Archive for August, 2009

Google is asking for suggestions to improve their Maps feature. One of the things you can suggest with the click of  a button  is “bike trail information and biking directions.” It is very easy.

Go to http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs, scroll down to Route Information and click “Suggest it” next to “Add bike trail information and biking directions.”

Oregon, California, and Colorado often come to mind when people dream of bicycling through scenic vistas or experiencing the best mountain biking in the world, but Delaware is a state that rarely comes up. While their tourism board isn’t out selling themselves as a cycling hotbed, the state government is quietly making Delaware a great place to ride.

Having hosted the first annual Delaware Bike Summit and passed statewide Complete Streets legislation this year, the League has taken notice. Not only did Delaware jump to 9th in our annual state rankings, but the state earned an Honorable Mention in our Bicycle Friendly State awards. With all that is going on there, the League staff has acknowledged their accomplishments. However, we were still surprised to see this:

On Wednesday, Kusner’s typically uneventful ride took a VIP turn as she was joined by Gov. Jack Markell; Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del.; and about a dozen AstraZeneca and state workers. The politicians and colleagues turned out to encourage more Delawareans to give bicycle commuting a try.

Credit: The News Journal/FRED COMEGYS

We have to admit, the dog days of August seem an unusual time to encourage folks to get out their air-conditioned cars and try bike commuting for the first time, but we are excited by Governor Markell’s enthusiasm! The DelawareOnline.com article went on to add:

“Getting more people on two wheels would be a good way to eat away at some of our biggest problems, according to Markell, an avid cyclist. “It’s part of a bigger solution to two issues,” he said. “One is transportation — traffic, reducing congestion, reducing pollution. But it’s also part of the solution in terms of becoming a more fit society.”

Kudos to Governor Markell and the progress his state has been making. The League will continue to work with advocates, cyclists, Delaware DOT and legislators through our Bicycle Friendly State program to make Delaware a more bike-friendly place.

Creating Safer Streets

As rates of bicycling continue to rise across the country and advocates cross-country work for larger investments in cycling-specific programming and infrastructure, opposition is often united under the rallying cry of scofflaw cyclists. While it is true that not all cyclists obey the rules of the road as they should, are those on two wheels really more reckless and lawless than those travelling on four? Local D.C. blog WashCycle theorized on the ‘Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist’ last year that perhaps the issue isn’t that cyclist break more laws than motorist, but that they break different ones.

There are few places where the effects of traffic are more notable than New York City. While a recent Hunter College study suggests that many Big Apple cyclists are guilty of poor riding behavior, unsafe behavior of motorists was not examined. Local active transportation advocates Transportation Alternatives offered their own study in response, as noted in today’s NY Post:

Motorists commit about three potentially life-threatening traffic violations every minute at city intersections, clocking in at a stunning 157 each hour, according to the Transportation Alternatives report: From Chaos to Compliance.

And drivers don’t give way to pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles 24 times every hour — even though that same crime caused the second-most crashes in the city two years ago, the transit advocacy group’s study found.

Those are scary numbers, especially given that more than 200 people die in traffic crashes every year in New York City alone. While traffic fatalities are down more than 35 percent over the past seven years, Transportation Alternatives is calling for increased enforcement that targets dangerous violations.

Much like the Share the Road message, targeted enforcement is a two way street. In our Bicycle Friendly Community application we ask how your community’s law enforcement targets dangerous behavior for all road users – including cyclists. However enforcement can’t do it alone. Our Smart Cycling program is on target to certify more than 400 League Cycling Instructors this year. These LCI’s will offer our Traffic Skills training courses, assist with law enforcement training and serve as safe cycling ambassadors in their clubs and community. By working through all of the Five E’s, we are striving to create safer streets for everyone.

Author of Traffic and transportation blogger, Tom Vanderbilt has an article in the new issue of Slate Magazine talking about the need for bike parking: 

If car parking is often overshadowed in traffic talk, bicycle parking is even more obscure. For many people in the United States it might be hard to imagine what there is to talk about. Why don’t you just stick it in the garage? Or, Isn’t that what street signs and trees are for? But as the share of trips made by bicycle has grown in recent years—in Portland, Ore., for example, bicycle use has grown nearly 150 percent since 1990, and an estimated 5 percent of people bike to work—new attention is being paid to what happens to those bicycles when they are not in motion.

Vanderbilt does a good job spelling out the need for quality end-of-trip facilities, pointing to Portland, Ore. and the high demand for on-street bike parking corrals, the groundbreaking Bikes in Buildings legislation recently passed in New York City, and even gets in a plug for the Bike Station opening at Union Station here in D.C. in the coming weeks.

Parking has been on the minds of the Bicycle Friendly America staff a lot recently. We’re in the process of updating the Bicycle Friendly Community application to include more questions about the various policies and physical accommodations like the ones mentioned in Vanderbilt’s article. The new application will be released in September.

In 1984 the Muppets took Manhattan; in 2009 the League of American Bicyclists took Portland. That Muppet reference is partly just an excuse to link to this bicycling scene from the Great Muppet Caper. But we really did take Portland.

The League sent seven staff members to last week’s Safe Routes to School National Conference in the Pacific Northwest’s BFC Platinum paradise. We met with city staff and toured around to see how Portland carefully considers bicyclists when they design roads to enhance access, awareness and on street accommodation. Portland’s Bicycle Coordinator, Roger Geller, took some staff and other conference attendees on a tour of the city’s bicycle facilities and discussed the soon to be released Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030.

Port of Portland sign at the airport. Photo by Jeff Peel

Scott Bricker of Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance was the MC for Wednesday night’s opening plenary. He introduced the leaders of the two national Safe Routes organizations, Lauren Marchetti of the National Center for Safe Routes to School and Deb Hubsmith of Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Both women applauded the efforts of the planners and advocates in attendance to make their communities safer and more pleasant for children to get physical activity on their way to school.

Much of the conference talk focused on children’s health and the need for a built environment that encourages active transportation. Robert Ping of the National Partnership reported that an alarming number of school principals do not allow children to bike to school because of liability concerns.

Another hot topic this year was school siting. New schools are often built on cheaper land located further from central residential areas, making it more difficult to walk and bike to school. During one “mobile workshop” – a conference session on bikes – attendees saw where a freeway was built, splitting a neighborhood in two and forcing students to bus or drive to school. The tour then went to a location where a highway was actually removed by the city.

The trip gave the League staff a chance to experience what it’s like to ride around a Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community. It also gave some of us a chance to ride around town in a group from the League that consisted of a tandem bicycle, a mountain bike with 29-inch wheels, and a Brompton folding bike. See some photographs below from the conference photographer Greg Conyers.

Riders on the “Dead Freeways” mobile workshop. Photo: Greg Conyers

Jeff Mapes, author of Pedaling Revolution, speaks to Safe Routes to School conference attendees. Photo: Greg Conyers

Portland. Photo: Greg Conyers

We have posted a report on the economic impacts of investing in bicycling to the new policy/reports section of our site. The report summarizes available research on the contribution of bicycling, bicycle tourism and the bicycle industry to the national and local economies, neighborhoods and businesses. The purpose is to provide advocates with an additional tool to show policy makers the benefits of investing in bicycling. Thanks to Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Streetsblog, and EcoVelo for spreading the word about the report.

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John Burke, President of Trek, found the perfect combination of events last week to say “thank you” to Congressman James L. Oberstar for his 20-year, on-going commitment to championing the cause of bicyclists in Congress. First, he gave the Congressman a chance to get on his bike and go for a ride with his family! He gave him the chance to drool over the incredible line of bikes and equipment offered by Trek, from the latest carbon-fibre Madone Tour de France bike to the totally recyclable and sustainable Belleville. There was a bit of fundraising thrown in there, as hundreds of bicycle retailers from across the country made contributions to his re-election campaign. At a spectacular reception atop Madison’s Monona Terrace Convention Center,

Burke presented the Congressman with a map showing the rapidly increasing number of Bicycle Friendly Communities – much of the work in these cities made possible by the funding and other programs he has written into law over the years. And finally, he assembled some of the most successful bike dealers in the nation to simply hang out, talk about bikes a whole bunch, and say “thank you.”

After a tough Congressional session this Spring, you could see the energy flow back into Congressman Oberstar as he addressed the Trek World participants. Surrounded by friends and supporters – some who have known him for 20 years, others who were discovering for the first time all that he has done for the movement – he balanced reminiscences with a rallying cry for his version of the next transportation bill. “Your time has come” he said, noting it was time to “move from the hydrocarbon economy to the carbohydrate economy”.

Last month Transportation Alternatives, New York City’s bicycling and walking advocacy organization, released “Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety.”

Executive Order tells the stories of bicyclists who have been killed in New York City and highlights the difficulties in penalizing the drivers and the lack of enforcement of traffic measures that could have prevented the deaths. Based on interviews with more than thirty experts and stakeholders, the report makes twenty recommendations to improve the safety for pedestrians and bicyclists and produced the following findings:

• The likelihood of getting a ticket for speeding in New York City is less than 1 in 12,698

• A driver could speed every day and get ticketed only once every 35 years

• Despite the extensive system of 100 red light cameras in New York City, police and cameras catch only 1 out of every 438 red light runners

• New York City’s 100 red light cameras were responsible for 95.5 percent of the red light summons issued in 2007

• The likelihood of being ticketed for failure to yield, the number two cause of crashes in NYC, is less than 1 in 579,983

• A driver could fail to yield every day and get ticketed only once every 1,589 years

• While the number of fatalities caused by drivers failing to yield rose 26 percent between 2005 and 2007, the number of summons issued for failure to yield decreased 12 percent during that period

• While the number of fatalities caused by speeding rose 11 percent between 2001 and 2006, the number of summons issued for speeding actually dropped 22 percent during that period

The report and TA’s on-going campaign to protect vulnerable road users was funded in part by an Advocacy Advance grant, part of a partnership between the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking and the League of American Bicyclists.

When you think of recess, you may think of kids playing on school playgrounds. But that’s because you’re not a Member of Congress – unless you are, in which case, welcome. For Members of Congress, recess is an opportunity to return to their home districts and hear from constituents on the issues that are important to them. It looks something like this:

Town Hall meetings are in the headlines now for their role in the healthcare debate, but it is important that Congress also hears from bicycling advocates on issues such as the next transportation bill and climate change legislation.

Both the house and senate are on recess until Tuesday, September 8. This is an opportunity to find out when your Member of Congress will meet with the public and to ask them to support the America Bikes platform. As our Advocacy Tips page says, this is particularly important if they sit on a key committee: Transportation & Infrastructure, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means in the house, or Environment and Public Works, Finance, and Commerce, Science and Transportation in the Senate. Before you go, refer to our advocacy tips on how to have an impact and see if your representative is on the Congressional Bike Caucus.

If you get the ear of an elected official, offer to take them for a bike ride in your district. There’s no better way to get them on board with our platform than to get them on a bike with us. Please let us know how your meetings go. Email us at Bikeleague@bikeleague.org.

Photo credit: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

The League’s Bicycle Friendly Community program recognizes cities that promote and protect bicyclists through the five E’s – education, engineering, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation – to become better places to ride. These cities are models to emulate. But there are plenty of other cities out there making progress in the up-hill climb to reverse unfriendly bicycling conditions. The BFC program is offering these communities a road map and the technical assistance needed to improve. The New York Times featured one example in this past Sunday’s edition.

From their article on Boston’s efforts to improve cycling conditions:

Boston, long known as a minefield for bicycle riders, is feverishly working to shed that reputation by creating bike lanes, installing bike racks, restoring bike paths and urging residents to switch from horsepower to pedal power. Plans to link the city’s existing bike paths and create a bike-share program are also in the works.

Boston’s new Bike Czar, Nicole Freedman, says the city’s grand plan is to “change the culture,” something the League is working on across the country.

One lesson from Boston’s experience is the importance of a well-positioned champion – by champion I am not just referring to Freedman, a former Olympic cyclist – but the enthusiastic leadership of Mayor Thomas Menino. Menino recently rediscovered bicycling after 40 years off a bike. The Mayor’s chief of policy and planning talked so passionately about bicycling that eventually the Mayor decided to join the fun. He had his new three-speed Trek delivered to City Hall. Now his staff expects early morning phone calls from the Mayor identifying potholes during his 5 a.m. rides. In addition to pushing for more facilities, the Mayor has asked the City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting parking in bike lanes. He even has a Facebook page called Mayor Menino’s Boston Bikes.

Mayor Menino also kicked off last October’s Boston Bike Summit, which the League helped organize along with the city, the Livable Streets Alliance and MassBikes. The summit brought together advocates and decision-makers to craft a strategy to advance bicycling in Boston. In another best practice, the city sent a delegation to New York City to see what other large U.S. cities are doing to promote bicycling. In March, the Livable Streets Alliance received an REI Bicycle Friendly Community Grant – administered by Bikes Belong and the League – to help Boston develop its Bicycle Network Plan.

Although Boston’s infamous aggressive driving culture and tricky traffic engineering presents its challenges, the city is moving in the right direction by taking the first steps by convening advocates, investing in infrastructure, appointing staff, and raising the public profile of bicycling in Boston.