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In today’s lead story, a common sense-challenged motorist is in deep doo doo with British authorities after she tweeted about hitting a cyclist.

And claimed it was her right, since the bike rider doesn’t pay the country’s road tax. Which was actually eliminated roughly 80 years earlier.

“Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier. I have right of way – he doesn’t even pay road tax!,” “#Bloodycyclists.”

And yes, hit-and-run is a crime in the UK, just like it is here. Especially if you confess to it online.

Thanks to everyone who forwarded this one to me.

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The LAPD promises to step up their mostly non-existent patrols along the L.A. River bike path after a Glendale man is violently attacked in an apparent gang assault in order to steal his bike.

I’ve long argued that L.A.’s separated bike paths, most of which are hidden from public view along river banks, should be regularly patrolled by uniformed bike cops to deter crime.

Not that anyone has listened, of course.

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Rails to Trails says cyclists are about to get Jerry Browned once again, as our anti-bike governor threatens to cut funding for the state’s Recreational Trails Program; thanks to Allan Alessio for the forward.

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In an absolutely disgusting column, a Denver writer apparently assumes she is the only bicyclist who observes traffic regulations.

And blames riders like you and me for making motorists mad enough to kill — even though the case that inspired her hateful diatribe involved a cyclist killed by drunken, wrong way, though admittedly bike-hating, driver.

Using the same irrational logic she employs, domestic violence victims should also be blamed for inciting violence by angering their attackers. And while we all agree sexual assault is wrong, it must be the victims’ fault for wearing their skirts too short or jeans too tight, right?

I though we’d outgrown that kind of offensively misguided thinking decades ago.

Except, evidently, when it involves people on bikes.

If a driver attacks another human being using a motor vehicle as a weapon, it’s because there’s a dangerous psychopath behind the wheel.

Not because a bicyclist — or every damn bicyclist on the road — run stop signs.

………

A more rational writer responds to the same case by suggesting that when motorists start to obey all traffic laws and regulations, then — and only then — can they start getting pissed at cyclists.

As I recall, someone once said something similar about those without sin casting the first stone.

Naw, that’s just crazy talk.

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Rising BMC rider Tejay Van Garderen wins the Amgen Tour of California; turns out he’s from my hometown, though he went to the wrong one of the other high schools. And three-time ToC winner Levi Leipheimer hangs it up after his recent doping ban.

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The Buffalo News reports that a bike riding upstate New York boy thanked the paramedics who saved him after one of the most gruesome freak injuries I’ve heard or read about.

Caide recalled the accident – in detail.

“My friend bumped into the back of my bike tire, and I fell,” Caide said. “He flipped over me, and that’s when the right brake handle went into the right side of my stomach, and then my intestines came out.”

Something tells me I’m going to remember those last six words for a very long time.

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Join Figueroa for All in fighting for bike lanes in Northeast L.A. Los Angeles gets its first commuter bike trains, which may not be what you think. Bikeside comes back to life to predict the winner of Tuesday’s election; oddly, I made pretty much the same prediction on my own. UCLA hosts its first bike-powered concert this Friday. A San Pedro driver complains about taking 45 minutes to drive his kids half a mile to school, as drivers and bike riders counter-protest a recent road diet; hint to driver — your kids could walk that in 15 minutes, tops.

Beware the handlebar-basketed beach cruiser-riding bike path stalker in Rancho Santa Margarita. Temecula is now officially bike friendly. San Diego cyclists may get concrete barriers along a freeway where a car left the road and killed a bicyclist on a separated bike path. Guess Hollywood won’t be filming there either, as San Diego’s Nimitz Blvd goes green thanks to newly painted bike lanes. Our neighbor to the south will honor 95-year old cycling legend Gordy Shields. A bike riding San Jose teenager is killed on his way to school, the ninth cyclist or pedestrian killed in the city this year; thanks to Rebecca Wong for the heads-up. Remarkably, a six-year old Rohnert Park bike rider survives being run over by a multi-ton garbage truck; police may blame the victim, but there’s something seriously wrong when a driver can’t even see what’s directly in front of his truck.

Outside offers bike commuting essentials; if you ask me, the only real essentials are shorts or pants, without which you’re liable to get arrested. Seven reasons conservatives should embrace bikes — if you can find an actual conservative these days, that is. Maybe what you really need is a self-monitoring helmet complete with accelerometer and wireless communications capabilities; or you could just, you know, ride a bike. A new study suggests you’re not as visible at night as you think you are. Who could have predicted that a New Mexico woman who got a slap on the wrist for killing a cyclist in 2010 would be arrested for DUI and careless driving just three years later? A visiting MIT scientist from Japan is killed riding her bike in Boston. A passing New Jersey bike rider saves a family from their flaming home. New York’s bike share program is based on ideas from around the world; predictions of carnage when it opens next week are just a distraction. A New York writer astutely notes that bikes that heavy and slow aren’t likely to terrorize anyone. Georgia looks to lower their rate of bike deaths, something that should be top of the agenda everywhere.

A Toronto man is killed trying to perform stunts on a bike share bike. So much for cycling being clean these days, as French rider Sylvain Georges is the latest to be busted for doping.

Finally, boldly go where most of us have enough sense not to go; no, seriously, I’m sure you wouldn’t look like a total geek in your new Star Trek cycling jersey. And it’s not quite warp drive, but a French cyclist set a new record of 163 mph on a rocket powered mountain bike, just slightly faster than my best speed, albeit without the rocket power; thanks to Michael Eisenberg for the link.

The infrastructure in the US is falling apart, and there is no money to build high-speed rail. By comparison, the airlines have more money than they know what to do with. Case in point: SFO, which will spend another $4 billion on renovations.

San Francisco International Airport’s leaders announced Monday they plan to borrow more than $4 billion to pay for a 10-year building and renovation plan that includes a proposed 400-room hotel. Airport Director John Martin said the idea is to create a “world-class” experience in two domestic terminals as well as carry out “improvements” on the just over 10-year-old international terminal. He estimated the cost at $4.1 billion.

The spending is intended to bring the rest of the airport in line with the $383 million makeover of Terminal 2 which opened in April 2011. That terminal features California-living touches such as a yoga room, a wine bar and a restaurant that uses only local, organic ingredients.

One reason why SFO has $4 billion available to “loan” is because airline passengers only pay a portion of the cost for maintaining the aviation system. 70% of the FAA budget comes from ticket fees. And the TSA’s $7.6 billion budget for airport security gets just $2.5 billion from user fees. The FAA also received special exemption from mandatory sequestration cuts. It really says a lot about this country’s spending priorities when health and education programs get cut, but airport travelers have yoga rooms.

 

Bus stop signage is an important part of the transit landscape. It can offer a window into the often-opaque routes and numbers that can mislead or confuse inexperienced riders. To help make Marin Transit stops more accessible to the casual rider, MT has proposed a new set of signs for its shuttle stops, and the results are decent.

What’s proposed

At the moment, the bus stop signage is limited to route numbers and some branding. There’s a little bit of extra information, but for the most part it’s assumed riders will use the map that’s often on the flag to determine where buses go.

The proposed signage adds data and makes the route numbers more clear. Below the route is the destination, and below that are the service days. Though not frequency data – a valuable part of any bus map – it does allow a traveler to at least know that they shouldn’t bother waiting for a route if it doesn’t run that day.

Most importantly, the sign adds the stop ID and how to get real-time arrival information. Though GGT isn’t there yet, MT already has real-time arrival data for the bus fleet it operates.

These are all excellent ideas, but there are problems when incorporating GGT’s regional routes in the signage.

GGT’s regional routes, however, do not get destination or service information. On the sample image, routes 40 and 42 are just big numbers without any indication that they’re bound for BART. As well, the route number’s box isn’t colored blue, the color of Basic routes maps, which is out-of-step with coloration for the MT shuttles and GGT-operated local routes. While possibly a conscious decision, it is nevertheless the wrong one.

What have other bus systems done to aid riders with signage?

Practices elsewhere

Seattle’s bus system underwent a similar redesign for its stop signage, and the result was similar, though there are differences. (See Seattle’s design manual here.)

Most significantly, the Seattle stop signs use tiles, which allows the system to easily take out or edit route information as needed. If a bus used to be routed to the airport and isn’t, Metro can just remove that tile from the route’s signs rather than order entirely new signs. And, at the stops the route no longer serves, Metro can just remove the line’s number. While more expensive than a typical sign, the tiles would save money over the long-term if service changes effect a large number of the metal signs.

Something else of note is the use of icons to show what services this particular route intersects. Marin’s transit system includes ferries and airport shuttles and will soon include a train. Designating transfers to alternative modes may be of use. Designating routes that intersect the 101 trunk lines may also be useful, though that would involve a unified brand for such service. A black highway shield may do the trick.

London’s bus stops use a similar design, but its bus stations do something a bit more horizontal, with more potential points of interest. If applied to Marin, Route 49 might list Civic Center, Lucas Valley, Hamilton, and Novato instead of just Novato. (You can find their design manual here.)

How’s the sign?

My principal concern with the MT signage as proposed is that it does not visually integrate with either the GGT system or the MTC regional hub signage standards. This is problematic, as a unified brand for the transit system is important to rider literacy, especially for the casual rider. It makes little sense for them to proceed, as they did yesterday, without first developing a unified standard.

Given the prominence of the San Rafael Transit Center to the transit system, it would make sense to take inspiration from the signage there, which will meet MTC standards, rather than to invent a new visual language from scratch.

From a physical design perspective, it may make sense to design these signs to be modular. That would decrease the cost of route changes, as new signs wouldn’t need to be stamped along with new route books.

Nevertheless, the new sign is still a step forward from what exists today. But it would be nice if MT would start thinking a bit more regionally.

If you want to offer input into the newly-approved signs, you can take the survey here.

Last week I was walking down Woodhaven Boulevard along Saint John's Cemetery, and I came across a food truck selling Italian sausage heros.


Google Maps tells me that this is on the edge of Middle Village, but it's kind of Forest Hills and kind of Rego Park and maybe a little Glendale. In any case, there were a lot of guys (yes, all guys, mostly working class guys like plumbers) getting heros. I got one. It was good.

It's only now that I discover that D'Angelo's Sausage and Pepper Truck is actually pretty famous, serving those heros from the same spot for forty-three years. Victor Mimoni called it "The Peter Luger's of Sausage Wagons." I saw a hot dog truck a block north, and it's owned by the same family. D'Angelo's sausage was named one of the Best of New York by the Daily News in December.

The odd thing about it was that there was nowhere for me to eat my hero. It would have been really messy to eat standing up, but there were no benches. There was a bus stop a couple of blocks away, but it was only local buses, and nobody had used it. The trucks weren't all that close to the cemetery gates, and none of the guys went inside. Instead they walked to their cars and sat inside and ate. I was the only one who had arrived on foot.

I didn't have a car to sit in, so I kept walking. Eventually I came to a little triangle park and ate there, but I've been thinking about this place ever since. There is always a space for the D'Angelos to park their trucks. As you can see in the picture, there is no standing allowed overnight. I'm so used to people complaining about not being able to park that at first I was surprised to see so many spaces empty. Then I realized that these spaces are a long walk from anywhere.

This side of Saint John's cemetery is a half mile long. Woodhaven Boulevard is ten lanes wide here, and there is only one crosswalk in the whole stretch. There's really nothing much interesting on the east side of the boulevard in this section either: a bunch of gas stations and car washes, and single-family houses behind them. In other words, only a handful of people live or work within walking distance. Hence, nobody cares if the parking spaces sit empty all night, and all of D'Angelo's customers drive.

It all adds up to a strange little island off the coast of the cemetery, a place that nobody walks to. People drive there, walk to the sausage truck, eat in their cars and drive away.

The new iPad, and a bunch of money, from appadvice.com

By now everyone's heard of Apple's incredible network of tax shelters, which just in the last several years has saved them tens of billions of dollars in corporate taxes. Pretty much everyone except Rand Paul finds this reprehensible, but while Apple may be the best in the game when it comes to tax avoidance, they're far from the only player. Other big companies like Amazon and Microsoft do the same thing, keeping profits overseas so that they don't have to pay US taxes on them.

In many cases those companies would really like to bring that money back stateside, either to invest in their business here or (more commonly) to pay out dividends or buy back stock from investors. To do that, however, they'd have to pay 35% of those repatriated profits as tax. And no one wants to do that unless they have to.

Fortunately for these mega-corporations, they often don't have to. In 2004, under the Bush administration's leadership, Congress passed a law allowing a tax repatriation holiday, meaning that for a short period of time any profits brought back into the country would not be taxed. The purpose was to ensure that something productive would be done with that money--that it would be reinvested in US jobs and business needs. As the Treasury describes, however, this is not what happened:

In assessing the 2004 tax holiday, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reports that most of the largest beneficiaries of the holiday actually cut jobs in 2005-06 – despite overall economy-wide job growth in those years – and many used the repatriated funds simply to repurchase stock or pay dividends. Today, when U.S. corporations have ready access to cash they have accumulated and are holding here in the United States, it is even harder to make the case that a repatriation holiday will unlock new investment and job creation.

"Hey."

BikeSD member, Anthony Starkey, sent these photos in today of the new green bike lanes that went in to enhance the buffered bike lanes:

 

 

If you’ve had a chance to ride the new lanes, what did you think?

The Low Line — the ambitious and futuristic plan to send sunlight into an underground trolley terminal while turning the space into a park — is the project that just won’t die. For the better part of three years, we’ve heard about the efforts to convince the city to support this project at the expense of transit space. The Wall Street Journal in particular seems to be in the pocket of the Low Line’s opponents, and the paper has run yet another glowing article about the park plan with nary a nod to potential transit uses for the old Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal.

The latest piece of pro-park prose comes to us from Gabrielle Hamilton. She calls the Low Line plan a “startlingly vivid apparition of an evanescent and vanished city.” Even though it’s been six decades since the trolley terminal was still in use, turning it into a hyper-gentrified, hyper-yuppified park that is designed to be intentionally imitative of Chelsea’s High Line is somehow evocative of the grittier New York from the 1970s and 1980s. Along with this nostalgia for a much worse time in the city’s history, Hamilton writes of the Low Line as though it’s definitely happening and nothing can stop it. In her words, she writes of the impact the Low Line plans made upon a first viewing:

It was living in a walk-up, with a decades-defunct buzzer. Friends hollering up from the street and you throwing the key down in a balled-up sock. In the sweltering summers you hung out on the fire escape, took cold showers in the tub in the kitchen and reached your wet hand through the curtain to turn off the burner under your hissing stove-top pot of Café Bustelo…

It may not have been like 30 years ago, when the cool kids who would shape the future met each other Monday nights at the Pyramid Club on Avenue A or, later, sobering up with blintzes and coffee at the Kiev as dawn broke. But [Dan] Barasch, 36—the computer-game-playing ultra smartie, who’d worked at Google and also for New York City government and who can speak in easy, fluid paragraphs about “silos of knowledge” and “curating global intelligence”—had met [James] Ramsey, 35, here in New York, through a friend. Their work reflects the politics and aesthetics of their generation’s sensibility, which is all about being green, recycling, repurposing and community building through technology. But the connection to my generation—and to all New Yorkers, both permanent and transient—is that Ramsey and Barasch’s inclination toward technology, green space and community stands tall, but not so tall as to cast in shadow their dedication to art, the urban and the gritty…

Ramsey and Barasch’s vision of the Lowline has become anything but fiction. There’s been a Kickstarter campaign backed by 3,000 supporters. The $150,000 they raised online financed a full-scale model, with working remote skylights and parabolic dishes, which the duo and their dedicated team exhibited for a month…There’s been legal vetting; a budget and a business plan; and endorsements from community board #3, the City Council, the State Assembly and the New York State Senate. What they most need now—apart from the $55 million it will take to build—is for the MTA to let them have the space. It may take another 5 years, or 10, but the Lowline, with its even spread of political, financial and community support, is poised to become the New Yorkiest thing to happen to New York City since the Double-Dutch tournament at the Apollo Theatre.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard such an over-the-top adulation of the Low Line from The Journal. Earlier this year, in the Real Estate, Journal writers spoke of enhanced property values the park could bring, again ignoring any potential transit uses. The Journal has decided the Low Line shall exist, and exist it shall.

But those hurdles Hamilton mentions aren’t insignificant. She speaks of $55 million as though it’s a drop in the bucket, but it is exactly the opposite. Barasch and Ramsey won’t be able to fund that total through Kickstarter, and if we cast a glance across town, even the High Line raised only $44 million from donors for its first two sections. Will the city fork over the dough for the Low Line? Should it?

Meanwhile, getting the MTA on board won’t be easy either. There is no real reason for the agency to give up on valuable transit space. True, it has sat unused for longer than it was in use, but as Cap’n Transit explored last year, it could and should be in use again. Until we know for sure there are no transit uses for the space and until the MTA is adequately compensated for the terminal, it will remain in this limbo of past ghosts and future promises.

A few years ago, the Low Line had the ears of some higher-ups at the MTA, but those higher-ups have long since moved on and out. The Low Line gets press because it’s a unique idea, but ultimately, we don’t even know if it’s a sustainable or realistic idea. The MTA would have to go through an RFP process for the space, and build-out and maintenance costs won’t decrease. It’s not going to be five years or ten, as Hamilton imagines, and it probably shouldn’t be ever.

FHWA recently released its monthly travel-volume trend summary. The first quarter of 2013 showed aggregate national VMT down .8% and per-capita VMT down 1.5% relative to the same quarter of 2012.

The summary is just the latest evidence that Americans are driving less than they were a decade ago, and factoring in population growth, total VMT is flat or even declining. We have never seen such a serious drop, from the dawn of the auto age through the early 2000s. So are we in a period of temporary flux that will ultimately pass, or has something really changed? I happen to think the latter, though this will surely face ad challenges from the auto industry.

The signs are there that DelDOT is taking a more holistic approach to transportation planning and implementation. Much work remains, but we are slowly moving in the right direction. One thing advocates are always hoping for is that future projects for increased LOS (level of service) are revisited and carefully scrutinized. Are they really necessary, based on a projected demand that may not occur? If so, is there an opportunity to amend these plans with bicycle/pedestrian/transit facilities? Sometimes these projects are 10 or more years in the planning, and according to the latest driving trends, might be curtailed, more multi-modal, or eliminated altogether as transportation needs evolve.

A new report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Frontier Group argues that the change is a durable one.

 Excerpts from the report:

"Revisit plans for new or expanded highways. Many highway projects currently awaiting funding were initially conceived of decades ago and proposed based on traffic projections made before the recent decline in driving. Local, state and federal governments should revisit the need for these “legacy projects” and ensure that proposals for new or expanded highways are still a priority in light of recent travel trends."

"Transportation policy in the United States, however, remains stuck in the past. Official forecasts of future vehicle travel continue to assume steady increases in driving, despite the experience of the past decade. Those forecasts are used to justify spending vast sums on new and expanded highways, even as existing roads and bridges are neglected. Elements of a more balanced transportation system - from transit systems to bike lanes - lack crucial investment as powerful interests battle to maintain their piece of a shrinking transportation funding pie."

"The time has come for America to hit the “reset” button on transportation policy - replacing the policy infrastructure of the Driving Boom years with a more efficient, flexible and nimble system that is better able to meet the transportation needs of the 21st century."

"Traffic congestion has fallen. According to data from the Texas Transportation Institute, Americans spent 421 million fewer hours stuck in traffic in 2011 than they did in 2005. Further reductions in driving could lead to additional easing of congestion without massive investments in new highway capacity, as long as roads are maintained in a state of good repair."

"Support the Millennials and other Americans in their desire to drive less. Federal, state and local policies should help create the conditions under which Americans can fulfill their desire to drive less. Increasing investments in public transportation, bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure and intercity rail - especially when coupled with regulatory changes to enable the development of walkable neighborhoods - can help provide more Americans with a broader range of transportation options."  [full report in pdf]

Statistics for Delaware through 2011. VMT has begun trending up a bit since the end of the Great Recession, however, this could change drastically as gas prices remain vulnerable to supply disruptions and the decline of easy oil.

The map below shows estimated Vehicle Miles Traveled by Region, as of March 2013, in Billions. In red is the change in traffic volume as compared to same month a year ago.The South Atlantic region, including Delaware, saw a 2.1% drop in aggregate VMT.

The day of our last FABB meeting one of our members, John, was riding on Gallows Rd headed north near Annandale Rd where he was struck by a motorist's vehicle. Below is John's account of the incident, including his attempt to report it to Fairfax Co Police. Because John was not severely injured and his bike wasn't damaged, police said there was nothing they could do, even though John had a description of the vehicle and the driver.

Had John wanted to press charges he could have requested that a report be written, then traveled to the Magistrate's office to seek a summons. If the summons was issued, the motorist could receive a ticket. See our summary of this process in an earlier blog posting. In this case the motorist did not pass at least two feet to the left of the bicyclist and met at least one definition of an aggressive driver (passing when overtaking a vehicle).

John does not think the motorist intentionally struck him but from reading his account, you could draw a different conclusion. He and I agree that there should be a way for cyclists to report aggressive drivers without having to go through the gyrations of physically going to the Fairfax courthouse and filing a complaint with the magistrate's office. If we can report a litter we should be able to report an aggressive driver.

Here's John's account: