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Posted in Bicycling
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Link to my letter to Senator Scott Brown
My letter to a staffer of Senator Scott Brown about the mandatory sidepath provision in the Federal Tranportation Bill is online. Feel free to re-use it, or parts of it.
Posted in Bicycle facilities, Bicycling, Laws, Sidepaths
Tagged bicycle, Bicycling, bike path, law, sidepath
3 Comments
Mandatory sidepath laws, state by state
I don’t like mandatory sidepath laws for bicyclists, but I like the one in the Transportation Bill, applying to roads on Federal lands, even less.
(d) BICYCLE SAFETY.—The Secretary of the appropriate Federal land management agency shall prohibit the use of bicycles on each federally owned road that has a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or greater and an adjacent paved path for use by bicycles within 100 yards of the road unless the Secretary determines that the bicycle level of service on that roadway is rated B or higher.
I have had a look at state laws on the Internet.
I’m pleased to report that I couldn’t find the ones which Dan Gutierrez earlier listed on his map for Colorado, Hawaii, North Dakota and Louisiana. Dan has updated his page: these laws appear to have been repealed.
The national trend has been for repeal of these laws. While the states have been repealing them, the Federal Transportation Bill, as of March, 2012, includes a provision which is more draconian than any of the remaining state laws, in that it would ban bicycles on a road even if the path is unusable. It might be called the “you can’t get there from here” law, to quote a New England expression. See my previous post for the details.
States with mandatory sidepath laws are shown in red in Dan Gutierrez’s map
Mandatory sidepath laws, as far as I can determine, now are on the books in only 7 states: Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and West Virginia. All except for Oregon require the path to be usable; the Oregon law has been explained to me as not actually having any effect, because government agencies will not take on the legal burden of having to defend paths as being safe.
Some of the laws have additional limitations on where path use can be made mandatory. See comments below. The boldface is mine.
Alabama:
Section 32-5A-263
Riding on roadways and bicycle paths.(c) Wherever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a roadway, bicycle riders shall use such path and shall not use the roadway.
Georgia
Note discretionary application, and design standard and destination accessibility requirement for the paths.
O.C.G.A. 40-6-294 (2010)
40-6-294. Riding on roadways and bicycle paths
(c) Whenever a usable path has been provided adjacent to a roadway and designated for the exclusive use of bicycle riders, then the appropriate governing authority may require that bicycle riders use such path and not use those sections of the roadway so specified by such local governing authority. The governing authority may be petitioned to remove restrictions upon demonstration that the path has become inadequate due to capacity, maintenance, or other causes.
(d) Paths subject to the provisions of subsection (c) of this Code section shall at a minimum be required to meet accepted guidelines, recommendations, and criteria with respect to planning, design, operation, and maintenance as set forth by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and such paths shall provide accessibility to destinations equivalent to the use of the roadway.
Kansas
8-1590.
(d) Wherever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a roadway, bicycle riders shall use such path and shall not use the roadway.
Nebraska
60-6,317. Bicycles on roadways and bicycle paths; general rules; regulation by local authority.
(3) Except as provided in section 60-6,142, whenever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a highway, a person operating a bicycle shall use such path and shall not use such highway.
Oregon
My understanding, based on a discussion with former Oregon state bicycle coordinator Michael Ronkin, is that this law is never enforced, because state and local authorities will not risk ruling that a path is suitable.
814.420: Failure to use bicycle lane or path; exceptions; penalty.
(1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a person commits the offense of failure to use a bicycle lane or path if the person operates a bicycle on any portion of a roadway that is not a bicycle lane or bicycle path when a bicycle lane or bicycle path is adjacent to or near the roadway.
(2) A person is not required to comply with this section unless the state or local authority with jurisdiction over the roadway finds, after public hearing, that the bicycle lane or bicycle path is suitable for safe bicycle use at reasonable rates of speed.
(3)A person is not in violation of the offense under this section if the person is able to safely move out of the bicycle lane or path for the purpose of:
(a) Overtaking and passing another bicycle, a vehicle or a pedestrian that is in the bicycle lane or path and passage cannot safely be made in the lane or path.
(b) Preparing to execute a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(c) Avoiding debris or other hazardous conditions.
(d) Preparing to execute a right turn where a right turn is authorized.
(e) Continuing straight at an intersection where the bicycle lane or path is to the right of a lane from which a motor vehicle must turn right.
(4) The offense described in this section, failure to use a bicycle lane or path, is a Class D traffic violation. [1983 c.338 §700; 1985 c.16 §338; 2005 c.316 §3]
Utah
Note that this applies only where signs have been posted directing bicyclists to use a path.
41-6a-1105. Operation of bicycle or moped on and use of roadway — Duties, prohibitions.
(4) If a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a roadway, a bicycle rider may be directed by a traffic-control device to use the path and not the roadway.
West Virginia
§17C-11-5. Riding on roadways and bicycle paths.
(c) Whenever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a roadway, bicycle riders shall use such path and shall not use the roadway.
Transportation Bill slams road rights on Federal lands.
In the transportation bill recently passed by the US Senate, the following language remains, as reported on the League of American Bicyclists blog
(d) BICYCLE SAFETY.—The Secretary of the appropriate Federal land management agency shall prohibit the use of bicycles on each federally owned road that has a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or greater and an adjacent paved path for use by bicycles within 100 yards of the road unless the Secretary determines that the bicycle level of service on that roadway is rated B or higher.
The League describes this as a compromise. It is a compromise with the National Park Service but more than that, it compromises cyclists’ right to travel — and our safety.
Safety depends to a very large degree on the characteristics of individual cyclists, who should be allowed to make up their own minds, or decide for their children, where to ride. A strong, fast adult cyclist is a very poor fit on a crowded path. Many paths in Federal lands are unsafe for children too. Here’s an example on the Province Lands paths in the Cape Cod National Seashore. The roads in this area now carry “share the roads” signs. The proposed legislation would require replacing them with signs prohibiting bicycling.
Descent and sand on the Province Lands path in the Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts.
The photo gives you a taste of what the Province Lands paths are like. Family cyclists enter the trail innocently enough from a parking lot, and soon they are confronted with the scene in the photo. In a 1987 study, the National Park Service counted 106 bicycle crashes on the trails in the National Seashore, 11 in the parking lots and 4 on roads. Some of those roads, by the way, are part of a very popular bicycle touring route. It isn’t as if nobody rides bicycles on them. I have a Web page giving more details.
I have prepared a video about these paths, so you can see for yourselves.
The wording also pays no attention whatever to cyclists’ travel needs, saying only that a path need only be within 100 yards of the road, and nothing about whether the path is much longer, or hillier, or serves the same destinations.
The wording isn’t really about safety. It is, as usual, about getting bicyclists off the road for the convenience of motorists. The wording is particularly blundering and insensitive, even for a mandatory sidepath law.
Cycling advocates have succeeded in having mandatory sidepath laws repealed, state by state, over the past few decades, generally after pointing out that prohibitions denied access and required riding on poorly maintained, unsafe paths. The laws that were repealed did generally include a requirement that a path at least be usable — in a sense, a level of service requirement for the path. A path might be slow, crowded with pedestrians, unsafe, hilly, much longer than the road, or deny access to some destinations, but at least it had to be usable. The Transportation Bill includes no such wording. A path could, for example, be heaped with the past winter’s snow and sand from the adjacent road, or awash with mud, or have a fallen tree across it, but the prohibition on cycling on the nearby road would still hold.
Here’s an example of an access issue. The Google map below shows Doane Road and the Nauset bicycle path in Eastham, Massachusetts. The path is the narrow, curvy line near the bottom of the image. There are a number of private residences and points of interest off Doane Road which would be totally denied access by bicycle, under the proposed legislation. Cyclists wishing to get to Nauset Road would have to take a long way around on the path, Tomahawk Trail and Macpherson Way. Or could they get there at all? Depends on the interpretation of the wording “adjacent” and “within 100 yards.”
Would Doane Road meet the requirement for a Bicycle Level of Service B? That gets us into the issue of the Bicycle Level of Service, and of what a level of service is. There is no reference in the wording as to how Level of Service is to be measured, other than that the Secretary gets to make the call. The so-called Bicycle Level of Service which is probably intended, though not spelled out in the bill, is really only a comfort index, based on research which has been heavily criticized: video was shot with a stationary camera at the side of the road, then reviewed and rated on a TV screen. The comfort rating didn’t, then, account for either the presence or the speed of a cyclist. You may read about it here. The research also pays no attention to crossing and turning conflicts, or to travel time.
At present, Doane Road has a 30 mile per hour speed limit and share-the-road signs, as in the photo below taken on August 1, 2011.
Doane Road, Eastham, Massachusetts, August 1, 2011
To get a level of service B, you need to have bike lanes or shoulders on a road. So Doane Road is out unless the Secretary overrules the Bicycle Level of Service rating.
The bicycle ban in the Transportation Bill also directly contradicts Massachusetts state law.
Section 11B. Every person operating a bicycle upon a way, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth except limited access or express state highways where signs specifically prohibiting bicycles have been posted, and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth and the special regulations contained in this section…
A similar problem exists in other states too. I leave it to lawyers to figure out which law rules.
Another cyclist comments on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi:
A place where I know this will affect riders is the Natchez Trace Parkway. There is a MUP [Multi-Use Path; the technical term is actually “shared-use path”] roughly paralleling about 10 miles of the Trace near Jackson, MS. At some points it is ‘adjacent’, but it is mostly in the woods 100 yds. away. There are 3 or 4 points where the trail can be accessed from the road. While the trail is in good condition, pedestrian users, grade, and winding nature make it unsuitable for fast riding.
The most ridiculous thing is that the Trace (which could not have a BLOS of B) is open for cycling along its entire 400+ miles. If this change goes into effect, cycling would only be prohibited on this section. I know it would be enforced. When I was being ticketed for riding abreast (and too far from the edge), the ranger suggested that if I didn’t feel safe riding near the edge of the roadway, I could
ride on the MUP.
This provision of law can’t stand. If it does pass, legislators who supported it don’t deserve cyclists’ votes, or those of anyone who has an understanding of the right of access.
Next week is the League’s annual Congressional lobbying event, the National Bicycle Summit. I hope that attendees give their members of Congress an earful about this.
You may read my earlier posts about the bike ban here and here.
Update: my next post on this blog“Mandatory sidepath laws, state by state”, gives the wording of the laws in the 7 states which still have them. All but one require the path to be usable, and that one is toothless.
Posted in Bicycling
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Bikes, Cars, Light Rail, E. Jefferson St., Phoenix, Arizona
Build it and they will…wait. Well, at least they’re supposed to wait.
If you click on the title in the image or caption, you can view this at a higher resolution.
Bikes, Cars, Light Rail, E. Jefferson St., Phoenix, Arizona from John Allen on Vimeo.
An intersection with light rail, motor vehicles and bike lanes requires bicyclists to cross from one side to the other of a multi-lane street, resulting in delays of 2 to 3 minutes. Alternative solutions are described.
For the best view of the vieo. open it in Vimeo.
“Shared space” — longer video and discussion
This post is a companion to my earlier one titled “No Rules.” The video here shows my entire ride on Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a forward and rearward view, while the one in “No Rules” shows only highlights in a forward view. I discuss the “shared space” phenomenon at length in this post.
Commercial Street is one lane wide and officially one-way, but it is heavily used by pedestrians and bicyclists traveling in both directions, to the extent that motorists can only travel at a very low speed and often must stop. Bicyclists also must take special care, ride slowly and often stop. Some do and others do not. Pedestrians need to be alert to the hazards. Some are and others are not.
“Shared space” has become a buzzword among people who want to “return the street to the people,” meaning, in reality, make the street into a pedestrian plaza — a social space. Pedestrians, then, serve as obstacles to slow down faster modes. “Shared space” advocates regard this as a benefit, and point to a reduction in the rate of serious crashes. This reduction, however, results from the very low speeds at which travel is possible in such an environment. Even so, there are safety problems. Even cycling at a moderate speed is hazardous to pedestrians — and equally, to cyclists who collide with pedestrians. As the video shows, I had to ride slowly and cautiously to avoid colliding with several pedestrians who made sudden, unpredictable moves.
Another buzzword is “no rules”. Sure, pedestrians can bump into each other without usually causing injury. “Shared-space” advocates, however, often consider cyclists to be like pedestrians — a serious misconception. Cyclists traveling at their normal speed can socialize only with each other, and are antisocial, not social, in a pedestrian plaza. Safe sharing of “Shared space” requires cyclists to travel so slowly that there is little advantage over walking. Cyclists and motorists in “shared space” must pay strict attention to the basic speed rule, to go no faster than is safe under the conditions at the time and place. Violate this, knock a pedestrian down, and then hope that you have good insurance. Other rules apply, as well, in many “shared space” installations: yielding before entering the roadway; overtaking on the left; exclusions or limited hours for motor traffic.
The one rule that most cyclists disregard on Commercial Street is established by one-way signs. Provincetown has a special exception, a home rule petition, allowing bicyclists to travel opposite the one-way signs. There is no comparable street which allows travel in the opposite direction. Bradford Street, one block farther from the harbor, is hilly and carries regular motor traffic. Commercial Street is the location of businesses which appeal to tourists who pile off the ferries from Boston, while Bradford Street has few such businesses.
What would improve the situation here? The first thing I would suggest is to block off the west (up-Cape) end of Commercial street where it separates from Bradford Street so motor vehicles can’t enter, and to install signs directing them to use Bradford Street. I think that many of the motorists who enter Commercial street are tourists who don’t know what they are getting into. If they used Bradford Street instead, they would get where they are going sooner, and would need to travel at most one or two blocks on Commercial street to reach any destination. It might also be helpful to paint a dashed line down the middle of Commercial street to encourage keeping to the right. Moving parking off Commercial street also could help, especially in the few blocks near the center of Provincetown where traffic is heaviest. That could at the very least allow more room for pedestrians without their getting into conflict with cyclists and motorists. There is an abandoned rail line — partly on a lightly-used dead-end street, and paralleling much of Bradford Street and Commercial Street. It could carry the bicycle traffic heading in and out of town.
Beyond that, I don’t see much that can be done. Commercial Street is what it is, a quaint, narrow street like those in many European cities. Short of a horrible disaster — a huge storm or tsunami which would destroy the entire waterfront — Commercial Street isn’t going to get any wider.
Posted in Bicycling
Tagged Bicycling, Commercial Street, Massachusetts, Provincetown, safety, shared space, traffic, traffic calming, video, woonerf
6 Comments
No rules?
Quite by chance, I encountered an advocate of “shared space” and had a conversation with him at the start of a ride I undertook to illustrate the concept. The advocate expressed that there are “no rules” in this kind of space, which is dominated by pedestrians. Do you agree?
Posted in Bicycle facilities, Bicycling, shared space
Tagged Bicycling, Commercial Street, Massachusetts, Mike Lasché, Provincetown, safety, shared space, traffic, traffic calming, video, woonerf
9 Comments
Ian Cooper comments on the C&O Towpath
Cyclist Ian Cooper offers a report on the C&O canal towpath, which I have mentioned in a previous post. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas deserves a lot of credit for preserving the canal as a park, but as Ian reports, it does not make the grade as a bicycle facility.
Ian Cooper with Trail-a-Bike rig on the C&O towpath trail
Aside from the issues of safety and of priorities which Ian raises, do the parts of the path which are “paved” with pebbles the size of golf balls meet the National Park Service’s criteria to prohibit cyclists from parallel roads, introduced into the current transportation bill in Congress?
An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper seconds some of Ian’s comments, while indicating that improvements are in the works. The effectiveness of the improvements is certainly open to question: more gravel will not eliminate dropoffs or necessarily provide a good or durable riding surface. The article includes the photo below.
Rough conditions on the C&O towpath trail, Paul Christensen photo for the Tribune-Review
An online article by a bicycle tourist also reports some difficult conditions on the trail.
Ian says about that article:
The first image on the left of the page shows a little of how muddy it can get, though it can be worse than this when the path gets very narrow and bumpy. This is a different area of the trail (farther north than my ride), and again this is very wide and non-grassy in comparison with some of the trail south of Harper’s Ferry and Point of Rocks, MD. The author tells how safety is a real issue on the trail due to the bad condition of the surface.
In both the above images, the wide trail allows you to choose a path through the mud. This isn’t always the case in the part my daughter and I cycled. Sometimes you just have to stop and walk. Sometimes you get no warning, hit a pothole or a mud patch and have to rely on skill to maintain control.
Here are Ian’s comments on his own ride:
I know the C&O well. Here on the Maryland side it’s not paved, and I think anyone doing more than 10 mph on it would be taking a grave risk. I cycled with my daughter from DC to Harper’s Ferry June 2nd – 3rd, 2011 with my daughter on a Trail-a-Bike behind me. I will never use it again, as the National Park Service has stated that it must remain unpaved, as it is to retain its historical attributes as a canal towpath. The only reason I didn’t give up on using it during that trip is that I have a lot of experience cycling in winter conditions, so I had confidence that I could counter-steer and retain balance during times when the bike lost traction in the mud. Also, we were heading north, so we were cycling on the canal side of the trail, where the drop-off was only 10ft. I dread to think what might happen if a less confident or less skilled cyclist lost control going southward and fell into the river.
We averaged 5mph. On regular roads, I would have done the trip in less than half the time (in part because the road goes pretty much straight there, while the ‘so-called’ multi-use trail takes a dog-leg approach alongside the river). Also, this trail is overgrown with weeds, is ‘paved’ with loose pebbles the size of golf balls, and is 4 ft wide in places with mud patches and 10+ft drops on each side. In my view it is the worst bike trail I’ve ever seen and is literally a death trap for cyclists (which is presumably why bike trail advocates avoid referring to it as a bike trail). Sadly, most so-called bike infrastructure is poorly designed, poorly implemented and lacking in funding for maintenance. I have yet to see a bike trail or bike path that is well designed, well implemented and well maintained. Until I do see such a thing, I am 100% against such follies.
The photo below was taken around 12 noon on June 3 somewhere near White’s Ferry and is the only image I have showing the actual trail. It shows what should be considered a ‘good’ part of the trail in this area – this part is wide, relatively flat and has only a gentle slope away to the canal on one side. As you can see, even though there’s perhaps 8ft of trail, most of it is grassed over and there’s only two thin tracks of usable surface. Sometimes the trail gets so treacherous that the wet and slippery grass in the middle becomes the safest place to ride.
A better section of the C&O towpath trail
The C&O has few road crossings, it’s true. But if you use it in May or June, before the flood season is completely over (and presumably before any yearly maintenance is carried out before the summer season), you see it at its worst, when it is difficult just to maintain control of the bike. At some points, especially the stretch between Seneca and Point of Rocks, MD, it is quite literally frightening. In many places the trail is very narrow, it has a steep ten foot drop on one side to the old canal, and a steep twenty foot or more drop on the other side to the river (sometimes both at the same time). In May and June, the trail is so overgrown that stinging nettle bushes often thrust out into the trail. The trail is filled with pebbles and rocks, and overgrown grass and stinging nettles sometimes make all but a section between 6 and 12 inches wide unusable. This thin section can be muddy, it can change from dry to wet very quickly, it can be deeply rutted from use by previous cyclists, and other parts can be washed out so badly that cyclists can experience sudden potholes. It is extremely treacherous.
In my view, this stretch of the C&O Canal towpath should be closed as a multi-use path as its lack of adequate maintenance means that it is only a matter of time before a cyclist or a runner gets killed on it.
How many people would go to the trouble?
Christmas Eve, and the temperature outside is 17 degrees Fahrenheit.That’s 7 degrees below zero Celsius.
I am wearing trousers over sweatpants, a flannel shirt over a T-shirt, and a watch cap. That way, I am comfortable with the thermostat in our house set below 60. Church, with Christmas Eve service, is 1 1/2 miles away. There is a good, reliable car in the driveway.
I put on a fleece jacket, and over that a parka; my cycling shoes, which I bought a half-size large so they would fit over two layers of wool socks; I tuck the cuffs of my trousers into the socks; I don my bicycle helmet. reflectorized legbands and vest, lastly fleece-lined leather mittens.
I disconnect the battery for my bicycle lights from its charger and carry it out to the garage. I slip it into a pocket of the touring bag on my Raleigh Twenty bicycle, and plug it in.
The streets are almost empty. I am comfortable and warm except for the parts of my face that are not covered by my beard or eyeglasses. The exercise feels great. In 12 minutes, I am at church. I park my bicycle against a railing right in front of the door.
It took me about ten minutes to get ready for this ride. I could have gotten into the car and been at church just as soon, even counting the extra walk from where I would have had to park.
Nobody but me, of the 60 or so people at the service, arrived at the church on a bicycle. How many people would go to the trouble to take a short trip like this on a bicycle in the cold and the dark? Well, there’s your answer, for now.
As for me, why did I? Certainly not to save time. I do reflect on the irony of a worship service which makes such a contribution to use of non-renewable resources and environmental degradation, but as one among 60, I’m not doing much to turn the tide on that. I did win on comfort — I was warm from the indoor heat when leaving my home, then from exercise inside all those layers of clothing. If I’d dressed for the cold in the car, than I’d have been sweaty once the car warmed up. Mostly, though, I rode my bicycle because outdoor exercise is the only way I know to beat the winter blues.
Cold weather is not conducive to long bicycle tours, because feet might get cold, because there’s no way just to sit down and rest comfortably on a park bench or a stump by the side of the road; because most social activity happens indoors.
On the other hand, winter cold poses little problem for short cycling trips. Summer heat and humidity are much worse — ever notice how in hot countries, people switch from bicycles to motor scooters as soon as rising income makes that possible? In cold weather, though, motor scooters really lose out.
A hot climate is a serious impediment to transportation bicycling; cold weather needn’t be, as long as the streets are clear. In winter, there’s no sweat, and no need to freshen up or change clothes on reaching one’s destination — only strip off the extra layers.
Getting ready does take extra time, though, and for shorter trips this can be a concern. Ice and snow in the streets also certainly can be a problem, though there were none on that Christmas Eve. I do have studded snow tires for one of my bicycles, though I haven’t taken the trouble yet to install them. The streets get cleared soon enough here that there are only a few days each winter when I would need them.
For me, the feeling of physical well-being justifies the extra time getting ready. Yet, often I pass people at bus stops who spend more time waiting than I did getting ready for my ride, and who are stomping their feet to stoke up the warmth that I get automatically from cycling.
When I get where I am going, some people marvel at how I could brave the cold, to which I reply: people go to Vermont to ski down mountains. I’m getting as much exercise as they do, with much less wind chill!
I enjoy riding in winter, and maybe I can encourage you to give it a try if you don’t do it already. But I don’t expect to attract a massive following. Come to think of it I have read that Boston’s Hubway community bicycle program has shut down for the winter — which makes sense, I suppose, as a business decision.
Transporting children is essential
A colleague has pointed out the advice on transporting children on the Web site of the International Bicycle Fund, describing this advice as “fairly good.” Well, sort of.
I regard this advice as unimaginative and incomplete. It repeats the old saw that the child needs to be able to hold up his or her head to be carried on a bicycle– advice from manufacturers of child carrier seats, which do not support the head! This requirement has even been written into law in some states, prohibiting carrying a child under one year of age on a bicycle. Meanwhile children ride everywhere in cars in child carrier seats which recline, and which even allow a child to sleep.
The Web page also suggests asking a medical doctor whether the child is ready. The doctor is very likely going to be hyper-cautious, at least here in the USA, with the threat of a malpractice claim buzzing around in his/her head — “oh, you would take your kid on a bicycle — that’s so dangerous.”
The Web page does describe the instability of a bicycle with a child in a seat at the rear, but underrates that problem. A heavy load high up on the rear of a bicycle makes it hard to hold upright by the handlebar — it will tend to pivot around a diagonal line extending from the handlebar to the rear tire contact patch, since most of the weight is far above that line. I’ve had this happen, but fortunately only on a bicycle laden with touring gear or groceries.
The page describes a bicycle trailer as jostling a child more than a car, with a risk that the trailer will roll over. As my friend Sheldon Brown once pointed out, air pressure in trailer tires is usually set way too high, at the rating molded into the tire sidewall. Pressure should be proportional to load — 10 or 15 pounds is plenty when the a trailer is transporting a small child.
Now, someone might also design a child-carrier trailer with suspension. Maybe someone already has done that. I’d also like to see a completely enclosed papoose-type carrier which could sustain a fall to the the road surface and skid along it without risk of injury to an infant. The trailer, the papoose, the cargo bicycle and tricycle which are becoming increasingly popular in Europe to carry children and which aren’t even mentioned in the article — none of these require the child to hold up his or her head. Infants and toddlers can fall asleep at the most inconvenient times, too. A head support makes it possible to continue to ride.
Being able to transport an infant on a bicycle is essential if the bicycle is to be regarded as a serious mode of transportation. I put that opinion into action, back when my son was little. I towed him wearing a Li’l Bell Shell helmet, in a car child seat strapped into a bicycle trailer, before he was 6 months old, and the worst problem we had was that he would fall asleep only to wake up just as we got home. I started to build a cargo bike too, but it proved an unwieldy project, and before I could finish it, my son was tandeming with me. That’s another story, and a happy one too.
Posted in Bicycling
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