John S. Allen's Bicycle Blog

There is a long history of “Astroturf” self-promotion campaigns by industry masquerading as grassroots popular movements.

In the title of this post, I paraphrase a line you may recall. Actually, what the president of General Motors said wasn’t quite “what’s good for GM is good for the country” — that is the improved popular version — but instead, that he couldn’t conceive that he had any conflict of interest,

“because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

— said in a Congressional hearing reviewing his nomination as Secretary of Defense by President-elect Eisenhower. There was, to be sure, a question of GM’s big government contracts, but also, in the decades-long afterglow of the statement, the question of the nation’s transportation choices.

So, today, this message appears in my e-mail:

As you’re preparing for Interbike, I’m reaching out to let you know that Bikes Belong will be showcasing their unprecedented, nation-wide initiative, PeopleForBikes.org at this year’s event.

While millions of Americans ride bicycles and recognize the economic, social and physical benefits of riding, only a fraction have stood up to help improve bicycling in America. The goal of PeopleForBikes.org is to gather and unify one million voices in support to encourage government leaders to support legislation that improves bike paths, lanes, trails and other facilities from coast to coast.

Throughout the summer Bikes Belong has been working hard to build awareness for this initiative with a presence at bike festivals and events – including a partnership with New Belgium’s Tourr de Fat, social media efforts and support from more than 1,000 bicycle retailers across the country.

To date, almost 70,000 people have signed the pledge to improve the future of biking in this country for every type of rider.

If you’d like to learn more, Tim Blumenthal, president of the Bikes Belong Coalition and director of PeopleForBikes.org, will be on-hand at interbike and I’d be happy to coordinate a time for you to connect with him.

Please contact me with questions and interest.

Best,

Troy Tepley
For PeopleForBikes.org
612.305.6256
troy.tepley@exponentpr.com

Let’s be clear about this: Bikes Belong is a bicycle industry lobby. It is gathering signatures to support its agenda, which may not be your agenda. I’ve been receiving Bikes Belong e-mails for years now and mostly, they have announced seed-money grants for bicycle paths which, as hoped, will attract more people to purchase bicycles. Many of the paths have had very little relevance to transportation needs. As the e-mail says, “bike paths, lanes, trails and other facilities from coast to coast.” Education? Rights to the road? Traffic law improvements? All have been marginal to the efforts of Bikes Belong.

With its “PeopleForBikes” campaign — whose promotional materials and dot-org Web domain create the impression that its backers are ordinary people rather than corporations — Bikes Belong is now turning its sights toward urban cycling. Given Bike’s Belong’s track record of promotion of facilities over other aspects of bicycle programs, and its lack of discretion about the facilities it promotes, I am, let’s say, wary.

The PeoplefroBikes campaign has now gathered more than 3 times as many signatures as the League of American Bicyclists, the national bicycling advocacy organization, has members. Shows what a good publicity campaign with money behind it can achieve. Does not necessarily show that the people who signed on have a very clear idea of what they are signing onto.

The summer heat has abated and the weather has been nice lately.

As I returned from a bike club ride on the Labor Day Monday holiday, the Minuteman Rail Trail was in heavy use. I rode slowly and cautiously, among the lots of families including little kids on their little bikes, who would dart out in front of another cyclist without a clue.

In Lexington, after riding around a group of ten-year-old boys who had parked their bicycles on the path, I moved over to Massachusetts Avenue. Ahead of me, a man was standing over his bike with one foot on the curb and the other on the left pedal. He was adjusting his trousers — maybe a trouser leg had become caught in the chain? That his shoelaces were untied should probably have warned me to give him more than four feet of clearance. He lurched out from the curb on his bicycle, like a zombie in the movie Night of the Living Dead. I yelled, and maybe that is why he weaved back toward the curb just in time for me to avoid crashing into him.

Last Saturday, headed into downtown Waltham to the Farmer’s Market, I was crossing an intersection when a 30-ish man with Bart Simpson greasy spiked blond hair, a bright orange T shirt and paint-spattered trousers, on a bicycle, crossed some three feet in front of me. He had the stop sign. It’s good that I keep my bicycle’s brakes in top condition.

On another day, as I sat in a restaurant eating my lunch, I watched bicyclists ride every which way through a downtown intersection, on red lights and green lights, walk signals and don’t-walk signals.

Yesterday, I was running some errands that needed the car. I was waiting for a stop sign when a 12-year-old boy riding on a sidewalk zoomed out in front of me from behind a fence to my right. If I had pulled forward a second earlier, he would have launched himself over the hood of my car. There was no way either he or I would have seen the other in time to avoid the crash. Oh, yes, he was wearing a helmet. Good for him.

Am I supposed to like these people, to get that warm-hearted feeling, oh how nice it is that you ride a bike? When people like these come out of the woodwork on nice days, is that what is called safety in numbers?

Now, just to make a couple things clear: Please let’s not peg me as a bicyclist hater. I have cycled over 1800 miles so far this year myself, about half for transportation and half or recreation. On the other hand, neither am I a spandex-clad whirlwind. Yes, I wore spandex for the club ride. I wear street clothes for utility cycling. Whatever I am wearing, I am no speed demon. I’m 64 years old and my cruising speed on level streets is around 15 miles per hour when I’m feeling good.

I have had problems with a few spandex-clad whirlwinds myself, the ones who will buzz past with no verbal warning and one foot of lateral clearance on the big club rides. My theory is that they are aping racers they watch on TV in the Tour de France. Guess what? Riding in close quarters is by mutual agreement in mass-start road races. It is as inappropriate on a Sunday club ride as NASCAR tactics are when driving a car around town. This is not also to speak of the fitness-club crowd who burst out of their winter spin classes like moths from their cocoons, to ride up and down the paths, because they somehow think that it is safer than riding on the road to weave in and out at 25 miles per hour among the dog walkers and aforementioned kids on bikes.

Where’s the priority for cyclist educati

Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco was reconstructed with frontage roads in 2003, as described here. Construction of such boulevards has been very rare in the USA since the 1920s. The intent with Octavia Boulevard was to reclaim a neighborhood which had been blighted by an elevated freeway. The effort can be considered generally successful, but I have some concerns about the design, especially as it affects bicyclists.

The several blocks of Octavia Boulevard are shown in this Google Maps view. Note the shared-lane markings in the frontage roads and the lines for right turns from the inner lanes. Such right turns require a separate signal phase to avoid conflicts with through traffic in the frontage roads. A separate phase is not provided, but rather, the frontage roads have flashing red lights, as described on page 8 of a longer document describing the Octavia Boulevard project.. Quoting:

The side lanes ought to be controlled by stop signs and the central lanes by traffic signals. Concern over this unusual arrangement (which has been shown to work just fine on Chico’s Esplanade) prompted the installation of flashing red lights at the access road intersections, which drivers have difficulty interpreting.

I find that statement confusing. Maybe the flashing lights offend the author’s aesthetics? Flashing red lights convey exactly the same meaning as stop signs. They require traffic on the frontage roads to yield to cross traffic, and also to turning traffic from the center roadways, so that traffic does not back up and block through traffic. This arrangement is reasonable when the frontage roads serve only local traffic, but on Octavia Boulevard, they serve through bicycle traffic. Through-traveling bicyclists will either be delayed by motor traffic, or ignore the signals.

That the author of the report has little concern for bicyclist convenience also is indicated by the following statement (also on page 8):

Also, the surface of the local access roads was finished in asphalt, whereas it should be some material that marks them as part of a pedestrian realm, such as concrete like the sidewalks or cobbled pavers to match the medians. This was proposed during schematic design, but never made it into construction—and ought to be corrected.

This is one example among many of new-urbanist pedestrianism compromising the design of a bicycle facility. A lane used by through-traveling bicyclists and local motor-vehicle access is not pedestrian space, it is vehicular travel space. Pedestrians need to be — and are required by law to be — attentive and yield right of way, except at crosswalks. Cobbled pavers aren’t much fun to ride a bicycle on, either.

Now, let’s look at some different examples of boulevard design — first, a clever one in Taichung, Taiwan. A long segment of the Taichunggang (Taichung Harbor Road) with frontage roads (complained about the narrowness of bus lanes, and the ocmplaint is probably one reason the lanes were later widened.

Contrast this with the San Francisco document’s complaint that the frontage roads are too wide:

Most apparent is that the local access roads are too wide—for a through-lane next to a parking lane, they were made eighteen feet wide, rather than 16.5 feet. A narrower space would have contributed more to traffic calming.

Right, calm traffic by making the frontage road more dangerous and congested –essentially, slow traffic by making motorists wait for bicyclists and everyone wait for turning traffic. On Octavia Boulevard, the local access roads are already too narrow for side-by-side bicycle/motor vehicle lane sharing. If these lanes were to serve right-turning traffic in any large volume, they would have to be even wider.

The longer San Francisco document cites a book with an interesting title:

Allan Jacobs, Elizabeth Macdonald, and Yodan Rofé. The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multi-Way Boulevards (MIT Press, 2002).

I haven’t read it yet but I hope to — though, as one of its authors is the author of the San Francisco document, I’m concerned that it may similarly advocate placing bicyclists in the pedestrian realm.

Bicycle touring is a great way to break out of daily routine, and beyond that, into the unexpected.  That’s one reason I like it.

My son Jacob, age 19, and I took on a little 2-day bicycle tour Thursday and Friday. It was his first bicycle tour ever.

Last Thursday morning, we drove to Falmouth on Cape Cod, parked at a friend’s house and rode the Shining Sea path to the Steamship Authority ferry terminal in Woods Hole — took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard and stayed overnight at the HI-AYH hostel —  which is really nice these days. They even make pancakes for breakfast, included in the modest price (but do bring earplugs in case someone snores — dorm accommodations).

At the hostel, we encountered Francine, who had been a participant in a bicycle tour to the Cape that I led 25 years ago, and which had stayed at the same hostel. Jacob got to hear Francine’s angle on funny stories from that tour which I had just told him the same day. I spoke with a couple of German university students who confirmed that the German spelling reform has led to confusion, just as my Bicycling Street Smarts translator tells me.

Friday morning, after leaving the hostel, while riding on the path in the state park, we got stopped for two security checks, including baggage inspection. About a mile after the second security check, a group of about 30 cyclists approached. One face was instantly recognizable.

I raised my little digital camera and pressed the button, then lowered it.

“Good morning, Mr. President” I said.

“Good morning, he replied.

After the group had passed, I checked my camera. It had been in “review” mode. No picture.

Given the security issues, I decided it would be very much the best just to keep on riding rather than to turn around and chase after the crowd to get a picture.

Not bad though for Jacob’s first bicycle tour. Jacob wants to go touring again. We were well-matched for speed on this one, but if he rides enough, we’ll have to ride the tandem because I won’t be able to keep up with him otherwise!

Though they are not first to do this, Dutch researchers have calculated the effects of different travel mode choices on life expectancy. The study is called Do the Health Benefits of Cycling Outweigh the Risks? The researchers based their calculations on an examination of traffic accidents, exercise and air pollution.

Good enough, but  excuse me if I’m about to restate the obvious. There are also a quality-of-life issues, and they aren’t the same for everyone — far from it.

Time spent traveling and earning income to pay for the travel can add up to many years of a person’s life.  This time could be enjoyable, or  a dull chore, or a drudge. The cost may be trivial to one person, but a major burden to another.

The ability to work, read or converse is a time saver with public transportation or carpooling; less so for walking, even less for bicycling; not for driving alone unless perhaps listening to an audiobook or talking on a cell phone — well, let’s not go there. Aerobic exercise when bicycling or walking is a time saver for people who value the exercise, and it also increases life expectancy. Need I say, physical fitness also increases quality of life.

Time may be spent waiting for the bus or train to arrive, waiting in a traffic jam, waiting for traffic signals, hunting for a parking space, walking from and to that parking space.

Owning and operating a private car is expensive to the individual; public transportation, generally less so; bicycling, even less and walking only wears out shoes occasionally. However, the infrastructure costs of all of these modes of travel are largely subsidized from public funds.

At this point, we get into issues of the individual vs. society.  Examples: a private motor vehicle is a major time saver unless there are too many of them, causing traffic congestion, air pollution, global warning. Then the interests of society at large suggest investment in other modes, while the interest of individuals still favors the private car — for other reasons as well, particularly weather protection,  convenience in transporting passengers and cargo, and the low marginal cost of each mile of travel relative to the fixed cost of car ownership.

Which leaves us more or less the situation we are in now. Investment in public transportation as well as innovative solutions such as convenient car and bicycle rental can help shift the balance, but worldwide, the private car continues its upsurge,.

Double Crossover Diamond Interchange

A document from the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center of the US Federal Highway Administration describes a new concept in freeway interchanges, the Double Crossover Diamond Interchange.

The novelty here is that the overpass operates with traffic on the left, in the USA, reducing the number of conflicts and signal phases.

Figure 1  (a photo) in the PDF document and Figure 3 (a diagram) show how pedestrian traffic might be accommodated, except that Figure 3 does not show the pedway in the median that is shown in Figure 1. Apparently, in Figure 3, there would be sidewalks along the outside instead.

Figure 2 shows no pedestrian accommodation, and there is an unsignalized two-lane on-ramp at the lower right.

The high barriers adjacent to the median in Figure 1 screen glare from the wrong side of headlamp beams.

The word “bicyclists” appears in the introduction, but the document does not address accommodation of bicyclists.

Figure 1 does not show shoulder/bike lane width to facilitate on-road bicycle movements. Bicyclists might merge left of the off ramp and enter a bikeway/pedway in the median immediately after the crossover, reducing width requirements for the overpass. But then they still must pass the traffic island and cross the on ramp after the freeway, or else enter the traffic island and use the set-back crosswalk on its far side — a circuitous route. Using the pedestrian route for the whole way is even more so.

As the crossovers have to be signalized anyway, signalization of the on ramps would also improve flow on the overpass. Alternatively, the on ramps might be placed at a sharp angle with a small-radius turn, to slow entering traffic. If the on ramps are treated in one of these ways, if there is sufficient width before and after the bridge, and if there is a central bikeway/pedway, bicycle travel could be quite convenient — though snow clearance issues in winter could require bicyclists to ride across the overpass in the roadway, and also make travel difficult for pedestrians.

Another possibility would be a bicycle/pedestrian underpass at each of the four ramp locations, with sidewalks along the outside of the overpass. As the ramps already must be elevated, adding these underpasses would not substantially increase the cost of the project.

An “upside-down” version of this intersection is also conceivable, with the freeway above the road that crosses it. Sight lines would not be as long; the crossing in an underpass would be noisy and relatively dark; bicycle/pedestrian grade separations, if used, would be overpasses instead, and more expensive.