The Bicycling Paradox

Karl Ulrich, a professor from Wharton School of Economics in Philadelphia (and an avid bicycle commuter,) is experiencing some significant notoriety in bicycling blogs as a result of a paper he has written about the "true" environmental savings of bicycle transportation displacing automobile transportation. Most succinctly put, his thesis is this:

Practical bicycling is not a net gain for the environment because the energy savings due to the use of human power for transportation is offset by the increased energy used by living longer due to better health.

I think this paper has good entertainment value, and I'm pretty sure that Ulrich is writing this as a Gedankenexperiment with a little bit of tongue in his cheek. There are a few aspects of his logic and assumptions that I'm not sure I buy, however:

Ulrich correctly calculates the net efficiency differential of auto to bike at approximately 1:32 (I have replicated this calculation elsewhere) but falls into the trap of making a big deal out of the energy cost of agricultural production, thus lowering the differential in the range of 1:6 to 1:9. (This is a pretty big range, by the way.) As I've said before in a letter to the League of American Bicyclists magazine, I think this is a slippery slope. Since food is such an energy-expensive proposition, does Ulrich consider the food consumed by the auto driver? (Or by the driver of the gasoline tanker truck, for that matter?) What about vegetarian locavore cyclists?

Ulrich rightly and justifiably compares the practical cyclist to the athlete who doesn't abandon the use of the motor vehicle. (This includes all those athletes at the health club as well as recreational cyclists). The energy profile is shown in the graph at right. Note that, even with the "stacking of the deck" done by Ulrich in the food-production energy discussion above, the practical cyclist is still superior to the sedentary motorist, if not by much.

There is an excellent discussion of the papers and its putative "holes" here.

By the way, Ulrich is also the creator of the Xootr Swift folding bicycle. If you go to this link for the Swift, and click on the "Guidelines for commuting by bicycle" link, you'll find one of the better one-page summaries of how to be prepared to commute by bicycle, including some recommendations for cold-weather dress that pretty closely parallel my earlier post. Hey, Ulrich is right up the road, in Philly. Not too far from Central Maryland where I live, so the guidelines should be similar. I like the Swift also. Not many folders are specifically sized for the tall (6'5"+) rider, but the Swift has an "XXL" size that is specifically aimed at us tall guys.

P.U.M.A.

This is too ironic. Here's a verbatim quote from the GM introduction of the "P.U.M.A." auto-balancing two person vehicle made in joint venture with Segway:

"Imagine moving about cities in a vehicle fashioned to your taste, that's fun to drive and ride in, that safely takes you where you want to go, and "connects" you to friends and family, while using clean, renewable energy, producing zero vehicle tailpipe emissions, and without the stress of traffic jams," said Burns. "And imagine doing this for one-fourth to one-third the cost of what you pay to own and operate today's automobile. This is what Project P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) is capable of delivering."

Yes. Imagine that. Let's imagine this as a series of bullet points, shall we?
A vehicle:
• tailored to your tastes
• fun to drive and ride
• safely takes you where you want to go
• "connects" you to friends and family
• using clean, renewable energy
• producing zero vehicle tailpipe emissions
• without the stress of traffic jams

I say that my commute (which is to say, my bike) can robustly answer "check!" to all of these with the possible exception of the "connects you to friends and family" item which seems to me to be more like a cell phone than a vehicle. But my bike, maybe kinda sorta, can be said to do even this.

This whole thing beggars the imagination. I've accused GM of incompetence before (before this abomination, even well before the first bailout).

But the point is, really: What does the fact that PUMA can be taken seriously say about us as a society, anyway? Are we so culturally averse to physical activity (and to sweat) that we'll do anything to avoid it, as beneath us? The Roman poet Juvenal described the ideal of the "healthy mind in the healthy body"; the apostle Paul referred to the "body as a temple". It does seem that there is something particularly American about this; you don't see this aversion to activity in Europe. Can this be laid at the feet of Madison Avenue, who basically elevated BO (and therefore sweat) to the level of a mortal sin?

And, does that guy in the photo above have any notion of just how truly dorky he looks? I mean, didn't everyone see Wall-E?

Have we really, truly become South Park? (Thanks to Geeks are Sexy for the reference.) Man, I would feel so much better if I knew this were GM perpetrating an elaborate joke. But I don't think so; they're a week late.

Chevrons for All

In doing a little more research on sharrows, I came across a brand-new (only two weeks old!) study on sharrows done by the city of Bellevue, Washington. It's worth a download and read. Much of the methodology is very similar to the earlier City of San Francisco (CSF) study.

Continuing in the spirit of my last two posts, I've decided to do a little "free art" for the public. I've made a couple of full-size graphics of chevron-style sharrow images, done to two different municipal standards. They are ready to be printed on a large-format printer and cut into a large sheet of (something). Then, well, do with it as you will. Hang it on the wall, or use it, uh, as a focus for night-time activity.

Images: The images are full-size PDF graphics. They are fairly compact (in terms of file size). The image based on the CSF "chevron" style (download here) is smaller and will fit into a 4' x 8' sheet of stencil material. The Bellevue image (download here) is rather larger and would require a 4' x 11' or 4' x 12' sheet of material. I've slightly modified the CSF image by adding "webbing" for easy positioning of the cutouts. This will be a single-piece stencil. The Bellevue image isn't modified from their spec, which is much more detailed, and is a multi-piece stencil.

Positioning on roadway: The CSF guidelines were for the center of the image to be 11'-0" from the curb in areas of parallel parking. The Bellevue guidelines call for the center of the image to be "about 11 feet from the curb where parking exists" and, with no parking, "about 3 feet out from the curb."

Methodology: Well, the standard approach is to print the PDF full size at a printing shop that handles large-format printing, then to transfer it to stencil material such as corrugated single-face plastic sheet and cut it out (be careful, be careful, BE CAREFUL!)

It is, however, difficult to get an image out of my head, and that is Joshua Kinberg's utterly brilliant "Bikes Against Bush" rig (website here, video here) done for the New York City Republican Convention. The resolution of these images are of course a lot higher than the rather crude (brilliant! but low-rez) letters of Joshua's first experiment. But it doesn't take a genius to visualize a higher-rez "bike dot matrix" system that could handle one-color graphic images as well as just text. This really sounds like a job for JK or the Graffiti Research Lab of NYC. This would be a technological tour-de-force for the "Urban Repair Squad", wouldn't it?

Sharrows

Let's continue on the topic of street marking.

Wanting to know more about sharrows, I went to Wikipedia and read about shared lane marking. (I had to read about a district in Sheffield, England first.) I was a little unclear on the topic, I suppose, as I had thought that sharrows were rather vague in their application. Nothing could be further from the truth, as there appears to be a small if well defined body of traffic standards that apply to shared lane markings.

If you've (like me) not been paying close attention to the sharrows issue, here's a brief definition: Sharrows are "bicycle use" road markings that are installed where complete bike lanes cannot be installed for various reasons including:

• Not enough cyclists to justify bike lanes;
• Too expensive to install bike lanes;
• Use of bike lanes would require loss of parking; and/or
• Use of bike lanes would require road widening;

The city of San Francisco did a study on sharrows in 2004 that they have published in PDF form. The study's stated goals for sharrows is the following:

• Improve positioning of both cyclists and motorists on streets without bike lanes;
• Reduce aggressive motorist behavior;
• Prevent wrong-way bicycling;
• Prevent bicycling on sidewalks;

San Francisco additionally studied two different forms of sharrow marking, the "bike in house" design and the "chevron" design. Their study logged 140 hours of videotaping of before-and-after activity on six different streets in SF, three of which were two-lane and three of which were four-lane. Even though this study is not exactly "new news", I must say that I'm impressed with the size, thoroughness and rigor of this study. San Francisco has got a bunch of wonks that know what they're doing, statistically.

So, what happened? Well, the city of San Francisco (CSF) videotaped and analyzed a lot of traffic behavior. In 6 street locations, and before painting the streets, they taped cyclists' positions on the street, motorists' locations, and clearances afforded cyclists by motorists. (They did this for 1100 cyclists.) Then they painted the sharrows with the center of the figure 11'-0" out from the curb. And they ran the video study again. The results of the study are as summarized in the graphic at right.

I don't know about you, but I think these are pretty significant results. Cyclists are clearly less crowded towards parked cars, and motorists are clearly making better affordances for them.

One of the interesting things that the CSF found was that while the "chevron" design eliminated wrong-way cycling where it was used, the "bike-in-house" design appeared to have no effect in this area. For this reason (and the slightly better affordances noted above), the CSF approved the "chevron" design for use on CSF streets.

Because the markings were applied to the streets with no preceding public education program (the CSF evidently felt this might have skewed the results,) cyclists and motorists were then surveyed as to their perception and understanding of the markings. I won't go into the results of this survey in detail, (you can peruse the PDF if you like, as it's all there,) but will hit on some highlights:

• Most cyclists felt that the markings indicated a bike route;
• 60% of the cyclists felt an increased sense of safety;
• 33% of the cyclists felt that the markings caused them to "take the lane" more;
• 35% of the cyclists felt that the markings improved motorists' behavior;

After reading and reflecting on this excellent study, I feel that I have a much more positive feeling about sharrows than I had before. First and foremost, they are effective; they work to improve cyclist/ motorist interactions. Secondly, they have a "skills improvement" component, that of helping the cyclist attain proper position on the road. Finally, their ambiguity (which had put me off a little before I read the study) may prove to be one of their strong points: while a cyclist may feel he is "unprotected" if he ventures outside a fully-marked bike lane, no such boundary exists or is even implied with a sharrow, and this is probably a good thing.

The Urban Repair Squad

There's an interesting group of urban cyclists in Toronto who are practicing a form of "street art". They call themselves the "Urban Repair Squad", and a website showcasing their work can be found here. The manifesto of the URS goes something like this:

MISSION:

To encourage bicycling as an antidote
to the poison that is car culture.

To invert the status structure of the commons,
returning priority to pedestrians and bicyclists over cars.

To create an infrastructure
that promotes polite sharing of the roadway.

To employ the concept of Critical Mass,
encouraging cyclists to bond together
and more safely take back their rightful place
on the public roadways.

To encourage citizens to reclaim
ownership and stewardship of their public space.

To actively construct a positive future
of what urban transporation could be
by installing it NOW.

Your city is broken.
Don't wait for the bureaucrats to fix it.
DO IT YOURSELF.

So, what doe the Urban Repair Squad do, exactly? They surreptitiously paint bike lanes and sharrows. This is usually done under cover of darkness ("rush hour bike lanes.") Tom Vanderbilt, in his blog, notes that they do this while "disguised as municipal workers." This is an interesting and amusing (if true) twist on the term "street theatre", entertainment not only in the street but in fact changing it. Vanderbilt notes that they have painted over 6kms of bike lanes in Toronto.

If you download and read the URS manual, it outlines (sometime in amusing hand-drawn comics) the process and results of this urban guerrilla activity. I think that, as long as the bike lanes are well-chosen and well-executed, this is a laudable activity, although it raises some potentially difficult questions, e.g. what happens if a cyclist is struck by a motorist while in a guerrilla bike lane? Is the liability of the motorist somehow reduced because of the illegality of this urban infrastructure? (I'm reading a book on the legalties of cycling, which I will post on in the near future, that will hopefully point the way to some answers on this.)

PS. The URS website linked above is claimed to be not an "official" web site. It is maintained by a photographer named Martin Reis who claims to be only a "fan" and documenter of the URS activities and not a participant (sure, Martin, sure! :)

Lawfulness & Licensing (Survey)

Once again, the NY Times has a well-written screed about urban cycling. It's here. I have to say that the sentiments of the author, Robert Sullivan, pretty much mirror mine. Riding in an urban environment carries inescapable risks, and it's simply imperative to avoid the risks we can by obeying the rules of the road. As one of the article commenters (from Davis, CA) responds, "same roads, same rights, same rules".

Sullivan, in the concluding paragraphs of his article, makes four suggestions for "better Bike PR":

• Stop at intersections;
• Don't ride on sidewalks;
• Don't ride against traffic (especially on one-way streets); and
• Signal your turns;

This is all pretty basic stuff, and I agree that universally doing these things will improve the lives of all urban cyclists (practical and otherwise!) but lately, I've been thinking further afield, deeper about this problem, venturing into what I'm pretty sure will be unpopular territory.

Simply put, the question is this:

If bicycles are vehicles, prone to the rules of the road like cars, and fundamentally unlike pedestrians, should bicycle riders who use public rights-of-way be licensed to operate their vehicles?

With no small amount of trepidation, I'm coming round more and more to the conclusion that we should be licensed. I think this solves two fundamental problems that otherwise show no clear way of being solved. These problems are:

• Lack of Skills Training: Many, many cyclists on the road are woefully unprepared, both physically and mentally, for dealing with traffic issues. They don't know how to recognize dangerous situations and how to avoid them. Any licensing program would have to have a concomitant skills development and testing program to justify the awarding of licenses.
  
• Lack of Moral Hazard: If I'm a driver, and I behave irresponsibly, then my license can be revoked, and I have to cease driving (at least if I want to obey the law). This threat of "points" has a strong effect of keeping my more animal impulses in check.

I look at "outlaw" cyclists, the heedless or reckless ones, and see people who are behaving as though under the influence of a drug. (See this post over at the Momentum website for yet another essay / perspective on this by Deb Greco.) Certainly cycling as an experience can convey a sense of euphoria, and it is the dangerous aspects of this euphoria in a public sphere that vehicular laws are intended to regulate.

The question is, should bicyclists play offense or defense? There are those, uh, "colorful cyclist personalities" who insist on the right to play offense. They assert that in Europe cyclists are treated with far greater deference by motorists, and that's the way it should be here, dammit. I'm a pragmatist, and I believe in defense. Cars are big, hot, massive, dangerous. To assert that it "should be otherwise" is all very well, but it is what it is. Much as I like Europe, much as I've enjoyed cycling over there, the US is different. I say that for me, for here, defense is the game.

So, time for an informal, non-scientific survey. The Blogger system doesn't (at least as far as I have discovered) allow for a formalized survey system, so let's do an informal one. If you have read this far, please do me the favor of commenting on this blog post with a letter signifying one of the following survey preferences. Honor code, here; don't be casting multiple votes (I'm pretty sure I can delete multiple votes after the fact, anyway.) As I've implied above, this is primarily aimed as the US, so if you're voting from overseas, it would be helpful for you to say where you're located. Feel free to comment further, but start out your comment with one of the letters A through D:

Question: Should bicycle riders who use public rights-of-way be licensed to operate their vehicles?

• A. Yes; time to get serious; Particularly as the number of cyclists grow, it will make the roads safer for all of us.
• B. Partly; Require licensing for bicyclists using roads that have speed limits >= 30 mph. This will allow "family use" in suburban 25 mph zones.
  
• C. No; If we provide bike lanes, the safety problem will go away, except for those idiots who want to take crazy risks with their own necks.
• D. Hell, No; I demand the right to do as I please on a bike; I'm not a car and I shouldn't have to behave like one. We need the government out of our lives.

Progress / Condescension

So, first a progress report: I logged 180+ miles in February, which isn't so bad since I "lost" more than a week visiting Germany and Switzerland. (Not really lost, of course, although I came to dread hitting the hotel gym to ride a stationary bike -- bleah.) The good side was of course seeing how the "other half lives".

The hastily-snapped cellphone picture at right is a bike shelter we saw from the

train between Munich and Basel. Interesting bike racks. But also consider this is the first week in February. Many citizens, even in the elevated parts of semi-Alpine Western Europe, have integrated their bikes in their daily lifestyle. Bike, train, no car. At least not on a daily basis. It's definitely true that distances are smaller compared to the sprawling US, but I have to say, it is so refreshing to see this (and not just because of the brisk air.)

While we were in Basel, we had anything but nice weather (lots of rain and wind) but the practical cyclists were out, getting around, everywhere, at all hours of the day. On the coldest, windiest day, I saw a woman riding a bakfiets with her two little kids bundled up like two stuffed toys. Even I, a daily cyclist, saluted her unconsciously, but frankly, she didn't seem fazed.

Which brings me back to my experience since returning. On a couple of occasions, I've sort of 'snapped' at people who have commented on my cycling. Just after returning, when attending a yoga class, I was locking up my bike at the yoga center when an older woman (who was going to the same class as I) turned to me and said, "Ah, it's a sure sign of spring when the cyclists come out." I responded with as much abruptness as I could muster, "Oh, I cycle year 'round." (It just came out, really.) And just last week, I was biking to meet my wife at a doctor's office so I could put my bike in the back of the car and drive her home, a nurse at the office said, "that's so cute that you ride your bike everywhere," and I snapped back, "I'm the future."

I felt condescended to by these people. My dictionary defines "condescend" as "to show feelings of superiority". Certainly people driving cars have physical superiority. A very small car is still very large, heavy, and hot up against a bike. But to be treated in the diminutive makes me feel like these people are also claiming moral superiority, and I can't accept that. These people are ignorant. They don't understand the horrifying waste that they produce with their lifestyle, they haven't the imagination to see it. Since I've comprehended it, I can't just make it go away. So I do what I can. And I think that is worthy of respect, not condescension, not impatience.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for it, though.

Hazards 1: Traffic Calming: Chicanes

Anyone who's done cycling in an urban environment has encountered traffic calming devices. On my modest 9-mile commute in Columbia, MD, I experience speed bumps, rumble strips, chicanes, and traffic circles. Sometimes these devices don't work entirely as intended; they can be abused by drivers, or can be confusing to drivers who don't know how to manage multiple inputs (Bicyclist ahead! Traffic calming ahead!) in a way that reconciles everything.

Sometimes, as a Practical Cyclist, you've got to help that driver Do The Right Thing.

Today we'll talk about chicanes, "pinch points" that are intended to slow down traffic. A two-way chicane is illustrated at right. Notice that I've illustrated a chicane that preserves the shoulder / bike lane. Not all of them do.

So, what's the problem here? Well, the simple problem is that most drivers dislike (sometimes intensely) traffic calming and therefore feel entitled to "cheat" it. ("Let's see if I can get through this chicane without slowing down. Wheee!") And sometimes they tend to ignore little things like, oh say, that cyclist up ahead. I've heard other city cyclists complain about this bitterly, and yet I've not had a bad problem with this. Maybe 1 in 100 times, I'll have a jerk motorist squeeze by me, but it's rare.

What's my secret? The magic of Eye Contact. I'll be the first to say that I don't know why eye contact works, but it definitely does. What I do is, when I'm approaching a chicane and I hear a motorist behind me, I'll turn and fix an eyeball on him when he's about 3 or so car-lengths back. In (as I say) 99 out of 100 cases, it works like a charm, and that hundredth case, well, I take evasive action (and usually holler something.)

Try this the next time you come upon a pinch point (and 3-way traffic circles are analogous to chicanes in this context). You'll be surprised how effective it is.

Conflicted

Three times in the last week of cycling (twice on a single day) I've had it happen: On a two lane road with no-passing stripes, a motorist coming up on me from behind passes me wide on the left at a relatively high rate of speed. In doing so, they pay more attention to me than to (argh!) the oncoming traffic, and they narrowly miss an oncoming motorist who (understandably) honks.

I'm conflicted about this. On one hand, I'm grateful that the motorist behind is giving me a wide berth (particularly since they're hauling right along), but I'm distressed (to say the least) that these guys are creating what amounts to a dangerous situation.

So: Slow The Hell Down if you're a motorist passing a cyclist. Wait until the road is clear and you can cross over the double-yellow line without endangering anyone. Patience, dammit! And if you're the oncoming guy and see my light, it wouldn't hurt to hug the curb a little.

An Attaboy on a Snowy Day

Unlike the city of Boulder, CO, the city of Columbia, MD, does not assiduously maintain its bike paths in winter snows. A stretch of no more than 1/2 mile of a pedestrian/bike trail is part of my daily commute; it parallels a busy stretch of road that tends to be full of distracted drivers.

Yesterday morning, the trail had not been cleared and (taking a deep breath, knowing that some patience was going to be involved) I got on the road, named Little Patuxent Parkway. I took my line well out in the roadway in the right lane of a four-lane undivided street -- I wasn't going to be pinned against the curb by heedless drivers on my one day that I was forced to ride this stretch.

True to form, a clueless driver got in behind me and slowed down. For some inexplicable reason, the driver, even though it was two lanes in our direction and the traffic was light, couldn't bring herself to pull out and move around me. Instead, she kept creeping along, got frustrated (no surprise) and began honking at me. My general approach when faced with such clueless behavior is to ignore it (particularly when I have on my Zoidbergs and therefore am constrained to be polite—no "flipping the bird", so to speak.) So I did here, until I made my turn and the driver passed, whereupon I yelled at the top of my voice, "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?"

Unbeknownst to me, there was a pedestrian who had witnessed the entire sequence, and he was on the street I turned on to. As I was accelerating, I saw him pull down his hood, give me a big smile, and say, "Hey, good job!"

I won't ever know if he was complimenting me on my comments to the motorist, my lack of profanity, or simply the fact that I was out commuting on a morning when the wind-chill was in the mid-teens. But I'll take it anyway.

Thanksgiving 2008

I'm very thankful to be a cycle-commuter. It greatly increases my health (mental as well as physical), it saves me money, and it does its part to save the planet. It has such a salutary effect on my lifestyle that I'm sure I would bore to tears anyone who asked me why I cycle and was willing to stand around and hear the answer.

One of the questions I therefore ask myself (repeatedly) is, "Since cycling provides so many benefits, why don't more people cycle? What would it take to get more people on the road?" Certainly one (oft repeated here) obstacle is the irrational fear of traffic. (Irrational, that is, for people with traffic cycling skills.) Once a cyclist has a high skill level, it's no problem to cycle in American traffic.

However, it's just not rational to expect a large number of people to somehow magically develop these skills. So in the absence of [insert magical event here], how do we change the environment (and I use the word "environment" in the broadest sense) to effect this desirable change?

I'm not the only person who has been asking this. Fortunately. (If I were, very little would have gotten done.) Dr. John Pucher is a professor in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, and he has studied bicycle use in all its variants across the world. Pucher's bio page is here , so I won't repeat it. Suffice it to say that this guy is doing important work in the areas of public policy and public health. He (along with a Rutgers PhD candidate, Ralph Buehler) have written a well researched white paper (PDF) and an excellent presentation (in both video and slideshow form) on the topic "Cycling for Everyone" which studies cycle use worldwide, and which focuses on the ways governments can encourage cycling utilization by policy in the following areas:

• Better facilities and traffic engineering
• Integration of biking with public transport
• Traffic calming of resiential neighborhoods
• Mixed-use zoning and improved urban design
• Traffic education
• Traffic regulations and enforcement

He's given this presentation in various forms in fora in New York City (4/2007), Louisville, KY (4/2007), Vancouver, BC (5/2008) and at the League of American Bicyclists National Bike Summit in Washington, DC (3/2007). So this is no big secret by any means, but it's definitely information that bears repeating, and passing on.

The presentation is in some ways a laundry list, and I think that there are some implementations in Europe that will have difficulty finding acceptance in the US (30-kph speed limit zones for example) but there are many that are already "mainstream" practices in the US, e.g. traffice calming and bike carriers on public transit. The really good news here is, all the policy research has been done. Now it's only a matter of using that research to bludgeon convince our legislators that this stuff is important for our health, our well-being, and our energy policy also. I think the League has done good work in this area, and that's why I'm a member of it.

So, hats off to you, John Pucher. Here's wishing you success in getting your policies put in place. And, as long as we're being thankful, thank you for the good work you've done and continue to do.

The Skills vs. Infrastructure Debate

Regular readers of this blog know that from time to time I bloviate on about "vehicular bicycling skills." (It might be more accurate to say that this is one of the primary ongoing themes to be found in this blog.) Not all of this blog's readers, however, might know that there is an ongoing if ill-focused debate among interested parties that touches on this issue. The debate is between proponents of INFRASTRUCTURE vs. those who promote SKILLS DEVELOPMENT. (It is entirely possible to be a proponent of both these things. Let's, just for the moment, be partisan about this, hey? It's so much fun to argue, even if it is with oneself.)

The "infrastructure" argument asserts that bicyclists need more environmental protection from motorists, and the way to make that happen is with new bike-lane infrastructure. This argument tends to support the intuitive position of people who think they would like to cycle more but are not currently doing so, i.e., "Gee, if only there were more bike lanes like in Europe, then I would get out and cycle on a much more regular, even frequent, basis."

The "bicycling skills development" argument asserts that if bicyclists learn and use the rules of "vehicular bicycling," then additional infrastructure not only isn't necessary, but can have negative effects such as creating confusion (if poorly engineered), creating a false sense of security for unskilled cyclists, and (ultimately) relegating cyclists to "second-class" vehicular status (because of the additional confinement of the bike lane -- e.g., if a bike lane exists but is not used, even if for a good reason, is the cyclist liable?) and ultimately driving (so to speak) the cyclist off the roadways. The "skills" argument seems to be adopted more by people who are actually regular cycle commuters.

I believe it to be the case that bicycle accident statistics tend to bear out the "skills" arguments rather than the "infrastructure" argument. See my earlier post here.

I personally think that bicyclists need more education and skills development to be safer. I commute regularly by bicycle, and the stupid (i.e., dangerous) things I've seen cyclists do is breathtaking. This includes inexperienced cyclists, who are still in the "toy-bike" mode, as well as experienced road riders (who are nonetheless inexperienced vehicular cyclists) who believe, since they are so experienced, the "rules of the road" don't apply to their seasoned selves.

If the problem could be described as a problem of educational infrastructure rather than transportation infrastructure, then what is the best approach? I don't see this as something that can or will be taught in public schools -- they certainly have enough problems, not the least budgetary. But the educational infrastructure needs a curriculum, a venue, teachers, and a funding source.

A curriculum could be developed by interested parties drawing from the LAB curriculum (which the LAB tends to keep under rather tight control, as their training courses serve as a funding source) and other sources, such as Forester's Effective Cycling curriculum (but much abbreviated). Of course, the curriculum should be regularized on a national basis, while being scrupulous to minor variations within the governing state's "rules of the road". The cost to do this would be a few tens of thousands of dollars, I would think.

The venue for this education should be diffuse, locally-based, and trusted. I think a good candidate would be the public library system. Public libraries are available and currently serve a well-recognized educational role. They typically have many outreach programs, which a bicycle-skills program could join. They have large parking lots for basic skills training. They have a good image.

The teachers will of course be drawn from the ranks of current practitioners.

Funding is of course always an issue. How is this to be controlled and paid for? Will the state DOT have any say, will they want control or licensing authority? (I assume driver-training schools are licensed by the state DOTs.) Would this ultimately be linked with (and at least partially paid for by) a cyclist-licensing program? Others have broached the subject of testing and licensing bicyclists, and I think it's perhaps an idea whose time has come.

Back from Vacation

..A vacation from this blog. My younger daughter, no stranger to blogging, says I just overdid it in August. No doubt she's right.

I've been thinking that I really need to put up my principles of safe practical cycling. This requires some preparation, though, (creation of graphics, etc.) so I've been putting it off and getting immersed in political blogs. Enough, as the politicians are so fond of saying. So look for a series in this area coming up.

As for right now, I just want to talk about a very eventful commute home last night. My commute is 9 miles, more or less, but last night had a series of interesting observations. First, it's worth noting that yesterday, I probably saw more bicyclists on the road than I ever have on a weekday. It's early fall weather and the cool evenings here in the Baltimore area are perfect for recreational cycling. So, by milepost, here's what I saw last night:

Mile 3.1: Cyclist (young, fit looking female but in street clothes) riding without a helmet, wrong way on a narrow sidewalk, across a bridge where if she came down off the curb, she would be in the oncoming traffic. (I almost stopped to lecture her, but restrained myself.)

Mile 3.2: Father and daughter cycling, same direction as traffic, her on the sidewalk (with traffic), him on the street. Both with helmets. The same sidewalk as the young lady above. Interesting lesson soon.

Mile 4.1: Passed by a young road rider, maybe in his late 20s. He said "hello, sir" (I gritted my teeth -- hate those "sirs".) I picked it up a little and kept with him for about 1/2 mile. At the end of this section, he ran a red light, crossed 2 lanes of traffic and made an illegal left turn to continue on his way. Sigh.

Mile 5.3: Passed an inexperienced rider (with helmet, but laboring in too tall a gear, and taking frequent coasting breaks) to arrive at my "nemesis" stop light - a demand-based unit that my bike won't trigger. (I've got to get organized and use this trick from Instructables!) While waiting for the light to change, passed (in the right turn lane) by a doofus, waving and smiling, apparently trying to identify with me, because he had a bike strapped to the back of his car.

Mile 7.9: Stopped at a red light in the left turn lane, ready to make the home stretch. (Only two more hills to go!) I'm all alone until a driver comes up in the right turn lane, rolls down his window, and we have a conversation:

Him: "You know, you're the first cyclist I've ever seen obeying traffic laws."
Me: "Well, I commute a lot, and this is the only way to be safe. You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff I see cyclists doing."
Him: "You be safe, and God bless you." (takes off.)

Mile 8.5: I came up on a rec cyclist as dusk was beginning to fall and it was getting dark (7:10 pm). This cyclist (female) was moving along pretty well, but had no lights, no reflector in back, nothing. She was very lucky the cars were making space for her on a busy street (typical of suburban MD -- posted speed limit 30 mph, typical speeds 40-45 mph.)

So. There you have it. Encounters with 6 cyclists and 2 motorists. Of the 6 cyclists, 3 (being generous here) were making mistakes that could turn out to cause serious accidents. I've talked before about cyclist education, but this really illustrates my point. Cyclists in the US have a very poor skill level. Until we have a way to develop vehicular cycling skills, there will be accidents (bike lanes or no.)

Not all days are like this. Some are more interesting than others.

Safety Equipment I - Bells

The laws of the State of Maryland (where I live) has this to say about how a bicycle ridden on public byways is to be equipped:

By law, all bicycles must be equipped with:

• Brakes that enable the operator to make the braked wheel skid on dry, level, clean pavement.
• An audible device (bell or horn) that can be heard for at least 100 feet. Sirens and whistles are prohibited.
• A white beam headlight, visible at a distance of 500 feet, and a red rear reflector, visible at a distance of 600 feet, if ridden at night or during unfavorable light conditions.
• A safety seat, firmly secured to the bicycle, or a trailer must be used if traveling with a small child.
• A bicycle basket, rack or bag must be used in transporting small articles so that both hands may be kept on the handlebars.

For the longest time, even though I'm a safety fanatic, I ignored the bell requirement. After all, I reasoned, I can yell, "Bicycle!" or "On your left!" much louder than any silly bell. But a couple of weeks ago, after a close brush with a car, I dug a bell that I bought several years ago out of my parts box and installed it. It's one of those "incredibells," very compact. They don't muck up the looks of your bike nor do they get in the way if properly installed.

I was motivated after the close brush because I realized that if I were in an accident, my not being fully and properly equipped according to the state law would weaken my position in any litigation. A bike bell seems like a small burden to bolster your standing in this way.

In the two weeks that I've had the bell installed, I've made an interesting observation. Bike bells work. They work to alert people ahead of you that there's a "bike back," and they seem to be effective for two reasons:

• They don't require the hearer to understand English, and
• They are universally (or almost so) recognized as the sound of a bicycle

So, I say, if you ride on the street, make sure your bike's properly and legally equipped. You might just find that things work more smoothly to boot.

(No Relation)

Here's a story about convoluted reasoning in San Francisco bike politics. A person who (sort of) shares my name, Rob Anderson, a 65-year old described as a "gadfly" has insisted the city of SF complete an environmental impact study before they roll out a massive bike lane / bike parking plan.

His reasoning? Allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution.

This guy is definitely a weirdo / lightning rod, to be sure, but hasn't SF always, always been the epicenter of this kind of highly-charged local politics? Critical Mass originated in San Francisco in 1992.

This political contentiousness is nothing new. I remember 10 or 12 years ago seeing sidewalk stencils in the parks at Haight-Ashbury with pictures of cars described as "heat death machines". Here's another article on sidewalk stencil art in SF. You can see a nice collection of stencil art over at StencilArchive. (The bike stencil above came from there.) I searched, but I couldn't find my "death machine".