• Home
  • Biking Elsewhere

Google

California passes Complete Streets

Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 1358, the California Complete Streets Act of 2008, into law Tuesday night. The Complete Streets Law has been the number one legislative priority of the California Bicycle Coalition.

The Complete Streets Act codifies policy that all streets be designed to accommodate all users including bicyclists. According to San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno, who introduced AB 1358, “Streets aren’t just for cars, they’ re for people and AB 1358 will ensure our roadways are safe and convenient for everyone - young or old, riding a bike or on foot, in a car or on a bus.”

AB 1358 requires a city or county’ s general plan to identify how they will accommodate the circulation of all users of the roadway, including motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, children, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and users of public transportation. The new general plan provisions would be required when local governments next revise what is known as the circulation element which addresses flow of traffic through a local transportation system utilizing better planning to ease congestion. Such accommodations may include sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, wide shoulders, medians, bus pullouts, and audible pedestrian signals, among others.

“Complete Streets ensure that tax dollars are invested to serve all Californians, and protect and enhance our quality of life now and in the future,” said K.C. Butler, Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition.

Complete Streets has many societal and public health benefits. When people have more transportation options, there are fewer traffic jams and the overall capacity of the transportation network increases. Additionally, physical inactivity is linked to our growing obesity epidemic. One study found that 43% of people with safe places to walk within 10 minutes of home met recommended physical activity levels.

AB 1358 is also a key strategy communities can use to help improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Complete Streets will help cities and counties meet standards set by landmark legislation capping carbon emissions in California, AB 32. If each resident of a community of 100,000 replaced one car trip with one bike trip once a month, it would cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emission by 3,764 tons per year.

Additionally, integrating sidewalks, bike lanes, transit amenities, and safe crossings into the initial design of a project is more cost-effective than making costly retrofits later.

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

How to find

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

Kill a cyclist, pay $110

Until the city lives up to its bike-plan promises, door-prize givers will get away with murder

BY Jonathan Goldsbie

What if I told you that you could kill a man — or a woman or a child — for the low cost of $110? No jail time. No criminal record. No other fines or fees. Quite a bargain, huh? And you may not even have to pay that much, if you successfully challenge the penalty in court. The offer is not gonna get any sweeter than this. I dare you, find a better deal. Kill a person, pay $110, move on with your life.

How, you might ask? Well, it's obvious. Just pick someone whom society willfully neglects, whose life is considered unimportant and whose death is no big whoop, an unfortunate but forgettable consequence of modern society. A little collateral damage at the margins. Nope, not homeless people. They're looking down on that now.

I'm talking about cyclists. Just open the door of your parked car into an oncoming cyclist and smack 'em into traffic. It might take several tries before you actually kill one, but keep at it. The police will be hesitant to charge you at first. And then other cyclists will get all uppity, and police will compromise with a $110 fine. Because that's how much a cyclist's life is worth.

Incidentally, it's also how much a cyclist is fined for not coming to a complete halt at a stop sign. Or not having a bell. Or having a defective bell. Or riding in or along a pedestrian crossing.
...

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

Bailout Bill Includes Bike Commuting Benefit

Remember Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer's long-sought $20 per month tax credit for bike commuters, intended to extend a benefit to cyclists that motorists have received for decades? The measure ridiculed by North Carolina Rep. Patrick "Give Me Fossil Fuels or Give Me Death" McHenry? It didn't make it into law last year, but it seems the bike commuting credit has found its way into the latest version of the financial bailout package. ...

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

The (bike) path of least resistance

...
There's no logical reason for the hostility. Sure, a bicyclist's presence means that a driver must slow down and pay attention. But there may be something deeper going on, too: A bicyclist has the potential to make anyone feel guilty for guzzling gas. Or envious that they are not on a cycle. I know when I'm biking past a road crew, I feel like an entitled fop from the leisure class: I'm in the hot sun by choice, not because my paycheck requires it.

Moreover, bicyclists aren't perfect neighbors on the asphalt. Sometimes we ride two abreast, sometimes we zip through red lights. Once I hurt an animal: A garter snake. ...

But there is so much to be gained from biking - for drivers, too. Obviously, biking doesn't replace mass transportation and it isn't feasible if your commute is more than a few miles. But it minimizes commuter congestion, it's nonpolluting, and it inspires no one to chant, "Drill, baby, drill," like a lunatic sports fan.
...

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

David Feherty Got Hit by a Truck and Lived to Tell About It

by David Feherty;

Seven months ago, I was on my beloved bicycle, a 6.5 trek Madone with the SRAM Red groupset and Easton climbing rims. Tipping the scales at a featherweight 13.8 pounds, it is like riding a carbon butterfly. I was closing in on a 50-miler, just five minutes from my own driveway, and the sun had not yet risen. It was a good start to the day.

I was riding west on Park Lane between Greenville Avenue and Central Expressway, approaching the light at Bed Bath & Beyond—when a pickup truck knocked me into the Beyond section. His wing mirror barely missed me, but the trailer was wider than the truck, and even though I was doing about 20 mph, the impact was shockingly violent.

I’m an alcoholic and a narcotics addict. A couple of years ago, I bought a bicycle and started to ride to my meeting. I liked it, and after a while I started riding farther. Then, one day, I kept going. Now I’m riding instead of meeting. My bicycle is my lifeline, my meditation machine, and without question one of the reasons I’m alive. I acquired the addiction to painkillers from years of playing professional golf with bad elbows and a worse first wife, and the alcoholism I guess is just an Irish thing. I have the double curse: the thirst and the internal stoicism to consume an utterly absurd quantity of alcohol and still remain lucid. I quit drinking not because I was a bad drunk; on the contrary, I was spectacular.

Having kicked all my bad habits for the better part of two years, I finally thought I was addicted to something that wasn’t going to kill me. The irony flashed through my head milliseconds after the corner of the trailer made contact with the middle of my saddle and then my lower back. I remember thinking, Oh, crap, I hope it’s not a beer truck. My head snapped back and I began to fly, like a silhouette of E.T. across the moon. All that was missing was the basket on the handlebars. I had everything else, down to the glowing red light, of which I had two—one on the back of my helmet and the other, a dazzling Planet Bike flasher, clipped to the back of my jersey. I am, if nothing else, safety conscious on a bicycle. The only person who could hit me would have to have a grievance against Christmas trees or, as it turned out in this case, a pressing need to get to a red light. He just had to get to the red light before I did.
...
Then a man standing above, his arms folded. He is not looking at me. The lady says, “You just ran him over!”

“He was in the road!” comes the reply, defiant.

At this point, I don’t know if I’m going to live, but I do know that if I die, I definitely want to take this guy with me. If I could just get up, maybe I could push him into oncoming traffic. That way, even if the bastard survived, he’d know what it feels like to be hit by several tons of fast-moving metal. (For the record, it hurts.)

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

Learning to Drive

[We need a movement like this here.]

The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) is consulting on proposals to alter the Learning to Drive process.

CTC [the UK'S national cyclists’ organization] suggests that:

* more account be made in the driver learning process of cycle awareness, better explaining cyclists' rights and the reasons behind cyclists' road positioning.

* cycle awareness must also be part of the training process for accredited driving instructors and examiners.

* The theory and hazard perceptions of the test, now 5 years old, need to be used to explain to learner drivers the safety reasons behind rules and initiatives.

The proposals also suggest that 'pre-driver training' be introduced as a qualification for teenagers before they start on-road lessons. CTC suggests that National Standard Cycle Training (or Bikeability) level 3, designed to give young teenagers the skills to negotiate busy roads and junctions, fulfills many of the elements of pre-driver training admirably. More widespread application of cycle training amongst teenagers will help reduce collisions amongst this age group, keep them cycling, and turn them into better, more considerate drivers.

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

Wheel incentive in Minneapolis

Biking to work in Minneapolis shot up last year to rank the city in a virtual tie for tops among big U.S. cities--and that's before $4 gas.
...
ANALYSIS

"City government is just getting geared up. We're starting to do a lot more stuff. People just really want to get out and bike here for environmental reasons, gas prices and health. This is largely a grass-roots community thing. But it doesn't hurt that we have lots of facilities." -- Shaun Murphy, Minneapolis' non-motorized transportation coordinator.
...

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)

Reporter tries bike commuting

For years, I was scared to bike to work. In Portland, of all places.

I was afraid I'd get flattened, out there on my rinky-dink bike amid the beefy Yukons and boxy Westfalia vans that roam the region. These are not unusual fears. Even in the nation's bike-happiest city, fewer than five percent of Portland workers pedal to the office, according to U.S. Census estimates. Some of the rest might consider the option if persuaded they'd get home in one piece.

I wasn't persuaded. But I tried it anyway. Three months later, I'm alive to report: The fear is gone.

Pretty much. ...

Continue Reading

  • Currently 0.00/5
Rating: 0.00/5 (0 votes cast)