Getting perspective in New Mexico
Every so often I leave town, and every time I do, one of the first things I notice is other places’ attitudes toward bicyclists.
Yesterday I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It’s a fairly sprawling place, but much smaller than Tucson. They have clearly made a few efforts to improve the lot of bicyclists, but whoa, I sure would not want to have to ride a bike there.
The separated bike path on University requires riders to dismount at every intersection! Imagine having to get off your bike and walk across every cross-street. I saw no one using this bike path, despite the fact it went right alongside campus.
There were a few other narrow striped bike-lanes, but of the few cyclists I saw, almost all of them were riding on the sidewalk.
I was in Albuquerque last year and noticed the same thing. I even rode my bike there, and found it to be fairly harrowing.
Tucson has a long way to go and there are many things we desperately need, like some fixes with the Fourth Avenue Underpass fiasco, but as bad as you might think it is in Tucson, we’ve got it better than most in the Southwest. Hopefully that trend will continue.
–Erik Ryberg
Tom Thivener on bike boulevards
In response to my earlier post on bike boulevards, Tom Thivener, Tucson’s Bike and Pedestrian Program Manager, sent me a few comments. He said that people here in Tucson don’t always have a clear picture of what a bike boulevard is (I think he was including me in that statement), which he says is “understandable,” because
. . . we don’t have great examples in town yet except for parts of 3rd Street and University Blvd. That facility only has two out of the five core elements that make up a bike boulevard. We have some work to do on that corridor to prioritize bikes better in removing some stop signs, adding better wayfinding signage, adding pavement markings and in calming traffic better. The two core elements that it has today are the bike/pedestrian signals to help cross busy roads and it has pretty low traffic volumes.
The same recipe should work well on other local streets given that not everybody in town lives off of 3rd Street. We have over 600 miles of bike lanes in Tucson, yet only 96 miles of residential bike route. Most of the 96 miles lack the five core elements that make up a bike boulevard. Tucson’s urban core is as dense as Portland’s neighborhoods where bike boulevards are thriving (both at about 5,000 people per square mile). These residential bike routes should be upgraded. If we can do that we might then some new riders out on the streets.
Anyway, below is how Boulder, now a “Platinum” bike-friendly city, does it.
EBR
Check out the Doug Flynn fatality info at azbikelaw.org
Ed over at azbikelaw.org has posted an excellent write-up of the Doug Flynn fatality in Yuma last year. Mr. Flynn was hit head-on by a driver passing a farm vehicle.
Ed is judiciously collecting bike fatality data from all over the state. He’s doing all cyclists a great service by analyzing and publishing his findings. His Flynn posting is here. Check it out.
–Erik Ryberg
I (heart) bike boulevards
There’s been some controversy in Tucson bike-politics of late over bike boulevards.
It seems that some members of the Tucson/Pima County Bike Advisory Committee disagree that money on bike boulevards is well spent — they want to see the money spent on bike lanes. I’ve heard lots of arguments for this, some which I regard to be outright specious (“Bike boulevards will take people off the main streets and thus make cycling more dangerous because there will be fewer of us on the busy streets”) and some less so (“You get way more bang for your buck with a bike lane”).
In my opinion, and it seems to be shared by most cyclists who spend a fair amount of time riding their bikes in urban environments, the bike boulevard is pretty much the holy grail of urban bike infrastructure outside of bike-dedicated greenways. A bike boulevard may not go right where you want it to, and it may not be perfect (there is usually some minimal auto traffic permitted on a bike boulevard), but the bike boulevard offers people a way to use a bike safely in the city, and, hopefully, this will give them the experience and courage to branch off the boulevard and start using their bike more often.
Here’s fellow bike lawyer Bob Mionske on the subject in his current Bicycling Magazine column:
[I]f we want to get more people on bikes, we have to build the infrastructure that will help them feel safer while riding. As the great cycling cities of Europe have learned, when bicycling feels safe for children and the elderly, everybody feels safer, and more people ride—and that is a benefit for all cyclists, and others as well, since as the roads become safer for cyclists, there’s also less danger for both motorists and pedestrians.
And that’s the part that does it for me. We need places where people can feel safe when they ride, and those places need to intersect with each other and be in urban centers.
I don’t like to question anyone’s motives, but the pro bike-lane/anti bike-boulevard arguments sound selfish to me. We have bike lanes all over the place, some of which are extremely dangerous to ride in, and many of which have very few takers. The Speedway bike lane is never going to be safe to ride in. And it is true that bike boulevards serve a geographically smaller community. But they convey the message that bikes are a legitimate form of transportation that our city supports, and that we are not always simply to be shunted into the shoulder and protected by a painted white stripe.
On that subject, more and more cities are painting sharrows instead of white stripes. Perhaps even more than bike boulevards, sharrows tell drivers that bikes belong, and that they must make way for and accommodate cyclists safely. My friend L, a vocal critic of bike lanes like those on South Stone and South Sixth Avenues that confine cyclists right in the “door” zone of parked cars, pointed me to this article from the L.A. Times about the increasing use of sharrows. Tucson has a few of these — including some on South Sixth Avenue — but I’d like to see a lot more.
Please visit www.tucsonbikesurvey.com for more information on supporting bike boulevards, bike sharrows, and other bike infrastructure in Tucson.
–Erik Ryberg
Did the new trolley tracks claim their first life?
It sure looks like it. Dennis McKinney, 47, was killed just prior to the intersection of Congress and the 4th Avenue tunnel yesterday morning. He was riding a motorized bicycle. The police have reported that witnesses saw him lose control of his bike and “run into another vehicle.”
Hopefully the official police report will be available today and I will have more information, but judging from the location of the paint markings on Congress, it seems that Mr. McKinney probably hit the tracks and went down. A photo indicates his rear wheel was struck. Did he go down and then get run over?
This is probably the most dangerous intersection in Tucson for bicyclists, or at least the most dangerous one that is commonly used. I am curious to know where Mr. McKinney was going and where he was coming from. Had he just made the turn from Eastbound Broadway, and was he trying to navigate traffic to get across the tracks and proceed through the tunnel? I do that frequently and even with an abundance of caution and many years of experience riding over tracks, it is still unnerving and dangerous.
It’s made worse by the confusion experienced by drivers who are trying to figure out what lane they need to be in to go west on Toole, as well as still other drivers who are turning onto Congress from the eastern Toole entrance, who may be needing to merge quickly across two lanes to proceed down Congress. It’s a mess.
Hopefully we will know more soon.
My deep condolences to Mr. McKinney’s family and friends.
–Erik Ryberg
“Something is Working Here”: BICAS in the news again
There’s a great story on www.examiner.com about some folks in Yuma coming down to BICAS to get ideas on how to make such a thing work in their city. (BICAS, of course, is Tucson’s bike-repair collective.) They remarked on the line of people waiting to get in before the doors open, and concluded after their visit that “Something is working here.”
I have the same opinion. The place is packed just about all the time. BICAS has not suffered the fate of many non-profits during the economic downturn because it tries very hard to be self-sustainable, that is, not operated by grants. The employees make decisions collectively and change comes slowly, with caution, and with constant concern about whether each new addition is something that can be sustained. It’s a model that is definitely working, with BICAS now in its 20th year in Tucson.
If you ‘ve never been there, you should go check it out. And if you or anyone you know has any bikes collecting dust in a garage, bring them down! Even the non-usable broken parts get turned into art and sold at the annual art auction, the first weekend in December.
–Erik Ryberg
Cyclist killed this morning at 4th Avenue and Congress
From KVOA:
TUCSON – An early morning accident leaves a bicyclist dead.
Tucson Police say it happened on 4th Avenue and Congress around 5:00 a.m. when the bicyclist and a vehicle were both headed westbound on Congress.
Witnesses say the bicyclist lost control and swerved into the vehicle. Tucson police police say preliminary reports show that the cyclist is at fault.
No citation will be issued for the driver.
And from KOLD:
Bicyclist killed after crashing into vehicle in downtown Tucson
Brian J. Pedersen Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Monday, July 5, 2010 7:33 am
A bicyclist was killed early Monday when he collided with a vehicle while riding downtown.
The 47-year-old man, whose name has not been released pending next of kin notification, was riding west on Congress Street near Toole Avenue about 5:55 a.m. when he lost control of his bike, hitting a vehicle that was also heading west on Congress, said Sgt. Diana Lopez, a Tucson Police Department spokeswoman.
The cyclist, who was not wearing a helmet, was pronounced dead at the scene, Lopez said.
I am awaiting more information about this, but at the moment it is the usual announcement that the cyclist was at fault.
–Erik Ryberg
Time for a change in AZ insurance law
If you want to legally drive a car in Arizona, you have to have liability coverage that protects anybody you might accidentally hit.
The problem is, if you want to, you can carry just $15,000 worth of such coverage — an amount that has remained unchanged since it was first set by the Arizona Financial Responsibility Act back in 1972.
What that means is that if you get hit by somebody who is carrying the minimum policy — whether you are driver, a bicyclist, or a pedestrian — the most you are going to recover from the driver’s insurance company is $15,000. And, sadly, most people on the road in Arizona carry the minimum coverage.
Arizona’s requirement is particularly low. Only four states in the U.S. require less coverage than Arizona; thirty-seven require more.
Now, in most collisions that involve modern, motorized vehicles, $15,000 is more than enough. Most of the time most people are not badly injured if they are inside a motorized vehicle.
But if they are hit while on foot or on bike, $15,000 often doesn’t even start to pay for their injuries. If you have an ambulance ride, a CT scan, and a couple of X-rays, you are probably going to be pushing that $15,000 policy limit pretty hard. Throw in a broken bone or an overnight stay, and you’ve exceeded it. You will owe the hospital money for your troubles.
The AZ legislature could easily bring Arizona in line with the times by increasing the minimum to $25,000 or more. This would provide much better protection for our state’s pedestrians and bicyclists, and the increase in coverage should cost the consumer very little (remember, unless a driver actually hits a cyclist or a pedestrian, he or she is still only going to pay whatever the costs are now — so the actual increase in rates should be small).
Of course, the likelihood of our legislature doing such a thing is nil.
If you are a bicyclist, please be sure you are carrying health insurance or, at a minimum, underinsured motorist coverage on your driver’s policy. This will usually protect you even while you are on your bike or on foot.
I too often see people in my office who have hospital bills that exceed or nearly exceed the minimum policy limits of the driver who hit them, and it breaks my heart to have to tell them that most likely the best we can do is make a sizeable dent in their hospital bills. It’s worse still when they have permanent injuries.
–Erik Ryberg
Is there some way to make this a screensaver?
Stolen from Drunkcyclist.
EBR
Midsummer Night’s Dream Bike Ride and Bike-In Movie
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Bicycle Ride
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
7:30pm – 10:30pm
BICAS, 44 W. 6th St.
Fairies, nypmhs, lovers, dreamers, artists, music-makers, merry women, men, and children… Celebrate midsummer with a fanciful costumed bicycle ride then cool off with a chilled fruit buffet and a showing of the bicycle adaptation of the film ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline.
Tentative schedule of events…
7:00 p.m. Arrive early to BICAS for free face painting.
7:30 p.m. Community bike ride through historic Tucson with stops at local gardens and enormous trees!
9:00 p.m. Chilled fruit refreshment table and showing of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.
Don’t forget your safe night bicycle lights and helmet (a MUST if you are under 18).
Join us at BICAS this Friday, June 18th, for a pre-ride costume making session from 4-7 p.m. You can use our sewing machines, bike parts, and other scraps for your costume but come prepared and BYOMaterials.
This event is free, but donations for BICAS are always accepted.
love, peace, bicycle grease~ BICAS!
–EBR