With the news that the government has failed to produce an energy/climate bill, it appears we the people are on our own once again. If we are to break our addiction to oil and mitigate the damage we are doing to our environment, then as individuals and families we are going to have to make the kinds of choices that may help us prosper as oil runs out and the earth’s climate changes.

Once again, the bicycle is a wondrous invention that can help.

(Actually, the whole “on our own” thing doesn’t really work. In a democratic republic such as ours, the government is us. We don’t have a climate/energy bill in large part because we failed to demand it.)

It is clear to me, even without hard data, that more people in Springfield are riding bicycles for all kinds of reasons. My hope is that new riders come to learn these things quickly:

1. Springfield’s urban core is a great place to ride a bicycle.
2. Riding a bicycle is safe, fun, convenient, healthy, and economical .
3. Using a bicycle as basic transportation here is very easy if one is not stuck in some hell-and-gone, car-centric, sprawling suburb.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle politics, cycling, green transportation, sustainability

• If you like to race bicycles, or watch people race bicycles, you’ll enjoy the St. John’s Powerful Medicine Criterium on Sunday 25 July at 101 E. Commercial St. For more information, see StJohnsCycling.com.
• The third iteration of the Bicycle Friendly Springfield petition is available for your signature now. This year’s petition is green. So if you have not signed the green petition, please stop what you’re doing and head to your nearest Springfield bicycle shop now.
• The transportation committee for the new city strategic plan has finished its initial work and submitted its report to the city manager. Complete Streets concepts play a large role in the current plan. Stay tuned for more details as the planning process moves into phase two.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle politics, complete streets, cycling, Transportation Planning

Phillips said the boy, who was riding a bike, and the van met at the corner of Hovey Street and Kansas Expressway. Phillips said a witness said both the boy and the van stop, then both went at the same time.

Phillips called the accident “really just bad timing.” The police department had not yet decided who was at fault for the accident.

This photo, taken by News-Leader staff photographer Nathan Papes (a former student of mine), was published online but not in the print edition.

And right there we can see the need for bicycle education for children in the United States. I’m talking about something formalized — perhaps through the schools using local volunteers (to keep costs down because, geez, we certainly wouldn’t want to spend too many tax dollars on the safety of our children).

The photo seems to indicate that the child was riding the wrong way down a major 4-lane artery. The speed limit here is 45 mph. It is not clear from the photo if the boy was on a sidewalk or not. I am not sure if there is a sidewalk at that intersection.  From the angle of  the van’s front tire I’d say the driver was turning right. In any case he would have been looking left for on-coming traffic.

I am not trying to make an argument that the child is at fault.

(Many commenters on the News-Leader site want to blame the parents for “allowing” a 7-year-old near such a busy street.)

I am beginning an argument that WE are at fault for not doing a better job of teaching children in this community how to ride safely.

Bicycle education and a Safe Routes to School program are even more important now that school bus service will be trimmed because of a cut in state funding.

Technorati Tags: bicycle accident, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling

Waaaaaaaa?

But then I read this essay by Keri Caffrey, of Commute Orlando, and it began to make a bit of sense:

The root cause of the problems for bicycling in the U.S. is the oppressive belief system about who the roads are for. We have car-culture amnesia about our public road system and who is entitled to use it. Enforcers of the culture of speed have used intimidation and fearmongering to subjugate the drivers of human-powered vehicles. The result is that most bicyclists ride in ways that increase their risk, leading to a spiral of increasing fear…

Be sure to read her description of the spiral of fear.

Two things to consider:

1. Cars pass bicyclists closer on roads with bicycle lanes.
2. Bicycle lanes and tracks play a role in increasing bicycle crashes.

I’d never had much experience with bicycle lanes before moving to Springfield.  My first experience with them was fine it seemed. But I became unsettled, which led to this examination of our local system.

Since that time I’ve had the opportunity to ride on lanes and tracks in other places — mostly in Florida — and at least observe lanes in many other places. My view of bicycle lanes has become ever dimmer largely because I’ve become ever more analytical about my riding experience and the behaviors of other road users. Plus I have a healthy respect for my own safety on the road.

I do not feel safe in a bicycle lane because, in fact, I am not as safe as being an integrated part of traffic.

I think our Springfield plan is a much better way to go. The CIP money will be paying for route signs — a numbering system similar to the interstate highways —  on the current bicycle route system. And sharrows will be painted on the system, which will clearly indicate to all road users that bicyclists are a normal part of traffic.

Next, the city is starting work on The Link – a connector system of traffic-calmed roads that will connect current and future greenways. Our greenways represent an excellent form of bicycle infrastructure something like what we’ve seen in the compelling videos of David Hembrow (although we still have much to learn from the Dutch example).

I believe these projects represent real progress for bicyclists in Springfield and will serve as an example for other communities in the United States.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, bicycle trails, cycling, traffic design, Transportation Planning, Urban Planning

At a St. Charles County Council meeting last night, Councilman Joe Brazil came prepared with statistics in hand. In his push to ban bikes from certain rural two-lane roads in the county, Brazil cited some alarming numbers: 14 fatalities in the last 16 months, as well as “over a hundred serious vehicle accidents,” owing to the lack of shoulder on the roads.

With those numbers, that would be nearly a death a month and a serious accident a week for nearly the last year and a half. Wouldn’t someone have noticed if bikers in the cyclist-heavy county were being picked off one-by-one?

With that in mind, we gave Brazil a buzz this morning to ask him the names of bikers who had been killed on the roads — if bike fatalities are this much of a problem, maybe the ban shouldn’t have been tabled for another month, as it was at the meeting last night.

As it turns out, exactly NONE of the fatalities Brazil mentioned were bikers. Holy misleading use of statistics, Batman!

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic law