What Fits In The Box?

Why should we encourage people to give up their steering wheels for handlebars?  Here is one possible answer:

You have a box, and it holds only so much, and once it gets beyond that--then you start to have problems.

The "box" to which economic development specialist Einar Tangen was referring is a city--in this case, Beijing.  But he could have been describing just about any old European or Asian capital--or a few US cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco.

Tangen was describing a reality of the Chinese capital:  It simply wasn't designed for 22 million people--or, even more to the point (for the purposes of this blog, anyway), 5 million cars.  To put that in perspective, Beijing has almost two and a half times as many people, and cars, as New York City.  

From what I've read, I don't think anyone even began to realize Beijing's limits until, maybe, two decades ago.  That is when industrialization--and, with it, migrations from the countryside to the cities--accelerated.  

Beijing traffic jam,  1975

In 1995, Beijing and New York had roughly the same population--around 8 million.  Commuters and visitors to New York--especially the central areas of Manhattan--complained about traffic jams.  Driving from the Hudson to the East River along 14th Street--a distance of about 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles--could, and can, take as much as 45 minutes, while a bus ride along the same route might cost an hour.  Meanwhile, even if a Beijing cyclist encountered a traffic jam, it would mean that the road was clogged with other bikes, not cars.  That cyclist could pedal the same distance in half as much time as it took transverse Manhattan.

Today, both cities contend with traffic jams.  Starting in the early 2000s, the ones in the Big Apple started to ease up a bit, at least for a decade or so.  But since 2015 or thereabouts, motor traffic is on the rise once again, in spite of Uber's boast that its services would take a million cars off this city's streets.  Uber and similar services, unbound from many of the regulations that govern New York's taxis and limousines, put thousands of new for-hire drivers on the city's streets.  Also, Amazon and other online shopping services began to offer free shipping for very small orders (Previously, most had a minimum number of items or dollar amount for no-charge shipping), which meant more deliveries, nearly all of which come in trucks.

Beijing's traffic jams, on the other hand, now have the same composition of the ones in most other major cities:  cars and trucks--but especially cars, in Beijing's case. 

Beijing traffic jam, 2015

New York, Beijing and other cities are facing or denying this reality:  They simply can't shoehorn any more motor vehicles onto their streets.  If anything, those places, and others, should encourge bicycling--but make it truly safe and convenient for people going to and from work, not merely a way for the affluent to stretch when they get bored with the gym.

As Einar Tangen said, each of these cities is a box that's already holding more than it was designed to hold.  To keep that box from bursting, planners need to start thinking out of the (auto-centric) box.

Bikes Will Eat Cars

Bikes will eat cars.

No, I am not using, uh, herbal remedies for non-medicinal purposes.  I haven't done that or used any other illicit substances in so long that I'm covered by the statute of limitations. (That is one thing to look forward to as you get older!)  In fact, the four words that opened this post aren't even mine.

They were uttered by Horace Dediu.  Who is he?, you ask.

I confess:  I didn't know who he is until I came across an article in, of all places, CNN Money.  There, he is described as a "prominent analyst of disruptive technologies."  That title alone makes him sound like he has an IQ that's even higher than my weight (in pounds, which is saying something!)

The way he sees it, bikes have all sorts of advantages over cars.  We are already familiar with some of them:  They're a lot easier to park and store, they cost less both to buy and maintain, and in many large cities, it's possible to get from point A to point B in less time one a bike than in a car, bus or, sometimes, even by rail.  

He also sees other advantages, which have only become apparent with the growth of bike-share programs.  One is, of course, the fact that bike share programs are relatively easy for cities to implement.  But another has to do with the sensors found in the bikes of some share programs.  At the moment, they're used to track the location of bikes so that they can be retrieved, especially in the newer programs that don't use ports or docks.  They also, of course, make it more difficult to steal the bikes.

Horace Dediu:  "Bikes will eat cars."

But the way Dediu sees it, that technology could develop into cameras that are placed in the bikes.  They, and other kinds of sensors, could record potholes and other real-time information that could be transmitted to city authorities.  They could even provide data on traffic and other street activity that could make Google Street View seem as antiquated as maps inked on parchment.

If you were to tell your non-cycling acquaintances what I've recounted, they'd object that bikes won't displace, much less "eat", cars for the same reasons they don't ride:  They're afraid of traffic, road conditions are bad and, oh, what do you do when it rains or snows?

Dediu has thought about those objections.  To address them, he describes the way infrastructure evolved around the automobile.  When the first motorized cars were created, there were far fewer paved roads, even in the most developed areas, and even the best roads were pretty rough.  Also, early cars were open-air.  It only took a generation or so for the landscape to be transformed by the infrastructure created for automobiles--which, by that time, were enclosed.

He sees a similar "evolution" for bicycles.  He thinks shells or other enclosures will become widespread, and that cities and other jurisdictions will develop bike lanes and other thoroughfares specifically for cyclists.

Finally, I must point out that when he says "bicycle", he isn't talking only about the kinds we pedal. He believes that electric bikes will also be part of the change he envisions.  Evidence for that, he explains, can be seen not only in the "explosive" growth in sales of e-bikes, but also in the fact that a few cities are introducing e-bikes to their share programs.  Some people who would be hesitant about trading their cars for pedaled bicycles could be enticed to ride e-bikes.  Also, the advantage in speed the bicycle offers in cities like New York could spread to areas further from urban centers.

One other obstacle--which, according to Dediu, must and will be overcome--to bikes displacing cars is the lack of availability of share bikes.  New York and San Francisco have the largest bike share programs in the US, at 12,000 and 7,000 bikes, respectively.  On the other hand, Beijing has 650,000 share bikes, all of which have hit that city's streets within the past nine months.

Horace Dediu says "Bikes will eat cars."  Whatever wastes they emit after their repast can't be nearly as toxic as what vehicles with internal combustion engines belch into the air we breathe!

What Is A Cyclist's Life Worth? $700 (CDN)? Six Months' Probation?

Yesterday, there appeared in The Globe And Mail an excellent editorial by Toronto-based writer Naomi Buck.  She started with what sounded (to most of her neighbors to the south, anyway) like good news:  a woman who drove a van that struck a pedestrian who was standing on a Toronto sidewalk was convicted of "careless driving".  For that, she got a fine of $1000 and six months' probation.

Had the driver done such a thing here in the States, it's unlikely that she would have been burdened with such a hefty fine or lengthy sentence.  To her credit, she took it upon herself to appear in court:  something that, under Ontario law, is not required of someone so charged.  In most such cases, according to Ms. Buck, the defendant chooses not to appear, leaving the victims' loved ones to read their heartbreaking words to a legal agent rather than the one who took their friend's, sibling's, spouse's, parent's or child's life.   

Had the driver--one Elizabeth Taylor--had her charge upgraded to "dangerous driving", she could have received a ten-year prison sentence if the incident causes bodily harm, and 14 years if it results in death.  However, Patrick Brown, a lawyer who has handled hundreds of cases in which pedestrians or cyclists were killed or critically injured, it's very difficult, at least in an Ontario court, to make a case for "dangerous" driving unless it was a hit-and-run incident or alcohol was involved.

From the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency archives.

Still, Ms. Taylor incurred more severe penalties than most drivers who run down cyclists or pedestrians, according to Mr. Brown.  "I actually think most pedestrian cases get dropped entirely," he said.  Three recent cases he litigated involving cyclist fatalities resulted in the drivers being charged with "careless driving" or lesser offenses, and in being fined $700, $600 and $85(!) respectively.

Even those penalties, however, are more than most drivers in the US can expect if they run down cyclists or pedestrians.  Still, the families and friends of cyclists and pedestrians killed by motorists in Toronto have to bear the same burdens as their peers in Montreal, Vancouver, Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Paris and any number of other cities in this world one can name. 

Their feelings were aptly expressed by the 8-year-old son of Erica Stark, the pedestrian killed by the van Elizabeth Taylor drove.  "I'm mad at the driver," he wrote in a victim impact statement, which his father read in court.

"In a few years, he'll probably be mad at the justice system," Naomi Buck speculates.  "Who could blame him?"

A Wrong Path To Bike Safety

I am generally not a fan of bike lanes.  While data from Antwerp, Belgium indicate that they cut the accident rate in half on high-speed (75KPH/45MPH or more) roads, that same study shows that a cyclist riding in either a separated or painted lane along a medium-speed (50KPH, or 30 MPH) has roughly the same accident risk as one riding on the road itself.  

The same research shows, most tellingly, that along low-speed roads (30KPH/20MPH)--meaning most urban streets--a cyclist in a painted lane is nearly five times as likely to get in an accident.  And, if he or she is riding in a separated lane, the risk increases to more than six times what it would be if the road had no lane.

Studies from other locales corroborate the main lesson of Antwerp's experience:  that bike lanes make cyclists safer only in comparison to riding on a highway.  On most suburban streets, the safety level is about the same as it is for lanes.  And on city streets, using bike lanes actually puts cyclists at greater risk for accidents than if they rode on sidewalks, which have long been considered--by planners and everyday cyclists alike--to be the most dangerous places to ride.

Yet transportation planners and "experts" insist that the best way to make urban cycling safer is to paint or install more lanes.  When confronted with findings like the ones I've mentioned, their response usually goes along the lines of "Well, bike lanes make people feel safer.  And if people feel cycling is safer, more of them will do it."

Some people feel safer if they sleep with a gun under their pillow. I wonder how well that logic works.

Anyway, it seems that in transportation planning--especially as it pertains to bicycles--there isn't an idea that's so bad that nobody can come up with something worse.  And, sadly, those worse ideas are just as likely to come from "bike friendly" burgs as they are to emanate from those places where one is not considered fully human without an internal combustion engine.

For the past decade or so, Montreal has been done as much as any city to encourage cycling.  Like other municipalities with "bike friendly" reputations, it established a bike-share program (Bixi) and turned disused byways like the path along the Lachine Canal into bike lanes.  To be sure, it made some mistakes, but on the whole, Montreal has probably done more than most cities (at least in the Americas) to consider cyclists in its transportation planning.

From CBC News

But now it seems that Denis Corderre, the Mayor the City of a Hundred Steeples, plans to take one of the most unsafe practices of contemporary urban planning and make it even more hazardous for cyclists--and just about everyone else.

La Rue St. Denis and Le Boulevard St. Laurent are the two main north-south thoroughfares on the island of Montreal, while Sherbrooke Street is one of its major east-west conduits.  Monsieur Corderrre wants to paint lanes on them that will be shared by bikes and buses.

Let that one sink in.  Bikes and buses in the same lane.  I don't see how anyone can feel, let alone be, safer.  Buses have a lot of blind spots, so it's easier for a bus driver to simply not see a cyclist in the lane.  Also, buses pulling over to pick up and discharge passengers, and pulling away from those bus stops are at least as much of a hazard as motorists making turns into intersections into which bike lanes feed.  

Oh, but it gets worse.  You see, Corderre's plan also calls for turning Avenues Papineau and de Lorimier--two other important north-south routes--into one-way streets simply to accomodate the bus/bike lanes.  

When I visited the City of Saints last year, I spent a fair amount of time riding all of those streets.  They are heavily trafficked, but one can ride them by exercising the same sort of caution one would employ on a major street in almost any western city.  Even a separate bike-only lanes would probably do nothing to make cycling safer.  In fact, they would most likely make riding more dangerous for the same reasons they put pedalers in greater peril in other cities.  On those streets, as well as on streets in other cities in which I've cycled, it's easier and safer to negotiate with buses when they, and cyclists, are part of the regular traffic flow.  I know:  I do it nearly every day!

Denis Corderre, reconsiderez s'il vous plait!

Cycling In Montreal

Different cities have different "feels" or "vibes".  A musician--Charles Mingus, I believe--once remarked that he could tell, blindfolded, and with his ears plugged, whether he was in San Francisco or New York or Paris or wherever.  

He, or whoever that musician was, also said it was possible to sense the "energy" of a place you're visiting for the first time the moment you step off the plane or train or whatever took you there.  I believe there's something to that:  I recall feeling almost as if I'd developed another sense as I walked through the airport in Istanbul.  Every place I went, whether in the city itself or along the coast or into the Cappadocia countryside, just seemed to pulse with vitality, whether I was marveling at the Blue Mosque, sauntering among the ancient ruins or looking at the almost-otherworldly landsapes--or seeing the mansions along the Bosphrous or the shacks of once-mighty cities whose harbors had silted up.

Likewise, cycling feels different in different cities.  In Boston, it can seem like mano-a-mano combat with drivers; all through Florida (all right, it's not a city, but bear with me), it feels as if you're holding out (I was going to stay "standing your ground", but that seems pretty touchy!) and holding onto pieces of real estate that are miles long and inches wide.  In Prague, you're always climbing or descending a hill, just as I remember San Francisco.  The difference between cycling in Paris and cycling in New York is like the difference between caffeine and Red Bull laced with cocaine:  The former energizes cyclists but doesn't seem to impair their social skills; the latter turns everything into a race--to what, no one seems to know.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Parisian drivers are courteous and respectful because, I believe, many are--or have recently been--cyclists.  I'm not sure that the bike lanes or Velib made it a more "bike friendly" city, as some have said, although I did see more cyclists on my most recent trip there than I saw on previous trips.  More time elapsed between the Montreal trip I just took and the one before it, but I think it's fair to see that there are more real changes in the city's cycling atmosphere than I've witnessed in any other city.

I certainly saw more cyclists--and, perhaps most important, a wider variety of people cycling--than I did on previous visits.  I rode some routes I'd ridden before and explored areas I'd never before seen.  I was able to do most of my riding on bike paths, although that was not one of my objectives.  I wouldn't say that the paths, which were all but non-existent the last time I was in Montreal, necessarily make cycling safer or even more pleasant than it had been before.  But I have to say that, for the most part, they seem well-planned:  I didn't find myself on "paths to nowhere" or ones that abruptly let cyclists out into dangerous intersections.  

However, I found myself questioning the wisdom of this:

I understand what planners were trying to do:  Provide paths that allow cyclists to ride in an orderly fashion.  And, for whatever reasons, they wanted or had to keep the paths on one side of the street or the other.  The issue wasn't the width of the paths.  One lane in each direction is more or less like one lane in each direction on a road for motorized vehicles:  You follow similar kinds of procedures and etiquette for riding with, behind or in front, of--or passing--other drivers.  It certainly seemed to work well:  I didn't sense conflicts between cyclists over rights-of-way.

On the other hand, there was a problem I found with them:  When you're riding in the right lane, in the opposite direction from the motorized traffic, and you come to an intersection, you have to take extra care, especially if the cross-street is one-way, with the traffic coming from your left.  This is even more true when drivers traveling in the opposite direction on the street your path parallels make right turns.

To be fair, the local cyclists and drivers didn't seem to have any problem.  Perhaps they've grown accustomed to the arrangement.  Were I living in Montreal--or simply cycling there more often--I probably would, too.  

I didn't see any of the confrontations, or any other expressions of hostility, one witnesses--or, perhaps, gets involved in--here in New York.  There seems to be more respect--or, at least, some sort of detente--between motorists and cyclists.  The latter--even the fastest and most competitive ones--come to a full stop at red lights, as do pedestrians. So do the drivers:  They don't try to "gun it" as the light is changing, and there is actually a pause between the light turning green and cars proceeding through it.  In the Big Apple, it seems, drivers have learned how to put their foot on the gas pedal a second or two before the signal changes so their vehicles are in motion even before the light is green.

In brief, the calm atmosphere I experienced while riding in Montreal seems to be a result of people's sense of security about themselves, as motorists and cyclists as well as human beings.  In New York, I am realizing, no matter how well you do, you've only survived the day and, perhaps, survived for another day.  As James Baldwin has noted, when everyone is striving for status, nobody really has any.  Or, as a student of mine remarked last night, "You have to be a shark to survive in this city!"  If that is the case, and Montreal's streets are waterways, one can navigate them as a dolphin.

Plus, you've got to love a place where you can see a sign like this:

I think something was lost in translation.

or a street with a name like this:

Admit it:  You would love to say you live on "Rue Rufus Rockhead"!

just blocks away from this:

In Vieux Montreal, or Old Montreal

or this:

"Farine Five Roses":  I'm not sre of whether it's stranger in French or English!

or where a bridge like the Jacques Cartier would have an underpass like this between the east and west walkways:

 You can't hear the traffic above you, and look at how clean it is!  It was open, even tough the west walkway is closed.

Such a thing never would be built in New York.  (A fair number of bridges, such as the Verrazano Narrows, don't even have bike paths or walkways.)  And if it were, it would always be "closed for repairs", but homeless people or the young and intoxicated would break into it.

All right.  I'll stop whining about what does and doesn't happen in New York and say that Montreal is indeed a fine cycling city. 

London: Life In The Bike Lane

Cities in the Western world have seen phenomenal increases in the number of cyclists on their streets during the past few years.  One of the cities in which the increase has been most noted is London.  According to one study, during the peak morning hours (7-10 pm), on some streets, as much as 64 percent of the traffic consists of bicycles.

In other words, at such times on those streets, there are almost two bicycles for every motorized vehicle or pedestrian!

The study also reveals--perhaps not surprisingly--a dramatic increase in the number of accidents, injuries and deaths among cyclists   Most interestingly, it notes that most accidents and casualties occur during daylight hours.

But it also shows increase spending on cycling infrastructure (which include plans for a bicycle "Skyway")--which, with greater public awareness, could reduce, or at least slow the increase in, the numbers.

Perhaps the most thought-provoking statistic of all, though, is this:  If just fourteen percent of all trips in Central London were on bicycles, emissions of nitrogen oxides--the most prominent vehicle pollutant--would fall by nearly a third.  

That is to say, when people ride bikes rather than drive in the central city, it has double the effect in reducing at least one major type of pollution:  no small matter in a city noted for its congestion and fog.

From Fiona Outdoors

Saluting An Early Morning Fog

This morning, on my way to work, I pedaled into a horizon of light, high fog.

The air was still pleasantly cool and, surprisingly, didn't seem very humid.  At least, I was pedaling at a vigorous, if not furious, pace because I could, and I wasn't sweating.

Perhaps it had to do with the stillness of everything around me.  They say this city never sleeps.  Well, sometimes I'm out before people--and machines--have awakened:

Or are they saluting the skyscrapers, veiled in mist on the other side of the river ?

Oh, it's such a treat to ride my bike to work!

Taking It All With You

Writing my post on Monday got me to thinking about the ways bikes can be made into utility vehicles.  I'm not talking only about riding from place to place.  I mean using bikes as real, viable forms of transport.

That, of course, means carrying things while riding.  There are many ways.  I've tried just about all of them.  I still use just about all of them at one time or another.   My method depends on what I'm carrying, how far (or how long) I have to carry it and which bike I ride when carrying it.

Laura Lukitsch's video shows a few of those methods.  Best of all, she shows urban riders who are not racers, hipsters or messengers using their bikes as the versatile urban transport vehicles they are, and can be:

A Message Like No Other

When you cycle in an urban area, you see more graffiti than the average person.  More important, you see it at closer range than someone riding a bus or cab, or driving by.

Even while seeing so closely, you don't remember a lot of it.  After all, so much of it, frankly, looks alike.  But every once in a while you see "tags" that stand out for their use of color, artistry or simply their overall size.  And, sometimes, you see a graffito that's a true work of art.  I am fortunate in having lived, for years, not very far from Five Pointz--whose days are. lamentably, numbered.

But this piece--on the side of a Barrow Street building, just west of Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, is like no other I've seen: