John's Blog

Everyone and his dog has a 'blog these days, right? So why not me? If you are interested in anything I'm saying, great! Let's talk about it! (Leave comments.) If not, try one of my other links. Better yet, why are you wasting your time staring at your computer screen, go do something real!

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Thoughts on adding bike lanes

Monday, November 27, 2006
Bikes are schizophrenic - they are both recreational vehicles driven on paths and neighborhood streets by riders of all ages and experience levels, as well as a means of transportation, sometimes the sole means, by experienced riders with traffic skills at least on par with the average car drivers. American society in general, and transportation policy in particular, therefore continues vacillate between these two views. (Unfortunately for the skilled traffic riders, the recreational view has always seemed to have the edge, and probably still does.) (Click title to read more...)

A sophisticated view of the situation should allow for both kinds of uses, recreational and transportational. It would be both stupid and impractical to force all users of bikes to have licenses and take classes in traffic safety, if they only intend to ride slowly in the park or on a multi-use path. However, it is also impractical and short-sighted to disallow strong and skilled cyclists from the public roadways. It may even be unconstitutional in that it amounts to restricting a certain class of users from a public space.

It is not surprising that the most controversial area of this bipolar approach is at the transition point between the two kinds of cyclists. Inexperienced cyclists who are only out to have a relaxing recreational ride will naturally stay away from high-traffic areas. On the other hand, transportation cyclists going from point A to point B will tend to take the most direct public roadway, regardless of any bike-specific facilities.

The intersection here is the potentially large group of cyclists who would like to ride for transportation, but who lack the confidence to try riding on the road with cars. Therefore, city governments who want to be seen as doing something for cyclists, as well as a great many cyclists themselves, advocate for bike lanes, as a facility to improve the confidence of cyclists and to assist in keeping them separated from the cars. However, some experienced cyclists see bike lanes as confusing to motorists and promoting a false view that the facility makes up for the lack of additional training on traffic riding among inexperienced cyclists. In addition, some bike lane designs are better than others, and all bike lanes create additional maintenance tasks for the city. These advocates therefore favor a more education-based approach and tend to oppose bike lanes in general as unneccesary and creating a segregated mindset which really does nothing for bike safety. They feel that existing non-bike specific traffic laws and facilities are sufficient for *experienced* bike riders as well as cars, and to the extent that bike lanes diminish the expectation that bike riders have all the same rights and responsibilities as motorists, they are to be avoided in favor of additional driving training for cyclists.

Having all these thoughts in my mind, I admit that I am totally on the fence! Please discuss.

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What I've saved by bike commuting

Monday, May 01, 2006
I'm to be interviewed by a local business paper today about my bike commuting. (Thanks for the reference, Bike Coalition!) In preparation, I've calculated some stats about what I've saved by not driving, since I guess that's what people who are responding to high gas prices will want to know.

1Presuming my car got about 25 miles to the gallon.

2This figure is very rough, based on what I remember average gas prices being in previous years, which was mostly guessing.

It's worth noting that this figure is only on gas used for my commute, which is relatively short to begin with. However, once I got into the habit of biking everywhere I could, beyond just my commute, that savings has risen even more, and I found I no longer even needed my own personal car! So, we still have a family car, but since as of December 2005, we are no longer paying for a second registration, insurance policy, and maintenance costs (not shown here)!

3One gallon of gasoline releases about 20 pounds of CO2 into the air, derivation here. So if your car gets 20 miles to the gallon, you release a pound of CO2 per mile. (The figure above does not include CO2 emitted by my breath during the commute, which is less than 1/10 of a pound. Most people exhale just over 2 pounds per day.)

Here are some other related sites I'm associated with locally:

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Winter Weather at Last!

Monday, February 27, 2006
Temps this morning were between 3o and 10oF, depending on whose thermometer you looked at, with wind chills about 10o below that.

Yes, I rode my bike to work. I was in fact a little sweaty when I arrived.

My normal cool weather wear is normal work clothes (no undershirt), boots, a thin flourescent yellow cycling jacket, headband, and gloves (mittens if cold enough). What I changed this morning was:
The slight sweating means I probably could have foregone the fleece and just worn an undershirt instead. I also made a conscious decision to not go with long-johns. I never have problems with my trunk and legs being too cold (after the first few minutes, at least).

This is what they mean by "There's no bad weather, only the wrong clothing."

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Bike against terrorism!

Monday, October 17, 2005
In many respects, bicycles are the ideal mode of transportation for the age of terrorism. They of course lessen our dependence on petroleum, thus lessening the leverage that terrorists have over us when they sabotage the petroleum infrastructure. But because everyone can ride their bike wherever and whenever they want, they avoid the problem of mass transit that requires centralized routes and large numbers of people gathering together, which makes it vulnerable to terrorist attacks (as well as being less convenient). In short, bicycles combine energy independence with the security and convenience of decentralization.

(Click title to read full post...)The central fact preventing widespread use of bikes for transportation, of course, is our suburban sprawl. Those who live 20 miles from their job cannot (all) be expected to commute even part of the way on their bike every day. Non-farmers who nonetheless live in the country, miles from the nearest grocery store, will not be using bikes for grocery runs. The sprawl factor is perhaps the biggest obstacle to increased use of bikes for transportation, and is much harder to solve than simply adding more cycling infrastructure.

Obviously, neither cars nor mass transit will ever be completely replaced by bikes, even discounting the sprawl factor. There will always be people whose age or health problems will prevent their use of bikes, and there will always be jobs requiring individuals to cover large distances in relatively short periods of time. For these reasons, there certainly needs to be continued research and investment in alternative fuel sources for personal vehicles, as well as increased investment in mass transit technology and infrastructure. (Increased use of various electronic conferencing tools to replace job travel is another alternative.) But to the extent that the bicycle can be promoted, it is a much cheaper and easier alternative than any of the others, and can only improve our society's ability to provide for the transportation needs of its citizens while minimizing our vulnerability to terrorism or any other kind of supply disruption.

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