

  • Montgomery: 3,512 DWI cases filed. There were 5,324 cases tried in 2010 resulting in: 1,858 Guilty verdicts, 98 Not Guilty verdicts, 2,585 Probation Before Judgment [PBJ] verdicts, and 1,029 "other" verdicts (which include Dismissed Cases, Nolle Prosequi, Stet, Merged Cases, Jury Trial Prayers, and Miscellaneous Others)
  • Prince George's: 2,733 DWI cases filed. There were 2,206 cases tried resulting in: 75 Guilty, 34 Not Guilty, 185 PBJ, and 1,912 other - 1,425 of which were closed as Nolle Prosequi.
  • Baltimore County: 2,459 DWI cases filed. There were 2,563 cases tried resulting in: 715 Guilty, 86 Not Guilty, 1,312 PBJ, and 450 other.
  • Anne Arundel: 2,009 DWI cases filed. There were 2,468 cases tried resulting in: 590 Guilty, 74 Not Guilty, 1,200 PBJ, and 604 other.
  • Howard: 1,440 DWI cases filed. There were 1,694 cases tried resulting in: 337 Guilty, 41 Not Guilty, 943 PBJ, and 373 other.
  • Baltimore City: 982 DWI cases filed. There were 969 cases tried resulting in: Guilty, Not Guilty, PBJ, and other.
  • Carroll: 935 DWI cases filed. There were 816 cases tried resulting in: 156 Guilty, 36 Not Guilty, 424 PBJ, and 200 other.
  • Harford: 909 DWI cases filed. There were 1,094 cases tried resulting in: 461 Guilty, 19 Not Guilty, 484 PBJ, and 130 other.
  • Frederick: 900 DWI cases filed. There were 1,027 cases tried resulting in: 273 Guilty, 16 Not Guilty, 448 PBJ, and 290 other.
  • Charles: 794 DWI cases filed. There were 1,135 cases tried resulting in: 376 Guilty, 13 Not Guilty, 513 PBJ, and 233 other.
  • Worcester: 662 DWI cases filed. There were 1,053 cases tried resulting in: 439 Guilty, 36 Not Guilty, 482 PBJ, and 96 other.
  • Washington: 642 DWI cases filed. There were 859 cases tried resulting in: 267 Guilty, 4 Not Guilty, 387 PBJ, and 201 other.
  • Calvert: 626 DWI cases filed. There were 968 cases tried resulting in: 285 Guilty, 16 Not Guilty, 510 PBJ, and 157 other.
  • Cecil: 585 DWI cases filed. There were 285 cases tried resulting in: 41 Guilty, 7 Not Guilty, 65 PBJ, and 172 other.
  • St Mary's: 510 DWI cases filed. There were 736 cases tried resulting in: 376 Guilty, 13 Not Guilty, 307 PBJ, and 109 other.
  • Wicomico: 489 DWI cases filed. There were 818 cases tried resulting in: 275 Guilty, 18 Not Guilty, 317 PBJ, and 208 other.
  • Allegany: 341 DWI cases filed. There were 557 cases tried resulting in: 219 Guilty, 2 Not Guilty, 232 PBJ, and 206 other.
  • Queen Anne's: 321 DWI cases filed. There were 583 cases tried resulting in: 227 Guilty, 8 Not Guilty, 222 PBJ, and 126 other.
  • Talbot: 276 DWI cases filed. There were 372 cases tried resulting in: 99 Guilty, 56 Not Guilty, 155 PBJ, and 62 other.
  • Caroline: 258 DWI cases filed. There were 308 cases tried resulting in: 125 Guilty, 10 Not Guilty, 74 PBJ, and 99 other.
  • Dorchester: 182 DWI cases filed. There were 225 cases tried resulting in: 97 Guilty, 13 Not Guilty, 59 PBJ, and 56 other.
  • Garrett: 181 DWI cases filed. There were 297 cases tried resulting in: 77 Guilty, 3 Not Guilty, 129 PBJ, and 88 other.
  • Somerset: 167 DWI cases filed. There were 195 cases tried resulting in: 68 Guilty, 5 Not Guilty, 83 PBJ, and 39 other.
  • Kent: 119 DWI cases filed. There were 179 cases tried resulting in: 60 Guilty, 6 Not Guilty, 72 PBJ, and 41 other.
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Pipkin calls for transportation chief to step down

from Maryland Politics by Michael Dresser

Senate Minority Leader E. J. Pipkin called Friday for Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley to step down in light of this month's highly critical audit of the State Highway Administration. Pipkin, an Upper Shore Republican, charged that the audit of SHA -- an arm of the Transportation Department -- showed that Swaim-Staley has done "an unacceptable job" and bears responsibility for the contracting abuses identified by legislative auditors. "Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley has presided over a mess," Pipkin's statement said. "She has stated that she has been working hard to change the SHA culture to one that closely manages all aspects of the contract process. Frankly that response is not good enough. Let’s face it, Secretary Swaim-Staley did not know much of what was going on in the agency she heads."
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By B' Spokes:

While I am willing to cut some slack for the new higher ups at MDOT for a while but so far my impression is that there is poor understanding and zero stress on "minor" issues like bicycling and walking. If an agency "covers" this issue then it needs to deal with this issue in full and not hide behind something to effect "We got more important things to do." So while on on hand I am encouraged by the improvements to Ritchie Highway but that is sort of just it on what I see as actually reacting to a problem and trying to fix it in a significant way.

I wrote Secretary Swaim-Staley about this:
image

It really does not take a rocket scientist to look at that and say "I think Maryland should be doing a better job for pedestrian safety." Her response in part:

"Both traffic crashes that involve pedestrians and injuries suffered by pedestrians have declined in Maryland in each of the last three years."

So while pedestrian injuries have gone down 10%, what she fails to mention is that pedestrian fatalities have gone up 20%. Personally I find that a callous response.

Anther clueless point from her letter: The SHA has provided significant support for pedestrian safety enforcement activities through grants to law enforcement agencies. The “sting” operations noted in the Governor’s Highway Safety Association report, in, which officers enter a crosswalk sufficiently in advance of an approaching vehicle and cite those drivers who fail to stop as required by law, have been carried out in numerous communities.

Challenge: Find "sting" operations in Baltimore Metro's Street Smart Campaign or here for AA county or here for Baltimore County. And let's totally forget about finding sting operations for Baltimore City where pedestrians involved in traffic crashes represents 32% of Maryland's total pedestrians involved in traffic crashes. But wait, I did find a safety grant for Baltimore County... for heavy trucks and the Grand Prix for the city. [Heavy sigh]

Can I call the Secretary's statement BS??? Anyway this is my impression as well: "Let’s face it, Secretary Swaim-Staley did not know much of what was going on in the agency she heads."

Another thing that is really bothering me is O'Malley and MDOT are so busy asking for federal money for rail and road projects "for jobs" while letting $31 million in federal money for bike/ped projects languish. Bike/Ped Projects Create 46% More Jobs Than Road-Only Projects. We have the money and we have the projects so what's the problem? No one really knows.

We really need a major overhaul of MDOT.

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Metro Transit Police Conduct Undercover Operations To Target Bicycle Thieves

I wish this was happening in the Baltimore area but even so there is a satisfying video to go along with this story:

<a href="http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/traffic/metro_news/metro-transit-police-conduct-undercover-operations-to-target-bicycle-thieves-111511">http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/traffic/metro_news/metro-transit-police-conduct-undercover-operations-to-target-bicycle-thieves-111511</a>;
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