07.25.08
Posted in Tales from the Trenches
by Mark Dieterich at 8:38 pm
This picture is the result of a collision between a RIPTA bus and a cyclist. A friend of the cyclist involved in this accident forwarded the picture to me. Fortunately the cyclist was uninjured and needed no hospital care, but look at this poor bike!
I scoured the internet to see if I could locate any mention of this incident, but couldn’t find anything. It does make you wonder how many events like this are occurring every day that the public just never hears about.
If those involved with the accident have any further details about the collision that you would like to share, I think we would all be interested in the details.
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Posted in Advocacy, East Bay
by Mark Dieterich at 7:37 am
From an article in today’s projo, the Barrington town council
approved spending up to $10,000 to construct a new bike shelter so people can safely store their bicycles before catching a RIPTA bus to work.
The Rhode Island Department of Transportation is offering to finance the design of the project, which will include the installation of about 10 bike racks and a covered shelter.
The location would be near where the bike path connector meets County Road, according to Town Planner Philip Hervey. There is already a shelter for bus riders.
Another town that is starting to understand how bicycles can be used for transportation. If all goes well, this project should end up costing the town very little as
the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority has offered to commit $40,000 if Barrington chips in 20 percent of the cost.
The only question I have here is whether or not RIPTA can afford to do this. At a time when they are discussing route cuts to cover bugetary shortfalls, should they be spending money on bike racks? Hopefully, this means RIPTA has secured other funding to continue their full compliement or routes.
Are you looking for some way to reach out to your local community? I’d suggest each of us can contact our local officials, make sure they know what Barrington is doing and ask whether your town can do the same!
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07.24.08
Posted in Advocacy
by Eric at 9:14 am
Re-cycling effort
Interest in commuting by bike on the increase
Getting on a bike for the first time since she was 16 years old, 42-year-old Priscilla Power rode 5 miles to her Wakefield office as part of her company’s “Bike to Work Day” last month. Though she remembered how to pedal, the inexperienced biker detoured through a Dunkin’ Donuts’ parking lot to avoid a busy intersection.
So last week Power took an hour away from her desk to attend a bicycle-commuting workshop offered by her employer, the Wakefield-based environmental engineering firm Metcalf & Eddy | AECOM.
At the workshop, conducted by the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, also known as MassBike, a nonprofit advocacy group, Power and 27 co-workers learned the nuts and bolts of bike commuting. Power jotted down a few notes on what to look for in a commuter bike: fenders, to keep water from flying on rainy days, and smooth, not nubby, tires.
She also learned that during her first commute she was riding too close to parked cars. And she had every right to be in the busy intersection as much as the cars, said Shane Jordan, who led the workshop.
“By law in Massachusetts, [bikes] are a vehicle,” said Jordan, the director of education and outreach at MassBike. “You have all the same rights and responsibilities. Bikers are allowed to take the full lane.”
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.21.08
Posted in Advocacy
by Margherita at 6:39 pm
by Mike Chino
IKEA, that patent purveyor of all things flat-pack just announced that it has just teamed up with Velorbis to offer an exciting new service to its Danish customers: bike trailers. The arrangement will supply IKEA stores with a fleet of free trailer bikes, giving Danes an eco-friendly way to haul their housewares home and proving, once again, that Denmark rocks the bike lane.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Advocacy
by Margherita at 8:09 am
Ditch the auto, saddle up, and reduce your commuting costs to zero
By Ty Burr, Globe Staff | July 21, 2008
All right: Why not bicycle to work?
Gas is headed for $5 a gallon, and our government can’t bring itself to pass any meaningful climate-change legislation. You can keep paying through the nose and contributing to global warming, or you can actually do something about it: Dust off the two-wheeler and commute by leg power.
You won’t be alone. Bike sales have soared this spring and so has ridership: the recent Bike to Work Week in Massachusetts logged 125,000 miles in pledges as opposed to an expected 50,000.
Only one question remains for many area commuters: Is it possible to bike to work and get there alive? Boston has a horrible reputation on the national bicycling scene and for three good reasons: lousy roads, bad drivers, and car-centric civic attitudes.
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.19.08
Posted in Advocacy
by Mark Dieterich at 9:06 pm
Surprise, surprise… according to an article in the Woonsocket Call, the State is forecasting a significant financial shortfall.
Rhode Island needs approximately $600 million a year to fix and maintain its highways and bridges and otherwise operate the state Department of Transportation (RIDOT); its current revenue stream provides about $300 million.
Here’s a crazy idea, what if we were to cut back on our infrastructure needs? Perhaps develop a better public transportation system and allow people to move themselves around freely? Nope,
the Blue Ribbon Panel for Transportation Funding has suggested tolls on Route 95 near the Connecticut line tolls on I-95 closer to Providence; increased gas taxes; or hiking the sales tax. Right now, says RIDOT Director Michael Lewis, all of those, along with a few others, are just suggestions.
I for one will be upset if they increase sales tax to fund road projects. As far as I’m concerned our transportation infrastructure is already overbuilt and impossible to fund in any ongoing way. Director Lewis himself says
a big part of the problem is that “we don’t use a sustainable model” for highway maintenance and improvements. “Rhode Island is very dependent on the federal highway program, probably more so than any other state,” Lewis explained. “The federal program provides 80 percent of the cost of a project; we have to have 20 percent matching funds. We get approximately $200 million in federal highway money, we have to come up with 20 percent of that, which is about $40 million a year.”
The state borrows that money, so it has to pay debt service on that $40 million a year from its operating budget, which is also used to plow roads, sweep the highways, cut grass along the sides of the roads and in the medians, clear drains. Those funds come from the state’s gas tax and the debt service represents about half of what the state takes in from the gas tax each year.
If a private citizen operated in such a manner, we would never be approved for additional loans. Rather than focus on dramatically increasing revenue, let’s stop for a moment and think about how we could make a smaller infrastructure more efficient. Thomas Ardito, director of policy and communications for the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program and founder of the Center for Ecosystem Restoration, recently published an article in the Projo discussing some of the very ideas we’ve been promoting for a while now.
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.17.08
Posted in Advocacy
by Mark Dieterich at 10:11 am
I joined a fellow cyclist during the commute home last night as he picked up his daughter from day-care. The kids were outside playing in a fenced in area. As he went in to get his daughter, I stood by the fence to wait. Before long, I had attracted most of the kids in the play area. Many of them were eagerly telling me about their bikes, who had training wheels, who road a tag-a-long, and peppered me with questions about my bike. It was great, but it got me thinking. What happens between this age, when almost every kid is interested in riding a bike, and adulthood? Why do we stop riding bikes? According to a recent New York Times article, it could be part of a much larger trend
Young children spend an extraordinary amount of time moving about: an average of three hours a day at age 9, new research shows.
But in just a few short years, all that childhood energy disappears. By the age of 15, daily physical activity is down to just 49 minutes on weekdays and about a half-hour on weekends, according to the research, being published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I was astonished by these numbers. A 15 year old kid is getting just 50 minutes of exercise per day and even less on weekends! No wonder our national childhood obseity rates are so high. We, as a cycling community, need to figure out how to harness this childhood enthusiasm and keep kids on bikes as they grow older. If we can manage to introduce them to an alternative transportation mode at an early age, perhaps society in general will gradually shift away from being so car centric.
I’m up for doing what I can over the long haul and hope you are too!
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07.16.08
Posted in Advocacy
by Mark Dieterich at 11:47 pm
In case you didn’t hear, there was a recent case of extreme road rage outside Los Angeles, CA. From The Reeves Law Group website:
On the 4th of July, about 300 cyclists set off on a holiday bicycle ride to the top of Mandeville Canyon road in Brentwood. The event is a popular one with cyclists in the area, and takes place at least 5 to 6 times a year, drawing plenty of LA cyclists.
On the descent, one of the cyclists was injured, and had to be taken to the hospital. Two of his buddies, 40-year-old Ron Peterson and 28-year-old Christian Stoher, stayed back and tended to him, while the ambulance arrived. Later, as the two set off back down the hill, a car passed close to them and shouted obscenities. Then, as it moved ahead of the cyclists, the driver of the car pulled in front of the cyclists and slammed on his brakes. Christian was able to dodge in time, but was still injured after losing control of his bicycle, while Ron was thrown through the back window of the car, breaking the windshield. His nose was partially severed, and he received severe facial lacerations.
The driver of the car, Dr. Christopher Thompson, stopped and identified himself as a doctor, but offered the two severely injured cyclists no help or emergency care.
I was relieved to keep reading and see that
the police have now said they are treating this as a road rage incident and as a felony criminal assault, and not as a bicycle accident. The doctor has been arrested, and has been released after he posted $30,000 bail. He is due in court next month.
Not only do I hope he is found criminally guilty for this horrible act, but I also hope he looses his medical license. At least one LA council member was reactionary enough to call
for a meeting soon with cyclists in the area, council members and traffic police to discuss the rising conflicts between cyclists and motorist on the road. More and more people are choosing to cycle, not just for recreation, but as a cost saving measure in these days of rising gas prices. As more cyclists take to the street, there are going to be more such “road rage” incidents that we see.
Perhaps it’s time we do the same in Providence, before we have such an incident on our hands.
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Posted in Tales from the Trenches
by Mark Dieterich at 11:21 pm
Sorry, this rant isn’t completely bike related, but I’m posting it anyways because I still can’t believe what I experienced.
I was on my way home today when I approached two young ladies physically standing in the street in a painted crosswalk, obviously waiting to cross the road. As I rolled up, I dutifully came to a stop. Together we waited as I counted seven cars drive past, one of them briefly stopping on and blocking the crosswalk because traffic was backed up. Eventually, I pulled out and physically blocked the lane of traffic with my bike, only to watch two more cars drive through the crosswalk going the opposite direction. After they crossed the road, I continued on my way, only to be honked and glared at by the motorist I blocked. Luckily, it must have been too hot outside to open a window or I might have heard some choice words as well.
What has happened to the people in this country? Why are we in such a hurry, when we get behind the wheel, that we blatantly break the law and utterly disrespect pedestrians.
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Posted in Advocacy
by Mark Dieterich at 8:29 pm
Now that we have a shiny new bike trail in Providence, I thought it prudent that we take a few minutes and review what the RI General Laws Title 31 Motor & Other Vehicles section has to say specifically about bike lanes. This way, we can all be aware of our rights while pedaling through this area. Below I’ve paraphrased each section, click on the link to read the actual law:
- A bicycle lane is a portion of road designated for the exclusive use of bicycles. The operation and parking of motor vehicles is prohibited within the lane. Motorists may cross a bicycle lane when making a turn, entering or leaving the roadway or a parking lane, or when required in the course of official duty.
- Motorists about to cross a bicycle lane must yield the right-of-way to any person operating a bicycle or motorized wheelchair upon the bicycle lane.
- Persons operating a motorized wheelchair are permitted to use the bicycle lane for travel.
- No person shall stop, stand, or park a vehicle in a bicycle lane, except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with law or the directions of a police officer.
- Motorists can not open a vehicle door unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, including bicycles on sidewalks, shoulders, or bicycle lanes.
- Except as provided in § 31-15-17, no person shall operate any motor vehicle on a bicycle lane. In particular:
- Any person who operates a motor vehicle upon any bicycle lane, trail or path shall be punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars ($100).
- The division of motor vehicles, upon receiving a record of the conviction of any person upon a charge of operating a motor vehicle on a bicycle lane, trail or path, shall suspend the person’s operator’s license for a period of six (6) months.
- Emergency vehicle and employees of federal, state, and local government shall be exempt from the provisions when acting in the scope of their official duties.
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