Take the Lane

Who do we ticket: cyclists or motorists?

On my way to work this afternoon in the middle of the downtown, I watched three cyclists riding on the sidewalk and two motorists running a yellow-then-red light, and I wondered: who do we want to target with our law enforcement resources?

There is only so much money, so where do we want to put it? I see letters to the editor regularly from pedestrians who would like to see more enforcement of municipal bylaws the prohibit full-size bicycles from being ridden on sidewalks. This cycling behaviour is an annoyance, and possibly a hazard, to many pedestrians. It must be stopped, say the letter writers.

I watched two 150-pound teens on 30-pound stunt bikes who were doing tricks on the King Street sidewalks, then watched them race up the sidewalk of a side street, going from zero to about 25 km/h in a matter of a few minutes. I watched a 180-pound male with hair greyer than mine riding his 30-pound bike on the sidewalk on King, dodging peds and bollards. If he got to 15 km/h, I'd be surprised.

Then I watched two 4,000-pound cars go from 30 km/h to 50 km/h in a few seconds to beat a light. As  pedestrian at that moment, I have a pretty clear idea which I would have preferred to have a collision with, if I was forced to choose.

Even from a revenue perspective, the choice is reasonably clear: the fine for riding an adult-sized bicycle on the sidewalk ranges from $30 to $90 in Ontario. The Highway Traffic Act fine for running a red light light is $325. It would take a lot of bicycle tickets to equal that given to one red-light-running motorist (unless, of course, we're talking about red-light-running cyclists).

So it is with interest that I see that the Ontario coroner's office is launching a review of pedestrian fatalities in Ontario, just three weeks after announcing a similar review of cycling fatalities in Ontario. I'd hope that this review will demonstrate clearly just where law enforcement dollars and resources in Ontario should be focused.

But I think you already know where.

Want better cycling infrastructure? Show up and speak up

Want to cycle on sidewalks? Think bike lanes are the answer? Need more wide multi-use trails?

Everyone in Waterloo Region is being invited to have a say as the regional government holds public info workshops on the active transportation master plan, to be called Walk Cycle Waterloo Region. According to the Active Transportation website, the plan is "to make it easier to walk, cycle and roll in Waterloo Region." (The Record's Terry Pender wrote about the master plan Monday. You can see that article here.)

Input gathered from you, the public, at the workshops will be used to shape the master plan that will be presented to regional politicians for approval. If the workshops indicate that attitudes must be adjusted, policies must be changed or money must be spent, that's what will be plunked down in front of the regional council members.

That will only happen if you turn up to make your opinions known. Paula Sawicki, manager of strategic transportation planning for the region, told me that regional transportation planning has been hung up on car-centric thinking for a long time. "It's a big ship that we want to turn around . . . I can inform and advocate for change all I want, but I need to hear from the public."

There will be three 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. sessions, on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at the United Kingdom Club, 35 International Dr., Cambridge; Wednesday, Nov. 9 at First United Church, 16 William St., Waterloo; and Thursday, Nov. 17 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 54 Queen St. N., Kitchener.

If you have work or personal commitments on these evenings, you'll be able to see the presentation and results of the first meeting online at the active transportation master plan website, on the day following the first presentation. There will be a comment form available online for you to fill out and email to the project managers.

And of course, this meeting is open to everyone, including pedestrians and assisted mobility device users who want to make their views known. If you are a walker or a scooter user fed up with being crowded off the sidewalk by cyclists, you should show up and make some noise.

Build bike lanes to protect pedestrians

I had always thought that cyclists would eventually get segregated bicycle lanes to protect cyclists from motorists, but perhaps they will get separate bike lanes to protect pedestrians from cyclists.

That's a conclusion you could draw from a recent study in New York City of cyclist-pedestrian accidents, as reported by Christine Haughney in the New York Times.

In a story Monday, she reports on a study by two professors from Hunter College who analyzed hospital data collected by the New York State health department from 2007 to 2010, and found that about 1,000 pedestrians state-wide and 550 in New York City are seen by hospitals every year as the result of collisions with bicycles.

An earlier analysis, in 2009, had come up with only about 1,300 peds nation-wide who were treated for cyclist collisions, so this new number is a huge increase.

According to one of the profs, Peter Tuckel, the study was prompted by Nancy Gruskin, whose Stuart Gruskin Family Foundation was launched after her husband was killed in 2009 by a cyclist going the wrong way down a one-way street. According to the foundation website, the Hunter College study was done in co-operation with the foundation.

The NYT story parses which sections of NYC had the most cyclist-pedestrian injuries, and has comment from a spokesperson for the city's department of transportation. Seth Solomonow is quoted as saying that with NYC reporting 10,000 pedestrians struck by motor vehicles every year, the number of peds hit by cyclists is rather low (at about five per cent of all ped injuries), but the number is low "because of our safety investments. We still have to drive it down further and will continue to work with NYPD to enforce the law for everyone on the road and install bike lanes to separate vehicles from cyclists and cyclists from pedestrians. These make streets safer for everyone ..."

I think this is the first time I've heard someone with the NYC transportation department say that bike lanes help protect pedestrians. Will this become part of the new mantra for bicycle infrastructure? Build bike lanes to protect pedestrians...

 

 

Sidewalks shouldn't be the only option for cyclists

Another day, another letter to the editor from someone complaining about cyclists on sidewalks.

This one, in today's Record, was particularly striking because you could rewrite it, substituting the word "motorist" for "cyclist" and "road" for "sidewalk" and it would say what I feel after a few hours of driving on regional roads or the Conestoga Parkway. Bad cyclists leave as much of a lasting poor impression as bad motorists do.

To take a sampling of sidewalk cycling culture, I travelled some regional and city sidewalks on Wednesday, keeping track of cyclists and pedestrians. As well, I counted the number of driveways, ramps or crosswalks cutting through the sidewalks, places where sidewalk cyclists should, in theory, dismount and walk their bicycle.

I walked a stretch of Homer Watson Boulevard, Ottawa Street and King Street, all in Kitchener. Over a distance of almost seven kilometres, I encountered 17 pedestrians and five cyclists.

Although a lot of sidewalk cyclists are disparagingly described as being "rebels without a clue," two of the five I met were about my age, the others were twenty-somethings. Of the five, only one was totally oblivious to the world around him, plugged into his music. The other four nodded or said hello, and were respectful of my space on the sidewalk. We were sharing a transportation facility.

I passed through 17 crosswalks and 68 driveways or ramps. So, roughly every 100 metres, a cyclist would have to dismount and walk his/her bike. If you were riding a bike, would you get off and walk it every 100 metres? (In some stretches, esp. the downtown, there were very few ramps or driveways.)

I can understand how an A2B cyclist using the sidewalk can forego first some, then all, ramps and driveways, and thus become oblivious to the dangers. A good reason not to ride on sidewalks at all.

Certainly, I have ridden my bicycle on sidewalks, sometimes because I was directed to by signage (not all sidewalk cycling critics may know that some sections of sidewalk in our area are designated as multiuse paths), sometimes because it felt like the sidewalk was my only option to a clearly dangerous road.

But in general, I argue that a bicycle is a vehicle, to be used mindfully on a roadway with other mindful users.

Money spent on bicycle licensing is money wasted, in my view. Spend that money on education and infrastructure. Make our roadway network better, safer, and no adult cyclist will feel the sidewalk is their only option.

Yes, roads can be dangerous

Thanks to Todd Tyrtle, whose response to an earlier post about a Record article on who is at fault in cyclist-motorist collisions, seems to suggest that motorists are in fact more likely to be at fault.

The problem with this 2010 report, from Australia, is that it is video-recording from road-using cyclists, and the stats from Waterloo Region include sidewalks. The Aussie study, in fact, seems to support those cyclists who use sidewalks, pointing out that in 127 hours and 38 minutes of video shows 54 "events" (roughly one every 30 minutes) where a cyclist had to take some action to prevent an accident, and in 88.9 per cent of those cases, the cyclist was within his/her rights at the time. Sadly, more than 80 per cent of the motorists didn't seem to realize they had put the cyclist in some kind of danger. (The expression, clueless, comes to mind.)

Yes Virginia, roads can be dangerous.

Judge beat charge because cyclist he struck was riding on sidewalk

One of the big arguments against adult cyclists riding on sidewalks is that when a motorist strikes a cyclist who is riding on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk, the cyclist is judged to be in the wrong.

The most high-profile example of that in the Waterloo Region was about eight years ago, when a local judge turned right into the parking lot of the Beechwood Plaza in Waterloo and struck a 14-year-old girl riding her bicycle along the sidewalk and across the mall parking lot entrance.

The judge was initially convicted of failing to yield to traffic (three demerit points and a $90 fine), but appealed the ruling on the grounds that the cyclist should not have been riding on the sidewalk due to Waterloo's bylaw prohibiting sidewalk cycling. Ironically, the cyclist told the court she rode on the sidewalk because she didn't feel safe on the road.

The cyclist had testified that she had stopped her bike to let traffic through, and then remounted to continue; witnesses said she rode straight through. The judge argued that a departing vehicle had blocked his line of sight.

Even though the judge told the court that his responses weren't what they used to be, and that he drives more slowly as a result, he was able to overturn the conviction. The main reason for his victory: the cyclist should not have been where she was.

The moral: if the cyclist had been walking her bicycle across the parking lot entrance, she would have been a pedestrian, fully entitled to use the sidewalk, and with the right of way. The judge would have had no grounds for appeal. If you must ride on the sidewalk, dismount when crossing parking lot entrances, using pedestrian crossovers at roundabouts or when using crosswalks.

Yeah, it's slower, but motorists will be more likely to see you and thus avoid a collision and, if there is contact, the motorist, not you, will be in the wrong.

No wonder cyclists ride on sidewalks

Disturbing article in The Record today and on its website: upshot is that 71 per cent of cyclist collisions with motor vehicles are the fault of cyclists, mostly because of riding on sidewalks or into crosswalks.

It's disturbing because there seem to be more cyclists on sidewalks every year. Even where there are clearly marked on-road bike lanes, I see cyclists regularly riding on the sidewalks.

Supposedly, it is fear of riding on the road, although the accident statistics show that the frequency of cycling accidents is actually greater on sidewalks.

It's hard to dispute, though, that if a cyclist collides with a pedestrian who's going at five km/h or even another cyclist on a sidewalk who's doing 20 km/h, the results are likely to be a lot less painful than if a cyclist is overtaken on a road by one tonne of metal being driven by a distracted driver who is going at 70 km/h.

The only cycling fatality in 2010 was a daylight cyclist, in a bike lane, clearly visible, who was hit from behind by a motorist and killed. Not exactly a ringing recommendation for using the bike lane.

The tendency to ride on sidewalks is probably not totally about fear of riding on the road. It's also about convenience. Sidewalks are, after all, a consistent and dependable form of transportation infrastructure.

Bike lanes in Waterloo Region (and a lot of other municipalities) are not so consistent and dependable. Bike lanes begin and end, sometimes in a matter of a few hundred metres. They are sometimes signed or sharrowed, and sometimes not. They frequently do not connect north-south and east-west, and may not be readily apparent. 

Sidewalks, however, are almost everywhere -- a giant web of concrete connections in the region. They connect with crosswalks, which have a priority place at signalized traffic intersections. Sidewalks are swept clear of sticks, glass, snow and other encumbrances more readily than bike lanes are. Sidewalks are even where the bicycle parking is located. And let's be honest, for incredibly long stretches, there are hardly any pedestrian rivals for the space.

No, I'm not advocating for cycling on sidewalks except in rare circumstances. But I think you can understand why others might.

The knee-jerk response by those wanting to keep sidewalks free for pedestrians is to enforce the bylaws that should keep adult cyclists from sidewalks. That will work as long as you are willing to divert your police force to the task of monitoring sidewalk cyclists when they instead should be catching grow-op operators, corner store robbers and weapons smugglers.

You might even be able to get your local police department to do a Friday night sidewalk bicycle blitz, issue a bunch of tickets, and then issue a press release saying what a good job they did.

And the riders will be back on the sidewalks on Monday.

The long-term solution is to support groups like the Kitchener Cycling Advisory Committee or Waterloo Region's Active Transportation Advisory Committee, as they lobby politicians for improved cycling infrastructure. Emphasis on the phrase: "long-term solution." Cancer will be cured before our roads are.

Steep learning curve for this roundabout

It's the first day back to school for the students of St. Mary's High School in Kitchener, and so far, everyone has survived crossing the area's newest and largest roundabout, at Homer Watson Boulevard and Block Line Road.

It helped, likely, that there were nine or more uniformed Waterloo Region Police officers and civilians from the school and the Region of Waterloo Public Health, dressed in yellow and orange safety vests and scurrying out in the road when they needed to flag down vehicles to stop for pedestrians.

Not that this tactic worked every time.

I was only there for 30 minutes or so, and I think pedestrians and cyclists will have a major challenge once the temporary "crossing guards" are gone at the end of the week.

For starters, not everyone stops, even when peds stick their hands out, not even when a constable sticks his hand out! And the motorists clearly don't want to wait for peds or cyclists. This photo shows one reason why.

North-south traffic comes in bursts, rather than a steady stream likely due to the traffic lights at Bleams Road to the south and at Hansen Avenue to the north. Lots of crossings of the north-south flow can be made without stopping cars.

But when the northbound traffic stops near the beginning of the burst, the whole burst stacks up behind it, stopping all traffic in the circle and back up the road, as shown in the photo. When the burst begins moving again, the motorists in it seem to respond as though they have an entitlement to enter the traffic circle ahead of others from the east-west flow. Natural re-integration of the north-south and east-west traffic seems to happen when slower transport trucks retard the burst.

For whatever reason, motorists don't seem to like to be in a traffic circle full of stopped cars; nor do they like to be in the entry areas, unable to move because the circle is full of stopped cars.

And this is notwithstanding the fact that their stoppage is much less then it had been with the previous traffic lights. Sometimes, north-south motorists had to wait through the entire green-yellow-red sequence merely because a single ped had pushed the pedestrian walk button.

I watched as several exasperated motorists this morning waved their hands in frustration, or accelerated away up the road. One regional employee said she was surprised at the road rage during last week's assisted crossing sessions. Another said he was less concerned with the regular users of the intersection than he was the out-of-town truckers and others who use Homer Watson as an alternative entrance to the city.

Plenty of concern, except on the part of the students. They were pretty much behaving as you would expect students on the first day to school to behave -- boisterous, too cool, and perhaps a little shaken to see two vice-principals at the crosswalk, shaking hands with everyone who made it across successfully.

More challenging than motorists, for sure.

Roundabout is easy for Easy Riders

About 50 cyclists passed unscathed through the Region of Waterloo's newest and largest roundabout this morning at Homer Watson Boulevard and Block Line Road.

It might have helped make the motoring public pause that the 50 came through in about three groups -- members of the Easy Riders cycling club.

With their safety vests, bright yellow Braun's Is Bicycles or Braun-like T-shirts and jerseys, and in large, confident groups, the Easy Riders seemed to catch the eyes of the motorists, who either hustled to get in and out of the roundabout ahead of them, or stopped and yielded to them, as they would to any other traffic already in the roundabout. (For roundabout tips, see the Region's website.)

Some of the riders might have hesitated a bit, but each group had a couple of leaders who encouraged them to "take the lane, take the lane" (I thought they were talking about the blog).

They were using the bike lanes on Block Line Road as they approached to cross Homer Watson, and rather than using the ramps to ride up to the wider sidewalks to dismount and walk the crosswalks, they joined the traffic flow, took their lane and transited easily from one side to the other.

Then the groups transitioned back to the bike lane on Block Line and continued on their trip. No horns were honked; no motorists appeared irritated. A single cyclist at rush hour might have more difficulty, but this seemed like a good start.

Thanks to the Easy Riders for coming out and being a visible cycling presence.

Ontario's doctors join the cycling lobby

One of Ontario's most powerful lobbies, the 36,000-member Ontario Medical Association, has joined the bicycle infrastructure debate.

The OMA Policy Paper, Enhancing Cycling Safety in Ontario, outlines what many in the cycling advocacy community have been saying for years. The report is posted on the OMA website.

Among the points raised:

-- Cycling is one of the most beneficial exercises for people of all ages, and is a solution to chronic disease associated with obesity. Barriers to cycling needed to be removed so that more people will be encouraged to cycle. Cycling would increase if the cycling infrastructure was perceived as safer.

-- Since a significant majority of cyclist-motorist collisions happen at intersections, more attention has to be focused on intersection design and use. Planners need to rethink intersection design.

-- Cyclists need to get off the sidewalks and on to the roads, and there needs to be better infrastructure (bike lanes, segregated paths, signage) to make that happen.

-- Cycling infrastructure must be extended to rural areas and the burbs. It is not simply a downtown issue.

-- The use of cycling helmets should be encouraged for all ages.

-- Ontario's driver's manual needs to be revised with a cycling section, and there should be investments in such bicycle education programs as Can-Bike.

The OMA lays the responsibility to make changes at the feet of the provincial and municipal governments. The policy paper points out that Ontario has budgeted a measly $250,000 for Transportation Demand Management programs targetting bicycle infrastructure, while Quebec has allocated $88 million for bikeway development over the past 16 years and BikeBC has a budget of $30 million.

Not that the province carries all the blame: Specific cities, including Toronto, are cited for falling dramatically short of the goals of their own cycling master plans. Municipal governments make a big show of passing the motion to approve such plans, then don't back them up with any of the cash needed to implement them.

There are a few things this report doesn't do.

For one, it doesn't do a cost-benefit analysis. There are a lot of bottom-liners in government these days: they need to know how much will be saved. This report would have been more useful if it could say, for instance, that Ontario's health costs could be cut by $1,000 per resident for an investment of $10 per resident in cycling infrastructure spending.

For another, the OMA report shares the blame. Thanks to downloading, uploading and offloading, Ontario and its municipalities don't play well together. With a provincial election only months away, it is possible that some provincial candidates will take this report to heart. There's no such pressure on municipal leaders, who can use the possible change of government as an excuse to stall.

And it remains to be seen just how Ontario's 36,000 doctors will respond to this. Will your doctor read it? Will she or he do something about it? Certainly, you should. Send an email to the candidates in your riding and ask them where they stand.