Take the Lane

Are New Yorkers ready for Parisian bike vision?

Apparently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks New Yorkers would be thick-headed about wearing helmets -- so thick-headed that a Paris bike rental program wouldn't translate well into the U.S. of A.
According to a report from the New York Times yesterday, Bloomberg, who is in Europe on one of those fact-finding missions (lots of facts in Paris in September. Send me . . . I'll find some!) had a look at the bike rental program, but told reporters, among other things, that "We don't have as many bicycle lanes as we need."
Hmmm, how about building them?
Bloomberg also wondered about liability, if the city operated bicycle rental kiosks for the public: ". . . here people don't wear helmets. We have bicycle laws where people have to wear helmets. Not clear whether that would preclude a lot of people from using bicycles to go to work because they don't want to carry their helmets. . ." Drivers find those pesky seat belts a nuisance, too.

New York tries a bikes-only road

New York continues to experiment with bicycle-friendly streetscapes.
The latest plan is to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in the Chelsea area of Manhattan into a multi-use road surface.
A lane of parked cars will separate a 10-foot-wide bicycle lane from vehicular traffic, according to a recent report in the New York Times. The bike lane, which will essentially be a road carrying bike traffic both ways, will be placed beside the sidewalk on one side, with an eight-foot buffer lane separating it from the parking lane.
To do this, of course, the actual road surface is losing a lane for traffic, but bicycle activists feel a protected bicycle lane will encourage bicycle use and reduce auto use.
One lane on one street won't mean much of a reduction, but it is interesting to see how urban areas are playing around with the idea.

King Street redesign bad for cyclists

I can't help but think that the planners in Kitchener's King Street redesign process aren't regular cycle commuters.
There's a big public open house planned for Thursday, Oct. 11 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the WLU Kitchener Campus, 120 Duke St. W.
If you ride through the Kitchener core, you should be there to make your opinions known about the new design. If you can't, go to http://www.kitchener.ca/king_street_master_plan.html and view the plans and leave your two cents' worth.
When King Street was redesigned from Stirling to Frederick, to make it more "people-friendly", I wondered if cyclists weren't considered people.
The plan was to widen the sidewalks and narrow the road, to create a buffer between peds and traffic and to "calm" traffic (drivers go slower when lanes are narrower).
The plan did nothing for cyclists. I ride up and down that stretch almost every day, and it's a tight fit for a car and me. Make no mistake about it: no motorist on King Street expects to sit behind me for long. As soon as I near one of the parking bays, and presumably, could shift over more to the right, the motorist slides past me.
What a lost opportunity to put in a bike lane (rather than a wider sidewalk) which would also have provided a buffer between traffic and pedestrians.
The new plan just continues the same model. The artist's conceptions show bikes locked to bike posts on the new wider sidewalk, and the text says the plan will provide, "A narrower road width, combined with proper signage, to create a shared bicycle/automobile road, whereby cyclists are given equal priority to the road. . ."
Just between you and me, cyclists already have equal priority (aka rights) to the road, but are often not granted them by motorists. I just can't see how the guy in the muscle car is going to putter down King Street behind me, at 20 km/h without there being some kind of unpleasantness. Anyone who rode the critical mass event last Friday and saw the confrontation near King and Queen, can see what could happen.
What puzzles me the most, is that the notes on the redesign proposal say that "76 per cent of respondents wanted  on-street cycling lanes, bike-parking areas and easy access to trail routes. . ."
So fully three-quarters of the respondents wanted on-street cycling lanes, and no on-street cycling lanes were incorporated into the plan?
Please, go to the web page and make your opinions known.

Speak up about Cambridge bike lanes

Buried in the bottom of the City of Cambridge website is a notice about three public drop-in sessions this week to discuss the future of bicycle lanes in Cambridge.
You can get the pdf at http://www.city.cambridge.on.ca/relatedDocs/Bike%20Network.pdf or you can read on: (each session begins at 5 p.m. and ends at 8:30 p.m.)
Tonight: Multi-purpose room of Cambridge Centre for the Arts (Wellington and Main).
Tomorrow: Gym, W.G. Davis Public School, (Lang's Drive and Concession).
Thursday: Gym, Woodland Park Public School. (Ellis Road near Cooper Street).
Drop in and speak up. These people are being paid to listen to you. Now's your chance.

How cyclists can dress for respect

How can the cyclist dress for respect?
Easy. Look like a bicycle cop.
It's in the fall and spring that I notice some unusual reactions when I ride at night.
First, my bikes carry high-intensity lights and a black trunk bag on the rear rack. Second, I have a white helmet. Third, in cooler weather, I wear a yellow cycling jacket.
I think it's the combo of the yellow jacket and white helmet that has the greatest impact, because the reaction is similar whether I'm on a road bike or a hybrid.
On a couple of occasions, as I have ridden around a corner, I've watched what could have been drug transactions suddenly halted. On other occasions, clutches of chatters have gone quiet and stood a little straighter, in that "nothing going on here" manner. Overtaking cars often slow down (until they get close enough to realize there are no police markings anywhere on me). Twice, I've been hailed by pedestrians who want help from a police officer.
I would never suggest that anyone deliberately imitate a bicycle cop. That would be impersonation, and that would be wrong. And anyway, the Waterloo regional police are phasing out their yellow jackets, in favour of the standard blue uniform jacket. But that change only began a year ago, and there are still police riding around in yellow jackets, and plenty of people who are used to seeing them do so.
So, no need for you to get a white helmet and yellow jacket, but I'm just saying . . .

Huge turnout for critical mass ride

If numbers count for anything, the Carfree Days critical mass ride today was a big success.
There must have been 150 riders out, and a few walkers, who rode the seven kilometres from Waterloo Park to Victoria Park in Kitchener.
All manner of bikes, from two John Deere single speeds to some high end stuff. Three-speeds and one coaster bike painted all in banana yellow.
Some families with kids, but mostly younger riders, with camo hats, tank tops and tie dye -- ya gotta love the enthusiasm when the students return to UW and Laurier.
And, there were candidates for the provincial election: Judy Greenwood-Speers (Green, Kitchener-Waterloo) and Catherine Fife (NDP, Kitchener-Waterloo), complete with their own entourages of orange NDP T-shirts and fluorescent Green Party wristbands.
There were just enough anarchic elements that the bikes managed to stop all lanes of traffic, not just the southbound lanes, and two short-tempered motorists came close to finishing off their weeks in a bad way. One of them followed the group to Victoria Park, swore at all and sundry, and appeared to be ready to duke it out with some of the riders, when the police wheeled up and defused the situation.
Most drivers smiled, waved, and honked and some shut off their engines until the bicycle train had passed.
(Might have been a better idea to have kept the cyclists in one lane. One rider called out to let the buses pass, but few heeded the attempt at courtesy to our allies in alternative transport. Maybe next time.)
I was in the last portion of the parade, and caught my breath when I topped the berm near the clock tower at Victoria Park and looked down into a field filled with cyclists.
We should do this more often. 

Bike group seeks leadership role

I'm feeling a bit conflicted about the pro-bicycling political agenda -- Bikes Belong in Ontario -- released today by the Bicycle Trade Association of Ontario.

On one hand, the BTAC's avowed purpose is to help bicycle store operators sell bicycles. Of course they would support bicycling initiatives.

On the other hand, the cycling community needs someone with deep pockets to lobby the politicos. The automakers have a fatter public relations budget than we lowly cyclists do, so it's good to get someone, anyone, with a permanent telephone number and office staff to send out press releases, to do some lobbying for the cycling community.

From their press release, the BTAC wants Ontario's politicians to consider:

"Direct and dedicated funding to Ontario municipalities for increased bicycle infrastructure;

"Direct financial incentives to increase bicycle use and safe cycling;

"Provincial tax incentives for private sector employers to install bicycle parking, showers and other cycling specific amenities necessary for employees to cycle to work and encourage Ontario Public Service employees to cycle to work by providing similar access to cycling specific amenities;

"Direct and dedicated funding for youth cycling training and cycling awareness training for drivers; and

"Seed funding for the establishment of a not-for-profit organization to assist the province, Ontario municipalities and private sector employers in developing and implementing cycling policies and plans specifically related to increasing cycling transportation and recreational cycling in Ontario."

BTAC was happy with the Liberal pledge to drop the PST on bicycles and bicycle helmets, and found a partner in their position in the ThinkFirst Foundation of Canada, a Toronto-based group aimed at prevention of brain and spinal cord injury, with safe cycling a part of that. The BTAC also got the backing of the Conservation Council of Onario, which sent its press release backing the BTAC before the BTAC sent their announcement! Here's a bunch of links: The platform is at http://www.huffstrategy.com/MediaManager/release/Bicycle-Trade-Association-of-Canada/20-9-07/Bikes-belong-in-Ontario-policy-platform/764.html

Find out more about the BTAC at www.btac.org

Check in on the ThinkFirst group at www.thinkfirst.ca 

Here's hoping this gets some of the dazed and confused candidates thinking clearly.

Another mayoral convert to cycling

Another American mayor has been converted to the "right path" of cycling.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is newly won over to the world of freewheeling and is taking steps to spread the good news.
According to a Boston Globe report, his first step is to hire Olympic cycle sprinter Nicole Freedman (aka Snerf) to become a cycling mandarin for the city bureaucracy. He is also promising: 250 new bike racks, an online map system and a network of bike lines in some parts of the city. He's also considering public showers, designated bike storage areas and credit-card accessible bike rental kiosks.
Having said that, there's no money in Boston's budget for these plans yet. The commitment of cash would be nice to see.
Menino is following the lead of such U.S. mayors as New York's Michael Bloomberg (promised 1,200 new bike racks by 2009 and 200 miles of bike lanes by 2010) and San Francisco's Gavin Newsom (will install 300 bike racks and 20 new bike lanes by 2010).
Boston officials plan a summit next month of local bike enthusiasts and national experts to gather data and input. Not all bike advocates are excited: Menino got on the bicycle bandwagon in 1999 and his Bicycle Advisory Committee disappeared by 2003.
What's different this time? Some of Menino's bureaucrats have started cycling, and he got a Trek last month.
It would be sad to think that the only time politicians recognize an issue is when it is right on their doorstep, but it seems to be true. As more paunchy politicians discover the health benefits of cycling, you can expect more of them to support cycling initiatives.
In any event, Boston has a long way to go to become a haven for cyclists: Only one per cent of Bostonians ride to work, last year, Bicycling magazine cited  Boston as one of the worst cities in North American for cyclists and the Kryptonite lock company says Boston is the third-worst place in the U.S. for bike theft.

Nah, we don't need both sides of the story

The CSI team of the Barrie Police Service is pretty efficient. They can get both sides of the story when one side is still unconscious in hospital.
That's the conclusion you might draw from the news that a 16-year-old girl faces being charged with not wearing a helmet after she was struck Sunday while riding her bicycle in Barrie.
She was airlifted to a Toronto hospital with head and pelvic injuries and is apparently still unconscious.
The Barrie Examiner quotes police spokesperson Sgt. Dave Goodbrand as saying the girl could face charges because, "The driver is not at fault -- the cyclist is at fault." 
Sure, the cyclist should have been wearing a helmet, that's the law. But not wearing a helmet doesn't mean it's suddenly open season on the helmet-less. There was a responsibility for the motorist to consider the road and traffic conditions, including a 16-year-old girl riding her bike to her friend's house. Some of the fault belongs with the motorist.

Ontario party platforms and cycling

I've been bugging the provincial party leaders for their platforms as related to cycling and after three weeks of asking, thought I'd post what I've got.
It ain't much.
Greens
Leader Frank de Jong wants the PST removed on all bicycles and all parts and service. In an interview, he says that the party sees bicycles as part of a liveable city, but most of the party's transportation platform refers to fuel-efficient vehicles or public transit, rather than cycling alternatives. The sole reference to bicycles (in the Transportation section) is: “The province and municipalities need to change the way communities are designed. Sustainable communities locate basic amenities within walking, biking and transit-accessible distances.” There are other references to walkable communities; bikeable is perhaps implied.
Liberals
The forgiveness on the provincial sales tax on bicycles and bicycle helmets is the only direct Liberal platform pledge, but just to make sure we don’t miss it, they list it twice in their platform, once under A Healthier Ontario Section (pg. 27): “Provide tax incentives to encourage Ontarians to stay active in their daily lives, including a break on provincial sales tax on bicycles and bike helmets and tax credits for families with children enrolled in organized physical activities.”
And then again under A Better Ontario for Families Section (pg. 38). “Help families stay healthy by removing the PST on things like bicycles and helmets and providing a tax credit for youth organized physical activities.” (Would you like me to repeat that?)
New Democrats
From Howard Hampton's office: “New Democrats would explore planning reforms that develop complete communities designed to integrate non-automobile modes of transportation. Ensuring that our cities and towns have interconnected cycling and walking routes gives people the option of cycling or walking while leaving the car at home. It’s not only a healthy option but contributes to the greenhouse gas reductions we need to meet the Kyoto target, as well as helping to reduce smog.”
Progressive Conservatives
Despite repeated calls, no response.