Ride Boldly!

Training Wheels

julie — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:40:12 +0000

A lot of bike advocate types and purists oppose training wheels for kids. Per those individuals, they let kids go too fast, too soon. They discourage learning “proper” steering and “proper” braking. They advocate balance bikes, with the solid braking power of the feet, transitioning to a bike without training wheels and figuring out the gross-motor of pedaling once balance has been learned.

These people also oppose tricycles for similar reasons.

I’m some sort of outlier in that I don’t care that much. And there are several reasons for this.

My kid went to his first big bike event when he was less than a month old. He started attending track cycling events when he was a month old, and also got his diaper changed near a corner of a metro criterium at similar age. He went to every committee meeting for the 2009 National Rally of Bicyclists. You cannot put one over on him: Bikes have pedals.
He tried a balance bike and basically declared it lame.
All his little friends have bikes with training wheels.

There are things you argue with a 4-year-old. This is not worthwhile. For cryin’ out loud, the entire Traffic Skills 101 course from the League of American Bicyclists assumes most adults need to relearn everything they know. Kids can learn about braking better and steering better as they disengage from the training wheels. But that really matters is that your kid is excited about the bike.

And mine is. He got it Sunday. Coming home from preschool yesterday, he declared he wanted to go home and ride his bike. This morning, he chose his “bike jersey” to wear so he could ride his bike when we got home. He also demanded I find a bottle cage for his bike so he can put his water bottle on it.

And that’s what actually matters: That kids are excited about riding and relatively safe. And for all the “kids take more tumbles on training wheels!” talk… kids take tumbles. That’s what they do. They’ll be fine. Relax. Let them have fun and stop making them a proving ground for bike philosophy.

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Minnesota Cycling: Deaths Down, Injuries Up

julie — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:00:41 +0000

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Department of Transportation have released preliminary numbers on bicycle-related traffic accidents for 2011. I use the word numbers, because that’s what they are — pure counts.

In 2011, 4 bicyclists were killed in traffic collisions in Minnesota, which is a decrease from 2010′s 9 fatalities. However, cyclists in reported injury accidents increased to 942, over 882 in 2010.

MNDOT say that most accidents are caused by inattentiveness — specifically, motor vehicle operator distraction, and cyclist disregard of traffic signals or rules. I suspect this is based on accident report language and may not include any investigation.

These numbers aren’t all that disturbing, even the “increase.” Why? Well, while there were more injuries, numerically, the number of cyclists on the roads has been increasing steadily in the last several years, particularly in Minneapolis. So the actual percentage of injury accidents is also on decline in that sense. There is also a possibility that with greater numbers of cyclists on the roads and greater awareness of cycling, more injury accidents are being reported — which is to suggest the possibility of under-reporting in prior years. Many minor accidents aren’t witnessed or always reported, be they car-on-car, or car-on-bike. It’s a known thing. It’s also a thing whose trends are impossible to forecast well — how do you know how many invisible accidents there are, given that they’re invisible? It’s a data modeling problem.

In any event, accident counts are a good reminder to be careful out there. Ride predictably. Follow the law. Be visible. Hang up and drive.

St. Paul to Discuss New Bike Boulevard May 8

julie — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:00:38 +0000

Now that Jefferson Avenue has reached a conclusion and will be declared a bike boulevard after 4 years and countless shenanigans, the city of St. Paul is ready to discuss another bike boulevard.

On May 8th, the Hamline Midway Coalition will discuss a possible bicycle boulevard north of University Avenue from Park Street to Aldine Street. The meeting will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Hamline-Midway Library. Roadway changes to facilitate bike boulevard status, plus connections to the University of Minnesota Transitway, will be discussed. Feedback from the meeting will influence the city’s design plans.

Then, everyone will start wanking around and we’ll see something actually happen with this sometime around 2017. Bet on it.

Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Project Summary Report Released

julie — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:12:24 +0000

Yesterday was the big day, finally. After several “delivery dates” came and passed, on May 1, 2012 the FHWA finally delivered the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program report (PDF). I wrote quite a bit about it at Streets.MN yesterday.

Your quick summation is: Yeah, when you spend $25 million dollars to shift demand and modeshare, you shift demand and modeshare. There’s a certain extent to which this conclusion should merit a hearty “duh” from pretty much everyone. (Give me $25 million bucks, and I bet I can make a few people believe the health benefits of breaking beer bottles and using the glass shard as pasta sauce. Marketing!)

The big challenge is going to be how different people feel about the value of these shifts. The ROI, if you will.

For $100 million dollars — the total investment across four pilot sites, including Minneapolis — you can typically build about five miles of four-lane highway in an urban/suburban area. It doesn’t get you very far. (For comparison, the St. Croix Bridge to Sprawl? It’s going to cost a hearty $600 million or more, to serve roughly 12,000 vehicles/day.) So you might think the following numbers would seem like good value:

For the four pilot communities, bicycling mode share increased 36 percent, walking mode share increased 14 percent, and
driving mode share decreased 3 percent between 2007 and 2010. In Minneapolis, bicycling mode share increased by 33% and walking mode share increased by 17%.
In 2010, an estimated 16 million miles were walked or bicycled that would have otherwise been driven – 32 million total driving miles were averted between 2007 and 2010.
The pilot communities saved an estimated 22 pounds of CO2 in 2010 per person or a total of 7,701 tons. This is equivalent to saving over 1 gallon of gas per person or nearly 1.7 million gallons from 2007 to 2010.

Approximately $89 million of the $100 million was spent directly on infrastructure. In the Twin Cities, it was actually near 87%, with many projects still in progress — or, roughly $21 million in infrastructure spend. There are citable studies that say building bike infrastructure builds jobs pretty efficiently. (I’d have loved to see figures on job creation in this report, but I doubt it was tracked, especially in the early years.)

From here, the debate moves to the ongoing standoff over transportation enhancements and the transportation bill. I think a certain level of angst is yet to come concerning the maintenance and upkeep of the infrastructure that’s been created in the four communities — infrastructure everywhere is suffering right now. Money is being poured into “new” and existing is decaying. And let’s not even mention the Sabo Bridge, which is one of the local investments, and already facing problems.

Me? Imma go ride my bike.

Physics, the Law & Tragedy

julie — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:42:24 +0000

Another cyclist fatality is in the news, this time in the suburbs, where a 17-year-old was hit by a car when leaving church. As usual, the news coverage has been very conscientious about making sure we know the helmet status of the teen. As a change-up, they are also discussing other factors that led to the tragedy — physics, traffic law and what the Strib is calling “bad timing:”

The kid was leaving church at 8:45 PM and had standard reflectors, but no powered lights. As such, in Minnesota in April, he was riding in the dark without the minimum lighting requirements outlined in Minnesota Statutes 169.222.
The teen was moving against traffic flow, moving northbound in the southbound lanes of Shady Oak Road, which is a minimum of a 35mph zone near the accident location (but may be a 45 zone). Per Google Maps, the area near the accident site lacks shoulders, but has a protected sidepath on one side of the road.

Traffic law in Minnesota, and most science-based states, has cyclists move in the same direction as vehicular traffic. It helps put them within the most typical scanning zone of vehicle drivers, particularly where driveways and cross-streets are concerned. In addition, when a car moving at speed head-ons a bicycle, it really won’t matter if the cyclist is helmeted. Physics tells us that because both bodies have momentum, the force output is much greater. Because a car is heavier and moving faster, the output of the collision is going to wreak havoc on the cyclist.

Regulation lights would have helped in this case, because a collision of this nature negates the value of reflectors. There may have been a front reflector, but that reflector is less effective than a front headlight. The specific description of required equipment comes from 169.222, Subd. 6:

No person shall operate a bicycle at nighttime unless the bicycle or its operator is equipped with a lamp which shall emit a white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet to the front and with a red reflector of a type approved by the Department of Public Safety which is visible from all distances from 100 feet to 600 feet to the rear when directly in front of lawful lower beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle. No person may operate a bicycle at any time when there is not sufficient light to render persons and vehicles on the highway clearly discernible at a distance of 500 feet ahead unless the bicycle or its operator is equipped with reflective surfaces that shall be visible during the hours of darkness from 600 feet when viewed in front of lawful lower beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle. The reflective surfaces shall include reflective materials on each side of each pedal to indicate their presence from the front or the rear and with a minimum of 20 square inches of reflective material on each side of the bicycle or its operator.

Pedal reflectors and side-visibility are not going to do a lot to prevent this kind of head-on crash.

The real tragedy of this situation is that is was not inevitable. This is not a situation where there were no alternative routes. Compliance with existing law would have done what the law was written to do — create predictable scenarios for all road users, respecting the laws of physics. And everyone involved in this tragedy would be okay today. Instead, we have one bereaved family, and one driver who is probably terrified of night driving. My sympathy goes out to all parties involved.

Cyclist Recipe: Super-Awesome Vegetable Soup

julie — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:02:50 +0000

I have been raving on Twitter about the vat of soup I made this weekend. People have asked for delivery.

Alas, no can do. But I am going to offer up the recipe to all biking friends, with a note that this is low in carbs but extremely high in vitamin goodness. You can serve it much as you would a salad with a more hearty meal, or grab yourself a whole-grain baguette and cheese. Or you can eat it when you are less concerned for ride energy, as it’s also pretty low in calories.

And you have to use the anise. It makes this soup. This soup would be sad and without joy without it. Anise looks like a weird cross between an onion, bok choi, and dill. Whack off the part that looks like dill, slice off the other end, and chop as though it were celery or an onion.

Super-Awesome Vegetable Soup
makes: 1 vat

2 cups escarole or kale, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup uncooked onion, chopped
2 cup fresh spinach, baby leaves (or normal spinach, chopped into small shreds)
2 small uncooked zucchini, cubed
1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
1 medium fennel bulb, thinly sliced (remove green tops)
6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
28 oz canned diced tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted but the cheap ones will do nicely
1 can white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp fresh thyme, finely chopped (or 1/4 teaspoon, dried)
1 tsp fresh oregano, finely chopped (or 1/8 teaspoon, dried)
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped (or 1 tablespoon dried)
1/4 cup basil, fresh, chopped (or 1 tablespoon dried)

Take onion and garlic and place in pot with a little olive oil. Sautee until wilted.

Dump in everything else and bring to boil. Simmer for at least one hour. Or, move onions to a crockpot, dump everything else in, and leave on High for 4 hours, or Low for as long as you’re going to be out riding with friends/working/whatevering.

Delicious as is, or serve with some chopped shrimp mounded on top, with a grate of parmesan. It’ll look totally gourmet.

Cycling’s Demand Generation Problem

julie — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:12:21 +0000

Bicycling. It’s neat, right? Those who do it like it.

But how do you convince those who aren’t doing it to do it more? That’s the key demand generation problem facing cycling right now. And it’s a filthy thing, but you need to have facility demand to get funding for facilities, but to get more people cycling, you need facilities.

People wave around the data, like how Minneapolis’ bicycle use went up rapidly when they got $25 million to spend on infrastructure, and other articles citing various cities. In 1993, Minneapolis estimated 3,000 bike commuters; in 2010, they estimated 7,000, per the Minneapolis Bike Account.

There’s one problem, from the perspective of economics: Is the increase in riders really infrastructure encouraging demand, or infrastructure meeting latent demand? There’s a big difference between the two. If programs are merely addressing unmet demand in the market, there is a natural barrier to growth and acceptance in place once that pent-up demand has been met.

Even with amazing data sets, it’s hard to determine if increases in bicycle use are a result of demand being let free, or demand being created. The data isn’t amazing, however. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with meeting unmet market demand, with $25 million to promote it, someone could probably create massive increase in the number of people wearing live puppies as hats. Without broad support, you can’t keep spending money. The total number of cyclists and supporters in Minneapolis remains a minority, as they do on the state and federal level when it comes to funding.

So how does one drive interest and demand? Is it in fact continued infrastructure spending, or are there other approaches? What are they?
Are they cheaper, and thus more sustainable in the near-term, as funding becomes an issue in the current economic climate?

Minneapolis Family Bike Rodeo Alert!

julie — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:22:33 +0000

In today’s moment of blatant self-interest, I direct your attention to this weekend’s Artcrank grand opening. As part of the festivities, the bike-friendly folk at Clockwork Active Media Systems are hosting a pre-party for families and kids. Part of the fun will include a bike rodeo, a fine event at which I will be helping direct youthful energy into safe biking outcomes. Or, at least, helping direct youthful energy. We’ll also be helping people adjust their bike helmets.

The party is from 3-5PM at Clockwork, 1501 East Hennepin Avenue, in Minneapolis. You can RSVP to the party on Facebook (not required). Beyond the bike rodeo, there will be treats, lemonade, coloring, hopscotch, balloon animals and other mayhem. At 5PM, interested folk will be riding over for the early shift at the Artcrank opening, before too much beer is spilled and the bikers get crazy.

In summary: Fun. Hijinkies. Kids on bikes with balloon animals. Art. Come on out.

St. Paul Approves Jefferson Avenue Bikeway (Finally)

julie — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:03:42 +0000

After another fine round of hand-wringing, the St. Paul City Council approved the Jefferson Avenue bike boulevard.

This has been a victory for… well, let’s be honest here. Absolutely no one. It took four years, hundreds of traffic engineer hours, a whole bunch of city and community council meeting hours, and thousands of advocacy hours both for and against the plan to approve making an already bike-friendly street a bit friendlier.

A Minneapolis bike boulevard.

The very same city that brought us the ultra-shenanigans of Ayd Mill Road — a road originally designed in a trench to connect two interstates, but which was thwarted — has now brought us its equal and opposite. Where Ayd Mill Road was not residential at all, nearby neighbors screeched to make it a linear park, not a reliver roadway to get cars of the surface streets. Meanwhile, Jefferson is very residential, not especially high speed, and the neighbors screeched that the city might add some traffic circles and make it even more residential and happy. Oh noes.

The final approved “bikeway” will have three traffic circles, down from five; one of the three was added last minute after three were removed from the original plan. And one of that pair won’t be built until 2017.

It’s like St. Paul has embraced being a lesser Minneapolis — the larger Twin having done several bike boulevards “right.” They’ve ~~wasted~~ taken exponentially more time to create a watered-down result on what should have been a slam-dunk, easily approved project.

Meh.

Update on Safe Routes to Schools in Blaine: No Go

julie — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:17:59 +0000

On March 15, the Blaine City Council voted 5-2 against a design, bid and build project to build sidewalks on 91st Avenue and Jackson Street near Westwood Middle School in Blaine. The project would have been paid for 100% by a Safe Routes to School grant previously discussed.

The application was the third application made by city staff to obtain SRTS funding for sidewalks in the neighborhood. Once awarded, the city council became involved. As expected, in the open meeting hijinks were abundant:

While an open house to explain the project was held October 10, 2011, that meeting was sparsely attended. More than 30 residents attended the city council meeting. One councilmember has suggested that city staff hold public hearings before applying for any future grants.
The principal of Westwood Intermediate School spoke in favor of the project, as did one neighbor whose property would be impacted. The principal of the school pointed out that a number of students/parents are dropped off because of the road, and that with 200 staff members and 36 buses coming in every morning and leaving every evening, the sidewalk would enable at least 200 more students to walk or bike to school.
Another resident said that when his daughters attended the school, they walked. They didn’t need a sidewalk! He also pointed out that “We don’t see that many kids walking back and forth to school.” Which… yeah. Maybe because there’s not a sidewalk?
Additional residents were concerned about sidewalk maintenance, as predicted by Reuben. One resident suggested that other areas in Blaine would be better choices to use the federal grant money — which is actually impossible, as SRTS grants are earmarked to specific projects.

The residents presented a 19-name petition of opposition to the project. An enterprising Westwood sixth grader presented a petition of 84 names in favor. And at the end of the vote, only 2 councilmembers voted for the project to 5 against.

I have to hope that these kind of shenanigans are held against future applications for Safe Routes grants from municipalities, because while I don’t want to sound vindictive, requests are made for more than 3 times the money than is available for grants. If a municipality exhibits this kind of process in response to scoring a coveted grant, I don’t know that they should be coddled and given additional funds.