Crossing The Tracks

One of the invaluable life skills I learned in my youth is that of crossing railroad tracks on a bicycle.

If you've done it before, you know that you should approach them with your tire at a 90 degree angle--a.k.a. perpendicular (I remember that much from my geometry class!)--to the rails.  This is especially true if you are riding skinny road tires.

However, at many railroad intersections, this is not possible.  I have seen junctures where the road or path is nearly parallel to the rails when they meet.  Such intersections are all the more hazardous when, as often as not, the road or path has a sharp turn or curve just before it meets the tracks.  You then are faced with the same hazard presented by many urban bike lanes:  You are riding into the path of turning cars--at the same time you're negotiating the tracks.

So, perhaps, it's not surprising that in at least one locale, the most dangerous spot for cyclists is a railroad crossing.  

Knoxville, Tennessee is one such location.  Chris Cherry knows the spot all too well:  He watched his wife "really mangle her knee" after taking a spill at the Neyland Drive crossing.

Turns out, her mishap was one of 53 crashes recorded over a two-month period (2 August-3 October 2014) by a camera at the site.  As hazardous as railroad crossings are in general, this, city authorities acknowledged, is an unusually high number.

Cherry, an associate professor of engineering, at the University of Tennessee, decided to investigate.

 

  The problem was that the Drive crossed the tracks at a 45 degree angle--and, not surprisingly, the stretch of the drive leading to the tracks had a sharp curve.  

As a cyclist and engineer, Cherry knew that he best solution would have been to reconfigure the street so that it would cross the tracks at a right angle.  The city wasn't going to do that, however because the involvement of the groups it would have required--and the crossing's proximity to the Tennessee River--would have pushed the cost to $200,000.  Instead, the city used the "jughandle" approach (If you've cycled or driven on New Jersey State routes, you have seen it) to create a 60-degree angle.

Cherry, who was consulted on the project, knows it's not an ideal solution.  But, he hopes, it will reduce the number of crashes at the site.  So far, he thinks it's been effective.

Still, I think the intersection is one I'd approach with heightened caution:  I've pedaled through many others like it.

Working Undercover?

In the US, the term "states' rights" has become a dog-whistle for those who, essentially, want to roll back the clock to 1861 or thereabouts.

"Local politics" has an almost equally-sullied reputations, as school boards, cities, counties and, yes, states have used their authority to excise any mention of evolution, climate change or slavery from school textbooks and to mandate all sorts of other ignorant, mendacious and mean-spirited policies.

But, sometimes, there is something to be said for localities having the power to make their own rules and deciding how their money will be spent.  An example of that is occurring now in Davis, California.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Davis may well have been the original "bicycle friendly" city in the US.  Home to a major University of California campus, its planners--at least some of whom were and are cyclists--have a long history of taking cyclists seriously.  

At the same time, other California cities grew exponentially.  So did their motor vehicle traffic:  The Golden State has, to many people, become synonymous with car-clogged freeways and smog-choked skies.  

(Of course, not all of California is like that.  I have seen it for myself!)

Sacramento, the state's capital, is one such city.  Not so long ago, it was a west-coast version of Albany or Springfield:  a town that rose and slept with its legislative sessions.  More recently, however, the high-tech boom that turned fruit orchards into corporate blocks in the Santa Clara Valley has spread eastward from the Bay Area.  So, Saramento has experienced the sort of growth in population--and traffic congestion--cities like Los Angeles witnessed in earlier decades.

The President would not approve!

Thus, some folks in Davis are taking it upon themselves to encourage their neighbors in Davis (and the ones closer to home) to trade four wheels for two. They want cyclists who "know the Sacramento area inside and out" to share their knowledge and experience as "Bicycle Ambassadors."

In doing so, these "ambassadors" will,  according to Bike Davis President Trish Davis, help the city and region in its effort to reduce greenhouse gases.

Now, do you think the current occupant of the White House--or Congress, as it's currently constituted-- would ever implement such a program?  Hmm...Could it be that all of those tree-hugging liberals are really working undercover for the conservative Republican agenda?  Local control, indeed!

The Dilemma

So..After ten days of hot and mostly dry weather in Italy, I came home to...a week of hot--and humid--weather in New York, punctuated by rain.

Yesterday was a respite.  I could not have asked for better cycling weather.  When I started, the skies were partly cloudy and the temperature was 17C.  The skies cleared along the way and the temperature increased a bit, but I was pedaling into 20-25 kph wind most of the way.  Still, I barely sweated all the way to Connecticut, where the sky was overcast.

On my way home, the clouds broke for some sun, but I didn't feel the need to replenish my sunscreen.  I think the temperature reached about 26C by the time I finished, in mid-afternoon.

The ride was completely pleasant and uneventful.  I was riding Arielle, my Mercian Audax, so it could hardly have been smoother or more effortless.  Although it's a drop-bar all-arounder road bike, I felt less strain on me than I did when I was riding an upright bike in Rome.  It probably has to do with the Mercian's fit.  Also, being a lighter bike, it's simply easier to pedal in  higher gears.  Most of all, it's my bike, so even when I don't ride it for a couple of weeks (or months, as sometimes happens during the winter), it takes me no time to re-acclimate myself to it.

So, which is better:  Going to faraway places and riding among sights you will rarely, if ever, experience again--or riding a bike you know and love on a route you know?

Such a dilemma!  It used to be so much easier back in the day, when most airlines (the non-US carriers, anyway) would take your boxed bike (with pedals, front wheel and handlebars removed) as one of your pieces of luggage as long as it, and whatever else you brought, was within the weight limit.  For most European carriers--as well as Air India, Air Pakistan (yes, I flew them to Europe), that limit was 44 kilos.

These days, it seems, airlines don't want you to bring your bike, or charge some exorbitant fee for it.  I figured that for a ten-day trip, it was easier to rent a bike, especially since I wasn't going across the countryside with loaded panniers and camping gear.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to get one of those bikes that travels easily like Bike Friday or Brompton, which would cost about as much as going on a trip somewhere.  Or, perhaps, there's some other way to take Arielle or one of my other bikes across the seas with me.

That would make my choices a little easier.  Then again, when I come home from a Connecticut ride--or one to Point Lookout or the Jersey Shore--Max and Marlee are waiting for me!