Ride Boldly!

Bikes, bicycling, and road safety.

October 3, 2008
by julie
Comments Off on Ghost Bike Ride – October 4, 2008

Ghost Bike Ride – October 4, 2008

Ghost Bike Minneapolis is holding a memorial ride to honor recently fallen cyclists.

Ghost Bike Memorial Ride to Honor Fallen Bicyclists
Minneapolis / St.Paul-October 2008 – This Saturday, the bicycle community will come together to honor the memory of cyclists who have been killed in recent accidents on Twin Cities streets. A memorial ride will visit the sites of three of the most recent crashes, where “Ghost Bikes” have been placed as a memorial to the victims. For more info on Ghost Bikes please visit http://www.ghostbikempls.org .

Family, friends and cyclists are invited to participate in this group ride. Organizers are asking that participating cyclists please wear a black shirt with orange ribbon around their arm or handlebars. Ribbon will be provided for those who need it.
What: Memorial Ride to Honor Fallen Bicyclists
13.6 miles for Twin Cities route (http://www.bikemap.net/route/89109)
14.3 miles extra for Blaine route (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2304032)
Where: Meet on the traffic island at Summit and Snelling Avenues in St.Paul
When: This Saturday, October 4th, 2008. The ride will meet at 10:30 am; depart 11:00 am
Contact: ghostbikempls@gmail.com or 612-276-1008

The ride will begin at Summit and Snelling Avenues near the ghost bike memorial for Virginia Heuer Bower. It will then head west down Lake Street to Excelsior and West 32nd Street, the ghost bike memorial for Jimmy Nisser. The ride will then head back up Excelsior/Lake, then northeast on Hennepin to the ghost bike memorial for Nik Morton.

There is an unrelated “group photo” event at 3pm at Gold Medal Park (the red square on the bikemap) and participants are welcome to continue on to be part of the “Unite Bike” group photograph: http://www.unitebike.com/

In the afternoon, another ride will head to Blaine in order to place a Ghost Bike at Central and Cloverleaf, where cyclist Dale Aanenson was killed.

Riders are expected to be orderly and respectful of traffic. If you are riding recklessly, you will be asked to leave.

More discussion on the memorial ride can be found on the community message board Minneapolis Bike Love.

Information about the victims of these tragedies can be found here:
Dale Phillip Aanenson – http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=117902776

Virginia M. Heuer – http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=118137017

Nik Morton – http://www.legacy.com/startribune/obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=118097033

Jimmy Nisser – http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=117453438

October 1, 2008
by julie
Comments Off on Further Coverage: Tragedy on Summit

Further Coverage: Tragedy on Summit

WCCO now has a story on the cyclist death on Summit. The woman’s husband is looking for better striping for the bike lane at the point his wife died:

Bowar’s concern is that the bike lane his wife was riding in ends abruptly, right in front of the frontage road. He said it doesn’t resume for another 30 yards down the street. Bowar would like to see some kind of indication that the bike lane continues, for both the safety of bikers and motorists.

This is certainly a reasonable request, although it is an imperfect approach to a wretched event. Fundamentally, whether striped or not, bicycles are traffic. Per Minnesota statute, bicycles are welcome on almost all roads, whether striped with bicycle lanes or not. In my opinion, the striping often gives some cyclists a false sense of security. They can also promote a notion in motorist minds that cyclists belong only in lanes, and not on all streets.

Mr. Bower also recognizes the root cause of the tragedy, however:

…he also thinks his wife’s death could have been prevented if the driver had given Heuer his full attention.

Greater intentional design – creating streets designed for use by pedestrians, transit, cyclists, and autos – coupled with education are essential components of a long-term strategy for urban livability and sustainability.

September 30, 2008
by julie
Comments Off on More on Local Bicycle Fatalities

More on Local Bicycle Fatalities

Today, Minnesota Public Radio also aired a story on the recent increase in reported bicycle accidents and fatalities today:

An interesting twist in this coverage is the following (from the transcript):

There are countless miles of roadway in Minnesota that pose potentially fatal risks to unwary or inexperienced bicyclists. This unsafe arrangement in St. Paul, with frontage road merging onto Summit avenue that forces vehicles to cross a bike lane, is but one example.

By the nature of what a ‘bike lane’ is there will be traffic crossing it at various points – just as cross-street traffic will cross the through-street. On the other hand, the notion of risks to inexperienced cyclists in such arrangements is a fair call. Many cyclists get a false sense of security on trails, sidepaths, and even in on-street bicycle lanes. I’ve commented before on how much of the Summit Avenue bicycle lane is poorly engineered – it rides squarely in the door zone for a good stretch, and has several places where the lane swings in so that a bicyclist may end up to the right of a right-turning car.

There’s a reason that the 5 Es of bicycle-friendliness are engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation/planning.

September 30, 2008
by julie
3 Comments

Bicycle Accidents Up

The Star-Tribune reports that bicyclist injuries are up this year.

Rightly, they do observe that increased popularity of the sport and transportation method create more opportunity for cyclist injury. More riders? More opportunity. That math is simple.

However, the article also closes on a scare tactic, referring to cycling as ‘very dangerous.’ There have probably been more injuries as a result of car accidents (not involving cyclists) than there have been cycling accident injuries this year. On a percentage basis, it may yet be a lower risk pool, but to merely merit the term ‘very dangerous,’ it’s more than dangerous enough.

The article also doesn’t mention that another cause for this rise in cyclist injury may in fact be inexperience. A rise in use generally means those who haven’t ridden much in years, or who are fairly new to the practice, are now riding. League of American Bicyclists statistics suggest that accident rates go up as experience decreases. Similarly, accident rates go down when cyclists behave as vehicles, and ‘drive’ their bikes in traffic – so no sidewalk riding, no blowing of stop signs, etc.

Interestingly, today is also the day I learned about the new educational package from LAB. The course formerly known as Road I is being re-named: Smart Cycling – Traffic Skills 101. I’m pleased about this, as the course really is about becoming an effective navigator of traffic and a skilled bicycle driver. I think the course will be an easier ‘sell’ now when looking for enrollment.

September 28, 2008
by julie
4 Comments

Tragedy on Summit

The death today of a cyclist on Summit Avenue in St. Paul sadly demonstrates that cyclists keeping to bike lanes – as some motorists urge – simply isn’t an answer.

In each place where the inner service road meets the main throughway of Summit Avenue, there is a stop sign – for the service road. Summit is the ‘main’ road, and thus the only stops along Summit for a vehicle of traffic would be at the major crossings. The cyclist is almost undoubtedly not at fault in the crash described in the Strib – for all the good it does her.

Multiple sections of Minnesota Statute 169 pertain to right-of-way. Being not an officer of the law, or an expert in Minnesota laws as such, I can’t tell you which is especially applicable here. I doubt it’s 169.20, subdivision 4, a personal favorite of mine:

Subd. 4. Vehicle entering roadway. The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a roadway
from any place other than a roadway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching on
the roadway to be entered or crossed.

Usually this is applied to things like alleyways, not service roads.

It’s far more likely that 169.20, Subd. 3 applies:

Subd. 3. Through highway; stop sign. (a) The driver of a vehicle shall stop as required by this chapter at the entrance to a through highway and shall yield the right-of-way to other vehicles
which have entered the intersection from the through highway or which are approaching so closely
on the through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard, but the driver having so yielded may
proceed, and the drivers of all other vehicles approaching the intersection on the through highway
shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicles so proceeding into or across the through highway.
(b) The driver of a vehicle shall likewise stop in obedience to a stop sign, as required herein,
at an intersection where a stop sign is erected at one or more entrances thereto although not a
part of a through highway, and shall proceed cautiously, yielding to vehicles not so obliged to
stop which are within the intersection or approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate
hazard, but may then proceed.

Given the road configuration at the point of the crash, that St. Paul police do not seem to be at least ticketing the driver seems pretty insane. At a minimum, a ticket under the reckless driving statute (169.13) should be possible, even without witnesses. Again, totally not a legal expert, so this is speculation.

What I am, though, is a bicycle educator, and I do think this shows that education matters. Summit is a striped bikeway. There was a stop-sign for the driver, and the cyclist would have been in a legal through lane. There is no low shrubbery through there. Clearly, the SUV driver wasn’t paying attention.

Only education focused on watching for traffic on the road – including bicycle traffic – is really an answer to collisions such as this. How many motorists did you see on cell phones today? How many motorists did you see eating in their car, or putting on makeup at a light, or yelling at the kids in the back seat? None of these behaviors create safe roads for anyone.