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Bike Tube Recycling


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I'm a little late on this, as it already started, but it isn't over.

A typical bike shop will throw out a few thousand inner tubes in the course of a year. All those tubes add up to tons of waste when you think about all the bike shops in the Baltimore/DC area. Performance Bike, however, is teaming up with Liberty Tire to sponsor the Bike Tube Blow-Out over the next two weekends, which will take place at Performance’s new store in Columbia, MD. Anyone who brings in their flat or unused tubes, from August 13th-15th and 20th-22nd, will receive a $5 in store credit, and can trade in up to 3 tubes for a total of $15.

These “Blow-Outs” have been hugely popular in other cities, and the hope is that bringing it to such a major cycling-heavy metropolitan area will mean even more saved material from the city’s landfills.

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Wasting money accommodating cars that are not even there a success ???


A $9.3 million Collage Park parking garage:

"The garage was often at more than 30 percent of its capacity during the spring semester, said City Manager Joe Nagro, a figure that exceeded most expectations."

"The city hopes to bring in $114,000 [of revenue] this year, which Groh called a conservative projection, ... Groh said the city has not estimated how long it could take for the garage to pay for itself."

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Western Baltimore County Draft Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan


From the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan website:

The technical advisory committee and the Office of Planning have developed a preliminary draft for public comment. The draft is also being circulated among county and state agencies for additional input on the plan.

The citizen input from the workshops helped create the implementation recommendations of the plan. Office of Planning staff compiled and analyzed the discussion notes and surveys from each of the workshops, along with the more than 270 surveys that were submitted online.

In the fall, a public meeting will be scheduled to receive additional public comment. A revised draft plan will be submitted to the Planning Board and ultimately to the Baltimore County Council for approval as an amendment to the County Master Plan.

View the full document (23 MB) (PDF)

View the plan in sections:

Table of Contents (1 MB) (PDF)
Introduction and Shared Use Paths (pp. 1-14) (3.5 MB) (PDF)
Walking 1 (pp. 15-26) (5.5 MB) (PDF)
Walking 2 (pp. 27-32) (4.5 MB) (PDF)
Bicycling 1 (pp. 33-41) (1.5 MB) (PDF)
Bicycling 2 (pp. 42-49) (5 MB) (PDF)
Bicycling 3 (pp. 50-58) (6 MB) (PDF)
Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation and Appendices (pp. 59 to end) (2 MB) (PDF)

View full size color maps:

Proposed Pedestrian Improvements (5.5 MB) (PDF)
Proposed Shared Use Path and Bicycle Improvements (5.5 MB) (PDF)

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Harford Health Department and Upper Chesapeake Partner for Community Health Day in Edgewood


From the Harford County Health Department:

The Harford County Health Department in partnership with Upper Chesapeake HealthLink is rolling out the second in a series of three scheduled Community Health Days on Friday, August 20th from 1:00 until 5:00pm in the Edgewood Plaza Shopping Center located at the corner of Edgewood and Hanson Roads in Edgewood, Maryland in the Food Lion Shopping Center.
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Youth will once again be fitted for bicycle helmets and will be able to receive a free bicycle helmet.
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1 dead, 3 hurt when car crashes into family on bicycle ride


By Julie Scharper, The Baltimore Sun

A Laurel woman was killed and three members of a family were injured after the driver lost control of her car and crashed into the family as they rested during a bike outing Sunday morning, Anne Arundel County police said.

The driver, Romota Olumemisi Koletowo, 63, was returning home from work about 10:15 when her 2001 Nissan Altima careened off the road and knocked over a light pole near the intersection of Russett Green West and Ridgemoor Drive in Laurel, police said.

The Nissan crossed a bike path, crashed into some bushes and a trash can, then struck a bench where Franz Clementschitsch, 36, was sitting and drinking water. The force of the impact sent Clementschitsch 38 feet into the woods, police said.
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Proposals for bicycle improvements at the state level in Maryland


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One of the sections of the plan I wrote for Western Baltimore County that didn't make it out of the internal review process was a series of recommendations with regard to the State of Maryland, and how it handles certain bicycle and/or pedestrian related transportation policies and practices.

Typically, a local jurisdiction doesn't like to provide such recommendations, because they have no control within their processes over recommendations with regard to "higher levels" of government. I argued for including these provisions because "in theory, planners are supposed to add to and extend theory" and because these kinds of disconnects or incongruencies are uncovered at the local level, and if not communicated, it's not ever likely that the programs at the state level are clued into the disconnects.

So I am offering that section here:

State of Maryland policies

[deleted] is committed to working with other jurisdictions and agencies to develop congruent policies and programs to achieve mutually desirable improvements that support and extend a positive environment for walking and bicycling.

In the process of developing the Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan, a number of state policies were identified that with improvements, could provide stronger support to pedestrian and bicycle goals at the local level, in keeping with the goals and objectives of the State of Maryland 20 Year Bicycle & Pedestrian Access Master Plan.

1. Complete Streets requirements. The State Highway Administration has complete streets design requirements, which require that improvements to the pedestrian and bicycling environment be made to the greatest extent possible in all road projects. By extending the requirement for pedestrian and bicyclist accommodation to other state agencies, including siting decisions for public facilities either built for use by state agencies or funded by state agencies (such as the construction of local schools), smart growth and sustainable transportation objectives will be more easily achieved.

2. Balanced transportation planning for local school districts. The most successful walk and bicycle to school programs occur as part of system wide planning and programming at the level of an entire school district. For example, school districts in Minneapolis and Boulder (among others), provide support for walk and bicycle to school programs as part of comprehensive transportation services including but not limited to the provision of bus transportation. The State of Washington requires that safe walk maps be created for all elementary schools in each school district in the state, and recommends that districts create a Traffic Safety Committee to address walk to school issues. Similar requirements in Maryland would accelerate the development of systematic and structured programs for entire school districts, which would be preferred over the ad hoc practices currently in force.

3. State university master plan requirements. State law requires that universities update their campus master plans every five years to ensure that facilities meet the institutions' needs. These requirements should include mandates for sustainable transportation planning and coordination with local jurisdictions.

4. Expanded share the road education via the Department of Motor Vehicles. At each of the four citizen workshops held in April 2010 for the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan, a consensus recommendation was that “share the road” education for all modes (pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists) needed to be strengthened and improved.

While the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles guidebook The Rules of the Road for Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Pedestrians and Bicyclists covers the respective laws appropriately and clearly, since it is rare for people to re-take the written test after the receipt of their initial driver’s license, perhaps the development of and the subsequent administration of a written “refresher” test on matters concerning “sharing the road” could occur as part of the driver’s license renewal process. Also, the curriculum for Driver’s Education training programs should be examined and if necessary, training and exercises with regard to pedestrian and bicyclist safety should be enhanced.

5. Commercial Driver’s License Requirements and “share the road” education and training. Similarly, the operators of commercial vehicles, especially heavy vehicles, could be encouraged to undergo additional training with regard to safe travel practices concerning pedestrians and bicyclists, as part of the license application and renewal process.

6. Expanding the curriculum for pedestrian and bicycling training for children and youth. Currently, the SHA-funded curriculum covers pedestrian topics for K-1 grades, and bicycling for grades 1-3. Developing standardized curricula for higher grades is likely in order, given the prevalence of pedestrian- and bicycle-related safety incidents involving older children and youth combined with research findings in neurology showing that the brain begins its final stages of maturation during adolescence and continues to rapidly develop well into a person’s early 20s. Therefore, new curricula/educational programs should probably be developed for older children, targeting grades 4/5, middle schools, and high school aged children. This would provide a complete and continuous pedestrian and bicycle safety educational programming for all grade levels throughout the K-12 educational process.

7. StreetSmart advertising program and the “3 feet” rule. The StreetSmart advertising campaign, funded in part by the Maryland Highway Safety Office, should expand the program to include new advertisements communicating the new state law. Below are examples from a campaign by the Regional Planning Commission for Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and St. Tammany Parishes in Greater New Orleans. This campaign was brought to the study team’s attention by one of the attendees at the Citizen Workshop held in Catonsville (Baltimore County Council District 1).

Emailing: rpc_outdoor_3ft.jpg

Billboard advertisement promoting safer passing around bicyclists, New Orleans. Images courtesy of the New Orleans Regional Planning Agency..

Emailing: safety king2.jpg

Advertising placard affixed to a streetcar in New Orleans.

8. State of Maryland transportation enhancement program match requirements. Of all the state participants, Maryland’s requirement for local match, 50%, is the highest. This requirement is significantly higher than all of the states bordering Maryland. West Virginia and DC have a 20% match. Virginia also has a 20% match requirement, but will fully fund projects under $200,000. Delaware requires a 2% match/$100,000 of award, while Pennsylvania does not require match, considering local expenditures on preconstruction planning to satisfy match requirements. By comparison to Maryland, the bordering states have a larger and more geographically diverse number of jurisdictions participating in their enhancement program. It may be worth evaluating Maryland’s program requirements for local jurisdiction participation in the transportation enhancement program, in order to increase the number of jurisdictions actively participating, and to bring the State’s utilization of the available funding closer to 100% of available funds, versus the roughly 80% that is actually obligated.

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Howard planners take to their bikes to test county roads


Part of a plan to make Columbia, county highways more pedestrian-friendly
By Larry Carson, The Baltimore Sun

Howard County traffic engineering chief Diane Schwarzman's old one-speed bike rarely gets out of her Ellicott City garage, but lately she's using a borrowed, more sophisticated two-wheeler to pedal along Columbia's streets and pathways with a few professional colleagues.

"The street is the same," she said about the experience of riding a bicycle where she normally drives a car, "but you realize the characteristics of the paved surface." The officials said riding bikes themselves helps them plan for altering streets to make them safer for cyclists.

That's becoming increasingly important as county planners see bicycles as a traffic-friendly part of the transportation mix for the redeveloped downtown Columbia, and as a part of County Executive Ken Ulman's push for environmentally sound and healthy ways to get around. Now, every road the county works on is first examined for ways to add improvements for bicycle riders.

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Crime Log, Baltimore County


[B' Spokes just the crimes that involve bikes listed.]

Frisby Street 3000 block at 6:30 p.m. July 8. Assailant pushed bicyclist off bike and stole it.

Springlake Way 5000 block, between 1:50 and 1:55 p.m. July 10. Bicycle stolen from open garage.

Union Avenue 1300 block, between 8:30 p.m. July 8 and 8:30 a.m. July 9. Blue Kames Koda bicycle with bell and purple flower stolen from unlocked shed.

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2010 Street Smart Campaign Materials


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I have been very critical of the local Street Smart campaign due in part of an over emphasis on responsibility (duty?) of pedestrians to avoid being hit by cars. Even in the above pic IMHO the coffee cup should be in the drivers hands not the pedestrians, which is not to say we don't have idiot pedestrians here but when bikes and peds are treated as second class roadway users by too many of the motoring public and with distracted driving being a major problem, we need motorists to wake up and realize roads are used by all types of people and no ones hurry maters more then someone else's hurry.

So I have in part an apology to make, they are producing material for drivers, below is "Day 2 email blast." (Though their web site should be more descriptive then this.):
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and tips for drivers around cyclists (titled Day 4 Email blast):
image And finally tips for cyclists (titled Day 3 Email blast):
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