As usual, we are being asked to PANIC about it and contact appropriate representatives. The League is asking us to contact [...]]]>

Next Thursday, February 2, the House Transportation Committee is expected to vote on the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.” Note the propaganda-friendly naming. This is, in fact, intended to be the long-awaited multi-year transportation bill.

As usual, we are being asked to PANIC about it and contact appropriate representatives. The League is asking us to contact everyone (even though this is still in Committee), because the current version eliminates the two largest programs that fund biking and walking infrastructure — Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School.

Most representatives will not be a part of this voting process. Work is also underway to restore these programs to the bill, probably via a Committee member such as Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

I agree that keeping Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to Schools active in any new transportation bill is important. I agree that people should contact appropriate House members to urge amending the bill or not passing it from Committee. I am growing a little tired of the constant state of panic about “they are going to kill cycling!”

Transportation Enhancements has been under near-constant assault for the last year. Transportation Enhancements federally funded, community-based projects that enhance surface transportation by improving the cultural, historic, aesthetic and environmental aspects of the infrastructure. They can address bike/ped infrastructure and safety, landscaping, rail-trail work, environmental mitigation, archaeological planning/research, historic preservation, and tourist facilities. The Heritage Foundation, a big conservative think-tank, has labeled them “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Because, look. They can’t kill cycling. They can remove funding, make things harder when working with federal funds, etc. But they lack the ability to dictate the use of local funds for cycling. They lack the ability to quash the grassroots. Sure, some existing infrastructure could be eliminated, but that’s true right now. A key to keeping cycling alive is much more about expanding the “movement” beyond the already-involved, the lifestylers, and advocates and convincing members of the community that bicycling is worthwhile, that bicyclists aren’t trying to force everyone’s ass onto a banana seat, and that by providing access to many modes of transport within a community we enrich users of ALL modes.

When you make that expansion, situations like this are less about paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanic and more about harnessing the general social sentiment. Right now, the general sentiment isn’t there to harness outside of specific communities. And that’s where we need to focus more energy — rather than on repeating the advocacy panic response repeatedly.

That said, check the list of members. See if your member is on the Transpo Committee. Note that if your person is not a Republican, you’ll have to manually find their House web site to call or e-mail them, the preferred methods of contacting an office in this modern, post-terrorist age. In Minnesota, these are Tim Walz of MN-1, and Chip Cravaak of MN-8. The League of American Bicyclists also has an excellent run-down of the act, some facts around the at-risk programs, and nice contact forms for members of Congress.

Cycle tracks are fairly common in Montreal and throughout Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. These are generally segregated from the traffic in the street, but still essentially part of [...]]]>

A new study published in the journal Injury Prevention reports that cyclists in Montreal using dedicated cycle tracks have lower incidence of injury than cyclists using the street.

Cycle tracks are fairly common in Montreal and throughout Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. These are generally segregated from the traffic in the street, but still essentially part of the street. Perhaps more importantly, cycle tracks are typically dedicated for use by bicyclists – unlike mixed-use trails that feature a changing cast of runners, skaters, dogs, kids and other users.

The study concluded that “These data suggest that the injury risk of bicycling on cycle tracks is less than bicycling in streets. The construction of cycle tracks should not be discouraged.” However, there are challenges to this conclusion: In a city with significant cycle track mileage, are motorists unused to watching for cyclists in the street? Given recent safety in numbers studies, this is a factor not to be discounted, and the study’s user counts showed higher incidence of use of cycle tracks versus reference streets.

It is, however, true that saying that cycle tracks are less safe may be a red herring.

One area of challenge for cycle tracks in many road projects in the US is right-of-way and the space to implement. Some streets require ‘road diets’ to achieve even a non-segregated bike lane, let alone a cycle track. In many communities, getting buy-in to reduce motorist traffic by a full lane to accommodate cyclists is a hard sell, as you might imagine.

Another challenge, and one which I have covered at length previously, is the perception that comes with bike lanes and sidepaths that cyclists should only be using such facilities, and are not legal users of other streets (or, in municipalities without mandatory sidepath rules, that cyclists may choose to use the road rather than the sidepath!).

Still, this study supports the idea that building cycle tracks may have merit as an encouragement to cyclists and as an urban amenity.

Photo by itdp, via Flickr.

Similar findings have occurred in studies in NYC, Portland (OR), and even Australia.

Meanwhile, in other places in the country, the news isn’t so good. Bike crashes in [...]]]>

It’s been getting tons of coverage in the local media and from national organizations: As the rate of cycling in the Twin Cities has increased, crash rate has declined.

Similar findings have occurred in studies in NYC, Portland (OR), and even Australia.

Meanwhile, in other places in the country, the news isn’t so good. Bike crashes in San Francisco increased 8 percent in the past two years, while ridership growth has been only 3 percent. The data is further complicated by the fact that SF police only write on-scene reports if someone lands in an ambulance.

Per the people who compiled the report, there seems to be perception on both sides of the issue (cars and cyclists) that the other side is crazy, and that many places to ride are unsafe – which is probably a limiter of ridership growth. Meanwhile, because of the accident stats, it’s easy to expect ridership growth to stay low or flat.

Active encouragement of cycling – as has been happening in Minneapolis, NYC and Portland – helps drive adoption of cycling as a transport mode, which increases safety. Bad news about safety ends up being counterproductive in multiple ways, as the San Francisco data suggests.

Photo by Patrick, via Flickr.

Thomas Gotschi, from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, published “Costs and [...]]]>

I’ve discussed the challenges of using single-site studies as universal truths before (and I’ve seen a few being abused thusly), but there’s a really interesting study out of Portland, Oregon that suggests bikeway investment is a money-saver.

Thomas Gotschi, from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, published “Costs and Benefits of Bicycling Investments in Portland, Oregon” in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health. Based on his affiliation, he wouldn’t seem to have any natural bias.

The study sought to monetize the ROI for money spent on bikeways in the past – and to estimate potential returns on future spending.

His findings? We can quote the abstract:

By 2040, investments in the range of $138 to $605 million will result in health care cost savings $388 to $594 million, fuel savings of $143 to $218 million, and savings in value of statistical lives of $7 to $12 billion. The benefit-cost ratios for health care and fuel savings are between 3.8 and 1.2 to 1, and an order of magnitude larger when value of statistical lives is used.

(All that about statistical lives? It’s an actuarial thing.)

The study provides an interesting perspective on how bikeway investment can influence health costs and disease prevention. The methods used could be applied to other cities.

We’re still waiting on the DOT report on the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program and its impacts – a report that was due September 30, 2010, but is still pending. It’s also unknown what methodology will be used in that report — or how the new, Republican-controlled House Transportation Committee, now without program champion James Oberstar — will respond.

The League [...]]]>

Legislation often has weird clauses, but this one is super-weird. The most excellent StreetsBlog reports that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) inserted a stipulation in the federal aviation reauthorization (SB 223) that could bar airports from using passenger facility charges for bike parking facilities if it stays in the bill and the bill is passed.

The League of American Bicyclists calls this “a singularly mean-spirited and unnecessary thing to do.”

As Andy Clarke of the LAB points out, cycling to the airport may not be a huge thing in this country. However, part of that may be infrastructure-related. It’s certainly popular in other places. Schipol Airport in Amsterdam (AMS) has abundant bicycle parking, and bicycle routes into the airport. It’s a popular means for airport workers to arrive at work, and for others to connect to the airport transit hub. Portland Airport in Oregon offers employee bicycle parking (pictured).

The League is working to have the language removed from the authorization.

League of American Bicyclists Director Andy Clarke kicked off the proceedings bright and early at 8 AM, clearly freshly caffeinated and excited by having over 700 bicycle advocates and friends of the cycling movement in the house at [...]]]>

Speakers:

• Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)

• Governor Jack Markell (D-DE)
• Peter Rogoff, Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration
• Peter Birch and Shannon Guyman, Google

League of American Bicyclists Director Andy Clarke kicked off the proceedings bright and early at 8 AM, clearly freshly caffeinated and excited by having over 700 bicycle advocates and friends of the cycling movement in the house at the Ronald Reagan Building/ITC in Washington DC. He handed it over fairly quickly to Congressman Blumenauer. The Congressman stressed the great strides the bike/pedestrian movement has made in the last 10 years, but also stressed that the need for ongoing involvement and more involved people remains great.

A few highlights from the Congressman from Oregon:

• He presented the plans for bike lane striping on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, linking the Capitol and White House.

• He touted the introduction of HR4722, the Active Community Transportation Act (or ACT Act!).
• Discussed HR4021, an extension of Safe Routes to Schools that expands funding to high schoolers.
• Discussed HR3271 Green Routes to Work, and stressed that part of building a bicycle- and transit-friendly America is providing citizens with choices as to how they travel to and from their everyday destinations.

A key message is that we aren’t anti-car, but that much of the funding and legislation has tilted the playing field in favor of the car – even though 30% of all car trips are less than 1 mile! Most people say they would bike or walk more if they felt it was safe or that facilities were available to make it possible (like sidewalks in subdivisions).

Governor Jack Markell of Delaware was next up. Among his campaign events was a bicycle ride across Delaware. He’s especially proud that DE went from 31st most friendly state for cyclists to 9th in only a year. One of the components of that was the passage of a Complete Streets bill to encourage developers, landowners, cities, counties and the state to work together to plan communities and roadways to accommodate all users.

He also discussed the teen labor that work in Delaware beach towns over the summer – many from Europe – and the unique safety issues they’ve presented, and how the state has addressed those issues with education.

He capped his part of the presentation with a top 10 list about riding in Delaware:

1. You can brag to friends about riding across the state in a morning.

2. Hills – they’re nice, but they block the view. No issues with that in Delaware!
3. It’s fun to drop the Governor on rides.
4. Scrapple.
5. Punkin Chunkin.
6. It’s easy to outpace chickens on the roadside.
7. All their transit buses have bicycle racks.
8. Politics end on bikes (although he says Republicans have nicer bikes).
9. You can ride through lots of spray irrigation systems on hot days.
10. On windy days, you can draft behind fancy Washington DC lawyers on Route 1.

Peter Rogoff, of the Federal Transit Administration, spoke next.

He talked about how policies and programs have to address the new reality. People want choices as to how they get around. Transit use boomed when gas went up to $4/gallon, and has stayed high even as prices have dropped. Many families have dealt with the recession by downsizing – getting rid of a car and going with only one, or no, car.

Cycling and transit, together, create a powerful combination for many families. They need to work together seamlessly and be a credible option.

Thanks to the Recovery Act, transit spending rose 84% in a single year. This has really helped given that many communities have had funding struggles for transit due to the recession’s impact on property tax revenues and other tax streams.

Administrator Rogoff stressed several things:

• The potential role of bicycles in the First Lady’s campaign against childhood obesity – if kids can ride, they won’t get fat.

• The need to continue investing even though revenues are tight – transit makes jobs reachable, transit creates jobs.
• Bicycles and multi-modal options need to be built-in.

The morning session ended with the Googlers presenting the new Google Maps for Bicycles options, covered separately.

I think the next big area for inquiry will be how many months a year this cycle-commuting core put their buns in the saddle… not that failure to ride in January is a bad thing, ’round these here parts.