Walking home yesterday — all of 3/4 mile — I saw five separate incidents of people being silly on the streets. Upon seeing the first one, I thought: Oh, good blog post! Then the silliness just kept coming to the point where I thought: Oh, different blog post! And the silliness continued this morning — the last incident being a guy who tried to squeeze me at a stop sign and then ran the sign.

So here’s my upshot: Cars and bicycles, as media that allow us to write and interpret a text called the street, are separated by massive differences but share at least one uncomfortable trait: both moving machines encourage humans to understand convenience as a primary value of writing the text of the street. Within this similarity in an important difference — perhaps only of scale.

Author Robert Pirsig once wrote that riding in a car was “just more TV” because one experiences the world through a screen. Indeed, one is separated from the world by the screen in a way similar to the separation TV creates. This situation encourages people to understand other street users as objects.

The bicycle has no screen. One of its greatest strengths as a mode of transportation, however, is also a problem: Bicycles are fun to ride and encourage us to move, and keep moving, based on the sheer joy of ease of movement and maneuverability. How can this be bad? Well, just hang out for a few minutes at the 4-way stop at Hammons and Cherry. (There are actually people who argue that stopping at stop signs is difficult because — and this is just a head-scratcher  – getting moving again is somehow inefficient and difficult.)

Both sources of bad behavior are equally self-righteous, and, therefore, utterly galling.

Among the silly incidents I saw yesterday was the near collision of a bicycle and a car at National and Grand in which both parties were displaying, in the particular ways of their given media, a self-righteous disregard for other road users.

We have a cultural problem on our streets that finds its expression in the media of bicycles and cars: lack of courtesy, civility, care — take your pick. To the extent that these qualities are lacking in the driver (of any vehicle and for whatever reason) is the extent that our streets are sites of fear and danger instead of a commons where we all benefit from our collective investment.

Now you’re ready to listen to my recent interview on KSMU. I used my grumpy voice.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle safety, car culture, crazy drivers, cycling, pedestrian safety, traffic law, transportation, walking

Technorati Tags: pedestrian safety, urban design, walking

I disagree with the narrator’s comments about driving this intersection on a bicycle. It does not require one to be “hardcore.” It requires one to understand traffic — a function of education. But until such education is accessed by more people, this will appear to be a difficult intersection to travel.

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Hmmmmm…

Technorati Tags: pedestrian safety, traffic design, walking

Some advocates are willing to do almost anything to increase participation — including putting novices in danger.

There’s a “but”: It appears rather clear that the more people who ride bicycles in a given area the safer it is to ride a bicycle on the road (convincing novices that the riding in traffic is already safe requires education). A new study recently published in Environmental Practice reinforces the safety-in-numbers thinking and adds a bonus: More people on bicycles makes the traffic system safer for all road users.

There’s another “but”: It appears that bicycle lanes play a minor role in encouraging people to ride bicycles (hoo-ray for that). This new study suggests that narrow streets, a dense grid pattern, and traffic calming are the real keys in the American context (or, in the case of this study, the California context).

Today I want to discuss one of the findings: intersections per square mile. The study shows that safer, high-cycling cities have more intersections per square mile than do less-safe, low-cycling cities. Safe, high-cycling cities in the study averaged 114.2 intersections per square mile suggesting a dense grid pattern. The following graphic illustrates common street patterns. It’s easy to see why grids have more intersections and why grids would tend to calm traffic.

Now let’s take a look the square mile at the heart of downtown Springfield (defined by me as the area surrounding Park Central Square).

That’s a rough estimation using Google Maps. By my (very rough) count using this map, downtown Springfield has 127 intersections in this square mile. Further, the speed limit is 20 mph on most of the roads you see there (exceptions include Grant, Jefferson, Kimbrough, Benton, and Chestnut Expressway).

The four safest cities in the study share something else with Springfield, but the study does not mention it — and I think it is important: The safest cities are all home to universities — Berkeley, Chico, Davis, and Palo Alto. On this Springfield map, MSU is just off the southeast corner, and OTC and Drury intersect the map to the north and northeast.

I’m only discussing grid density now. But this begs the question: Why, then, has Springfield not achieved the kind of bicycling numbers as, say, Davis, California? We have active advocacy (STAR Team) and a cooperative (even enlightened) public works department and police force. We have encouragement and education programming. While facilities such as bicycle lanes play a minor role according to the study, we have some of those, too. That square mile area has several bicycle lanes plus a growing greenway.

I think one important reason we’re not seeing the kinds of bicycling numbers as those California cities is because there are damned few employers of the kind that attract the creative class (notice the income data in the study). Yes, we have entertainment — mostly at night. Yes, we have a growing number of lofts. Yes, MSU is moving into more and more downtown buildings (e.g. Park Central Square Office Building, Jordan Valley Innovation Center, Brick City). Yes, there are banks and churches and stores and restaurants and other small businesses. But there are precious few large employers who employ highly-skilled, creative people of a kind that MSU, Drury, and OTC attempt to produce.

In short, the reasons to bicycle downtown right now are largely confined to after business hours (re: my first post today).

Our urban challenge (one of many): Encourage more employers of the creative class to move downtown. MSU’s movement into downtown is a great start. Now others must follow. Tax breaks help bring employers. Can we, however, save these breaks for employers that bring high-wage creative jobs to town instead of employers who bring low-wage, low-benefit jobs to town.

Our Urban Challenge Series:

• First in a Series
• Getting Started
• Green Density
• Networks
• Barriers
• Free Parking
• The Good Life
• Cost of Living
• Build It First
• Make It Awesome
• The Euro Thing
• Middle of Nowhere
• Young Professionals
• The Big Disconnect
• Where to Live

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle commuting, bicycle culture, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, pedestrian safety, Springfield Missouri, traffic design, transportation, Transportation Planning, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning