Our View: Bicycle Safety about Changing, Not Law

The state has tried. The cities in the Magic Valley have tried. But in the end, Idaho does not have the political will needed to pass laws that will protect cyclists on the road.

Current Idaho bicycle law requires a cyclist moving slower than traffic to ride as closely as “practicable” to the right curb or edge. That puts the responsibility and the blame on cyclists without adjusting for driver behavior. It’s also ambiguous.

In 2009 and 2010, legislators tried unsuccessfully to pass a buffer-zone law requiring passing motorists to stay 3 feet from a cyclist or anyone on a roadway.

After the bill failed, Minidoka County officials tried to pass a county ordinance. It never passed due to disagreements on wording.

Twin Falls City Council has been proactive, passing a 3-foot passing ordinance and requiring that cyclists have rear lights on their bikes. They stopped short of passing an ordinance that made bicycle helmets mandatory.

We could spend this space asking that every city and county in the Magic Valley follow Twin Falls’ lead and pass a 3-foot passing ordinance. We could ask that the state legislature take another swing as a state bicycle safety law in the next session. And we do want to see those things.

But it’s also time to accept that updating and clarifying the law is only part of the solution.

Bicycle safety starts with changing attitudes. It requires that cyclists ride responsibly and with full awareness of their surroundings. And it requires that drivers accept that cyclists are taxpayers who have a right to use the road.

After we published a story titled “Space on the Road: Do Idaho Drives and Cyclists Share?”, a lively debate started online at Magicvalley.com in response. The tone of the debate seemed to mirror the attitude out on the road — drivers saying cyclists think they own the road or don’t belong there at all and cyclists arguing that drivers are aggressive and put lives in danger by driving too close.

It’s time for both sides to give a little. Cyclists aren’t going to give up the sport and its popularity is only going to grow as our population grows. The way bicycle lanes are slowly being incorporated into the city planning processes around the Magic Valley shows that there’s a slow but steady shift in cultural attitudes about cycling.

Laws need to be updated and clarified, but for now it’s a personal decision.
We’ve made room in our minds and on our roads for slow-moving farm equipment, for cattle and sheep.

It’s time that rural Idaho also made room for cyclists on the road.

For the original article click here

The Dutch Prize Their Pedal Power, but a Sea of Bikes Swamps Their Capital

Amsterdam has more bicycles than people, and although it has thousands of bike racks, demand for them still outstrips supply.

AMSTERDAM — About 6:30 weekday mornings, throngs of bicycles, with a smattering of motor scooters and pedestrians, pour off the ferries that carry bikers and other passengers free of charge across the IJ (pronounced “eye”) harbor, clogging the streets and causing traffic jams down behind Amsterdam’s main train station.

“In the afternoon it’s even more,” moaned Erwin Schoof, a metalworker in his 20s who lives in the canal-laced center of town and battles the chaos daily to cross to his job.

Willem van Heijningen, a railway official responsible for bikes around the station, said, “It’s not a war zone, but it’s the next thing to it.”

This clogged stream of cyclists is just one of many in a city as renowned for bikes as Los Angeles is for automobiles or Venice for gondolas. Cyclists young and old pedal through narrow lanes and along canals. Mothers and fathers balance toddlers in spacious wooden boxes affixed to their bikes, ferrying them to school or day care. Carpenters carry tools and supplies in similar contraptions and electricians their cables. Few wear helmets. Increasingly, some are saying what was simply unthinkable just a few years ago: There are too many bikes.

While cities like New York struggle to get people onto bikes, Amsterdam is trying to keep its hordes of bikes under control. In a city of 800,000, there are 880,000 bicycles, the government estimates, four times the number of cars. In the past two decades, travel by bike has grown by 40 percent so that now about 32 percent of all trips within the city are by bike, compared with 22 percent by car.

Click here for the entire article

Helmets....Not as effective as previously thought....hmmmm

Feds will stop hyping effectiveness of bike helmets

 

Two federal government agencies will withdraw their longstanding claims that bicycle helmets reduce the risk of a head injury by 85%. The decision comes in response to a petition the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) filed under the federal Data Quality Act.

In 1989, a study in Seattle estimated that helmets prevent 85% of head injuries. Later efforts to replicate those results found a weaker connection between helmets and head injuries, but public health advocates, government web sites, and the news media often present it as fact.

Bad information can cause problems, even when it is promoted with the best intentions. If people think that helmets stop almost all head injuries, consumers will not demand better helmets, and legislators may feel it makes sense to require everyone to wear one. WABA asked two federal agencies to correct the misinformation, and after a lengthy process, they've agreed to do so.

How effective are bicycle helmets?In theory, helmets should absorb the shock from a crash. If your head strikes the ground or a vehicle, your brain could be seriously shaken by the sudden deceleration. With a helmet, the foam around your head forms a cushion.  They can also prevent head fractures by spreading the force of the impact. It's like the difference between being hit on the head by a rock or a beach ball with the same weight.

It's hard to tell how often helmets actually prevent head injuries, however. Experiments on people are unethical, so instead researchers collect hospital data on people involved in bicycle crashes. In 1989, a team of researchers led by Dr. Robert S. Thompson, a preventative care specialist at the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, collected data about cyclists in Seattle who went to area hospitals after a crash. Only 7% of the cyclists with head injuries wore helmets, but 24% of those without head injuries did wear helmets. Their statistical analysis, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, estimated that helmets had reduced the risk of a head injury by 85%.

Dr. Thompson's study was a "case-control study" like those that first found a link between smoking and cancer. There is no true "control" group, but epidemiologists say these studies are good for showing whether something has a good or bad effect on health, though not for quantifying it. Dozens of researchers sought to replicate the Thompson findings in their own communities. They also found that helmets reduce the risk of head injuries, but less frequently than Thompson's team found. Some studies even found that helmets increase the risk of neck injuries.

If you consider the entire body of research rather than just one study, and look at both head and neck injuries, helmets only reduce the risk of injury by about 15% to 45% . Nonetheless, public health advocates seized on the 85% estimate as a good way to communicate risk: failing to wear a helmet makes you more than 6 times as likely to experience a head injury. Government websites and newspapers have repeated it to the point where it has become ubiquitous in discussions about bicycle helmets.

Click here for the entire article

Iron Kids Fun Run - June 20th, 2013

Bicycling surges across the country, outpacing critics’ complaints

9th Avenue in NYC

 

How the “Bikelash” Quieted Down in New York and Other Cities

Former New York mayor Ed Koch envisioned bicycles as vehicles for the future, and in 1980 created experimental bike lanes on 6^th and 7^th Avenues in Manhattan where riders were protected from speeding traffic by asphalt barriers. It was unlike anything most Americans had ever seen--and some people roared their disapproval. Within weeks, the bike lanes were gone.
Twenty-seven years later New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and his transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan saw the growing ranks of bicyclists on the streets as a key component of 21^st Century transportation, and began building protected bike lanes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They had studied the success of similar projects in Copenhagen and the Netherlands, noting how to make projects more efficient and aesthetically pleasing.
These “green lanes” and pedestrian plazas were an immediate hit but ignited a noisy reaction from a small group of well-connected people unhappy about projects in their neighborhoods, including Bloomberg’s former transportation commissioner. Lawsuits were filed while New York Post and Daily News columnists thundered about the inconvenience to motorists and supposed dangers to pedestrians. New York magazine declared the situation a “Bikelash” on its cover.
Pressure mounted on Bloomberg to sack Sadik-Khan and rip out the green lanes. Anthony Weiner, then a Queens Congressman and mayoral hopeful, told Bloomberg he would spend his first year as mayor attending “a bunch of ribbon cuttings tearing out your [expletive] bike lanes.” Bicyclists everywhere braced themselves for a setback, which would once again slow progress toward safer streets in New York and around the continent.
Now two years later, Sadik-Khan is still commissioner, and bike lanes continue appearing across the city, including 11.3 new miles of green lanes last year alone.
Two-thirds of New Yorkers call bike lanes a good idea in the most recent New York Times poll, compared to only 27 percent who oppose them. All of the major candidates to replace Bloomberg as mayor expressed support for bicycling at a recent forum, notes Paul Steely White, executive director of the local group Transportation Alternatives.
“Bike lanes are the new normal in New York,” White adds. “People in East Harlem are saying we want bike lanes like those in other parts of town.”

 

(photo credit NYTimes.com)

 

Another of Bloomberg’s and Sadik-Khan’s big ideas to improve New York has now hit the streets: the Citi Bike bike sharing system, the largest in North America with 6000 bikes available at 330 stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

What rallied the public around bicycling? “It was a combination of things,” reports Ben Fried, who chronicled the debate as editor of Streetsblog, a web magazine covering transportation in New York. First, independent polls debunked the myth that New Yorkers disliked bike lanes. “Actually a strong majority from throughout the city supported them.”
Fried also credits neighborhood leaders and bicyclists with mobilizing grassroots support for bike lanes, both on the web and at public meetings. “In the end, politicians need to see that bike lanes are a win for them.”

 

Pressure for new biking facilities came also from business leaders who see better biking conditions as an asset for their companies. High-tech executives at 33 firms—including Foursquare, Meetup and Tumblr—urged Bloomberg to implement the bikeshare system “as a way to attract and retain the investment and talent for New York City to remain competitive.” The Hearst Corporation recently announced it will pay employees’ cost to join the Citi Bikes program. “It’s a cool New York thing to do and good for fitness,” says Hearst spokesperson Lisa Bagley. “Our decision is driven by what are employees are interested in.”

Tim Blumenthal, president of PeopleForBikes and the sister Green Lane Project, stresses, “Bike issues need to framed in the context of what they mean to the city, not just what they mean to people who bike. In New York City, for example, more green lanes, better bikeway networks, and the new CitiBike system will benefit all residents and visitors by reducing traffic, noise and air pollution--making city life a little less frenetic for everyone.”
This all represents good news for cities coast-to-coast. “If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere,” says White paraphrasing the old song “New York, New York.”
Other communities will no doubt face their own version of bikelash, but the high-profile debate in New York over bike lanes highlights two key assets of protected green lanes:

1. Bike lanes create safer streets for everyone. “It’s the safety stats that carried the day,” notes Ben Fried, editor of Streetsblog, “They’re pretty indisputable.” Crashes for all road users (drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists) on streets with green lanes drop on average by 40 percent, and sometimes as much as 50 percent, according to a memorandum from Deputy New York Mayor Howard Wolfson. Green lanes also lead to significantly fewer bicyclists riding on sidewalks, Fried notes.

2. Bike Lanes are good for business. Shop owners are sometimes zealous opponents of bike lanes, which they claim will suffocate business by reducing traffic and eliminating parking. Yet businesses on 9^th Avenue, the first major green lane in the city, saw a 49 percent rise in retail sales, compared to 3 percent across Manhattan as a whole, according to research by the New York City Department of Transportation. Another study of consumer patterns by Portland State University researchers, found that shoppers who arrive by bicycle spend 24 percent more at stores per month than those who drive.

New, unfamiliar ideas like green lanes always spark opposition-- at first. “Push back is inevitable,” Fried explains. “It doesn’t mean the project is flawed. Once it’s built, the constituency for it will grow.”
Complaints about a “war on cars” have echoed around Seattle from a small but persistent chorus opposed to bike lanes. In response the Cascade Bicycle Club commissioned a poll of Seattle voters (conducted by the independent research firm FM3 using a scientifically rigorous sample of 400 respondents), which found that 79 percent view bicyclists favorably, 73 percent want to see more protected green lanes, 59 percent support “replacing roads and some on-street parking” to build green lanes,” while only 31 percent believe Seattle is “waging a war on cars.”
(Green lanes in Washington, D.C. have also been denounced as a “war on cars”, even though only one percent of DC’s roads are dedicated to bicyclists, according to computations by Washington City Paper reporter Aaron Wiener.)

The new two-way protected bike lane on Dearborn Street in Chicago

 

In Chicago, there’s no organized opposition to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s vision of boosting the city’s economy by providing 100 miles of green lanes and 550 more of on-street bike lanes. More than 16 miles of green lanes were built in 2012. One project on the South Side, however, did raise aesthetic concerns about historic Martin Luther King Drive, which was solved by shifting the protected green lane to a parallel street and adding buffered bike lanes (wide swaths of paint) to King Drive. The community engagement process around this issue resulted in neighbors forming the Bronzeville Bicycling Initiative to encourage more people to bike in this historically African-American community.

However Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass rouses emotions with his warnings that the mayor’s plans “foreshadow the day that cars will be illegal.” He also targets “little bike people” as “free riders” who don’t pay to keep up the roads and as scofflaws who defy traffic laws.
Ron Burke of the Active Transportation Alliance sees “little bike people” as a compliment, noting “how little space we take up on the roadway, how little wear and tear we cause, and how little our facilities cost within the grand scheme of transportation spending.”
Burke agrees with Kass that bicyclists endangering other people should be ticketed, but deconstructs his claim that motorists pay their own way on the streets. Between 24 and 38 percent of total road costs in Illinois are not covered by user fees such as gas taxes and vehicle stickers, even when you count federal funding as user fees, Burke explains, citing a study from the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
Kass is one of a number of commentators across the country who regularly target bikes and bicyclists. After New York Daily News columnist Denis Hamill wrote, “I hate bike lanes…they are steering some people like me to road rage” one reader responded “All I hear is an old man yelling, ‘Get Off My Lawn.’”

By Jay Walljasper
May 29, 2013



The Spokesman from dean saffron on Vimeo.

Small Steps

It's spring, and there are many more bikes on the road. Others want to start biking. But changing to any new mode of transportation is a big lifestyle change and takes time. Just like learning to drive:

When I finally started biking, it was intimidating because I didn't know "how" to do it.... just like all the other things I found intimidating.

 

But biking was one of those things I had to learn by doing.

Over time I learned how to adapt my lifestyle.

 

 

So if you are considering biking, you can't change overnight. Break it down into small steps.

Perhaps one day you'll wonder how you ever got around without a bicycle.

Bikeyface

So many helmets, so many choices.

Bike Helmets: How to Choose

Few people would choose to ride in a car with no seat belts. So why hop on a bike without a bike helmet?
Helmets simply make sense in all riding conditions. At least 21 states and Washington, D.C., even have laws requiring them.
Here are some tips for choosing a bike helmet model that is well-suited to your needs.

Which Type? Sport, Road or Mountain?

Cycling helmets come in 3 basic styles: sport (also called multi-use), road and mountain. All types are designed to protect a rider's head from impact while being lightweight and comfortable. The differences:

• Sport (multi-use) helmets ($35-$60): An economical choice for recreational, commuter, road and mountain bikers; also popular with skateboarders and inline skaters.
• Road bike helmets ($60-$250): Preferred by roadie enthusiasts for their low weight, generous ventilation and aerodynamic design.
• Mountain bike helmets ($35-$200): Designed to ventilate well at low speeds; distinguished by their visors, enhanced rear-head coverage and a firm, secure fit for tackling rough terrain. Often used by cyclocross riders, too.

Shop REI's selection of bike helmets.

Find the Right Size

A good fit is vital. Multi-use helmets usually offer a single, adjustable size. Most others come in small, medium, large or extended sizes.

To find your size, wrap a flexible tape measure around the largest portion of your head—about 1" above your eyebrows. Or, wrap a string or ribbon around your head, then measure the length of string with a straight-edge ruler or yardstick.

Look for a helmet size that matches your measurement. On REI.com, the size range is listed under the "Specs" tab on each product page.

General sizing parameters for adults:

• Small: 20"-21.75" (51cm-55cm)
• Medium: 21.75"-23.25" (55cm-59cm)
• Large: 23.25"-24.75" (59cm-63cm)
• Extra-small, extra-large: Below 20" (51cm), above 24.75 (63cm)
• One size fits all (men): 21.25"-24" (54cm-61cm)
• One size fits all (women): 19.75"-22.5" (50cm-57cm)

Most kids' helmets are one-size-fits-all with a range of 18"-22.5" (46cm-57cm). Some adults with smaller heads can wear these comfortably.
Between sizes? Opt for the smaller size.
 

For the complete article, click here.

A U.S. Template for a Third-Millennium City

Photos by Enrique Peñalosa
The city of Bogotá, Colombia, built the Porvenir Promenade, a 15-mile (24 km) “highway” restricted to pedestrians and bicycles.

In 40 years, 2.7 billion more people will live in world cities than do now, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Urban growth in China, India, and most of the developing world will be massive. But what is less known is that population growth will also be enormous in the United States.

The U.S. population will grow 36 percent to 438 million in 2050 from 322 million today. At today’s average of 2.58 persons per household, such growth would require 44.9 million new homes. However American households are getting smaller. If one were to estimate 2.2 persons per household—the household size in Germany today and the likely U.S. size by 2050—the United States would need 74.3 million new homes, not including secondary vacation homes. This means that over the next 40 years, the United States will build more homes than all those existing today in the United Kingdom, France, and Canada combined. Urban planner and theorist Peter Calthorpe predicts that California alone will add 20 million people and 7 million households by 2050.

To meet this demand, completely new urban environments will have to be created in the United States. Where and how will the new American homes be built? What urban structures are to be created?

 

Click here for the complete article

Coeur d'Alene Bicycle T-Shirts

Coeur d'Alene Bicycling Tees are available. We have cotton in red and poly blend in blue. Please call 208 292-5766 to get a shirt.

We probably won't buy one of these bikes too soon, mainly because they cost as much as cars, but they're fun to read about.This bike is sold for $30,000. The maker is Kevin Saunders and he named the bike Tier 3 because of the price tag of it. The bike is made of finest material and detailed construct. It is aerodynamics and suitable for hard terrain.

But this isn't the only really expensive bicycle in the world. Click here to read about and see pictures of nine others.

 

 

"We are always on about how efficient bicycles are as a means of mobility... Comparing energy used per passenger-mile (calories), they found that a bicycle needed only 35 calories, whereas a car expended a whopping 1,860. Bus and trains fell about midway between, and walking still took 3 times as many calories as riding a bike the same distance. They also..."

For the original article, click here.

Who would have guessed! Boise is one of our country's most friendly bicycle cities. One of the trails there is 22 miles long. There's also another 100-plus miles of trails near downtown Biose. This city is also bicycle friendly because of the Boise Bicycle Project, which restores old bicycles for children. Maybe Coeur d'Alene could start a similar program?

For the original article, click here.

A 'Drive-In' Cafe for Bikes Pops Up in Zurich

Zurich is already a bike-friendly city, with plenty of bike lanes, a third of all Zürchers biking at least twice a week, and some innovative tech like traffic lights that automatically recognize bicycles and let them go ahead of other vehicles. But the city wants to get even more bikers on the road, realizing that mobility will become more of a challenge in the future. As part of a larger Urban Transport 2025 plan that also encourages public transportation and walking, the city is experimenting with new incentives for cyclists, including this bike-up coffee bar.
Like the bike version of a classic drive-in restaurant that lets diners eat without leaving their car, this stand lets bikers enjoy coffee without getting off their two-wheeled rides. (The German sign in the photo says "Drive up. Ring. Enjoy your coffee.") The Velokafi stand was designed to include a tabletop, a place to dock your bike, and side rails to rest your feet as you perch.
The stands are only up temporarily for now, through next week. Think your local coffeeshop could use one of these? The design brings up a related issue that's common in the United States: if you live near drive-through restaurants or banks, are bikes allowed? In many places, they're not, though bike activists are fighting to change that. For some cities, working on equal access might be more useful than bike-only drive-ins, as nice as they look.

Click here for the original article

All bikes need chains, right? Wrong.

When we think of parts of bikes, usually the list would be tires, the handle bar,
the pedals, and the chain or course. It's what allows us to make bikes move, which is the entire point of using them! But, not all of these parts are necessarily necessary. Some designers in Hungary have successfully made a bike without a chain. In place of this a system of ropes and pulleys are used. These designers have claimed that their bicycle is more efficient and even gives a smoother ride than a normally designed bike. I'd give it a try. Would you?

For the original article, click here.

Intersection Tips for Bicyclists

Dealing with intersections while riding a bike could be intimidating for some new riders when on streets. This short video gives us some tips on how to do it the right way.

Why Bike? Top 5 Reasons to Ride

Lots of people ride bikes for lots of different reasons. Here are the top five reasons why you should be out there too.

1. For Your Body

Riding a bike offers many health benefits. Here are just a few:

• increased cardiovascular fitness
• increased strength
•  increased balance and flexibility
• increased endurance and stamina
• increased calories burned

It can be done by people of all ages, from childhood up even through the adult years when achy joints don't allow for more stressful exercise like jogging.

2. For Your State of Mind

Riding a bike is a proven stress releaser. Regardless of if you are riding purely for pleasure or for a specific purpose, you will arrive at your destination feeling relaxed, energized and happier about the world and yourself.
Plus, being out on your bike is just flat-out fun. The more time you spend on two wheels, the harder it is to take yourself too seriously.

3. For Your Community

Being out on your bike is good for the people around you as well. You are able to go the places you want to go and yet put one less car on the road.
You don’t bring with you the noise that a car generates and are actually able to interaction with people as you move. From my bike I can wave to a neighbor, say hi to a kid, smell someone’s dinner cooking and be a warm and friendly human presence on the streets.
Also, not insignificant: operating a bicycling does not harm the environment. There is no polluting exhaust released, no oil or gas consumed. And the energy and materials used to manufacture one automobile could be used to created a hundred bikes.

4. For Convenience

There is an undeniable convenience factor you’ll discover when riding a bike. Front row parking spaces are guaranteed no matter where you go. Traffic jams are also irrelevant.
Though cars will certainly make better time on long trips, you’ll find for many short trips or through heavy traffic, you can travel just as fast or faster on your bike.
Have you ever been to a massive festival or concert in a park somewhere, the type of event that draws so many people that just getting there is a problem? Going in on a bike is a perfect solution. Zip in, zip out. You don’t have to get there hours early to get a parking spot or else face parking miles away from the event. And you won’t have to wait hours in traffic to get out once it’s over.

5. For Your Pocketbook

It costs between 20 and 30 cents per mile to operate a car, depending on the vehicle. This is based on expenses like gas, oil, maintenance, etc., that go up when you drive more. This figure doesn’t include the hidden costs of vehicle ownership like depreciation, taxes, and insurance. These factors make the actual per mile cost to operate a car much higher.
When you start multiplying cost per mile to operate a car by the distance you ride, you can easily calculate how much money you save by riding a bike.
For example: my daily roundtrip commute is 16 miles. If I do that just twice a week, I will save over $400 in operating costs alone in the course of a year. (16 miles x 2 trips per week x 52 weeks x .25 cents per mile.)
And if you would otherwise have to pay for parking, tolls, and the like, don’t forget to factor that in too. It can add up quickly.

Ride For You

When you ride your bike, you are doing a lot of good things, many of which are for the benefit of others. But ultimately, the one who benefits the most is you, through better health, peace of mind, increased confidence and self-reliance, heck, even through a fatter bank account.
So for all these reasons, get out there on your bike today. Even if you don’t save the world in the process, you’ll still have fun trying!

For the original article click here

Not Your Average Riding

Earth Day at the Coeur d'Alene Library

Roads Were Not Built For Cars

Roads Were Not Built For Cars is a history book exploring the role of US & UK cyclists in improving highways for everybody.

Click here for the complete article