Click here to see a PowerPoint presentation about the Capital Improvement Sales Tax that will come up for renewal in June. This money will be funding bicycle and pedestrian projects, including sidewalk repair, sharrows, and a new bicycle route numbering system.
I believe it is important to Springfield’s progress that voters re-approve this tax.
Technorati Tags: bicycle [...]
Carbon Trace is also supposed to be about walking, but I don’t spend much time writing about it. Perhaps I need to change that. The last few weeks have given me much to think about because the weather has kept me on foot.
I’m prepared to ride my bicycle no matter what the temperature is. My [...]
In case you missed it, I’m reporting from Florida until school starts. I’m in Naples and will be visiting Orlando. Tomorrow (Sunday) I’m planning to ride much of the downtown area to get a feel for the zeitgeist of Naples. I’ll post photos, video, and comments soon (unclear because my internet connection here is ratty).
The [...]
Slow ain’t in the American vocabulary, baby!
And that plays a role in why about 35,ooo to 40,000 Americans die in traffic every year.
This figure shocks no one because, frankly, we 1) don’t give a shit, and 2) think that it won’t happen to us because “I’m a better driver than others” (read this because you [...]
Do people drive slower when the streetscape is beautiful?
Are “complete streets” beautiful? Or can they be? Or should they be?
I’m wondering because I’m chairing a sub-committee of the STAR Team that will, if successful, help encourage the City of Springfield to adopt a complete streets policy. More on this as our work progresses.
Would beauty be [...]
The recently-released Dangerous By Design report by Transportation For America shows that Missouri has plenty of room to improve pedestrian safety. But there are bright spots.
From the TFA website, here’s an explanation of the city rankings:
The Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) is a measure of the relative risk of walking, adjusted for exposure. It is calculated [...]
The source of this justice problem is our social acceptance of inattentive driving. — Keri Caffrey.
Go read the entire thing right now.
Resources and information:
U.S. Legal Definitions
Mid-America Regional Council
Online Lawyer Source
National Motorists Association
Dealernews.com
Something to ponder:
There are approximately 40,000 traffic deaths per year.
A typical, fully-loaded Boeing 747 holds 416 people. Imagine two of these crashing each week [...]
Here’s an interesting video I found at Bicycling is Better. There’s discussion of bicycles at the start of the video and again around 6:30. One word of warning: This film was made in a less-than-enlightened age re: race.
As Mighk notes, here’s a good example of bicycles mixing well with traffic without the help of bicycle [...]
A funny thing happened on my way downtown this morning at the 4-way stop at Hammons and Walnut. I was heading north on Hammons and was stopped in the left turn lane to proceed west on Walnut. A car on my right arrive at exactly the same time as I did, so, according to Missouri [...]
Here’s some more information that leads me to believe (dare I say know?) that sharrows are, in many cases, better than lanes in the American context.
Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle infrastructure, cycling, traffic design
Here’s a picture of the Square during the First Friday Art Walk last week. The renovations to the perimeter have created a really nice shared space that’s comfortable for all users — especially walkers and bicyclists.
The lane around the square has been narrowed and integrated with the sidewalk to create a nearly seamless space that [...]
What if we instituted the Idaho stop for all road users?
Robert Hurst writes:
The Reality of bicycling in cities like Denver is that riders of all stripes from all walks of life and various sides of the tracks tend to take blatant liberties with the law, rolling stop signs and stoplights in the central area. They [...]
This is the scene outside my office window right now.
That’s part of the Grand St. and National Ave. intersection improvement. Apparently they hit a water main. And it has created a big mess.
Technorati Tags: traffic design, transportation
I spent part of my morning downtown today, and I stopped by the library on the Square to return a book. Look what I found — bicycle racks are returning!
There are now three u-racks in front of the library — and a few others scattered on two sides of the Square. I assume more will [...]
“In traffic we find the very essence of fallibility. It’s most important feature, if not its most prominent, is the basic human mistake….” — Robert Hurst
Imagine for a moment a Venn diagram with a circle marked “mistakes.” And floating nearby is another circle marked “inattention.” And another one marked “reckless.” I imagine these concepts contained [...]
