Moving With A Thought, 12mph

Have a safe and happy New Year!

2011-12-31T21:00:00.000-05:00

If you are out in about in any form of transportation, foot, car, bike, bus etc this evening. watch where you are going and be aware. Lots of celebrations going on and some folks might not be as aware as they are suppose to be. Ride safe, ride happy!

Have a safe and sustainable transportation friendly new year :)

Happy New Year in Dutch
http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl

MIT Helmet Vending Machines

2011-12-31T12:52:00.001-05:00

bostonbiker.org...hubway-guy

Boston.com has an article today on a class project designing a helmet rental system for use with the Hubway or other bikeshare system. Now I think it is a good idea to have helmets available to folks who will not ride their bike without one, and they certainly should be available for cities that have mandatory helmet laws and bikeshare (all in Australia at the moment). However, lets look at the information: 30% of Hubway users are using helmets (72% in the city of Boston as a whole, I think its less in Cambridge). I would actually tend to say that is high. By my observations, I may have seen one or two users wearing a helmet of the many users I saw over the past view months. There have been zero crashes or accidents in the 140,000+ trips taken in the four months it was open this year. (Hubway data article)

That is the point, zero problems despite a low helmet usage statistic. It is believed that typical users are folks that are likely to take less risks, and certainly they are traveling at a much slower speed (these are big and heavy 3 speeds, you cant get going to terribly fast on them). On the flip side they may be less use to the traffic laws especially if they use to walk and now use the bikes, and they may be from other countries where the laws for bicycle are significantly different.

Lets get back to the article, a good idea for sure, but so far it would not matter if more folks were wearing helmets, there were no problems. Now from Montreal where the system is much more robust and they have better infrastructure, there have occasionally been issues and there are a couple reports of doctors stating the need for the city to fund some type of vending machine (such as this) or partner with shops for discounted helmets (what Hubway does currently). However, they have provided little information other than they see more cyclists in the emergency room for injuries. When pressed there seems to be little evidence of injuries that could have been prevented with use of a helmet. This article (in french) talks about a crash that while serious, would not have been less serious for the bixi user if she were wearing a helmet. Most injuries were in her legs in this case, and it was the fault of a motorist running a red light that was the problem, not the bixi user. It ends with a call for more and safer infrastructure, which is the appropriate response. (another blog entry in English with a couple different articles linked)

However the one thing we do know is that more bikes on the road means; a lower injury rate, the more people biking the safer everybody is. We also know the health benefits of cycling (even if they breath in more pollution than other users) are a net benefit. These two elements have been studied quite a bit and the data is there proving that both benefits are true. Helmet usage is really a bit of a mixed bag, especially since they are only good in certain crashes and in very specific types they can potentially cause more injuries (rotational specifically).

In conclusion, good invention that will be beneficial in areas with mandatory helmet laws (which btw have a huge negative impact on bike share, a new study for Sydney, AU notes that 22% of folks surveyed would ride or ride more often without the mandatory helmet law, and bikeshare has struggled to get off the ground with successes everywhere else) and could be beneficial to folks that do not feel safe using a bike without a helmet. If it gets somebody on a bike good.

copenhagenize.com...motoring-helmets

However, we need to stop this fascination with the use and promotion of helmets, car drivers don't have to wear them despite data that head injuries among car operators is a significant risk (and the fact that helmets were created for auto users in Australia in the 80's) , folks walking don't have to wear them, despite risks of slip, trip, and fall injuries etc. I could go on.

I do not use a helmet when I am using bikeshare, they simply do not go together at all. In Montreal or in Boston (the two systems I have used). I do wear one while on my personal European style city bike (Breezer uptown 8), but mainly that is out of professionalism since I work for the City of Cambridge in the Environment and Transportation division, and I could see the news now... I also tend to travel a bit faster on my personal bike.

Bikeshare and helmets do not go together and while they should be available, the top cycling countries and cities never have mandatory laws nor do they have high helmet usage. Despite what it may seem, people in those countries are not dying in droves or have massive head injuries because of the lack of helmets (although there is a small percentage of older Dutch that have issues with head injuries due to a variety of reasons). It is safe to bicycle in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Japan because of the built infrastructure.

Something a little more like this.

The system needs to be designed so that people feel they do not need to use a helmet. The infrastructure can make it safe and that is where we need to invest our money, not in helmet vending machines, at least not in Boston.

Banana CousCous, An Unlikely Combination

2011-11-20T23:05:00.001-05:00

This recipe was a bit of a combination of online resources. It started out with the idea to use up some ripening bananas, I originally thought of some main dish similar to cooked plantains but ended up going with the whole wheat couscous and a sweeter dish instead.

This will work for for a breakfast porridge type or closer to a rice pudding for desert and is an adaptation from bethmichelle.com among others. The key here is that this does not use a microwave.

Cooking a meal fresh in the microwave is, well, idk but it's not good!

As always the following is just approximate and is an adaptation itself, please experiment and adapt where appropriate. Substituting your favorite soy/nut/coconut milk instead of whole is one such yummy adaptation.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup whole milk (I like MOO milk especially but Organic Valley is also a great choice)
1 cup whole wheat couscous (buy in bulk if possible, but packaged should work ok)
~8 cardamon pods (break open and grind the seeds, use 1-3 more if pods are older, dried can work too)
2 pinches of cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt (use coarse crystals and grind with cardamon for best result)
1/2 cup brown sugar (use less if you do not have a strong sweet tooth, white sugar will work too, just use less)
2 ripe bananas, sliced
Orange rind (scrape as much or little as you like but not more than 2 teaspoons)
Optional:
1tsp vanilla/banana extract
Fresh fruit for topping
Ground chocolate for topping (Taza Chocolate works great if you can get it)

Preperation
Combine milk and sugar and heat on medium-high in a wide saucepan, stirring frequently until just boiling. Turn down heat, adding salt, spices, orange rind, and couscous stir and simmer for 30 seconds or so. Remove from heat and let sit until thick. Add extra milk as needed and fluff with sliced bananas. Add fruit or chocolate and serve hot or chilled.

Enjoy :)

Commuting with an Umbrella

2011-11-16T23:17:00.008-05:00

It was raining today, quite heavily in fact. In an urban environment that provides very little consideration for folks using bicycles it is not a pleasant experience, especially if it is anything more than a light spring rain.

Mostly this is due to the road curving to the edges, where the bicycle lanes are. This is to help drain water off during especially heavy storms to make it safer for drivers. That is the key, drivers, for cyclists traveling along the curb water collects, pools and covers up the potholes that were already there. Combine this with poor roads that are barely ride-able when it is dry, cars speeding past and hopefully not splashing you, low visibility in general, and loss of braking/maneuverability, you have a very unpleasant environment.

What does riding with an umbrella have to do with it? Citizen cyclists (I believe Copenhagenize has popularized the term) should be able to ride safely while carrying an umbrella if they choose to do so.

This gets to the problem with most of the built infrastructure for bicycling in the USA. It is not designed so that it is if not pleasant, at least tolerable, to ride in the rain or any other weather condition, or any time when it is not 75 degrees in the middle of the day with little traffic and a bit of sun in May.

I might argue that even with the typical built infrastructure today, it is mainly presumed that folks using it will do something else when it rains, or are really out to enjoy the ride and not actually get anywhere safely and comfortably, or are too die-hard for rain and puddles to stop them.

All of that being said, with a little coordination and picking the right streets one can ride with an umbrella even in the crazy road environment of Cambridge/Allston. My route earlier today is below, with the parts I used my umbrella in blue and the rest in light red.

click through for the full map

As you can see of my approximately 3.5 mile urban route I can use an umbrella safely about 60% of the time (around 2.2 miles) However that is just me, I am pretty comfortable and secure with my bicycle, I have good breaks and good control. For somebody who does not use a bike often, if they tried to bike with an umbrella there is only one section where they could. A .6mi section from Western Ave to the overpass of the highway. This is so little that it is not even worth it, unless you lived along here and were going to the bank or a friends house nearby.

The reason that would even be possible is that this is a traffic calmed road designed to be so narrow two cars can not pass each other but two bikes and a single car driving carefully can.

View Larger Map
Yes this is actually two way! This design means very limited auto traffic and what traffic there is is usually driving very carefully and slowly and typically won't even pass a bike going in the same direction, although there is room to do so safely.

In general these issues are why we need to really look at how we are designing bicycle infrastructure. No we can't design around the best rain protection possible (covered elevated paths etc.) but we should start looking at how we build roads and side-paths that can allow folks on bikes, or wheelchairs, or on foot to better enjoy getting to where they need to go even when it is raining out, or snowing, or hot or cold.

More thoughts on weather cycling and what other countries are doing (notably not the US) some point soon.

First Ride in Boston

2011-08-31T23:58:00.003-04:00

So brought my bike down on the Downeaster from Dover today, yes you can do that with a full bike, but not technically ;) It helps to be a monthly pass holder and know the conductors.

Anyway got off at north station, answered a woman's question about bikes on commuter rail, informed her I used Amtrak but that reverse commutes during rush hour allowed bikes, and it is just a short period in the morning and evening that don't and that weekends are good.

I rode on the sidewalk for the longest distance I can remember since a child. I don't normally use the sidewalk, but when the alternative is to do battle with 5 lanes of traffic on what is effectively a high speed highway with traffic lights that connects North Station over into East Cambridge, I will choose the sidewalk every time even if there are sharrows on the road.

I was not the only one, although there were a number of brave soles on the road itself as well.

Ride to First and down the pre-painted bike lanes to Broadway and into the City Hall Annex of Cambridge (my current work)

Bike is living overnight in the bike room as I start my full move tomorrow.

Things seen tonight

2011-07-31T21:54:00.003-04:00

Had a 8 mile round trip ride out to deliver 5 quarts of our Organic Blueberries to a life long customer tonight.

Noted the "kid bikeway" signs along Court and Back Rds which is really just a couple signs and no direction arrows or any pavement markings. Cost the city maybe 150$ for whatever signs, granted I think they were put in near 20 years ago... The shoulder is bairly standard width for a normal bike lane, let alone something like a "kid bikeway"...

One shooting star :)

Some fireworks, although not quite sure what said fireworks were for... but nice to see none the less :)

No animals seen...

Bicycle-v-Bicycle

2011-07-17T14:48:00.003-04:00

An odd thing occurred on my way home from church today, yes I bike to church and typically put on nicer clothes for it too, not today though, prime reason was to help pick the church garden, also temperature at 11am can be a bit much for pants and dress shirt...

Anyway as I was making the turn off Route 4 to Durham (The only marked and lane painted on road bike route in Dover) onto one of the local roads I take back home, another cyclist coming along 4 was right in the middle of the intersection as I was turning. I actually had to yield for another person on a bicycle! Of course a friendly hello was in order. It was not returned, he seemed to be concentrating too much... thats ok :)

I continued on my way and a gentleman in a convertible pulled up along side and mentioned that it is not often you see a bicycle giving way to another bicycle, I agreed and waved goodbye as he slowly accelerated away.

Rest of the ride was uneventful :) Other than the fact that the bike helmet did not touch my head at all, I had the ol trusty Tilley hat on which was almost too much considering the heat.

Every once in a bit I make the choice that the helmet does not need to be on, for either part or rarely all of the trip. The safety part of using it is debatable for an experienced cyclist with a bike that will not be falling apart any time soon, however the setting example and showing I am a good citizen part is important and that is the main reason why I wear it 90%+ of the time.

Have a happy rest of your Sunday

Green Home Tourist

2011-05-14T13:46:00.001-04:00

I got this link in my email last week. This is a nifty little resource for the folks in New England to find nearby homes or buildings that use various renewable technologies. This database is funded by RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative), which in another note is barely surviving here in NH thanks to those in power in both houses.

Check out the database Here

Walkable Streets Economy Boosting Potential - This Big City

2011-05-11T09:15:00.001-04:00

A good article from the UK on some recent research on how street improvements help increase home and property values along that same street. With research like this there might be an increased opportunity to develop other funding sources for Main Street revitalizations. Of course as goes good street improvements, goes the desirability to walk and the bicycle, which is key.

Take a read over at thisbigcity.net

Research study link, Here.

Some more Butter

2011-05-09T21:38:00.005-04:00

In a continuation of my butter making endeavor; I took some images while making some this evening.

Enjoy :)

Ingredients:

Brookford farm fresh raw cream*

Buttermilk is to the right, this batch was processed in a blender, and then hand mixed to butter with...

My trusty 1980's GE mixer made in the USA ($5 from the thrift store!). I really like this mixer, it is just strong enough that it mixes quickly, however it is also not too strong as to over mix the butter. With this mixer, it basically will stop mixing once the butter is formed; it is not quite strong enough to continue. There is a risk if the mixer is too strong, that the buttermilk can be mixed back in with the butter; which is not good.

Volia!

This butter is ~2 cups and will be used for cookies tomorrow night :)

*A note on the cream, because I was leaving for Spain after I bought 2 pints, and knew they would not keep, I froze it. Now the big tricks to freezing cream, I used a metal cooking pot (I don't like plastic) it is also easier to clean and holds firm in the freezer. Also make sure to unthaw in the refrigerator, and do not rush it. Two Pints took about 2 days to unthaw, and then I let it sit on the counter for thirty minutes or so. It appears goopy and thick when you take it out of the container to mix it, do not worry the cream has separated a bit and will be fine as either butter or whip cream.

Livable Manchester (NH)

2011-04-18T23:37:00.003-04:00

I came across this site from some connections with Commute Green NH (facebook link). It is called LibableMHT and focuses on some thoughts and lessons which could make Manchester, NH a better community for all. I have not had too much time to browse the posts in depth, but they do have a nice potential streetcar setup which looks really spiffy for sure.

I encourage you to check them out, it is really nice to see something like this develop in good ol NH.

Website Link Here

Still Moving Forward

2011-04-11T09:20:00.005-04:00

Yes I am still here, yes I am still working. I graduated in January and am now part time employed with the City of Cambridge, MA as an outreach coordinator for a transportation mode shift encouragement program.

I still have a bunch of stuff going on, the least of which is enjoying 3 hours of train time a day :) as I commute into Boston.

I am also in the planning stages for Commute Green NH (which is part of the work done by Path NH in a month or so. We will be having a commuter/user breakfast at the Dover Rail terminal on May 20th.

I am also involved in the basic planning stages to set up a Bicycle and Pedestrian committee for the city of Dover (which is the fastest growing in the state and just reached 30,000 last census).

I continue to take infrastructure pictures, and muse on topics, I work on the computer a whole lot for my job so I do try to limit it when I am at home, but I will make every attempt to at least get something going once a week and then build from there.

For now I leave you with a wonderful video from David and Mark over at A View From The Cycle Path on how the dutch would update the NACTO bicycle guidelines.

Blog post link Here

An old, new Breezer

2011-02-01T22:43:00.006-05:00

(click for larger image)

From Plattsburgh late February 2010. A Breezer in a box!

Bought from the great guys at Harris Cyclery in January of last year.

Dover, NH Parking Meter Map

2011-01-31T00:43:00.004-05:00

This is another one of my fun Google map projects.
I came across the new map of parking meters (or Kiosks really) from the parking bureau website. This is the map that they give to the public for folks to find the parking meters.(caution pdf)

First off, the city website is a mess, but that is beside the point, at least the information is there. (unlike the city of Plattsburgh site...).

Second, the map is actually oriented North (amazing right!) which is good, but there is no legend included that would tell a viewer the difference between black and red markers. (Actually it turns out the red markers are the recently launched, Jan 18th, and the black were ones already operating during the fall, I decided not to differentiate between them, once I know more of the planned expansion locations I will add them differently. Of course you had to click on the faq to find that, and see the original map with legend(pg2), which had a Western orientation...)

Thirdly, there is very little information on the businesses or other orientating information, other than road names, you are unable to move around and get your bearing if you are not a resident, and that is really the key point.

Now these are actually relatively minor issues compared to some maps I have seen (the ward map, a complete mess until you zoom way in; my version of it can be found Here); the kiosks are close enough together and visible enough that finding one on the ground should not pose a problem though.

(click through for Google maps link)

The point of the matter is though, that I created the above map using Google (Google Earth, and then uploaded to maps), it took about an hour to do it, including creating the custom marker icon, and now we have a map that is interactive, somebody can search for businesses, or figure out where they are, they can go into streetview and see what the area looks like (meters won't show up though, too recent) they can create trips and better plan for a visit to the city.

The map as the city created it is designed for residents (and even then it may be confusing). That is not a bad thing, but it could have easily been designed for anybody.

The city really needs to get its act in gear and start making use of Google maps and the huge potential that is being missed. The planning department uses Google maps to create maps of locations on their agenda for the next meeting, a very good and useful idea!
I think the city as a whole though can, and must do better!

Communities need to stop thinking like it's 1980, data is all stand-alone, and if somebody wants something they will call or go down to city hall to get it. There are so many more opportunities for the city to really sell its presence and what’s happening; online. These are fairly simple to implement and would go a long way toward providing accessibility to city resources and services.

Simply providing city resource maps through Google would be an enormous step.

Bicycle training, how the Dutch do it: Video from Mark Wagenbuur

2011-01-25T07:46:00.000-05:00

Some winter Dutch Envy for you, an older Video from Mark Wagenbuur over in the Netherlands on bicycle training for school children. He has a great deal of wonderful videos on his profile, I highly recommend you check out more from him. David Hembrow also posts latest videos and commentary on topics using the video's at his blog as well (which is where I got this).

David's write up on it is much better, and I highly recommend you take a read of his post before or after watching it.

This is how the Dutch do training for cyclists, focusing on the test before the start of high school or equivalent. Its pretty amazing to see how they do it, and what is required of the students taking the test.

When our driving tests are to "go out around the block and park" and you get your license, I am not sure we could actually ever do anything as rigorous as this anytime soon. I think we need to get our driving tests down to something a bit more challenging before we ever embark on something like this, however integrating traffic into the curriculum from an early age is certainly a very good idea

enjoy! (OMG where are the helmets, they could die, or fall over, or hurt themselves!!! ok I am done now ;) )

Esquire Magazine Highlights Janette Sadik-Khan

2010-11-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

Came across this link from one of the blogs I frequently read on Google Reader. I warn you right off though; it’s a long article. (Update: yep it was from the Planetizen network, their link is Here)

Many in the New Urbanism movement know of JSK, many in the cycling and walking communities know of her, and certainly in NYC, they know of her work. She is an international superstar, and is very popular with livable streets and transportation equity folks (along with Mr. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood)

So who is Janette Sadik-Khan, Esquire magazine (yes That Esquire) has a very good article looking at her in relation to another giant of NYC; Robert Moses.

The way she works to get around red tape and bring people on board, even if they were originally against her, can be a model for cities and DOT's nations wide. She has the facts to back up her claims, and to show naysayers that they really don't know what they are talking about, but without bluntly telling them off (as was Moses's style).

Her work is transforming NYC back to a future where people are king, not the car. She is the anti-Robert Moses and her timing couldn't have been better.

Take a read:
Janette Sadik-Khan - New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Profile

Montreal prologue

2010-11-27T19:55:00.002-05:00

Habitat from Expo 67, Montreal.

This post is just the prologue to a 4 part series on cycling in Montréal. I visit the city usually 2 to 3 times a year and have been doing so for the past 17+ years, and as such have sometimes taken the push for cycling, and separated infrastructure, for granted.

On the other hand, I simply may have not appreciated it, noticed it, or been unable to take pictures. Now with the opportunities that Bixi opens up, I am able to get a first hand picture of the bike share program, as well as the routes that make it safe for a less experienced cyclist, to get to many destinations in the city using a Bixi.

Part one will be some pictures and thoughts on a commuter cycling highway along the famous Habitat 67.
Part two will be some of the separated infrastructure of the city, from the eye of a Bixi.
Part three will be just on Bixi, from Fall 2009 and Fall 2010, what they seemed to have learned, and what improvements are perhaps needed, as well as impressions on use.
Finally part 4 will deal with bicycle parking in the city, and the variations of parking stalls that are used.

I will attempt to spread them out, and by breaking them up I hope to be able to post a little bit shorter posts on each one, and be able to go a bit more in-depth. I will plan to start posting part one later next week, and attempt to post one every week or so. However, finals are coming up, as well as my graduation, so there will most likely be a delay in part three and four at least.

Thanks for reading!

Uptown Infinity

2010-11-07T08:15:00.001-05:00

I linked to the ecovelo teaser of this new bicycle from Breezer a bit ago, it was shown off at Interbike earlier this year. I always bring my Breezer into the newest bike shop in Plattsburgh, and the only dedicated shop, Mountain Riders. Talking with the owner and head grease monkey or the past months, and seeing my Breezer, talking with him about my (few) upgrades, talking quality of parts and such, he has decided to become a Breezer dealer. This will be a great fit, he was a dealer before out in Colorado, has owned a Breezer mountain bike for many years, and strongly believes in the company and quality of work.

That being said, in the next 1-2 weeks, the Infinities'(?) will be shipping out to first orders (from what I know), he has ordered one for the shop and I will be able to test ride it for him once it comes in.

Needless to say I am quite excited!!!
I will post a review and thoughts when it comes in.

specs are now online at the Breezer site, Click Here for more information.

Moving Forward

2010-10-14T23:14:00.004-04:00

Rest assured I am still here and still working on the various projects I am pushing. My time is limited, and what I am not using in class or to push projects, is being used to keep up to date on the latest happenings in the transportation community, and looking for internships for early next year. I simply do not have the energy to keep up here while doing everything else, even if I actually do have the time.

I will post here every once in a bit, and I appreciate folks checking back in every once in awhile. If you do not yet follow me on some type of reader, Google or otherwise, I highly recommend that you do, that way you will know when I start posting again.

Bicycle racks have been ordered and shipped, Phase one is moving forward quickly. Meeting with facilities to determine final location prep next week, a couple sites have already been picked out for a ceremonial install, the next step is planning for that event and making it big.

On the death that happened the other week, prosecution seems limited, even though it was a hit and run and the driver ran a red light, he apparently did not see the cyclist. The cyclist was on the sidewalk through this intersection, no it is not illegal to be on the sidewalk in the town of Plattsburgh (that I know of). However, sidewalk riding is incredibly dangerous for all road users, and until we have proper bicycle roads along auto roads, it is still best to be in a lane. He was new here and did not know the area well, and it is hard to take a lane when you are surrounded by 6 lanes of traffic moving at high speed.

The bike group on campus is working to advocate for a bike lane for the road, I am working to have them change the goal to be increased bicycle safety on the road, not advocating for a specific infrastructure fix. There really is no easy fix for this road, a bike lane or a separate bike road(cycletrack, bike path etc) will make it worse, there are simply too many driveway cuts.

The Campus Facilities Master Plan comes out in November, and is in final stages now. I am involved with asking questions regarding bike and ped improvements for a couple of the planned streets through campus, they have not answered many questions, and there are potential problems with what they are advocating we create, especially if they are leaving it up to the planners here to figure out the specifics.

Finally on to the posted image, it is a map I created that marks all the designated public park space in the city of Plattsburgh, combined with a two different distance buffers showing accessibility and distribution of parks. Overall Plattsburgh is doing pretty darn well, with full accessibility for the entire city within about 1/2mile of a park. It is not a perfect map, there is no scale and while North is "up" it is not designated as such, anyway.

For now that is all, stay tuned, I will update when I can, Jim is busy as well but might try to get some posts in, he has some topics in the wings.

A Death Today

2010-09-29T09:42:00.001-04:00

I just learned late yesterday of a death a bit west of campus due to a student riding a bicycle. I know little more than that right now, but with little to no infrastructure, and no respect from cars, it was inevitable somebody would die in this city, and it had happened before. Maybe some things will change now, to preserve his memory.

However I highly doubt it.

We can do better, we must do better, this is what fuels me to keep pushing against the odds.

Somebody dieing through no real fault of his own, other than choosing (or being forced) to use a bicycle to provide mobility.

Maybe he was riding along the sidewalk at night with no lights on going the wrong way on a one way street wearing black.

However there is a fix for that, we can make it safe for the cyclist that needs to go the opposite direction along a one way street, we can fix the lack of lights (by requiring hub lights on all non racing or bmx bikes sold) we can make sure street lighting is adequate enough so that even on the darkest nights, a cyclist wearing black can be seen.

I can not blame the cyclist for not using a poorly designed facility or infrastructure, I really can't.

We can prevent many of these deaths, it is just sad when it most likely could have been prevented with some forethought from planners and designers, just sad.

I will update more once I know more, including my thoughts on any fixes that might have been able to lessen the likelihood of this death.

all my regards to the family.

From EcoVelo: A Video, and a discussion from me

2010-09-28T20:10:00.005-04:00

This was posted up on Ecovelo today, and I thought it worth a mention:

Once you have watched it, and/or taken a look at the comments on the Ecovelo post on this video come on back, I do want to think some more on what this brings up, in terms of design.

Now I am a huge proponent of separated infrastructure when speeds are higher than 15/20mph. For the Dutch, this typically means no separation in residential areas, and perhaps in city centers as well (although these are typically ped/bike only with deliveries at odd hours). This has provided for a huge cycling rate, the highest(overall) rate in the world(something over 30% I think now, some cities top out over 50 if there is a college). They are the only ones that have achieved this rate through effort(China/India have high rates through poverty and need, typically) and thus they are a good model to use if we wish to see cycling as a significant transportation mode-share.

This poses interesting challenges in terms of our cities here in the US. The population of the entire Dutch country (~16 million) is less than that of New York City(~19 million) for example. It is hard to find space to allocate to the majority of road users in NYC(ped/bicycle) without stepping on somebody's toes, and the car/taxi lobby is quite loud when it comes to stepping on toes.

So what can we do?

In many cases the ability to have a good separated lane is critical, we need it, to encourage new bicycle users to come to the street, and to narrow the space for cars (thus reducing traffic and through speeds) this is good, and for the most part we can do that in blocks, yes there are pedestrians and yes there are loading issues, still a problem, but I feel that that kind of problem can be solved by working with delivery times and positions, and making sure pedestrians know that there is a bicycle route next to the sidewalk, and it is not for them to go into(that should become apparent as more cyclists use it every day, people wouldn't have a chance to step in it for fear of being run over every 5 seconds).

Providing ample space to pedestrians so they do not use the bicycle lane as extra sidewalk is also critical to this design. Yes this means less road space, but often lanes can be re-stripped down to the minimum MUTCD standards and a couple feet for either side can be added to the curb(or get rid of parking along one side, or remove a travel lane, or make it one way...). The main point being, the designers we have now can figure out how to squeeze an ok separate lane into the built environment, its not perfect, but it can be done and it can be done safely in many places.

The big deal is at intersections(and noted in the video). For the Dutch, many intersections are round-a-bouts with wide spaces around them to provide for proper building of separated facilities.(example ped/bike/car, example bike/car, example bike bypass Either that or they are very small and it is in a shared use space, thus no need for separation in the first place. (example)

The crossings are not right at the entrance/exit to the roundabout, but typically at least 1 car length back from where one would enter the actual round-a-bout (typically 2 car lengths with newer designs). This means you interact with ped/cyclists at the start or at the end, not at the same time as other cars, as you travel through the round-a-bout, you as a user of the space can focus on one element at a time, not everything at once (as in a typical urban intersection).

Intersections are a different story. If you have spent times zooming around the Netherlands via the wonders of Google, you will notice that no intersection is exactly the same as the other, each is fit into the specific environment of that situation, or designed to meet the perceived development opportunities for each site (in fact you don't typically find many major road intersections). This is a note for any type of interaction between multiple transportation options (ped, bike, bus, car, tram etc)

For a typical 4 way intersection there are a couple options, depending on traffic and size of road/speed. Really we are just interested in city/urban intersections. In Assen, these are actually few and far between, other than the low speed shared road intersections. Here is one Example though. Pedestrians are combined with cyclists, but have their own area crossing the intersection and have their own lights. Any disable persons can use the bicycle crossing, or the ped crossing, as curb cuts are provided. Walk buttons are provided on all 4 signals to cross this one part of the intersection, there is a resting area in the middle, in case you move slower than the full crossing lights(as a ped). Typically ped and bicycle lights for the whole intersection would go at once, and no turns would be allowed onto this road while bicycles and peds are moving. Either lights are timed at different speeds, a ped pressing the bicycle light will find they might be stuck halfway across.

This intersection appears to not have a loop detector for bicycles, but does have a button, and these do respond to cyclists and often one push will shortly stop all other traffic and allow the cyclist to cross. In many cases intersections have both(loop and button).

In some cases a loop detector is placed further back from the intersection so that a cyclist, moving at typical 10mph will reach the intersection as their bicycle light turns green. Other places it is always green for bicycles unless a car comes and triggers the car detector loop, in which case the bicycle light will turn back to green shortly. Yet other places the bicycle lights are triggered to give cyclists a "green wave" to allow for ease of movement and convenience at 10mph(or designated speed). Left or right turns on red are only allowed in special circumstances, and sometimes these turning options have their own separate interaction with cyclists(even at a round-a-bout)

If the road has many driveways or entrances or has deliveries, and there is no room for a separate infrastructure, what the Dutch have done is lower the speed, or remove through traffic alltogether. (Example area)

Here there is a road on the left that has parking and a "door zone" cycle lane with two traffic lanes (what we typically see here in the US). This is a lower speed road, maybe 25/30kph max, and the bicycle lane is dashed to allow for cyclists to move as safety dictates.

The road to the right (which google has gone down, but technically really should not have unless it was during delivery times...) is a bicycles only in the center, and pedestrians to the side (although at low speeds for bicycles it is not critical to separate (example) (again this must have been done on a Saturday/Sunday morning, due to lack of ped/bike traffic and amount of truck/delivery traffic when viewed at streetview)

Even when looking at more of a grid pattern, such as in Groningen to the North, many streets are ped/bike only and limited car traffic, very low speed shared space, or even along a main higher car traffic/bus route road, the intersecting roads are one of the above types, with "give way" markings along the road as designation. (Example)

Yes grids are wonderful, but we need to do more than just build a European style cycle track along the uninterrupted roads, or build it and do nothing about side streets. The Dutch have shown that intersections are terribly important, and the most important to get right. Many deaths/injuries in NYC are at intersections, such that it is safer to jaywalk mid-block than cross at the intersection (in terms of likelihood of injury) to make a point.

What we need to do is start making side streets bike/ped only, or limit car/truck access to only deliveries, or certain hours, or make one way(with bi-directional cycle paths). We need to close off streets and narrow others. By moving the traffic from these side streets to designated larger arterial roads, we have more options in terms of planning and redesigning the intersection, there is simply more room to do it right. Space is always a problem, and will be when retrofitting a city, but it is true, if there is a will, there is a way. Yes the US is uniquely different from Europe, but many things they have done can be adapted here and made to work just as well. All it takes is knowledge/understanding of the issues, creative thought, and a will.

Much of the Netherlands was as we are today in the late 60's, it took concentrated and sustained effort to be where they are now, many lessons were learnt and designs improved. We have the chance to use some of the best and well tested designs out there, if we simply open our eyes.

We can make American more bicycle friendly, even a city the size of NYC, or car choked as LA.

Yes there will be issues with urban hipsters speeding along on fixed gears, grandmas on old cruisers, business men in Lycra commuting to the office, small children or families going to the park etc.

The more types of people we have using a bicycle, the more everybody starts to play along. Yes there are bad apples, they are part of our society, but if the majority is going at 12mph, and a few want to go at 25, and simply cant because there are too many bicycles on the road, well then maybe that is a sacrifice we have to make to allow for more people to choose bicycling as a transportation option

For further study on the Dutch system, please see the wonderful posts by David Hembrow at his blog, hembrow.blogspot.com

for critique. comments, or thoughts please feel free to let me know :)

Bicycle Lift in Trondheim, Norway

2010-09-17T09:53:00.000-04:00

I had heard about this lift quite awhile ago, but through a random jaunt around the internets finally find the link for it. I thought at one point there was a similar type system using a rope that moved and you held onto it, this is a bit awkward, but it works!

I know of a couple hills that I could use this system on...

Enjoy

From EcoVelo: Sneak Peek: 2011 Breezer Uptown Infinity

2010-09-14T13:54:00.001-04:00

I got quite excited when I saw the teaser of the new Breezer bike for the 2011 season. This bike is beautiful! I love the color scheme, the continuously variable gears are very very interesting, and it does have the same form factor as my Uptown 8. It is a bit more expensive, but with that new hub, it is very much a well designed bicycle.
So here it is from Ecovelo, the Breezer Uptown Infinity:

High Line NYC update

2010-09-13T12:36:00.001-04:00

I don't think I mentioned this when it happened, so I will now. back in the late summer of 2009 I was in NYC and took the time to take pictures of the recently opened HighLine Park. You can read my review and see many more pictures of that visit Here.

In the meantime around December of last year I was contacted by a magazine editor for an Italian magazine that covers various topics. They wanted to use my photo in the print version of their magazine as a highlight for some notes on urban renewal. They found it via Flickr, where I typically upload all my photo's for the blog.

After some edits later, it was published, I have the hard copies in Italian. I was able to find the article on their website, but the picture was different for the online version, so I can't show you until I get a chance to scan it.

It is nice to have something published though, for sure!

An Update

2010-09-12T09:23:00.001-04:00

I am sorry I have not been keeping up with this blog for the past couple of months. As I mentioned before I had two computer intensive jobs, which meant that I had enough of the computer, when I was home and didn't have the energy to update, as I should have. Nonetheless, I will continue to work to keep things up to date as best I can. I still have a backlog of some draft posts, and have been taking many new photos’ of infrastructure to add and discuss.

I have a number of classes this fall, including a new class in Urban Geography and Planning with a teacher who did most of her work in LA and is an active bicycle commuter. I also have the campus racks installation, for which I received money last year, and there is a semi-senior project involving designing a safe routes to school route for the city school district. It is enough to keep my busy for sure.

Oh, did I mention I graduate in December?

In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my posts and the work I try to put into them. If you are new, take a look back into the archives, lots of fun things there!

Thanks!

A Feed Update

2010-09-11T16:14:00.003-04:00

To folks out there who follow my feed or would like to, I just started using google reader and realized on accident that only a partial feed was being shown. As far as I am concerned pictures are very important and if folks don't want them using the "list" option to collapse is just as useful. So I changed to a full feed, mostly because I think it is much more useful when I am reading other sites.

If you have thoughts please let me know

also I am unable to get a share this or "like" option on each post, I am not sure why, I will keep working to try and figure it out, sorry about that.

Plattsburgh City Parks update

2010-09-11T12:04:00.007-04:00

I had not looked at my Google Parks file I had created for Google Maps in awhile. If you remember, back earlier in the year, I had a post on the parks that I had digitized from the city parks website. Looking back a couple days ago I noted over 1200 views in that time, with little to no public mention of the parks. So with this new evidence, I took the time to update the file and re-edit the actual park locations, as well as clean it up a bit.

I then decided to contact the City Parks and Rec Department to see if they might be interested in putting a link to this file on the website.

Long story short, I now have my map linked from the main page of the parks section of the cities parks and rec website!

check out the map link Here
the Parks and Rec website Here
the previous post on the map Here

Update on Share The Road Survey

2010-08-06T16:56:00.004-04:00

We (being Rockingham Planning Commission) just announced our public meeting dates where cyclists and drivers in the Seacoast and Rockingham county can come and work with RPC staff (and me) to provide mapped and detailed problem spots for potential Share the Road signs. These meetings are happening in Exeter, Portsmouth, and Windham. Please see the flyer for more details

Also we have a flyer(as mentioned) that we put together which gives information on accessing the survey as well as a brief overview and information on meeting times and places.

Download the pdf here.(1.2mb)

If you know any cyclists in Southern NH or have visited here to bicycle in the past or drive through this area and have come across cyclists where the road is very dangerous.

Please let them know about our survey or send them to the RPC home page, Here.

Thanks!

RPC Survey Launch

2010-08-01T07:29:00.004-04:00

On Thursday we launched the survey I had been working on that is looking to identify problem spots on the seacoast NH road network. If there is a narrow shoulder that is following the road up a hill and into a turn that is a problem spot as sight lines are very limited and in this case would be a prime example for a "Share the Road" sign.

Now I am a partial subscriber to the dutch idea (and many others) that believe signs are not really needed and that if you take away all signs drivers will be much more cautious and thus safer. That is hard in the US due to many reasons but none the less I do feel that way. In particular "Share the Road" signs in many areas are not effective to raise awareness, and I agree with that, but in this case we are using them in a limited fashion to mark extreme hazard points so hopefully all users will act a bit more cautiously in these areas.

If you live in the Seacoast, or cycle through here and know of problem spots or areas that a "Share the Road" sign might be useful please go ahead and fill out the survey and input your information. It is greatly appreciated.

Hello Southeast NH Cyclists,

With a growing number of people riding bicycles for commuting, exercise, or just for fun and fresh air, the need for safe, respectful sharing of the road by cyclists, pedestrians and motorists is greater than ever.

Share the Road signs are one tool for promoting this message. They are used to mark particular hazard areas on our road networks: places where the shoulder narrows abruptly, blind corners, or narrow bridges. Places where cyclists and motorists both need to use extra caution.

The Rockingham Planning Commission is working to identify significant hazard spots on the region’s roadways, and particularly on designated State Bicycle Routes, where Share the Road signs could be installed to improve safety for cyclists and other road users. The RPC region includes 27 towns in southeastern New Hampshire, extending from the Seacoast westward to Salem and Windham in the I-93 corridor.

We're asking for your help to identify hazard spots that you've encountered while riding or driving. You can provide input in either of two ways:

1) On-line Survey - Fill out the Survey linked below, where you can describe hazard areas as well as pinpoint them on an online map
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F3PDRQR
Please respond by August 20th

2) Public Meetings - Come to one of three Public Meetings we'll be holding around the region in August. The dates and locations for these are listed below.

· Thursday, August 12th, 7:00-8:30pm at the Rockingham Planning Commission Offices, 156 Water Street, Exeter

· Monday, August 16th, 7:00-8:30pm at Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrott Avenue, Portsmouth (Directions)

· Tuesday, August 17th, 7:00-8:30pm, Nesmith Library, 8 Fellows Road in Windham (Directions)

If you have questions on the project, please feel free to contact the RPC at 778-0885 or sbogle@rpc-nh.org.

Thanks for your help!

John Pelletier, RPC Transportation Planning Intern

Scott Bogle, RPC Senior Transportation Planner

Thanks!

From, The Urbanophile on outsiders in a community

2010-07-20T08:09:00.000-04:00

I was going through my draft posts the other day and came upon this article from April from The Urbanophile. The premise of the article is that outsiders, e.g. non-natives to a region or city, are key to that city surviving economic problems or other calamities. They help in driving the city toward positive change and make it better for everybody to live in. The conclusion was based on data from corporate problem solving studies that show that a group working independently on a problem will solve the problem slower, or not at all than a group where outside individuals are brought in part way through the process.

So extrapolated out, migration is key to societies survival as a whole and specifically in cities where outsiders can bring a new prospective to what is valuable in a community, what needs to be encouraged, and what needs to change.

It can be hard to understand where these "outsiders" are coming from but if we learn to embrace other migrants to our communities, we might just be able to overcome the looming problems over the next 100 years.

Check out the article at, The Urbanophile.

A review of the Yuba Mundo V3 cargo bike by EcoVelo

2010-07-19T19:12:00.001-04:00

EcoVelo has a review of the new Yuba Mundo extended frame cargo bike. This is a beast of a bike, able to carry 440+ pounds plus rider in a highly configurable state. I recommend you check out the review and the gorgeous pictures over at EcoVelo. If you need a cargo bike I am pretty sure this is the best you are going to get factory built.

check it out here, EcoVelo

Canada on high-speed rail from NYC to Montreal

2010-07-19T12:32:00.006-04:00

This is an article from the National Post on the Canadian take on high-speed rail from New York City up to Montreal. Plattsburgh features in it as one of the largest communities north of the capital district that would be on a direct line north, and there may be local support for such a project. It would still be problematic; the ADK Park would pose so many problems that it might be easier to divert the line through Burlington and up the Vermont coast. But getting high speed from Plattsburgh North and from Saratoga South as well as improving rail and signaling in the park could still make it viable and at least on par with a car trip if not preferable to flying.

Take a read over at the National Post

Via Infrastructurist

Streetfilms comes to Boston!

2010-07-14T01:51:00.001-04:00

Streetfilms | NACTO’s “Cities for Cycling”

Streetfilms visits Boston for the Cities for Cycling event. I did know about it through my work for MassBike but I was unable to attend due to some reason or another. I was really glad that they came though and that Boston is part of the network of cities across the country. Too often Portland and NYC get the lime light in regards to cycling, but Boston has made drastic improvements over the past few years, the work MassBike has done alone is huge, from encouraging commuter rail trails, to working to get bikes on the T and commuter rails, to working on bus policy to state urban speed limits, to road widths. It is not glamorous all the time but we are doing the work and things are changing.

Please click through to the "Cities for Cycling" website to read more about who they are, which cities have joined, and what they are doing to improve cycling in the US

Enjoy another great video from Streetfilms!

New work and ongoing thoughts

2010-07-07T20:45:00.006-04:00

Thanks to Tom Cochrane via Flickr

I am starting on my second working internship this summer with the Rockingham Planning Commission in Exeter, NH. This I am actually paid to do which is very very nice. My main project is working on designing implementing, logging and then fieldwork verifying locations for strategic share the road signs at problem spots around southern NH.

We will be implementing an online question survey for people to put in locations and problems as well as an option to plot the points live on a Google maps page. The goal is to give people as many options as possible to report problem areas. In August, we will also be doing a series of three live workshops where people can come and update problem spots live.

Once we start having some data filled out we are going to merge the maps into one layer file which will overlap the problem spots and create areas which (in theory) have a greater risk to more cyclists.

Once areas have been located I will be going out into the field with data sheets and a camera and take note of these locations for a final report to give to the state DOT for best areas for share the road signs.

Now true this is not an ideal option, share the road signs are very very limited and data about their effectiveness seems be inconclusive as far as I know.
But in this instance where there are only a handful of signs in the region and only 2 that I know about, perhaps some benefit can come of this, if only to let cyclists know about areas that are potential problem points.

I do hope this can help the current situation in some way. The roads are narrow, corners are tight, as well as speed being relatively high on many seacoast roads, it is dangerous for all but the most experienced riders.

We must never loose sight that these are only interim measures, share the road signs, sharrows, and bike lanes as means to provide safety, education, and connectivity about and for cyclists are very limited if successful at all. To provide for all cyclists and if we wish to encourage cycling as a true form of transportation and not just recreation, we must have separated infrastructure.

Now we do not need it everywhere, neighborhoods of 20mph can be safely shared spaces but when applied correctly and in their right context separated is the only proven way to get people to choose the bicycle for a majority of their trips.

The Netherlands (and Denmark) are really the only places that have a sustained level of cyclist mode share. We can do it too, but it starts by making everybody more aware of cyclists every day, and that I hope can start with increased pinpointed signage, at least the theory of it can.

Separated Facilities from EcoVelo and Slate

2010-07-04T00:12:00.000-04:00

Tom Vanderbilt on Separated Facilities

From the folks over at EcoVelo and then onto the article from Slate. A simple concise pointer on why we need separated infrastructure if we truly want to see cycling as transportation in the US.

Also check out Tom's blog, How We Drive for more on this an other topics. Also check out his great book called "Traffic" most book stores should have it and your library might too!

New lanes in DC, now if only we had some better representation...

2010-06-24T06:08:00.000-04:00

Thanks to FastLane.dot.gov for the picture
These lanes have caused a bit of controversy, check out WashCycle for more info on the process, maybe they are worse than the version 1.0 but they are there none the less and should significantly help. There may be an issue with pedestrians at crossing, especially at night, hopefully the problem will be solved before any major harm is done.

These buffered bike lanes are right down Pennsylvania Ave. in DC, hopefully if the bike share is up and running by the time I get to go back down, I can start doing some trips using the infrastructure, and taking pictures. (not deleting my memory card this time!!!)

Ray LaHood was there as part of the ribbon cutting and to show his support for these projects, which is always great!

check out his blog on the installation here and the WashCycle coverage here. There is a video on both posts as well

To Nantucket I go

2010-06-23T22:04:00.003-04:00

Yep, I will be on an island for the next 3 ish days. I have a bunch of posts that are backing up here, seriously, you should see the draft page. I will be putting them in order shortly and getting them out, sorry for slacking so much, but my laptop is not on as much, and I am busy a lot with either garden work or MassBike work.

anyway I shall try not to neglect for too much more :)

have a good day and look for some infrastructure posts from the island very soon!

One Pot Pledge

2010-06-07T10:10:00.000-04:00

Thanks to USDAgov photostream on flickr.

This is something I found a little while back and thought intriguing, its the One Pot Pledge. Its from the UK (if pot didn't give it away) with the goal of encouraging people to grow their own food who have never grown food before. It is also a way for experienced gardeners to help as well as generally interested people to show support for the campaign.

The campaign is run by Garden Organic, a UK charity.

This is specifically for the UK folks who read, however the idea is something that we can take over here and make work, although more likely on a local or regional scale. Whether it is is a vegetable pot on the windowsill, flowers outside your front door, or a full garden in the backyard, we can all do our part.

I felt the need to share!

cheers

People for Bikes

2010-06-07T07:41:00.001-04:00

Image from MorBCN via flickr

If you have not signed up for the People for Bikes campaign I highly recommend that you do, they just held a give-away last month of 3 new bikes for anybody who has signed up or signed up during the month of May.

I signed up a couple months back, and this blog is part of the network.

From the website:

Peopleforbikes.org is dedicated to channeling that passion to improve the future of bicycling. Our goal is to gather a million names of support, to speak with one, powerful voice—to make bicycling safer, more convenient and appealing for everyone.

Simply put, we believe that life is far more enjoyable when it’s experienced on two wheels. We believe that by coming together, we can make our world a better place to ride

We are all people for bikes, will you join me?

Sign the pledge

This is an initiative from Bikes Belong

The joys of a new kickstand

2010-06-06T09:50:00.006-04:00

A picture of it on the bike will be forthcoming.

Well I had my bike in the shop the other day, mainly to make sure the squeek coming from my bottom bracket was not a problem, they tightened it and looked over and found no problems, which was good. I also had them instal a nice new kickstand because I was tired of the bike falling over the moment I put any weight in it really.

The Breezer uptown 8 is a wonderful bike and I have no faults with it except for the kickstand. For a bike like this it really should have come with something better than a one sided small stand, which held the bike fine but the moment I start loading the back down, would fall over.

It is with great relef that I welcome the Pletscher Double Kickstand into the family. This is a nifty kickstand in that it has two legs but folds up to one side out of the way.

In its current form I need to saw a couple inches off of it because it is lifting my front tire about a food in the air when deployed. However, even with that, it is stable like no other.

This is a stand built for people doing heavy loads and awkward weights. The Breezer has a wonderful kickstand plate so mounting was super easy for the guys at the shop. The only qualm is the price on it, running $58 from my bike shop, the link for the online shop recommended by EcoVelo would run 55$ with shipping so not to much in savings from buying online.

I don't mind keeping the money local.

It is swiss built though and the quality is top notch. After I cut a bit off and lower it to a more reasonable level it will be absolutely perfect!

Here is the link to the EcoVelo mention of the kickstand, EcoVelo: Kickstand Love

The New Face Of BP. From BostonBiker.org

2010-05-31T13:14:00.002-04:00

This is from the great folks of BostonBiker.org and I loved it, figured I would share.

so true...

the original post can be found Here

From Streetsblog: The Persistence of Bike Salmon

2010-05-30T21:29:00.001-04:00

image from streetsblog via Salim Virji from flickr.
Streetsblog.net The Persistence of Bike Salmon

This is a old post from about a month and a half ago, but got me started on my sidewalk cyclist post, as well as mention the sidewalk salmon in a "bikes seen today" post.

It is something that I have thought and read a great deal on, why do we have "wrong way" cyclists.

I have read in a couple places some thoughts that make sense, many are from David Hembrow, many are from Streetsblog and many others are from the depths of cyber space.

In this country the age when you ride your bike dictates the rules you must follow. It starts out with the training wheels on the sidewalk, and then it progresses to regular low speed (although some kids go pretty fast!) cycling on the sidewalk. At a certain age it moves to cycling against traffic, especially in neighborhoods that have no sidewalks. The example is they are acting like pedestrians and feel that this is the safer method, so the cyclist can make sure the car has seen them. I understand why this is encouraged, especially with kids; bikes in the US do not have mirrors included with them. And many are bought at big box stores that do not sell these accessories, and parents who are not clear on the rules themselves, feel that this is safe (or safest) for their child. Finally you must ride in the same direction as cars once an adult, and must act like a car in all you do.

For many people that are starting to enjoy riding again, they last rode a bike when they were a kid, they might be from a generation where 16 meant a car and freedom; the bike was quickly forgotten. When somebody who has not ridden a bike in many years, picks one up today, they revert back (typically) to the last time the rode and the rules that were in effect then, as well as how safe they felt riding a certain way. This typically means riding either on the sidewalk or against traffic, or both.

This is the problem.

In the Netherlands, children do not have training wheels, they learn to balance on scooter type things with two wheels a seat and no pedals, once they learn how to balance which can be achieved in one day with enough dedication, they graduate to regular bikes, sized for them.

As David Hembrow has shown, children's bikes have racks, fenders, lights and breaks just like their parent's bikes. They also have the safe separated infrastructure to ride on and are taught in school to ride like a cyclist. They are not told how to ride like a car or ride like a pedestrian, they are a bicyclist and are neither of the above. So even if they turn 16 and forget the bike for a while with a new car, when they choose to go back, they ride the exact same way they learned as a child, which is safe, efficient, and easy.

It is because of the infrastructure though; we have either sidewalks or roadways here in the US. Cyclists get nothing (really in the vast majority of communities). We have to choose to ride like a car, or like a pedestrian. It feels safer to be a pedestrian on the sidewalk and so many people ride there. David has talked in depth about the ideas of subjective safety; his posts on the topic are worth a read.

However some studies have shown that even with limited on road bike lanes and what would be considered the least effective (and sometimes dangerous) cycling infrastructure in The Netherlands, that rates of wrong way cycling as well as sidewalk cycling are reduced by over 50%.

Bike salmon are a consequence of infrastructure that does not serve a cyclist and only serves pedestrians (not always bad thing) or cars. This is the case with sidewalk riding as well.

I am a firm believer that if you provide true separated infrastructure, away from fast moving traffic on roads over 25mph, roads faster than 40mph create more of a separation and provide under or overpasses at busy junctions, make zones that are 20mph or less have bicycle priority, provide for safe interactions at intersections via roundabouts or bike only lights, and make safe secure staple racks available at any destination and place of business, that the US can achieve the 30%+ bicycle mode share that many cities in Europe, and especially Denmark and The Netherlands have achieved by providing for their cyclists.

Bike salmon will be an endangered or extinct species, if we manage to achieve the goal of true equality on our streets.

We know what needs to happen; doing anything less is tantamount to lip service, and pandering, and in many cases can be more dangerous than nothing at all. It is never too late to start doing it right.

For further reading I encourage a look back through the wayback machine over at David's blog, its a treasure trove for anybody that wants to see how it could be done right.

Squeeky Clean

2010-05-30T11:44:00.002-04:00

Friday was a good day outside, it was about 70 or so and a light breeze. After working in the backyard with my dad to pull up some older high bush cranberry bushes that had outlived their welcome, I decided it was a good time to break out the car-wash equipment and wash and scrub the bike. It had not had a good wash since I started riding it back in early March due to the lack of supplies I had with me in Plattsburgh. I also did not want to buy new supplies to wash it, nor hassle with figuring out how to hook up the hose to the house.

Anyway, it went very well! I was able to scrub it all down and especially the tires and rims, which had built up brake-dust on them. I guess that’s one of the many benefits of disk brakes, no break dust...

It took a couple scrubbing passes and light rinsing with the hose to get everything but unlike most bikes, I didn't have to grease anything, because everything is enclosed and resistant to the elements (or my washing) so little to no grease was lost which meant it was pretty much dirt and brake dust running down the driveway.

One of the myriad of benefits to a traditional European style bike, the fact that everything is enclosed from rain and dirt, not only prolongs the life of gears, chains and cables, it minimizes the need for repairs, prevents grease from getting on pants or shoes, allows riding all year long, and finally allows the bike to be cleaned and scrubbed down without dumping grease into the drain, worrying about getting water in places that might cause harm, or destroying any cloth that is being used to clean the bike.

Some people I feel may think it silly to carefully clean a bicycle, its suppose to be dirty anyway right? But I feel that if you have a good bike, something that does a wonderful job getting you around and carrying everything you need, that that bike should be taken care of and that includes regular washing and inspections to make sure everything is working properly.

I took some pictures and they will be up as soon as I dump them from my camera.

Enjoy the weekend everybody and try to get out on a bike! Its loads of fun!

Welcome to MassBike

2010-05-25T14:13:00.003-04:00

Today I started my first internship with MassBike right in downtown Boston. I will post links and other useful information as they come up. I will also talk about, where able, the various projects I am working on.

I will also be doing blog and press updates for the MassBike website.

for now, I hope you have had a great bike to work week, and enjoy the rest of bike month!.

The end of Bike to Work Week.

2010-05-21T02:00:00.004-04:00

Well it has been another bike to work week, today is bike to work day. It’s hard to tell if there was much of a change here in Plattsburgh. I am rarely on the roads when commuters would be going or coming home from work, so I can’t tell too much.

However in the short time I was on the roads yesterday, I saw maybe 12 cyclists out, and only 3 of which were on the sidewalk when observed, but only 2 were in normal clothes and not suited up.

Saw one gentleman riding north on 9, he must have been very tall, he had very long legs and the frame of his bike was huge! I seriously thought it might have been a double frame bike from a distance, but nope, it was just a really really big frame, he fit it though so more power to him!

Was at the Co-Op on Wednesday meeting a good friend named Jon to make some butter (Jon bakes bread). I arrive in my usual way, but I do have quite a bit of baggage, and I have loads of bells and whistles (well really only one bell) so I guess I can look kinda impressive...

Anyway a nice older woman outside on her classic 3 speed Raleigh, mistook me for an officer in training... I must say I take that as a compliment. While I have no intention to go into law enforcement at that level, if there are some out there that see me as possibly and officer in training, then good, maybe they will give me a bit more room on the road...

She was having a problem with her bike though, the breaks were not working well on the back and she had already gone over the front trying to stop a day or so earlier. It turns out she was riding it and trying to get it ready for her granddaughter to use at the university in the fall. I commented on how wonderful of a bike it was and that with a bit of love it could be made into an object of desire, and to be sure to get a good lock for it.

I opened up the handy tool case (e.g. the mess of tools in my bike bag) and gave a whirl at tightening the break pads. I quickly came to the understanding that the pads were very hardened and would not be useful in stopping in any form. They seemed like they original and probably should be replaced. I recommended that she head over to Mountain Riders and have then take a look at it, She did not know where they were so I pointed her around the corner, after all they are really close to the Co-Op.

I saw her again a little later, she was so very happy, they had filed down the breaks she had to get to non cracked rubber, and oiled up her shifters.

This is the third person I have directly helped in terms of breaks, gears, or seat fitting. I helped the bicycle of a forth, unknown person earlier in the semester. The chain was un-oiled and was rusting away, I had a few minutes so took the opportunity and oiled it right up.

Never underestimate what a bit of oil, or grease, can do for your bike. I use a corn based biodegradable oil, which works very nicely :)

For god's sake though, don’t oil your bike with WD-40!! It wont work and might make it worse!

Happy bike to work day, enjoy your commute :)

I will be back and active on here in short order, I might also be talking up my own on going projects through the internships I have, providing they agree to that.

Cyclists seen today, including the elusive sidewalk salmon!

2010-05-10T20:03:00.008-04:00

Thanks to we4farm14 via flickr for these Salmon!

Its exam week, give me a break!

cyclists seen today (not on university property)

All cyclists observed today were in the afternoon while I was on the road from 1:40 to 1:50 pm and from 6:20 to 7:00 pm.

total 16 (not including me)
6 road cyclists (only 2 were practicing vehicular ways when observed)
1 was a salmon cyclist(maybe even a salmon sidewalk cyclist!) shortly before becoming a road cyclist
1 couple on bikes, not being gutter bunnies at point of observation
2 different cyclists who were riding as gutter bunnies when observed
1 cyclist who was a gutter bunny as I talked/passed him, he then became a separated trail cyclist when reaching the city beach area.

5 sidewalk cyclists
4 salmon sidewalk cyclist. they are defined as sidewalk riding on the side of the road where the closest traffic is moving opposite to them.
1 normal sidewalk cyclist

5 bmx bikers
all 5 were at the local bmx/skate board park at one of the elementary schools.

of note only 2 cyclists were female, one in the mentioned couple, and one sidewalk salmon cyclist. There are maybe a handful of female cyclists in the Plattsburgh area, and even fewer that actually ride on the road properly. This of course does not include university or school students.

There was a west wind today, that was a bit southish coming in and then kind of northish going home. still made good time, I was just blown about quite a bit.

I Received one internship so far. I will be working as an unpaid(yeah yeah) intern with the non profit advocacy group, MassBike out of Boston, Massachusetts. There will be a combination of commuting via Amtrak's Downeaster, possibly staying with friends in Somerville (their intern position was full until September, booo) , or staying with my wonderful girlfriend just outside of Worcester.

Plattsburgh Parks

2010-05-06T23:59:00.006-04:00

I have taken the data from the Parks and Recreation website on the city parks as well as the facilities at each park and put them together in a basic google map showing location and amenities. I am in the process of adding non official parks and relaxation areas that are not included. If you are from Plattsburgh and are reading this and would like to be involved in the editing process or in adding to the map please let me know so I can add you as a collaborator. The map is not public yet, but I plan for it to be soon.

To take a look at "LocalSustainability.com"'s map of public spaces please click Here. There are a few parks, but this map includes other public places in the North Country and not just in the city.

See if your city has done this already, or if it just has an address listing on some hidden corner of the city website. Larger cities can have so many parks that many people do not know about them.

Anybody can create a basic public spaces map and Google makes it real easy. Do you know where your public spaces are?

Hey, its National Bike Month!

2010-05-06T02:03:00.004-04:00

Imagine that!

Well I do it every day, in a community pretty hostile to bikes in its current form, but it can be done safety and without harm with a little dedication and some common sense anywhere in America....

Anyway, I will be back and posting soon, its nearing finals and trying to finish everything up and get things in is killing my energy to write or post. I have a bunch of posts built up so hopefully I can start working them out...

In the mean time I give you this.

Does your place of work currently offer the 20$/month subsidy for commuting primarily by bike? If not it should!

It costs your company or organization nothing and in fact can reduce health costs as the workforce is happier, healthier, and more productive, after cycling to and from work than otherwise.

So for Bike-To-Work month, how about approaching your organization and asking about getting involved with the federal stipend!

hey 20$ is 20$!

please see this website for more info and and steps to facilitate the program.
League of American Bicyclists

SolarOnTheWhiteHouse.com

2010-04-29T07:28:00.001-04:00

SolarOnTheWhiteHouse.com

This is a website and petition to ask Obama to support solar power on the White House. A solar company, Sungevity has actually offered an almost 18kw system for the White House, free of charge!

This is a win win for sure.
Only this time, make sure to weld them on so a future president cant take them off as easily...

Head on over to the site and sign the petition!

Streetfilms | Tom Vanderbilt Talks “Traffic”

2010-04-28T22:14:00.003-04:00

Streetfilms | Tom Vanderbilt Talks “Traffic”

I am currently reading "Traffic" and enjoying it quite a bit, although unfortunately I seem to have left it about a month ago on a 7hr Greyhound bus ride from NYC after visiting my wonderful girlfriend in Spain.. BAH!! I need to buy another copy when at home I guess :P siiighhh

It is a wonderful read and I highly recommend it to anybody even remotely interested in traffic or human societies. Just head on down to your local book store and ask if they can get "Traffic", I bet you they might even have it in stock, its been very popular.

enjoy the film!!

Snow... seriously???

2010-04-28T09:09:00.000-04:00

Right, the pictures are yesterday morning before riding in and then last evening when I got home.

It snowed all day, about half an inch on the grass. Yes it is April, I had to check to make sure...

As the temperature was around 40 it was very very wet snow, which meant that unlike the typical dry snow we get, I was soaked by the time I got in this morning, and really soaked coming home.

Did I mention the wind was from the North West at a sustained ~10 mph? Oh and also that it was gusting to near 20mph? yeaahhh good times. Hence why I was royally soaked coming home.

I am ready for spring, Plattsburgh. Annyyyy time now...

should be 75 by the weekend...

riggghhtttt....

Hey you, get off of that sidewalk!

2010-04-27T23:16:00.004-04:00

Image thanks to OberWiki, from Oberlin, Ohio.

I was riding home yesterday, after about 40 minutes of excellent conversation with a cyclist member of the board of my local Co-Op. I was showing him my new bike and the features and we were discussing riding habits, how and where a lane could and should be taken, safety and so forth. We parted ways and as it was dusk, I had my full complement of lights flashing away, making me quite similar to a bloody Christmas tree!

I round the corner by the new bike shop and what is technically State Route 9. There is a man, maybe later 20's, I don't think a college student, and anyway he is riding along quite quickly on the sidewalk. Now I hate sidewalk riders and I do try to comment every time I come across one, if it’s logical for me to do so. He also had no lights...

I said, Dude, you shouldn't ride on the sidewalk. Simple too the point, however I could have said something like, dude its safer for you to ride in the road. I thought about this later due to the response.

Oh yeah he was wearing headphones, but heard me...

"Shut the fu*k up, as*hole"
I of course was in no mood to explain the subtleties of subjective vs. actual safety of riding on a sidewalk as opposed to the road. Especially in the situation where he had no lights or other reflective equipment, was wearing dark clothing after sunset, was clearly in a foul mood, and seemingly not interested in talking points.

I kept riding along, thinking that most likely this guy was the type to own a large truck and would normally be passing me within inches going 40 and screaming to get the fu*k off the road. I bet he got a DWI in that truck of his....

Nonetheless, I am out on the 4 laned 35mph (ha, more like 45) section of 9 past the Georgia Pacific plant heading toward Cumberland Head, when I see two more cyclists on the sidewalk.

(note I estimate 1/2 to 2/3rds of cyclists in Plattsburgh are on the sidewalk, for a majority of their ride)

I decided a slightly different tact was needed in this case, they were two young women, maybe freshman in college age or seniors in high school. What made them stand out was the one at the back had a freaking bright light (I saw later that the one in the front had a very strong headlight... I hope they planed that...)

My comment was, "thanks for having nice lights!" and gave a thumbs up :)

My response was, "hey thanks man, sure" with a smile.

I continued on, smiling :)

Now I understand subtleties, and do use them, but is it this simple?
I know in many cases using encouragement or complements can get you further than criticism, but I actually do best with criticism, knowing what I am doing right is great, but knowing what I am doing wrong is so much better, and much more useful to me. Was it the age and social difference between the high school girls, and a late 20's man, that caused the responses? Or was it my tone of voice and positive vs. critical reinforcement...

I have a feeling if I said "dude its safer in the road with me" to the guy I still would have been sworn at, he was not a happy cyclist, hence my thinking he got a DWI and license suspension.

I try to be a showcase for proper cyclist behavior, for motorists, and cyclists alike, but I do understand riding with cars going 45+ past you is not comfortable for many. Nor is taking the lane on this stretch to increase safety on a personal level, comfortable either.

In a way, it does feel safer on the sidewalk. There is the tendency to think of yourself as a pedestrian with wheels, after all that is how we are taught to think at an early age. The true risks of this behavior are not apparent to many motorists or cyclists. I understand why they are riding on the sidewalk, I do, but I also know that they are not dealing with complete information and I feel a duty almost to give them a different way of doing things, and better information.

The ~50% of the population that would ride if they felt safer needs separated infrastructure. 10% will feel safer with bike lanes and 1% like me will ride no matter what is provided. (Data from Albany bike master plan (yep its a pdf), mentioned in previous post)

I know I can’t stop cyclists from riding on the sidewalk through the city and out in the rural routs, but perhaps if I focus on positive reinforcement of proper actions. "Dude its safer in the road with me" "hey, I almost didn't see you because I think you have a light out" I will be able to make some small change in the perception of cycling...

Making fully separated infrastructure, using bike sharrows, blocking off streets for motorists and making counter flow bike lanes is what will really bring cyclists to the roads though, only by doing that will you start to get the cyclists off the sidewalks of America.

Thanks to Olivia for mentioning the sidewalk riding in her comment from a couple posts back. I will talk about the theft rates that she seems to be seeing in a city with lots of bicycles, later too

Capital Coexist

2010-04-25T15:18:00.003-04:00

Thanks to bicyclinginfo.org for the image

I came across this from a map link on People For Bikes, and initiative from Bikes Belong advocacy group. As a side note, please sign the petition on their website, if you believe, as I do, that bikes belong here in the US and deserve to be treated with respect in all decisions.

This new advocacy group went live on April 1st and is based in the Albany-Schenectady capital district of New York State, it is called Capital Coexist. It has developed out of the Albany bike master plan (caution large pdf!) and is designed to be a resource for best practices, education of cyclists and motorists, safety, advocacy, events coordination, and project links and connections across the state.

I did a brief read through of some of their safety bits, and I have to say, I am impressed. There is only one mention of helmets, and it is the NHTSA fitting guidelines. There is nothing about you must wear a helmet or anything, and its quite refreshing. For reference I always wear a helmet on roadways and when going at speeds of 13mph+. For off road paths I do not wear a helmet and feel no need to as I am perfectly safe, I do always wear riding gloves though, on or off road, I am more likely to break a fall with my hands if I have them on and know my hands will not get all bloody.

Let me quote some of the specifics on safety that the website advocates, both for motorists and cyclists:

For motorists,

Always expect to encounter bicyclists on the road, on all types of roads and in all types of weather.

Expect bicyclists to be riding out in the travel lane for their own safety due to narrow roads, obstacles or broken pavement.

When passing, allow 3 feet of clearance between your car and the bicyclist.

Look for cyclists when changing lanes, turning, opening car doors, and pulling out of parking spaces.

For cyclists,

Ride predictably, without weaving

Avoid provoking motorists regardless of who is at fault; antagonizing motorists can result in dangerous and aggressive driving.

Give adequate distance between you and parked cars to avoid doors that may open unexpectedly.

When the road is too narrow for a car to pass safely in your lane, take the lane to avoid being hit by a motorist.

While it is not perfect in some of what it says, its not the fault of this group, its the fault of the laws, preventing riding in more than single file, better turning options etc, treating cyclists as vehicles, instead of their own form of transportation (which should include roller-blades, skateboards, etc.)

I was just surprised and very impressed with what they did talk about on here so far. The website is still being designed and is not complete yet, but this should prove to be a valuable resource for many communities across NYS as well as the country.

check it out at Capitalcoexist.org

75 miles, end of the week

2010-04-24T17:08:00.004-04:00

Well I logged 75 miles this week, which, for me, is not all that unusual really. Counting the days I missed for weather, my miles this semester are about 940, with 3 weeks to go yet! Five weeks or about 400 of those miles have been on the new bike, and the remainder of the semester will have miles put on the Breezer as well.

I went in today to the Co-Op for a cookie, tea, poetry, musing time and it was nice! I got the mirror for the bike as well. It finally came into the new bike shop in town, a bit pricier and a bit different that what I typically have, but its well built and not made in china (Taiwan) at least. It’s a narrow mirror, rather than the full round one I am use to, but I like it and I think it will work wonderfully for me!

Packing about 35$ worth of food into the bike and headed home. Decided to stop into Elfs Cider mill (makes wonderful apple cider in the fall), as he had just opened back up with gifts, jelly and his wines. The guys had just finished putting a permanent outside portion to the farmhouse, for tasting and eating. Using many reclaimed products from RE-Source, Burlington as well as from auctions in the Plattsburgh area. He is also putting in a poly high tunnel for early grapes as well as making a natural pond with eating area and gazebo, and planting fruit trees, peach and cherry, mainly. He is also interested in getting a northern variety of Goji berry, but maybe not for this season.

It is really good to see local farms reinvesting and trying new things, and it certainly makes the 3acre farm look a whole lot better!

Stay tuned for some pictures of Cranberry Double Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies; I feel the baking urge tonight!

Elf’s mill from the Google street view (yes the picture quality is poor, its like that all over the North Country, there was something wrong with the camera when they took the pictures...)

View Larger Map

The Sounds of Silence

2010-04-24T00:21:00.005-04:00

No, this is not flashback time at the blog (at least not for me). However it is a bit of a departure from my usual topics...

I was talking with my tech boss earlier today, and he mentioned a show he heard on North Country Public Radio on Thursday that was about recording silence in the US. After a little searching and figuring out he heard it just before lunch, we would the show from WBUR's OnPoint.

Gordon Hempton was being featured, and his work with recording silence where he could find it across the US. He has a book as well, which documents his Washington-to-Washington trip, called "One Square Inch of Silence". Linked to Amazon.com, you can find both his book and CD's there, but please buy locally if you can.

He is what is know as an Audio Ecologist and specializes not in pure silence per say, but natural silence. Now there is no such thing as true natural silence, but in his definition, it means at least 15 minutes of time spent without hearing a human made sound. It is becoming harder and harder to find these places now, as we develop, and communicate, sound is everywhere, many of us can not experience what true quiet is any more.

I remember my time spent in Vermont last summer, we were out camping in the acres owned by the Putney School, 250+ of them. This is in southern Vermont, so it’s not like the great north woods or anything, but the nights were so wonderful. Especially as we were out camping in them for three nights. The peace that was there, even in this environment where if you tried hard, you could hear the highway, or the motorcycle, or dogs barking in response to the howling coyotes. It was relaxing and almost instantly calming for me. It is very similar to my ride home at night from school; the rural 2 miles of my ride are pretty quiet compared to when I am usually coming in, for my morning class. I maybe have 1 to 3 cars pass me in this time, and the only sounds are the peepers, a rustling of the deer about to bound across the road and the dull rumble of trucks on the Northway, which is less than a mile from my route home.

Silence creates a memory for me, just as sounds of certain things do. Hearing loons, I instantly return to my time at Methodist summer camp in northern NH, sitting on the lake at night, listening to the call, enjoying the peace. When I hear small planes flying overhead I think of home, and of summer, days spent picking blueberries in the backyard, or working the garden. When I hear peepers it brings back memories of springtime, when I hear birds calling at night, I remember my time in the UK and birds chirping away at four in the morning.

Sounds are like smells, and natural silence is that smell that makes you smile, sigh, laugh, and lifts your spirits.

We all need more silence in our lives, and if we are not careful, we will loose what little silence there is left in this country.

I do enjoy urban noises just as much sometimes though, what really makes me happy is cyclists riding along, talking, the ringing of bike bells, the squeak of breaks, the clack of chains on guards, the peace that many in Europe cycle with, yet I think take for granted.

Listen to the world around you that is my thought for earth week, stop, listen, enjoy, and protect.

Natural Silence - OnPoint
NPR Media Player: OnPoint 4/22/10 (caution, may open a new window, audio will start right away)

This is a Video of Mr. Hempton, is his natural environment, enjoy

New bags (well new use for old bags)

2010-04-20T01:26:00.005-04:00

Jim sent me some new bike bags the other day. Well new for me, very used for him. He got a new pair so had these sitting around. My Breezer does not have the Topeak track rack system so I was stuck with the improvised tied inner tubes holding the bag on. Now though I can put my backpack (and 15lb computer) in one side pouch, any books or stuff in the other and still have the ability to carry my Topeak bag on top locked in with 2 half's of a inner-tube. Its quite the setup for sure and makes me look like I am a long distance traveler I think, but none the less. It gets weight off my back, which makes things even nicer for the ride in and home. It allows my construction chic vest to be more visible at night and really anchors that rear wheel on the bike.

Overall, very much a win, and I get to reuse a product, and put it to good use.

There will be pictures of my new bike in the wild soon, and also with the current bag configuration.

Hit 31mph on a bit of downhill stretch with a nice tailwind coming in this morning.

I have about nine posts in draft mode that are waiting to be finished and posted. They will happen soon, but this week is a bit crazy, as it’s nearing the end of the term.

If you need a distraction, check out Ecovelo. He put up an article on crank lengths, which truth be told, I had not even thought about. Even provides a nifty little calculator to determine what your ideal crank length should be.

Denver also launched their bike share scheme thorough B-Cycle today, with 500 bikes.

An older video from CommuteOrlando.

2010-04-18T23:36:00.005-04:00

This is from April of this year, and I marked it because it is something quite basic that I deal with every day in Plattsburgh, and in many communities it is the norm for many cyclists. Even in NYC it is a significant problem. Riding the wrong way down a two way street, and exiting from an intersection in a unpredictable way. What makes it worse is doing it at night with no lights or badly positioned reflectors...(which thankfully did not happen here)

Sad

We change it by giving cyclists a known environment, where they are safe by design. Yes it can be changed maybe with education, but many that do this type of riding are poorer and disfranchised, and much harder to reach with "classes" or education (short of ticketing the hell out of them). Will infrastructure solve it overnight, nope, but it will get more people on bikes, and thus the percent of cyclists that ride the wrong way, or erratically, will go down such that it is an oddity, and not the norm. Then when new and inexperienced people new to using a bicycle, start to use one, they can see where the majority ride, and follow that. We need longer term solutions to these problems, it won't be solved overnight, and sometimes it won't be solved at all.

Take a quick watch of the video on CommuteOrlando, Here

(disclaimer: normally I am not much of a fan of the solutions and ideas posted on this blog, I feel it focuses too much on vehicular cycling, and less on what is needed to bring more people onto a bicycle, however they do have some good posts and things to think on.)

Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!: thursday thoughts: de colores...

2010-04-13T09:32:00.002-04:00

Thanks to calitexican from Flickr for the image

Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!: thursday thoughts: de colores...

I came across this example of a U-lock cozie and though it so very wonderful. As I am still quite a novice at knitting and need my wonderful girlfriend to teach me something more advanced than knitting in a single line, I dont know if I can attempt this yet (I know I need new needles too).

That being said though, I really want to do this, and what would be more exciting would be to make some type of knit covering for other parts of the bike too, button or Velcro them on...

getting ahead of my self again though ;)

We ride our bikes. every. friggin. day. | 30 Days of Biking

2010-04-13T01:07:00.000-04:00

We ride our bikes. every. friggin. day. | 30 Days of Biking

ok so while I am not into the twitter thing, I am sure there are some of you out there that are and even if you are not this is pretty cool. It's a goal of getting on a bike every single day of April in some form. it can be biking down your driveway to pick up the mail or biking to work, the idea is that you get on a bike once a day and stick with it.

It has a huge following and seems pretty cool to me. I bike pretty much every day, I miss days here and there due to not having to go anywhere on weekends and being I live 4 miles from civilization, I don't tend to want to spend 30 minutes going into town for something I can just do Monday when I have to go into class ;).

So take a peak, join in and tweet about it or something, idk how you kids do these things no days, in my day we didn't have this Twitter and Facebook and you got around using your own two feet, none of this fancy wheeled thing ;)

In the meantime, now that I know about it I will try to get on a bike every day for the rest of this month, even on weekends!

check out the site, its pretty nifty :)

Bike Parking, almost forgot!

2010-04-05T22:44:00.003-04:00

Thanks to BikePGH for the photo of their valet parking

I am part of the local Earth Day planning committee for the community celebration; I act as the unofficial university link as well as the transportation go-to guy. I managed to put together a plan for a lot closure around the event pavilion downtown (see pdf link at the end for final design) , which was approved, although the best design was not chosen, mostly because I was not there to lobby for it and had the city public works/municipal people presenting the designs. Nonetheless, we managed to secure a little under half the lot to be car free for the event, which is better than last year when there was no lot closure! I also am finalizing plans to get Nova Bus (French Canadian company based just outside of Montreal, with a large production facility here in Plattsburgh. they are part of Volvo Bus worldwide) to bring a showcase bus to the event. They will be able to and present who they are, the types of buses made here in Plattsburgh, and how they are helping improve the environment with green manufacturing jobs. We are just now waiting on a PR person to be able to dedicate their time, after I had a very good conversation with one of their people last week.

So today, I was thinking, and it dawned on me. We have no provision for bike parking!!!! Now part of this is encouraging people to walk from their homes to the downtown area cleaning trash and littler along the way. However, many people live far from the downtown core for which cycling would be a much better and faster option! Me being one of course :P. The goal now is to have something similar to what Transportation Alternatives does in NYC with large events, VIP bike parking. Its something that is catching on in the more progressive cities in the Americas that have a growing bike culture. I am working with the new university bike group, Biketopia, with the hope that they will be able to help in terms of manning the parking area, but also being able to introduce who they are to the community and give out information. Providing a much needed university-community link, as well as a service to the community.

It says something that this was not even on my radar until today, but none the less its not a complicated setup and I thought of it soon enough that we should be able to get a good setup and provide the needed infrastructure for safe parking

Parking Closure PDF (its large, from my server)

Some Thoughts on Spring, Cyclists, and the Anti-Cyclist

2010-04-02T18:24:00.007-04:00

A proper allocation of space from copenhagenize

Well at least in Plattsburgh, spring has sprung, with nice 70's and clear sky's, it will get back to 60's next week though, which is just fine by me.

What does that mean though? Yes it means planting time and all the birds are out and flowers are coming up and all those nice things. It is also a time where there are a whole heck of a lot of cyclists out and about. These people have been cooped up in their cars over winter, fearing the harshness of a North Country blizzard and freeze, I don’t fault them for that really, I am the crazy one seeing as I am out in pretty much every element with 5 layers on. I am glad they are on their bikes though, and the weather is perfect.

For those of you who do not live in bike friendly areas (e.g. most of the US, Canada, and Australia) this is a time for another type of person to come out of hibernation. Can you guess who it might be?
...
I will give you a second... and a quote from a blog I happened to stumble upon while trying to find a picture, it sickens me, (and fills me with anger, I took the quote and had to leave, I am still angry actually) and illustrates my point nicely, I will not link to the hate filled post, you can do a word search for it if you wish.

You know who these people are. The cyclists who decide they can ride their bike down the side of – even middle, if they’re that rare kind of asshole – of busy public streets, holding up traffic and inducing in drivers flights of both panic (“oh my god, if this guy falls I will run him over”) and rage (“I hope this motherfucker falls, because then I get to run him over”). I hate you people. I don’t care if there are rules stating you shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalks; that maybe the side of the road is your designated riding area. Get on the sidewalk anyway, you overly-fit pricks. You have no idea how much every non-cyclist hates you

Ok times up, its the "get the hell of my road you dirty cyclist" type of person. Although usually they are not that kind with their words.

This is something interesting I noticed, since I have been cycling long distance here starting in early September, I have maybe had 2 or 3 honkers, 1 yeller and 1-3 near side swipes total, basically until this week, especially during the winter months I maybe had 1 or 2 altercations total.

Today I had 1 honk and 1 near side swipe on the ride in, 1 honk and yell(A**hole, same person for both) while heading from campus to the co-op, at least 3 near side swipes heading home and another honk (multiple from the same person actually, quite aggressive). Just today, I have almost equaled the animosity shown to me since September.

I will not give an inch, they can honk yell do whatever but I am going to ride where it is safe for me, and safe for them and that means taking a lane on a 4 lane 35mph road (btw nobody goes 35 its usually close to 50 on this stretch, nobody enforces, because nobody goes the speed limit). It means I will follow NY state law and ride as close to the shoulder as is safe, which actually means 3-4 feet out since the shoulder is a mess of rocks, glass, potholes, drains, and a 3 inch concrete curbing.

Do I get scared when these things happen, absolutely, my heart starts pumping, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, and the adrenalin starts to flow, for sure.

This is why cyclists here and in many bike-unfriendly communities, ride on the sidewalk.

While technically it is not safer to be on the sidewalk and in many cases its much more dangerous, one does not have to deal with almost being run over multiple times a day or getting swore at.

It’s almost enough to make me join them, almost. Except that I know that I will be giving in to the demands of the motorists; that they will have won. How sad is it that it has to be US vs THEM confrontation? As a budding transportation planner, I will have to plan for cars, even if my focus is cycling and walking, I understand this. Cars are not inherently evil; I welcome the electric car in many ways. (its usually the drivers actually)

This is one of the main reasons why I firmly believe that bike lanes and paint on the ground are not what will change culture in this country; there is no sharing the road with many motorists. Ironically, all but one incident happened on a dedicated shared and signed roadway that officially states to share the road with cyclists. Many motorists begrudgingly do share it with me, but the few who don't are in 4000lb steel cages which can quite easily kill me. That distinction is important. True the percent of drivers who threaten me is extremely low, however the few who do, can do me great harm.

In order to affect a culture shift we need to have fully separated infrastructure with bikes having priority at lights and intersections as well as on certain low mph streets and zones. We need to have what the Netherlands have, what Denmark has, what many other European countries have.

We need to separate the cyclist, from the pedestrian, from the car. Each is its own unique form of movement and each requires its own infrastructure. If we do not do that, then this country I fear is doomed to single digit cycling numbers for a very long time.

Nothing has made me surer of that than today.

I was talking with my girlfriend about my tiredness even after a mile on my rural rout; I could go 2.7+ miles in Leeds and be sweating, but not hurting. My diet is pretty much the same, but what I realized was in Leeds, on the route I took, I could move faster than the cars and buses, speeds were low (relative) and it was a very urban area. I also had panted lines all the way to the university, else 20mph residential zones. It was easier on my mind to bike in Leeds, I had less to worry about, yes I got yelled at once and had an egg thrown at me, but despite that, it was a much more pleasant trip. Despite the fact, it was hillier and had more traffic lights (although no stop signs, since there are very few in the UK).

My commute every day is on rural routs with cars and trucks going 50mph+ past me through a little over half my commute, in town I am pretty ok, I use residential side streets mostly and have little problem. That rural bit is taxing me quite a bit it seems, such that I may be feeling some physical pain from it.

Its just a theory but seems to make sense.

We need more cyclists who actually ride in the road, it would help a lot, but I fear that many would stop riding if they had to ride in the road, the police do no cite cyclists on the sidewalk because well they believe it to be safer (I think) despite it being against state law. If I was just getting on my bike here, hell yes the sidewalk is safer, we have one painted bike lane in town (yes one) and 2 longer distance multiuse paths that don’t connect to anything. That’s it.

I am mixed about advocating for following the law, when the law is not the safest option here, I want to do what safe and yes nationally I know the numbers, but it sure as hell does not feel safe when you bike on the roads in a lot of the town.

Educating cyclists on the danger of sidewalk riding is all I can do, I know I have inspired a number of people to get on a bike, ones who may not have done so before, that I call a success.

Educating drivers on why cyclists are where they are and the dangers that make them be where they are, is something I want to do as well. The above quote fits right into the education part of this.

Somehow I don't think education will make much difference...

For now I will ride like I have since September, maybe it’s the new bike they are honking at and they think it looks nice ;)

[update 4/4/10]

Urban Simplicity over in Buffalo NY also covered this topic briefly in a post yesterday, for more reading you can head over to that wonderful blog. Urban Simplicity

Hey, how about a photography post!

2010-03-31T00:43:00.004-04:00

Image courtesy of Paulo Brandão via flickr

I did want to work in photography to this blog more than I have, and while it has happened to a degree when talking about food or certain infrastructure, my photography, or the photography of others, has not come up too often.

So it was with great excitment that I saw this post over at Treehugger on HDR (high dynamic range) photography
HDR from Wikipedia

...high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight

I had heard about HDR before, and I am sure I saw some examples, but I had mostly forgotten what it truly looked like and the amazing beauty of it.

The pictures in this slideshow are of natural settings and not man made, unlike the photography that graces the start of this post. It is almost another world like in its quality and colors, I wish I had the equipment and the knowledge to do something like this!

So please follow the link over to the slideshow at Treehugger.com on HDR photography and be amazed!

Note, each image has a an artist on flickr that you can link to and see more of their work, look in the lower right for the link. I highly encourage this, as their work is gorgeous!

HDR Photography on Treehugger

A cost of a new bike

2010-03-28T20:32:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned here back in January, (or I thought I did) I bought a new Breezer Uptown 8 as my general commuting bike (in all but the worst weather, because I cant bear to get her dirty yet)

Now I knew this when I got it but didn’t think it completely through I guess. I have a Toppeak track rack+bag system for my older Giant bike that I use every day. Now this bag is pretty great, I love how it locks and slides into the rack and everything, but the Breezer comes with a spring rack that has the built in dynamo powered rear light meaning that my go-to commuter bag for everything from change of clothes, to food, to knitting, can not fit without some modification.

This is sad, giving me options to get a new rack to put on, switch the racks around (best solution really) or what I have now, old punctured inner-tubes tied on one side and locked to a carbineer on the other (for quick release!). This is not the most elegant design, and I won’t be winning any cycle chic points for it. The bag is not quite steady in this setup either, but it should be ok for most of the time I think.

I took a picture of the Breezer as it was just out of the box (that the kind folks at Harris Cyclery packed for me) and tomorrow I will take one, once its on campus, because yes! Tomorrow I ride my new baby into campus, and ride home in the dark with my nice dynamo headlight!

Its kind of exciting to have a new bike, hopefully I have it adjusted properly, in terms of seat height and handlebars.

Only problem seems to be my rear dynamo light... It has connectivity from the front, tested with my voltmeter, but I can get no resistance from the light nor can I get it to light up. Its LED so not sure why, but might be the capacitor that keeps it lit even when stopped, died...

Other than that, I am very excited :D

(Except for the fact that its going to be raining tomorrow and that means I am not going to bring it in, so it won’t make it to campus until Wednesday or Thursday this week, booo)

A Friday Break

2010-03-26T10:19:00.000-04:00

A note before you see this video, it is from a site with non work safe material, however this video is quite work safe. It is a prank involving an underground tunnel and a the entire junior class at this high school (where ever it is). I will let the video do the talking (or walking as it were) though...

There is sound but its not needed to appreciate the video.

As an end note, yes it disrupted traffic quite a bit, yes it caused cars and buses to idle more than needed, and I am sure caused delays for many people, but I still think it is quite brilliant of a prank, and very inventive. I am a pedestrian, I am traffic.

Dear Anonymous

2010-03-25T22:53:00.003-04:00

Dear couple out ridding their tandem yesterday along route 9 toward town,

Thanks for getting out to enjoy the nice weather, I smiled when I saw you ride by as I readjusted my clothing to be more appropriate to the niceness of the weather. I have seen your bike parked before, next to a house, I forget where, and always wondered if it was used or just went on trips. Next time though, don't demean yourself by riding in the ditch next to a 6in concrete curb on a 4 lane 35mph road. There is plenty of room for everybody if you take the lane, and its a heck of a lot safer too!

Thanks for getting out on your bike! I hope to see you often.

sincerely,
that crazy guy with the reflective vest and multiple blinking lights.

Campus Survey

2010-03-25T15:47:00.004-04:00

Well as I mentioned here, I have funding for the first part of my bike rack implementation program, I am waiting on the head of facilities to get back from surgery and then finalizing with him and ordering will happen. The plan is to have the racks and be able to install them around Earth Day, which gives about 4 weeks. The first step to that though, is finding the places that cyclists find most lacking in current parking. I am in the process of creating a survey with the head of Human Resources on campus that would do just that, and a little bit more. I am aiming this at students as well as teacher/staff and want to know how they ride their bike (or if they do). What reasons they may not or don’t even bring a bike to campus, where parking is inadequate, and finally bike sharing.

A couple years back a bike share system was started as a senior project, it was well intentioned, but fell victim to the "tragedy of the commons." The bikes were free for anybody, basic recycled models and could be used at any time anywhere. Very soon, they were found trashed all over town, in the river, in the lake, messed up, destroyed and its usefulness never came true.

So with that in mind my proposal, which I don't think I will be able to implement before I leave, but hopefully can get others interested in, involves personal ownership with payments of a non refundable, and refundable deposits and participants are given a bike to take care of for a term or year. This is a question for both students and staff as I feel there is demand for bikes on campus for commuters that may travel to and from campus by car due to their living distance.

I also mention the bike-commuting stipend from the federal government, for staff and teachers, and if they knew about it or would offering this program make them more willing to commute by bike.

I am moving ahead with this and I have received support on all fronts for this so far, this is a good use of time while I wait to finalize the racks and get them to campus.

There will be more on this, including the finalized questions, shortly as I hope to have everything finalized by Monday.

Back

2010-03-22T12:24:00.003-04:00

I am back from a week in northern Spain, mostly in the city of Santander with my lovely girlfriend. I took note of some infrastrucutre as well as cycling, as I could see it, while in the city and will be making some posts in regard to that.

in the meantime I will leave you with this note on the new health care bill from streetsblog

...but the meat of the upper chamber's health proposal is set to become law by week's end.
Once that occurs, a new pool of federal "Community Transformation" grants would be established, with local governments and nonprofit groups eligible for a share of the funding...the grants would go towards projects that support public health, including "activities to prevent chronic diseases" and "the infrastructure to support active living.

I am not here to debate the bill, but this part of it is certainly going to be good for many communities that are working hard to change the way things are in regards to transportation and the movement of people. I am sure they will have a complete update on what the new bill means specifically for transportation. It sounds pretty good though.

Streetsblog article link

Transportation For America » U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer

2010-03-17T09:57:00.000-04:00

Transportation For America » U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer

I wanted to note this, and mention how important this decision is. This is a first step in undoing the last 100 years of failed transport policy and its a big one. This is very exciting for many many reasons and these next years hopefully will prove to be very exciting in terms of livable streets, these last 2 years certainly have been.

in other news I am in northern Spain until Sunday and continue to update once I get home :)

Getting Involved

2010-03-16T13:53:00.002-04:00

I can't say enough about Street Films. they continually bring to light the most pertinent information on cycling as transportation. I'll admit to being one of the dedicated cycling commuters out there who knew nothing of the Bike Summit before the film.

I've tried to get involved locally, but there is simply nothing to get involved with, no one cares about cycling except as a recreational activity. That leaves me with being the one to start the ball rolling and I simply don't know if their would be any response. I think a good way to start would be to attend The National Bike Summit next year and see what ideas I can garner to get the public interested in biking.

For now enjoy the film.

The True Riding (Cycling!!!) Lawnmower

2010-03-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

Well no, that picture is not quite what this invention is, although the picture is quite fun. I came across this article the other day, from Bikeportland.org’s Monday roundup. Due to time constraints and energy, I didn't get a chance to do a write-up on it earlier in the week.

This is from a local NH inventor and looks promising. Bikes can sure be used for a lot of things but this is quite unique, pictures are scarce but there is one the article link you should check out!

The article is from the Boston Herald and quotes the guy as looking for offers as he believes it can be built at a very reasonable price, but only if its built in the US. I am glad some people are really starting to look at the true costs of a product they want to bring to market and not just go the fast easy money route of having it made in China.

Its a two page read but very interesting!

Here is an old (2007!) article from Treehugger on bike-powered lawnmowers. Most of these are retrofits onto a current frame or design which certainly works but many do not seem comfortable. This recumbent design looks and sounds a whole lot better for sure.

Boston Herald article link

Google "Bike-There" is live!!

2010-03-10T20:50:00.007-05:00

{Update} Please see Bikeportland.org as well as Streetsblog for more in-depth interviews with some of the folks at Google behind the launch.

This is a day I have been waiting for, at least about 2 years since I first heard murmurs of the petition for the feature. The launch of the Bike-There feature as a layer on Google maps(zoom in to any part of the country to see the included trails).

For many people it may not seem like a big deal but if you are in New York or any of the other specific cities with a complete setup, and want to get on a bike but only want to go on say, separated routes, now you can find a way!

This opens the options for so many things, combining safe rides with transit links, and this feature combined with bike parking might be the next step.
If you know where you are going has bike racks outside, you see there is a separated path the entire way, then maybe you will replace that car trip with a bike, and that’s the step that’s most important

so lots of folks covering this, but I got the first hint this morning from my Ecology professor and then Ecovelo put the post on their Facebook feed.

Read the blog that has been pushing for this option for years and who is behind the large petition to get this program across the country, Here

googlemapsbikethere.org
ecovelo link
google maps link to nyc with bike layer on

Seeing in the rain, not quite like singing in the rain

2010-03-04T20:38:00.003-05:00

thanks to Ed Yourdon via Flickr

This comes from the folks over at BikePortland.org.

the question:

I commute about 3 miles to work (and back, obviously) 5-6 days a week, and I wear glasses. This becomes an issue when it’s raining, and was wondering what other glasses-wearing riders do about it. I asked the gentleman at my local bike shop, and he didn’t really have any useful suggestions — so I turn to you! I know they have prescription goggles, but I was really hoping for a slightly less expensive alternative — something I can wear over my glasses, perhaps? Please help!

This is actually a question I had for a good long time, and still often have. This was posed to the BikePortland community and garnered over 50 responses. If you ever have an issue ridding in the rain, head on over and check out some of the recommendations. This is especially true if you wear glasses. Fogging also came up, with some answers but that depends more on what your glasses are made of and the type of chemicals you could use that would not eat them up.

I would pay good money for a small battery powered windshield wiper for my glasses... somebody should invent that quick...

One of my friends who works at my Co-Op had a friend who basically cut up a bit of a windshield wiper (the rubber part) and then glued/affixed that to the thumb of his riding gloves. This enabled him when it was really raining, to effectively wipe the water off as he went. To great success. However the flaw of that of course is you have to take your hands off and your vision is partially obscured for a few seconds, when in the rain those few seconds of loss of site and control could cause problems. The design is good, and it works and I am thinking of doing something similar.

Do you have something that works for you?

link to the original post, Here.

Night riding

2010-03-04T00:41:00.002-05:00

Yes there is something calming about riding at night, especially late, when its quiet and its just you on the roads (or path). However there is nothing calming about night riding after a very long day and with a 10mph head wind blowing reallly cold air at you even while the temperature is still above freezing (technically a heat wave!!)

In fact, its kinda stressful for me to be doing that, especially at 11pm.

I wish I lived in town again sometimes...

Pictures at last!

2010-03-02T18:36:00.005-05:00

Well as promised, a day or so late but here nonetheless. These are pictures of the wonderful goodies produced in my kitchen Sunday night. The food I linked to in this post, Multi-modal food transfers. I Will try to bring the camera into the butter making process next time and get some pictures of the process, but I don't know. It will take some work to do that and involve me not making butter at 10pm. The first picture is the butter made from 32oz of heavy Organic Valley cream (sold at the north country co-op) and the second is the buttermilk pancakes I made from scratch, with a little OV milk in the background.

enjoy!

I made this in two batches due to the amount of cream I used, and the limits of my containers.

a wonderful dinner was made with honey and a bit of that butter!!

1000 hits and a link

2010-03-02T08:27:00.001-05:00

Well this little ol blog hit 1000 visits today. I must say that’s no small feat, and while we may not be as popular as Ecovelo, I actually have a life that unfortunately means a great deal of work is put into things that are not related to this blog. I consider this a success though for sure, and it’s been good :)

I wonder if I can hit 2000 before the end of July...

Thanks :)

And now that link

Raise My Taxes, Please! Financing High Quality Public Transit Service Saves Me Money Overall | Planetizen Planetizen blog makes the case of raising taxes to finance good public transportation and the actual savings it can mean for each and every person served by said system. I agree that we should raise taxes and peg them to specific things, at least a percentage of the raise. The general fund is great but many politicians have proven that they cannot handle that type of responsibility. We save money when transportation is done right and we can get out of our cars. Or even when we switch to cycling everywhere! This is not the big bad government taking your cars, this is the government doing what its suppose to do, providing a service for all the public that is in everybody’s best interest in a lot of ways, and one major one is the thousands that could be saved when you switch to a good system. Many people have a knee jerk reaction to hating taxes in all forms, without taxes there would be no roads, no fire, no military, no public library, no schools... Without taxes, we would not truly live in a society. Done right they can make our life better and I for one welcome that.

It’s worth a read!

Fixing the Great Mistake

2010-03-01T15:54:00.002-05:00

I came across this little film from the wonderful Street Films. It talks quite a bit about the problem without getting much into the solution. As it is supposed to be part of a series, I assume that Street Films will do their usual wonderful job of following with lots of good information.

Enjoy

Multi-modal food transfers

2010-02-28T20:52:00.003-05:00

Yes I know its an odd title, but let me explain my reasoning a bit. I made butter this evening, using 16oz of whipping cream from Organic Valley this time, as we were out of Evans. It's wonderful as usual, I got a bit over 8oz of buttermilk left over. Reducing the recipe for butter-milk pancakes by 1/3, the original was for 12 and required 3 eggs, I used 1 egg (my last one) and a cup of buttermilk and a bit of whole milk into the recipe, this basically used up all the buttermilk I had just created from making butter. Added some butter into the mix along with the flour and other yummy things, made some pancakes and then used a bit more butter and honey on top to finish it off (I am out of maple syrup)

Now that's what I call a multi-modal transfer of food, that buttermilk was moving all over the place!

I took pictures of the finished products, and will put some up maybe later tonight. I am still eating though, hence why they are not included.

Recipes/instructions I used

Butter making
buttermilk Pancakes

a moment to reflect

2010-02-28T12:10:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my girlfriend yesterday (she is in Spain on a Fulbright scholarship) when I started having a hard time hearing her due to, well, noise. I am not talking about the near hurricane that is bearing down on the northern coast or the cannons that seem to go off every day, nor the church bells going at all hours of the day. I am talking about children.

When I was in Leeds, I lived in a poorer area, in that they tended to be immigrants or multinational working class. They were younger families and typically of Middle Eastern or Indian background. I lived in a semi Uni-owned high rise that had both students and more traditional families and had been renovated with water savings as well as high R-value windows and efficient appliances. It was not directly let from the University, but through another agency. I loved this area actually, for a number of reasons.

One it was 2.5 miles from campus, Ideal cycling distance!! It was lower in traffic than places closer to the university, meaning quieter nights in general and the distance from campus meant a good distance away from the "Otley pub run" students who tended to be out every night until 3am. I could walk to the bus or train stop with multiple connection options. I had access to a natural food co-op(they have not updated the site in awhile) run business about a mile away and there was a local farmers market every month. Not to mention the Permaculture Association of the UK was literally down the hill from me and I could just see them if I looked out the right window.

However one of the main points of why I liked this area, and I know this is a point of contention with some, was the fact that there were kids. They mostly didn’t speak English while outside with friends, but that didn’t matter. What was important, what I miss was and is, children playing. I don’t get that here, maybe I am in the wrong part (I am far out of town) but even when cycling through the city after school is out, I rarely (actually I don’t remember ever) hearing children playing. (During recess and at the university day care does not count)

It made me feel safe, it made me feel content. I don’t know how to explain it or even what it means but all I know is that despite the economic hardship of the area, despite the seediness of some parts, it was alive. The local primary school was just down the road and if I were up early, I would see parents walking their child to school or waiting with the older ones for the bus. They would all come out when any one of the four ice cream men came by on any given day (yes there were four, all different!!)

It felt in a way, what a community should feel like, what a real community feels like. Not one over run with parents who see a predator around every corner, or one were they fear their child will get a bruise or get dirt on themselves, or one where the car takes primary ownership of everything. Taking them to soccer (football) didn't happen, because the game was right in the street, if a car came by everybody would move and the car would come by very slow.

I was not really a part of them, I was a lowly American in their lives for 6 months with little interaction except standing in line for an ice-cream cone, or being that weird guy on a bike every day. That did not matter, that there was life, was enough. That I would be working in the afternoon and look out my window and see them playing and hear they having fun, that made me smile, that was enough.

So many places in America lack this for many reasons and sometimes it takes relative newcomers, sometimes from a different economic bracket, or cultural background, to truly see what we all have lost.

I wish I lived in an area where it was safe enough for kids to have fun outside and play, in a way this is and can be a start to a true livable street. Its one of the many things I truly miss about this part of Leeds.

Malls-R-US

2010-02-27T16:09:00.003-05:00

Google maps link

I just got done watching a formatted version of Malls-R-Us on CBC TV. This Documentary came out last year and talks about the evolution of the malls in North America and around the world, it also goes into some detail about the feelings of users and what they are looking for, the mystical properties as well as what is left after the malls have been leapfrogged over. I recommend you try to catch a viewing of the full film, this was about half of the actual film, so I would like to see the whole film at some point.

I found it interesting, nothing new, and more of a nostalgic feeling for the loss of our malls. A feeling I don’t share in the least, I am glad they are dieing, and really, they can’t die fast enough. The picture I used on here is the North Country Shopping Center, and is not yet listed on the deadmalls website, however Champlain Center South is and looking at the area we have 3+ dead malls that tried to take advantage of the Canadians and their tax free shopping weekends. It is officially no more, it was destroyed last fall and now all that remains is an empty parking lot, a small bowling alley/bar a new theatre complex, and a billiards club across the street. The theatre is actually doing pretty well, considering the Regal we have in the main mall area is literally decrepit, but in a way so is that mall, despite the new Target stores and Best Buy.

I think its good for us to look upon the mall and what it brought to this country, and what it encouraged. As a planner (not officially yet) and as somebody who deeply cares about environmental effects, I hate mall development, I hate chain based shopping developments, and I hate car-centered monstrosities to our failed version of capitalism. Maybe I go to far in my dislike, but in the end, they have done little good for few people and have destroyed many, many communities in their rein of terror.

With that I take deep offense to an individual interviewed and focused on in the film, he is a developer in Canada that developed the West Edmonton Mall and is looking to develop and in the process of developing a huge mega "green retail community complex" outside of Montreal. His goal is to destroy one of the last sections of pristine forested land around Montreal and put up this eco-village/shopping experience with the goal of being the largest green development.

I literally got pissed as he talked about this; this is a bastardization of the term green, of the term sustainable, and the term eco. A shopping complex can not be green, ever, by definition, especially one designed in a pristine environmental sensitive forest (listed as such by the government) with man mad trout streams so "condo residents can launch a fly out their window and eat the trout for dinner” its pure bullshit is what it is. I realize I may be a bit more radical when it comes to development then many of the people in the field I wish to go into (planning, even if the focus is transportation) however, I have a firm belief that pretty much all new development is bad unless its done a certain way. If all products sold here were manufactured within 100, hell even 1000 miles of this mall, if parking were metered, if public transport and bike use were heavily encouraged, if the residents could get fresh local produce, then maybe it would be a better option, but not in one of the last pristine environments around Montreal. Nothing that is built on land with wetlands and that is ecologically sensitive can be green in any way.

Call me an idealist, yes I am, but I cant stand especially when developers call their project green, no its not green its like everything else with a couple trees.

There is no such thing as a sprawl green development; there is no such thing as a sustainable commercial experience where you can choose from millions of products and many hundreds of stores. There is no amount of mitigation that can truly offset the effects of developments like this.

Unfortunately I only see one thing stopping this mass consumerism masking as green, that is peak oil and energy and resource requirements, its the one thing I truly hold out hope for, knowing that once we start paying the true price for things that developments like this will be as deserted as the town around Chernobyl.

There is hope, but man things like this make me evaluate how much real progress we have made and what we have to deal with still.

What a week!

2010-02-27T00:47:00.002-05:00

I have to say this week was pretty crazy and limited my ability to be on the bike every day. I biked in Monday with no problems.

Tuesday I biked in but conditions after 8pm and slick(and snowy) shoulders persuaded me to take a ride home, so the bike and I piled into the back of a Forester of a good friend who lives only a 1 mile from me and away we went.

Wednesday comes along and snow galore, I wake up at about 6inches of wet snow, the roads are a mess and the rural highway I live on barely has the road cleared, let alone my small 2 foot section of shoulder I ride on. Classes were still on so needed to come in for 11, had my friend pick me up on their way into town. It snowed throughout the day with classes canceling at 4pm that day with the promise for much more snow on Thursday; I had a classmate bring me home.

The roads are clear mostly on Thursday thanks to warm temperatures around 39, it was very wet with lots of water but unfortunately the shoulders were only about 6in to 1 foot along the 2 mile rural rout I have to travel before I get to wider roads. So once again, my friend and her husband were carpooling into town so picked me up and made it to my 9:30 class. I had another good co-op friend bring me home that night, it was late due to Sign class so can be tricky for the people I know since most are home by the time I need to come home.

Today I brought the bike out as the roads were just fine, enough melting had happened to give me a shoulder into town, I knew it would be wet but that’s ok, I don’t mind too much.

Indeed, it was quite wet, I always forget that my front fender is only meant to prevent spray into my face and is crap at keeping it off the chain, my feet, or my legs. I cant wait for the full fenders on my Breezer, that being idk when it will get ridden in the rain since I will be very reluctant to ride it in messy weather!

Oh and the sidewalk was actually cleared! However as is typical the badly designed separated cycle path was not cleared. This city does a horrid job of cleaning sidewalks, mostly because it puts the responsibility on the citizen to do it, so in the areas where nobody lives, it does not get cleared, or in homes with old ladies, its not cleared. This is of course exasperated by the fact that the crews clearing the roads overnight need a place to put the snow and thus designate sidewalks as a dumping ground making snow banks of 2-3 feet in some locations and leaving maybe 1 foot clear right next to the building.

Next week should be better, in good news the temps are warming a bit, which I always welcome!

from: Imagine No Cars

2010-02-21T23:43:00.001-05:00

Imagine No Cars: Thoughts on Alternative Transportation and Urban Design: I was Almost Killed Last Night Because of a Bunch of Redneck Fucks

Post over there from CarFree Stupidity on a very close encounter with a car in what would otherwise be attempted assault with a deadly weapon (or should be if state law classified a car as a weapon which it commonly can be). His extremely close encounter, I will leave you to read it, its scary, is thankfully nothing I have every come into contact with or had an issue with, I have been honked at, yelled at and other things, but never truly feared for my life
Remember, stay safe out there, many people hate cyclists on the road and all they need is Glen Beck or others to go off on a rant before they take matters into their own hands and start attacking. Its not paranoia, its reality, and until you ride a bike daily, you will never truly know

Stay safe, be prepared, be courteous, and when needed, ride like the wind.

Pushing the Limits

2010-02-21T11:05:00.001-05:00

Pushing the Limits - The Slow Issue - GOOD

Trying out my first post with the blogthis! option on Google chrome. I was reading this the other day from Good.is and if you do not know about them, I highly recommend them as a read on all sorts of issues. Anyway, this one was especially important because it involves the urban growth boundary and its effects.

Now I am a huge fan of the boundary, yes I know it stymies development, that’s the point, too much is developed too fast without people truly seeing the cost. No not all development is bad, but unfortunately, my view is, and that most is. Downtowns are empty while we push further and further out, people sometimes think that they want more space and more "freedom" but reality usually hits them hard after a couple years when they figure out that indeed that is not what they are getting and so they want to move further out to get away from everybody else.

That is not what we should be doing, the boundary in this case, for all its faults, has allowed local food to be huge in a large metropolis, it has pushed urban densities to where a world class transit solution is viable, it has allowed cyclability at huge percentages (for the US) and has enabled Portland to be a microbrew haven. This would not have happened without the boundary and it needs to be placed in more cities and states.

We love Vermont for all its natural beauty and old traditional New England towns, that was not possible without the growth roadblocks that were set up many years ago, that prevent Wal-Mart from taking over the state, that encourage local production and farming and that allow limited smarter growth. Yet time after time we see the same people who yearn for the Vermont life, voting for this development or that shopping complex when it comes time due to, "expanding the tax base" it never does and never will. It is a myth in all but the smallest communities, and even then, once the long-term social costs have been taken into account, it’s truly rare that a community truly benefits from strip development. There is a cost to this and its time people in positions of power at the city and state level realize this and make amends before we all end up like another suburb of Los Angelus, disconnected from each other, with little public transportation, and few true open spaces.

All development is not bad, but most is, and until the first thought of planners and planning boards is not to allow that new development, but to make sure the downtowns are filled with mixed residential/commercial buildings, encouraging walkable communities, and encouraging cycling and other active transportation, and focus on true densities and mass transit options, things will not change.

rant time at the bar and grill

2010-02-18T00:16:00.003-05:00

I don’t want to get into detail now as I have to finish studying for a geology test tomorrow as well as a bunch of other things but nonetheless wanted to update. Yep its a rant, sorry about that.

I think I mentioned here that I submitted a grant proposal for new cycle racks on campus through the campus Green Grant fund. This is student money raised by an optional fee that can be used toward student projects throughout campus.

I had an 8000$ (max) bid in for new proper hoop racks as the first stage in creating proper cycle infrastructure and parking on campus. I had full support from faculty and staff on the allocation committee but was whittled down to less then 6000 by some of the student representatives who I consider my friends, unfortunately I could not attend the decision making meeting, and there was no place for me to attend anyway. However one of the students felt that two or so racks "over here somewhere will be fine" so I guess I should be lucky anything came through. However to do a proper plan for campus would involve 30,000$ in racks both at classes and dorms, plus more for proper covered parking at both classes and dorms. I could take every bit of that fund that’s left and put it to use within 6 months and have results on the ground

I am pissed though and it means that I will, instead of working for outside sources be back for more. We have 2/3 of 26,000$ that are not allocated and are sitting in a fund not making money, just sitting there and they could not give me an extra ~2000$ to bring in more racks and do a proper first phase roll out. I will be writing a letter to the campus newspaper as the students involved did this to my project, as well as to a bid for recycling containers outside around campus, and that is not acceptable to me and shouldn’t be acceptable to any student who paid the fee and is seeing NO results on campus. Of all the projects supported so far (6) mine is the MOST visible with the fastest turnaround in terms of installation of any project, current and past. It took a year before our bio-diesel converter even got online and its still not fully operational, yet certain students feel the need to nickel and dime me to death on a subject they know NOTHING about. I am a transportation planner (in training) this is what I do, I do the research, and I know what cyclists need on campus. I am sick of non-cyclists dictating to me what is best for me and other cyclists, I know they don’t know the subject, which is why they should defer to somebody who does. I don’t tell a firefighter how to fight a fire, because I am not one, it’s the same deal.

This is a power trip pure and simple, it’s a lack of forward thinking and vision and an acceptance and love of mediocrity that it seems permeates this campus and the North Country. Its not like we were out of money or anything, so once again most of the fund money goes unused and just sits there doing nothing for another year.

Un-fucking-believable.

A deer in the headlights (or the bike light actually)

2010-02-16T22:13:00.003-05:00

Well saw my first deer up close tonight cycling home about 8:20pm. It was located about where the yellow marker is in the above imagine from Google Earth. I saw a deer in the fall much closer to home, but it was many many yards ahead of me and way out of my headlights, this one was right next to the road in a fallowed field on the lake side of the road I ride on. I am very quiet when riding, my bike is well oiled and everything, but i did have a good amount of tire noise since I was going about 17mph on this stretch, it jumped up and bounded out away from the road.

I like commuting in a rural environment but I am always scared I am going to have a deer or other large animal jump out in front of me and I wont be able to stop. Granted I am not moving that fast but still there is a risk, especially since I am practically silent running and so an animal may think it safe. I am lit up like a Christmas tree so hopefully that's enough to keep most things away.

always an interesting ride home...

Butter making success!!!

2010-02-15T23:12:00.003-05:00

Wooo! Second time is the charm apparently!

So I first tried basic make at home butter making with an electric mixer about 2 weeks ago or so, right after I came back to school, well that turned out ok, but I didn't mix it enough at all, it was a pain, a mess and made lots of dirty dishes :P. I used an 8oz container of Organic Valley whipping cream. It was still good for sure but not quite what I expected or what I really wanted.

Tonight that all changed! I used much more (1oz) of heavy whipping cream from Evans Farmhouse over in Norwich NY (near Binghamton). Their milk and yogurt is wonderful, its non-homogenized and low temp pasteurized, so all the goodness is inside! (NYT article on them and other artisan milk and butter makers)

Starting from this base, I used a large frozen bowl and started the electric mixer going. It took way longer then I expected and I think if I had let it sit more and warm up to room temp or let it sour just a tad that it would have gone faster, it took about an hour with the hand held electric mixer, such that I thought I had somehow done something wrong!

However the trick is to keep tasting it as you go, and I could taste and feel the itty bitty fat globules as I went along so I knew it was working right, suddenly it sloshed up with the butter sticking to the sides and buttermilk sloshing in the bottom!

Success!

With 1/2 of it wrapped and in the freezer and the other 1/2 out to be used (its wonderful on my cinnamon bread I made yesterday) I declare complete success. I also have almost exactly 8oz of buttermilk meaning I was able to recover almost all of it and washing didn't turn up too much.

A picture will be forthcoming

in the meantime, this is the site I used to help me along the way, and I found it very useful for background as well as pictures during the process.

What our Food tells us about ourselves

2010-02-15T16:05:00.004-05:00

In many ways we are actually what we eat and this article over at the blog for planetizen highlights some specific areas using GIS data that tell us a lot about ourselves as a country.
For thoes who don't know what Planetizen is, it is a:

public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design, and development community.

It has listings of jobs as well as books graduate schools and really lots of other very interesting and useful links and ideas for people in the planning field, especially people my age in undergraduate programs.

The blog entry I am highlighting was a quick mention of a new resource from the USDA, the Farm to school network, CDC, and the University of Illinois, Chicago(which has a good planning grad program actually) (among others). I was looking through the online Atlas, which gives an online visual representation to the data that was compiled by the group for this resource. It involves obesity percents by country, farmers markets, distance to food markets, restaurant expenditures, junk food taxes, percentage of fast food restaurants; big box stores and a whole lot more.

This data will be extremely interesting in raw form and put into a GIS database and manipulated to see more trends then the basic ones provided on the viewer. I was very excited to see this and I cant wait to have the time to take a look at the data and do some work normalizing data to population or land area to find some truly significant trends, as the article from ediblegeography (highlighted by planetizen) talks about looking at just diabetes rates, you can clearly see the significant proportion of the population in the south and south eastern US suffer from this health issue. Compare that to the %weight of fruits and vegetables eaten and you see that in this category the south does not consume as much as the west, east and west coast, is this a significant trend? I personally think so but you can look at the data and decide for yourself.

From planetizen via ediblegeography

The cold kills things I think...

2010-02-10T23:42:00.000-05:00

sorry updates and posts are sparse, with limited time and very limited energy its hard to get on here and get something moving. I will try but never fear I am still at it and will update when I can.

that said, my nifty little trip odometer suddenly stopped working this afternoon after a week and a day of service... I think the cold might have done it in actually bit I honestly dont know, I am quite disappointed really, as it was useful to have the time, speed, total distance, average speed and so forth on a nice little display.

in other news its still really cold, but no snow... unlike the rest of the east coast.

It's cold!!

2010-01-31T13:27:00.004-05:00

So I was riding home on Friday, I had a water bottle (re-purposed glass bottle)with a small bit of water in it, as well as a Ginger Brew from Maine Root in the backpack. Now its been really cold, wind chill into the negative teens Fahrenheit and it was very cold Thursday and Friday, its better today and should be this week. Anyway I was coming home, double layers of gloves, 5 top layers, long socks, balaclava+wind/rain breaker hood for my head. I was pretty warm except for my upper thighs, but anyway I get home and get inside and take the water and Ginger out of my backpack, to find the water is frozen solid, and the Ginger is a slush!! This was after a 25 minute ride.

man that's some cooling there, times like this I do envy the folks in their steel cages with heaters, thankfully it usually does not stay cold that long.

onto another week

Pedestrians on the campus

2010-01-31T10:58:00.001-05:00

Image is not mine, thanks interwebz

Among other things I do, not focused specifically on cycling is thinking about pedestrian issues and safety, as well as accessibility. I have started a project to get a Campus Police officer at an intersection that is not the main cross point for students getting to class. This crossing is very dangerous with 4 directions of cars as well as turning cars, in addition to students crossing all 4 streets trying to get to class. The following is my proposition spelled out and I have submitted it to some of my friends for comments, and now I shall post it here.

"I want to bring up a problem and my proposed solution and then have your comments on that solution, or the problem.

The problem is the pedestrian crossing of Broad Street at Beekman Street right next to Kehoe. For many of you this is the crossing you must take getting from the south end of campus (residence halls, ACC, library etc.) to the north end of campus (Hudson, Hawkins etc.) and both pedestrians, cyclists, and car drivers have many problems crossing at this intersection at many times of the day but especially during class crossover time. In the past, the pedestrian bridge has carried the large majority of foot traffic across Broad Street, the Master Plan consultant group in their pedestrian route studies has verified this as well. This bridge will be out of commission through the fall and may be up and running by spring of 2011 due to Hudson work, but until then we have two semesters at least of a major risk in safety for all users passing through that intersection. You only have to be there at cross over time to understand the issues of cars turning with the light, cars stuck in the intersection, students late for class, students on phones, or ipods of otherwise distracted, drivers on phones or otherwise distracted, drivers trying to get to the mall area, and also to class, cyclists trying to navigate from either the sidewalk or the roadway, I think in anybody’s mind it is a bloody mess at cross over time, at least anybody who has actually watched this intersection during cross over times, let alone tried to cross.

My solution to this problem, until the bridge is open, and maybe after, is something that I have talked about and studied at a couple other campuses, including my home campus of the University of New Hampshire. That is to use Campus Police as traffic controllers at this intersection during key cross over times. Our campus Police are trained as full Police officers (not rent-a-cops) and as such have training in traffic control, and would be qualified to fill this duty. This idea was suggested to me by the campus planner at UNH as it was the solution to their similar problem, this was and has been a huge success on their campus, but unlike us, they have many more crossings as their campus is spread out, so its actually more of a challenge for them then it would be for us. They have however, had great success encouraging students to use the guarded crossings when moving across this road and have reduced many issues that arise in an environment with multiple types of road users. This is a proven solution to the problem we have with this intersection. Traffic signals and cross signals can only be successful in simple intersections, with simple problems. Human traffic controllers are by far the best way to control traffic across the board, and especially in complicated intersections.

So I talked with Keith Tait, who is the head of Environmental Health and Safety on our campus, and a good friend. He had a talk with the chief of the campus police in good faith, suggesting my idea as this intersection has been on his radar for a long time and his department has been working to try and find a solution that would minimize risk to all users. He was basically told that they would not do this, due to cost, due to pedestrians not paying attention, and due to potential liability. My response to Keith when I heard this was, what happens when a student is truck and killed and their parents sue the school for millions because the risk was known and had not been taken care of?(he agreed with me that we need to push this) This response is typical of a department that does not really care about the university students and their safety. I pay for their salaries, we all do, and when a safety issue comes up that can be solved by campus police I expect that to happen (with some work to iron out problems, such as cost, obviously) I do not expect the first response to be that, nope sorry we cant do that, not when it is their job to keep us safe. Their job is not to make excuses, their job is to serve us and keep us safe, and if their first response to a solution is no? Are they really serving us?

Sorry this is long, I don’t due quick points, there is too much of a back-story to make this quick and simple.

My solution to this is to start a petition to get campus police at the mentioned crossing during the primary cross over times, 8am to 4pm for example for 15 minutes, 10 minutes before the hour and 5 minutes after. To keep them there through the opening of the pedestrian bridge, or until it seems many of the issues at this intersection have been solved in terms of safety.

So thoughts? First off I hope to get a meeting with the chief and talk to him directly about this, sometimes I can be very persuasive and can succeed where others might fail. However I expect to hear the same answer. At that point I will then pursue a meeting with the president and SA, depending on how that goes I hope to start a campus wide petition process for students, faculty, and staff to get a guard at this specific crossing. I will need support on this and I will need you and your friends to really make this happen, but that’s some time in the future

So thoughts on the problem?
Thoughts on the responses by CP?
Thoughts on my solution?
Thoughts on a petition?
Should I go to the president instead? Should I go to the Student Association? Maybe do all of the above?

I can go on and on about the lack of pedestrian(cyclist) safety on the campus, believe me I could go for hours, I can also give solutions that will work and keep people safe, but as with anything they cost money due to physical changes in the road, however this is a problem that can be made better with a simple human, and i believe is worth fighting for."

When looking at other campuses I see the same problems, time and time again, either because of campus-town issues or lack of understanding on campus, or just pure ignorance to down right hatred. I don't think there is a solution, but we need to be doing something on each and every campus to facilitate pedestrian safety, and we have not done enough.

How to Transport a bike

2010-01-15T20:18:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Indigothreads.org for the picture

So lets say you found your wonderful new bike, you love it, it does what you want and you need to get it home. Now say you don't own a bike rack or even a car, because well the bike is your transportation. There are a couple ways you could go with this, if the shop is local, use your old bike to pull it home, because well why would you want to get rid of your old bike. The formula is N+1 not N-1+1, where N is the number of bikes you have currently, there is no room for this getting rid of bikes silliness. There are racks that allow for a tire to be placed and locked down, and Xtracycle system will allow this (see Here, Here, and a longer story on Xtracycle type cargo bikes Here) there are also do-it-yourself rigs online for this, but only works if your old bike is a cargo or transport or has a rack system. Walking is an option if it’s not too far away. However for the most part you would be going via public transport or a friend. I won’t deal with the friend thing here, but I want to talk about the public transportation option.

For inner-city travel, there is the bus. Most of these do not allow bikes (except foldies) on board due to the space required, sometimes they might if there is plenty of room and the driver is feeling nice. In some areas there are racks on the front of the buses for 2-3 bikes, these buses are typically in smaller communities or college areas, and are actually really good for providing mobility and creating mode share possibilities, however this is unlikely in dense urban routes as the time required is quite a bit to load on, and there is likely to be too many bikes for the limited space, and well, its urban, riding the bike is easier as things are closer together.

Also for inner-city travel is the subway, light rail, or tram/trolley. The restrictions vary with each agency/city and sometimes within the network. Example; trams do not allow bikes, but the subway does. Usually the policy is clear and typically full sized bikes are not allowed during rush hour time due to the space required.

For commuter travel or regional transport, there is light or heavy rail. For light commuter rail, most I believe allow bikes on board, usually you have a limited area to place them, usually its just around where you board or exit the train, sometimes there are seats that fold up or sometimes even a compartment (like many UK trains I rode). Ideally an entire car would be used for proper storage of bikes, but that is very unlikely to happen anytime soon.

If you want to go city-to-city then your options are very limited.
Flying is possible, but the fees are insane and from what I have heard, quite a hassle, although if you take it apart and remove some elements you can ship it by plane and call it art in progress or something, with maybe better treatment, but you are riding your bike normally, unless you are moving to another part of the country, I am not sure why you would fly with your bike anyway.

Amtrak allows bikes on some routes and some stations due to the nature of how they typically carry bikes. My Downeaster service allows bikes at three stations due to the platform length and the "dummy" engine on one end that holds larger storage items, needing to be accessible to the loading platform. I could have a bike on the train from North Station in Boston, but I could only unload it at Portland, ME or one other Maine town, for all intensive purposes, useless, especially for commuters from New Hampshire (which is a majority).

Greyhound or other bus services seem like the best bet, short of actually shipping through UPS or other company for a huge cost. Greyhound allows bikes with the following statement:

Packaging only exceptions to the following items: bicycles, skis and ski poles must be packed in wood, canvas or other substantial container, and securely fastened.

It is considered checked baggage and subject to fee for an extra bag if you already have one with clothes in it, the fee is 10$. Some companies like Boltbus and other providers will carry bikes free of extra charge and free of excessive packaging requirements or oversize limits, as long as its within the one baggage limit for under the bus. I have read that people have the best success with this, and you may find another company that has specific space for bikes, but I don't know.

So why did I bring this up, why the long lead-up. Well I found the bike I want, the Breezer Uptown 8 or see my other post on the bike. It does everything I need and want and with a quick fitting was wonderful to ride and gave me plenty of gears for what I was doing. However due to the sever lack of suppliers and carriers for Breezer, I will have to get the bike from Harris Cyclery, just outside of Boston (home of Sheldon Brown, may he rest in peace). Which is not a problem except that getting back to college in Plattsburgh, NY involves a Greyhound trip, and now you understand the logic behind this. A comment on a bike forum about using bike boxes that shops get their bikes in and taking the bike apart for shipping, got me thinking, and I think it will work. It will certainly be interesting getting the bike as I might see if Harris will pack the bike for me, with minimal deconstruction, and I take the bike home in the back of my dads wagon and not deal with the mess of 2 MBTA commuter trains and a subway with a new bike, and then a drive with the bike on the bike rack from the commuter rail station.

I will update further once I complete my trip, hopefully with a brand-new bike.
Until then, I hope this will work out; otherwise I am quite stuck...

Studded Bike Tires, Update.

2010-01-13T13:05:00.003-05:00

Well we have definitely had some snow and ice lately. Temperatures have been cold and we received about eight inches total of snowfall over the last week or so. I've put a decent amount of miles on the studded tires and now have a firmer grip of what they are like.

I LOVE THEM. My goodness I should have tried these years ago. As I previously mentioned I purchased the Nokian mount and ground 160's. One hundred and sixty carbide studs arrayed towards the outside of the tire. When I first mounted them, I was unsure as to how well they would perform. Here is the most notable improvement I have had.

Those of you who ride in the winter know that sideways slip is what gets us in winter riding. When you apply power to the pedals you also apply some sideways force to the tires, since the pedals are mounted to either side of the center line of the bicycle, there is no way to avoid that. It's not an issue unless you are on a surface that would allow you to lose traction. Snow, ice or gravel will allow the tire to slip sideways. Most of the time this forces you to occasionally put a foot down to stop the bike from sliding out from under you.

An experienced rider can compensate for much of this, but occasionally you will still have that slip that goes too far and it is either foot down or all down and you fall as the bike slides out from under you. With the studded tire you still have that slip, but it is only a couple of inches, then the studs on the outer edges of the tires catch as they dig in.

A good example of how much this helps was my trip to the grocery store yesterday. The most direct and safest route for me for this is plowed sidewalk. The store is located on the busiest road in town with traffic speeds of 50+ mph. They plow the sidewalk which leaves about 3 inches of soft snow with a base of ice from previous snowfall. Soft snow over ice is just about the worst for slipping. Normally I would travel slow and be prepared to put a foot down on this trip. But I made the transition from the road to the sidewalk portion and just kept going, the rear end would slip as expected, for about 2-3 inches then the studs would catch and I would continue on. I never had to put a foot down the whole trip and my speed was almost double what I would normally have maintained on that route this time of year.

I did a maintenance inspection yesterday on the bike. I'm missing one stud, which I had noted when I installed the tires. So I have lost zero studs since I started using the tires, tread wear is not noticeable as of yet. I'm very happy with the tires and they are going to be my new winter tires from now on.

Happy New Year or something like that

2010-01-04T21:58:00.001-05:00

well its that time again, time to welcome a new year. Its looking to be a good year for sure I think at least for me, with a good term coming up, summer work hopefully in my field and graduation in December. However there is one thing I have been meaning to mention. I think I mentioned earlier that I am looking at the Breezer Uptown 8 as my nice pretty new commuter bike, its exactly what I want and reviews well (see here). One problem, the Breezer dealer network is bloody small and out of date! Of the 6 dealers I have looked at 3 of them have breezers or can get them in, one of those three seems to just want to be closed even if they say they are open, the other one would have to order it in (bloody useful for a test right that is) and the last one is thankfully reliable, and was the home of the one and only Sheldon Brown, Harris Cyclery. They have one in stock, its a slightly smaller frame then what I am looking for but might actually do, anyway will give me an idea of the ride for sure. So soon I will provide more info once I know whats going on. The idea is to have it before I leave for up north in 20 days and bring it along. In the meantime, stay tuned as Jim and I get to work and set off on a new year.
cheers

Winter Weather

2009-12-31T09:10:00.001-05:00

Image thanks to David Hembrow.

With another storm soon upon us here in New England I wanted to point you over to David Hembrow who has been doing a very nice roundup on winter cycling as the Netherlands has been hit with a good deal of snow of late. He has a couple posts up about his commute in and some of a nice city center rush hour traffic. I find it very interesting how they deal with snow and bikes and how Plattsburgh, or Dover deals with it. In Plattsburgh its up to the residents to shovel their sidewalks, and well if nobody lives along a stretch (I show a picture of it in This post) of sidewalk or bike path, its not going to get cleared. This path I am talking about in particular is in a lower income area and its use is mainly folks who are walking into town or biking into town because they cant afford a car and don’t want to wait for the infrequent bus. I went by 4 days after our major storm, roads were perfectly clear but none of the paths were even clear, just the small spots where people had walked. It’s a sad state I feel if we can’t even expect towns and cities to clear public walks for pedestrians. Certainly if they cant do that, do you think they would plow a bike path? You have got to be kidding me.
At least in Dover we have sidewalk plows that come by even in the middle of a storm and plow in our driveway! :P It does at least a good job of clearing the walks, even if the shoulders of the road are not cleared so great, at least pedestrians are pretty well served. I like to think these little machines could be employed to clear separated bike paths if a city already had them, and since they are built for sidewalks I imagine that they are not a one off hand built thing either. Its doable, cities just need to care enough, or have enough cyclists that would be pissed off if inconvenienced more then they already are.

Anyway head over to A View from the Cycle Path and take a look at it done right, and take some comfort maybe that at least one country gets it. In the meantime ride safe and ride often, a little snow never hurt anybody ;)

a little end of year roundup

2009-12-30T20:45:00.002-05:00

Well for sure it’s been an interesting year for me, and well obviously for the first 6 months of this little ol blog. I first actually became interested in cycling and transportation and planning and all that this spring in the UK, I was in a ENV planning program before but was focusing a bit more on policy then planning. That has certainly changed and with it the sites I read and where I go on the interwebz. I think commuting this semester by bike has certainly been really useful; I spent money on some upgrades for the bike, some nice accessories that needed to be done. However, I truly need a different frame and a different bike if I hope to keep this commute up for sure. I am looking at the Breezer UpTown 8 and now I need to find a local dealer that has one so I can test ride it, which is turning out to be more of a problem then I originally anticipated.

I did some rough math for the semester, and it seems I did between 900 and 1050 miles for the semester, I tend to lean a bit more toward the higher number but I think I was just under 1000 miles for the semester. That’s about 500 hours in the saddle, and it’s been good. It’s been exciting, depressing, painful, joyous, and peaceful. I missed 2 days due to snow and excessive baggage needing to be transported (more then my bike can carry safely at the moment) and well I don’t feel safe biking on a rural highway with snowplows going by me at 50. I have been yelled at, honked at, almost run over, whistled at, complemented, had pictures taken of and been attacked by lots of rain and head winds. It’s been an interesting semester. I look forward to the next, hopefully on a new bike that will be better for me and better for my riding conditions. I look forward to this New Year with excitement for sure.
I wish you a happy New Year and keep looking for posts into the New Year; I got a couple coming up soon (read when I get to write them) and back to some infrastructure Friday posts for sure!
Be well

some thoughts and a project

2009-12-23T21:18:00.002-05:00

So one of the disadvantages about being home is that yes I have more free time, but I also have dialup internet, which means I don’t get to keep up to date on topics nor have an easy time working with pictures, video or other things for the blog. That is changing soon as my family moves into the 21st century with a DSL connection that should be up and running in about a week. I wanted to mention one of the projects I am currently working on though in this brief post.

Jessica, who I mentioned 2 posts earlier, contacted the group about a innovative car-share scheme she is working on in Brattleboro, and I offered to look at some GIS data and provide information on density and income levels and age groups in the area around Brattleboro city center. The Vermont GIS database is a bit trickier to work with then the NY database, but I found the data ok. The main problem I am running into though is in the information table (like an excel sheet) attached to each file there is a whole lot of data, but the acronyms are near impossible to figure out. Its very frustrating and I have hit a brick wall due to that, I need to contact somebody in the Vermont GIS office to see if they can help a bit.

I was musing about a light rail commuter line connecting some of the local towns to the major employers in the region yesterday, I might put together a little post on the thought in a day or so. There is lots of promise here for sure, but its never going to happen until people are forced to

In the meantime I wish you and yours a happy holiday, Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, festivus, whatever you celebrate.

Be well, be safe, and best wishes
John

Attention Attention, read all about it news at 11!!!

2009-12-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

right for most of us this is not news, however we now have a new validated study to give to the people that blame cyclists for all sorts of things

New UK government study on cycling, via The Guardian.

this is huge! Sustrans just reported on this via their Facebook feed and a full report should be coming out and available to the general public shortly.

in short in the vast majority of accidents where police were present the cyclist's lack of stopping at red lights, or dark clothing, or lack of lights only contributed to 2% of cases each for a grand total of ~8% of overall accidents involving cars

yep its those damn no helmet dark cyclists running red lights are are ruining our cities ;)

"MIT team peddles more power per pedal"

2009-12-16T14:39:00.003-05:00

Found this over at Boston.com thanks to Jessica Tanner over at Vermont Livable Streets, which is part of the Streets Community at livablestreets.com. Anyway wanted to pass this on for a couple reasons.

One it’s really cool! As an owner of an e-bike retrofit, I know that they are useful and helpful especially for people with long commutes or may not be in the best physical shape yet(which I was not at the time I got it). The price on this prototype is also very good and affordable.

Second though this did not seem the focus, this is designed for European countries that already have ~30% bike trip share and are looking for more. For many reasons older people have given up on the bike and are now in a car, usually distance to travel is a major reason and well they are old, and while going up a hill as a 20 something youngin may be easy, for an older person this can prove impossible. So this is something designed to get fringes on board the bike. People with longer commutes, people who may be frailer or who are not as strong as they use to be, or for people that live in hilly districts and find it hard or annoying to be peddling up and down hills all day.

This is not for most Americans, or more importantly, cities should not be spending money on getting e-bikes for the cities, or even bike share schemes, unless that city is San Francisco ;) we have not even got the kids and the 20 something’s all on board, let alone women at all. That is only done through improvements in safety both subjective and actual; it is done through ease of the journey from origin to destination through mapping, through timed lights, through bike parking, and through path surface and geographic location. The quality of the paths are also important, not just where they go but how they go, completely segregated networks are ideal for getting the most amount of people on a bike, especially women. These are of course not cheap and not easy, its easy to strip a line next to the car doors and call it good, its much harder to redesign an existing area to allow separation of cyclists from other forms of traffic. To be fair most of our planners grew up in a country where places like MIT only taught about road planning and highway planning and maybe some rail, they didn’t do complete streets planning, or bike planning or true pedestrian planning (a sidewalk does not cut it) However until that is done, and either they are replaced or relearn, we will never see the rates that most of Europe has, at least not without banning cars in cites and towns all together(hmm another good idea?). Once we have done that (if we have done that) then the push should be for e-bikes and more options for mobility impaired people.

I sometimes fear the allure of oooo shiny new tech tends to go to politicians (and consumers) minds and the forget that its the non pretty, non shiny things, like the planning of a separated bike path through a park, that actually get large numbers of people on their bikes, not how pretty the toy may be (although fashion can get a certain % on a bike, see fixies.)

So overall very promising for sure and will be needed as we must move further from burning of fossil fuels for transportation. E-bikes of all sorts have a future but there are some things we need to do first before we push for them here in the US. Europe eat your heart out ;)

Boston.com article link

Cooking, it's a Zen Thing

2009-12-15T09:59:00.003-05:00

There are a couple of questions that get asked regularly that I don't care for. One is "what are you reading?". Now I don't dislike the question per say, but folk invariably ask it while I am reading, which means I have to stop reading and talk to them. If I wanted to talk I wouldn't be hiding behind my book, duh.

The other is "can you write down the recipe for that?" The answer is usually "no because I don't use recipes." This comment is usually meet with a look of confusion, which is understandable, most people have their grandmothers recipe for something or another and they will follow it to the letter with no deviation every single time. If they have a recipe they got from the web or a magazine and if it says "use ONLY JoBobs real ketchup" well they will run out for a bottle of JoBob's. People are afraid to take a chance, and in doing so they miss out on opportunity.

Part of the problem is that people have a skewed view of what cooking is, cooking is not just the assembling of specific ingredients, in a specific order, at a specific temperature. Cooking should be about the food, not the words. Now I do use recipes, as a guideline to new ideas. Say I want to make pasta carbonara, something I have never made. I just looked up several recipes for that dish. Some had bacon, some had ham, one had pepperoni (sounded yucky) one had a combination of Italian sausage and prosciutto. Most all had 1/2 a pound of meat and 4 eggs. The amount of spices, Parmesan cheese and other ingredients varied. Directions were all similar.

If I were to make this dish I would go off those porportions and just cook it based on that, along with my personal preferences and what the dish tasted like as it progressed. That last step is the important one that many people fail to use. If I were to cook it, it would go something like this:

Start pasta cooking
Brown some bacon or prosciutto in a pan, about 3-4 slices ( I always use less bacon than something calls for)
Remove bacon drain pan of excess fat
saute some onion
beat together eggs and whole milk or 1/2 and 1/2
add minced garlic
add eggs and milk mixture, season with salt and pepper (easy on the salt since we are adding Parmesan cheese.)
add some fresh or frozen peas, heat until peas are bright green and warm through
Drain and add pasta and mix to coat noodles, add some Parmesan at this time.
add some fresh parsley
Plate, garnish with more Parm and Parsley.

You notice I didn't add amounts, go by taste and texture, most recipes called for cream which I hardly ever use. So I would use less of the milk or half and half since it is a bit thinner and just watch the consistency adding more as needed. I also added the cheese later than the most recipes call for it. This is based on my personal experiences adding cheeses to sauces and what I like to do. I would also taste it as I went along, seasoning in layers, in other words the onion would get a bit of salt and pepper, so would the eggs and milk as I added them. Tasting each to get it right.

I can't emphasize that one enough TASTE AS YOU GO. Recipe calls for 1/4 cup chopped onion? what if the onions are watery tasting, really pungent and strong? 1 tbl chili powder? what if it is old?, fresh?, an odd brand?, you like stuff really hot?, really mild? You won't know if you don't taste, waiting until the dish is done won't work. How many times have you or someone you knew said "next time I make this I will xxxxx"? If you taste as you go along you don't have to wait until next time, you can fix it this time and perhaps prevent a meal from being tossed out and the pizza place called up to bat.

The recent Thanksgiving holiday is a perfect example, I wasn't cooking this year. My sister had volunteered, I went over a bit early to give her a hand as needed. She is a decent cook and isn't afraid to try new things, her cranberry recipe, much like my own, has evolved over the years. She had nuts in it this year and it was fine. However when we sat down to eat, that was the first time she had tasted it, if something had been wrong she would not have known until her guests had already been served. By comparison, when we made the gravy, I tasted it and was of the opinion the salt was fine but it could use some pepper, she tasted it and agreed but if I had not done it first she would not have bothered. Would the gravy have been bad? No, but it would not have been as good as it was, solely because we tasted it and adjusted the seasonings.

I think most folk have lost the soul of cooking, in this age of prepackaged, instant, onepot in a box things that the marketing folk call food, we have lost sight of what food is, and how it should be treated. Smell your produce, taste food as you prepare it, if you think something would taste good in a recipe add it. Don't be afraid to try new things, more importantly cook new things.

Learn to be one with your food, taste, smell, touch as you cook. Learn substitutions for odd items. Lemongrass is a favorite ingredient of mine, very hard to get in my area and when I do it is usually past it's prime. Does that mean I can't make my favorite Thai Curry recipe? Naw, I use lemon zest instead, not quite the same but it works. Think outside the box (and don't buy the box). Pineapple upside down cake but pineapple is out of season? Try cranberries, blue berries or plums instead. Wander around the produce department and look for odd things. Buy them, then go and look up something to cook with them. If you do it in the opposite order you'll probably never buy the item, if you buy it first you will use it for something.

So don't throw your cook books out, but move them out of the kitchen. Use them as a reference, then get in there and cook. Paying attention to your food and listening to it will teach you more about cooking than all the books in the world.

Senior Project on Bike Commuting

2009-12-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

from the good folks over at TheWashCycle. (this is yet another excuse to not do my history paper which is due at the time this will actually be posted :P)

Pedal Power Final Cut from Mike Kurec on Vimeo.

This wonderful little film has generated a nice bit of discussion on the original post over at WashCyle I weighed in of course and you can read my responses over there about safety and the focus on risk in this video. I felt that it is a good video that shows a lot of the thoughts that go into people starting to commute and what they are looking for. Yes it has lots of doom and gloom facts, but it has positive people talking about how great cycling is, it has people on separated paths enjoying their ride and I think this is much more powerful then any risk facts could be. Yes commuting by bike in most of America is dangerous; there is a whole lot of risk. However, think about the last time you were in a car, think about the potential accidents, the risks that you saw over that trip, how many times did you or somebody you saw come close to an accident or participated in dangerous behavior. Cycling is dangerous, but its all relative, for the schools that banned cycling and walking to the school building based on safety and risk, did they truly look at the statistics? Yes it is dangerous there is risk, but driving Johnny to school in your 3t SUV has more risk attached to it then many people want to admit.

Great job to Mike on this video, I enjoyed it. You can comment here or head over to TheWashCycle and join in on the discussion with your thoughts!

a sad day :(

2009-12-10T23:24:00.003-05:00

I lost one of my little buddies sometimes yesterday in the snow...

A 7led planet bike Blinky rear light :( I had it for around 4 years, and it bounced out of my back along with its rechargeable batteries (with plenty of life left, although not new) as I was biking through the snow around campus yesterday. It was my trusty light, had traveled through 4 states and 3 countries, I loved that little light, it was more then just a means to be seen, I felt attached, I loved it as it was my first even bike light, almost like loosing a friend.

its a day of mourning :(

in other news I found one on ebay for 10$ won the bid and its being shipped to my house back home :P not the same but still an effective companion to my new 1/2watt rear Blinky.

rest in peace Blinky, hopefully somebody finds it after the thaw and brings it a second life