Zero Fatalities

Last week I introduced Complete Streets. Today I want to mention Zero Fatalities. Zero Fatalities simply comes from answering the question How many deaths should we accept on our roads? It is hard to justify any answer that is not zero.

Now I have said for a long time that this could be done by armoring cars and slowing them down so that collisions were not a big deal. Of course going slower, using more gas, and taking 5 minutes to get in and out of the safety harness in your car would only be acceptable to a very few people. But it turns out that taking a Zero Fatality position does not have to be so radical.

Utah first did something about the Zero Fatality idea. They have been followed by others including the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and  Volvo.

 

Some of the ideas attack the most common causes of fatalities on the road: eliminate distractions or make cars that won't start if a driver is drunk. Others tackle the safety features of cars. Some are changing the way we build roads, like using roundabouts instead of standard intersections.

In fact a roundabout (especially to drivers not used to them) makes a tradeoff between more non-fatal accidents while greatly reducing fatal accidents. Now I see this working well for cars. After all, if you hit another car it is at an oblique angle instead of a t-bone accident common at a standard intersection. But based on the roundabouts they have added in Raleigh on Hillsborough Street, near NC State University, I worry about the effect on cyclists and pedestrians. The pedestrian issue seems at least partially addressed in the picture above with cross walks outside the actual roundabout. But for cyclists that try to ride through the roundabout, the drivers are busy looking for cars and their chance to get in and out of the roundabout. I fear they may have little attention left to notice a cyclist. 

In another local case of roundabouts, there is a neighborhood that has some to allow the traffic to flow. This presumably saves gas by not having to stop at a spot that has very little traffic. The light traffic makes this pretty easy to cycle through in my opinion. Does anyone have experience riding through roundabouts they would like to share?

My favorite ideas related to Zero Fatalities involve the basic ideas touted by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Lab fame: Move bits not atoms. Now transportation is all about moving atoms, but by moving bits it means doing it smarter. I think smarter cars, roads and even bikes are a big part of achieving zero fatalities on our roads. Cars are starting to have systems (radar or whatever) to detect things they might collide with. If these systems could respond to transponders to help them recognize a car, then a bike could also have one. Wouldn't it be great if a friendly voice was telling that driver there is a bicycle ahead or there is a bicycle on your right or even do not open you door, a bicycle is approaching on your left.

Keep riding for health, ride safely for a long life and we may live to see the day with zero fatalities.

Complete Streets

You may or may not have heard the term complete streets. It comes up in various bicycle advocacy discussions, but I wanted to find out more about it. I will try to give a few basics but really the CompleteStreets.org website explains things very clearly if you want more details.

Complete streets is an effort to make transportation planners consider all the users and not just cars. This means pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, transit riders, and people in wheel chairs should all be considered when spending public money planning and building a transportation system. That makes sense because the public does all these things. Even the most avid drivers have to get out of their car sometimes and cross the street on foot.

Taking this type of view seems much better than a cycling specific one. It emphasizes a fair allocation of resources rather than feeling like a special interest asking for something only for them, like a bike lane.

It also casts a different light on issues like blocking off a bike lane so that cars can't get in them, but at the cost of pedestrians, especially ones with a walker or wheel chair, who are blocked from crossing the street. In a complete streets pal, all the uses would be considered. Then we could develop solutions that work for everyone.

Complete streets are currently part of many places, at least in the planning. Sometimes they are legislation, but other times they are just internal policies, resolutions, planning or design guides. You can check out the Complete Street Atlas to see all the places in the USA taking this healthy view of transportation.

Riding in Nashville, TN

I recently took my daughter on a college visit in Nashville, TN. While she stayed with a student and checked out the school, I did a little riding.

Nashville was a nice place to ride. I started near music row, wandered downtown, across the Cumberland River and into East Nashville. While not flat, the hills were not bad. Not being in any hurry helps.

I rode downtown and had a light lunch at the Hardrock Cafe. This is mostly because I collect guitar pins from the cities I visit with a Hardrock Cafe. I did have a very smooth Yazoo Sly Rye Porter. After all, gotta get some carbs to ride.

After looping around a few blocks of downtown Nashville and generally scoping out the area, I headed across the Shelby Street pedestrian bridge. Now don't think a little path going across the river. This bridge is designed to move 1000s of people from downtown to LP Field for Tennessee Titans' football games and back. It is the equivalent of several car lanes wide. There is a nice view of downtown even on a cloudy day.

Coming down the east side of the bridge you get a nice view of the stadium.

After exiting the bridge I spotted this bike rack called The Riders.

Turns out is part of a series of art bike racks. I didn't realize this until late in the day so I only spotted one other rack, Emerge.

While in East Nashville I visited two bike shops, the Nashville Bicycle Lounge and Eastside Cycles. I am going to do a separate post on the Nashville Bicycle Lounge. Eastside Cycles was a nice shop with lots on new Cannondales. That is always interesting to me because my road bike is a 1987 Cannondale and I always like to see the new models. I chatted a bit and watched some new cables being put on a nice mixte that was in for a tuneup.

Given how much gas prices have been going up, maybe their sign will strike a cord with some people.

I picked up a Downtown Nashville Bicycle and Pedestrian Map and headed back downtown to ride some of the greenway.

I rode a section of the greenway northwest to Morgan Park and discovered the Fountain of Youth.

Alas the water was turned off, so I was not able to collect any for voodoo potions. There was a cool set of troughs than ran from the main fountain to a little garden area. It looks like a nice place to visit when the weather is warmer and the water is running.

Next time I would like to ride the other direction to Shelby Bottoms Park.

As I started through downtown again I realized I needed a bio-break. Being Nashville I found a place with live music, country of course, leaking out onto the street. I locked my bike outside and went in, rested a while and enjoyed the music. Cowboy hats and denim jackets were more prominent than my bike helmet and screaming yellow rain jacket. I was watching some rain showers come and go and decided to make a break back to my hotel between showers.

Overall I had a good time and my daughter has decided to go to school in Nashville, so I expect I will get to visit and ride there more in the next few years.

Warm Weather Equals More Bikes

I saw a nice site in front of the building where I work, bikes. And not just one or two for the people who ride all year. Here is a batch leaning against the front wall, protected under an overhang.






But why weren't they in the bike rack? Besides being out in the weather, the rack was pretty full!



So maybe 20 out of a 1000 people in my building biked to work. 2% is not too many but it is a start.

Location:Research Dr,Cary,United States

No Matter How Far You Ride

For me last year's cycling calendar involved a good number of centuries and various other charity rides. This year I am still doing some charity rides and centuries, but I have been adding the longer randonuerring brevets. But one thing I have discovered is that no matter how much you ride, there are always people who ride more.

This week is the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. The 2011 show is in Austin, Texas. If you have a chance to go, then do it. I went last year when the show was in Richmond and really enjoyed it. I just went for the day to the expo. The bicycles, components and accessories were incredible. Even though I was not shopping for a bike, I really enjoyed seeing all the great workmanship. I remember the titanium commuter from Black Sheep Cycles with internal gear hub and a Gates belt drive. It would be perfect for me except that at $8600 I would have to win the lottery to get one and then I wouldn't need it to ride to work.

But really this post is about long rides. After driving 3 hours to Richmond for the show. I was looking around on Saturday and in the early afternoon I ran into some randonnuers I had recently met. They had left Raleigh Friday night and ridden overnight to Richmond. After a nap at a hotel they were enjoying the show. They were taking the train back to Raleigh the next day.

While I move from 100 mile century rides to the 200K (125 mile) brevet rides, I am humbled by 200K being the starting distance. The 2 days I did 200K there were people doing 300K, 400K and 600K rides. In fact I think there were more doing the 600K than the 200K. Many of these people will do a 1200K ride in the summer, either Paris-Bres-Paris or one of the US based rides.

Well I have a long way to go but it is good to have goals.

Location:Division St,Nashville,United States

You often find biking and walking advocacy tied together. One important reason for this seems to be the way government funds are allocated lumps these together.

And while biking and walking don't have exactly the same issues they are related. For example using a bicycle for errands is definitely facilitated by having your stops closer to home. That is why I find the Walk Score interesting as a cyclist.

The walk score is calculated based on distances from various amenities like groceries, shopping, restaurants, schools, coffee shops, bars, parks, entertainment, and banking. It will also give a transit score. Here is an example about halfway along my normal commute.



The web site offers ranking of cities but more interesting to me was being able to enter a specific address and see the walking score. It even gives a comparison to the rest of the city.

You can also use a free iPhone app to check the walk score in various places your travels may take you,

Give it a try. If you are really intrigued the site has lots of details on the algorithm and ongoing research.

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits

While I harbor no illusions that spring has arrived early, but I have been seeing signs of it. This week has featured mild temperatures and I have seen an increase in wild life on my commute. My favorite animal to spot is a rabbit.

No, I don't hunt Bugs Bunny like Elmer Fudd, but I have been known to judge the quality of my ride not by my average speed and heart rate but by the number of rabbits I see. It makes a nice contrast to driving were you almost never see a rabbit.

Lately I have been seeing more rabbits. Some of this is due to the warmer weather and some to my ride covering the pre-dawn light at this point. I have been seeing an average of 3 rabbits along my route. One nice fat one just sat barely off the path the other morning and watched me pass. Usually the move away as I approach and occasionally the run down the path ahead of me and then bolt into the woods.

I have also seen deer a couple of times recently on a section of the greenway which is less than a mile from a state park. That is fairly rare and this section will start getting a lot more traffic as Spring actually starts,  which is why spotting them is so rare.

On various commutes of the past I have also seen foxes, snakes, a raccoon, owl, and a turkey. I feel lucky to have a commute I can enjoy so much.