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! :)

Good Cop / Bad Cop [Redux]

This New York Times article gives a recent update on the NYC cop who brutally shoved a cyclist at a Critical Mass night ride on July 25, 2008. He's Gone! This is good news, and actually done in a pretty timely fashion (you may not agree with this, but the wheels of justice do turn slowly.)

Pogan was indicted on December 16, 2008 for this incident. The NYPD said he was fired about February 9, 2009. (There was no press release on this. It's a little understandable that the NYPD doesn't care to shine a light on its most questionable officers, but on the other hand, it's also a clear PR opportunity missed.) The press accounts say that charges have been dismissed, and that a "spokesman" for Pogan (do 23-yr old cops get spokesmen now?) said that Pogan resigned, and was not fired. In any case, the dropping of charges was no doubt a quid pro quo for getting rid of this bad apple, and the NYPD just wanted it done.

I first reported on this last August. You can see a video of the incident here (my original YouTube link has gone stale).

I feel pretty strongly about this (in case you hadn't guessed) as I'm sure others do. I guess this is because I think most police understand their job is to protect cyclists (along with everyone else). Riding to work this week on a cold morning, I was breezing by two Howard County police officers engaged in drivers-side-window conversation. The one facing the road who could see me gave me a wave as I went by. It was respectful, possibly because she (the cop) was a cyclist and it was below freezing that morning. There are good cops out there who appreciate cyclists (particularly ones who practice safety). What a great world it would be if we could count on all cops to respect cyclists this way!

A second rather obvious thought on this. Since the seminal amateur videotaping of the beating of Rodney King, video cameras are now everywhere. There may be one in your pocket right now. The world has changed, and while pictures can be altered electronically, the ubiquitous vid-cap still serves as a vital witness that didn't exist even five years ago. I've given some thought to mounting one of those Flip Mino camcorders on my seatpost, just to record cars overtaking (and their license plates). It's overkill, but it's an idea to consider. Maybe for a future topic on "Your Bike's Data Network".

(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".

Good Cop / Bad Cop

Here's the good cop, pictured at right. Tom Casady, Chief of Police, Lincoln, NE. This guy makes me think that living in Lincoln, Nebraska might not be such a bad thing. (And I have to admit, this is the absolute first thing to make me think this.) Read his post on bicycles and cars sharing the road here. The rest of his blog is an interesting insight into medium-sized-town policing. Update: Tom has a good sense of humor. When discussing how to avoid the "door prize", he says, "A row of parallel-parked cars is risky, and cyclists generally need to move out to the left by the approximate length of a 1972 Monte Carlo's door." (The link to the car image is by him.)

Here's the bad cop, also pictured at right. Patrick Pogan, rookie policeman in New York City. This guy brutally tackled a cyclist at a Critical Mass demonstration in NYC. The video is of course on YouTube here. I have (like about so many other things) mixed emotions about Critical Mass, because I feel like their manifestations are unnecessarily confrontational. (I mean, I holler at rude or oblivious drivers, but it's always for a reason.) The NYPD police union is defending him, more here. Good luck. If the video is admissible, it sure looks like an assault to me. I mean, this &*%^! cop didn't even flag the cyclist down!

Be your own judge.