Many of Reed’s fellow cyclists are criticizing him for not using the paved shoulder, even though Texas law does not require it, and also permits cyclists full use of a lane that is too narrow to share.

If Reed was riding on a roadway with a shared use path next to it in a state that has a mandatory sidepath law, many, if not most of you would support him, even though some of you might prefer to ride on the path.  Most non-cyclists however, would not understand why he wasn’t using the “bike path” because riding on the road is “so dangerous.”

If he was riding on a roadway with a narrow paved shoulder or bike lane that was full of debris and was staying out of that shoulder or bike lane, once again, many or most of you would support him, even though you might use the shoulder or bike lane.   Most non-cyclists however, would not understand why he wasn’t using the “bike path” because riding on the road is “so dangerous.”

If he was riding on a roadway without a paved shoulder, bike lane or sidepath and controlling the lane, many or most of you would support him, even though you might hug the edge.  Most non-cyclists however, would not understand why he was on the road at all, because riding on the road is “so dangerous.”

From the sound of how the Ennis police and Ellis County sheriff’s departments are behaving, I think they could have just as easily cited, jailed and convicted Reed for any of those types of circumstances, because they believe — in spite of a complete lack of evidence — that roadway cycling is dangerous and causes delay and chaos on our roads.

When I was pulled over for controlling a narrow lane in the City of Orlando, I heard the same kind of absurd and ignorant arguments from the cop who pulled me over.  Fortunately, there was no bike lane or paved shoulder present, and I was able to talk my way out of it.  Last week an off-duty sheriff’s deputy told me to get on the sidewalk.  Many will say, “Well that’s different,” but it’s really not; all of these police actions stem from the same bogus belief, not from their understanding of the law.

The real problem we face is not so much how our laws are written, but what people believe about cycling.  When we cyclists criticize Reed for cycling in the way he does, we are reinforcing the belief that roadway cycling is dangerous, and therefor irresponsible.

******************

A note about impeding traffic.  I looked up the traffic counts for the road Reed’s been using at the Texas Department of Transportation website.  It gets about 18,000 cars per day; rather low for a four-lane highway.  Reed’s first arrest happened at about 2:30 p.m., which is well “off-peak.”  Using standard traffic planning estimates, I’d guess the road was seeing roughly 3 to 4 cars per minute per lane, or one car passing ever 15 to 20 seconds.  How can one possibly think changing lanes to pass a cyclist is any sort of problem in such a situation?  By comparison, the street I ride to work during rush hour is a 3-lane one-way.  Each lane sees about 12 to 13 cars per minute, or one every 5 seconds (of course they actually come in platoons).  But even with much heavier traffic, motorists rarely have to wait more than a few seconds to pass me, and most don’t have to wait at all; they see me early and change lanes.

“Of course we have a deal. They get out of the way of our cars, we look the other way on the statue defecation.”

- George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld

The tyranny of speed rules over nearly every road in this great nation.  Florida is perhaps the tyrant’s most resolute stronghold.  It’s as if gravity or latitude or the warm climate (or perhaps the convergence of the three) have funneled that power into our peninsula from all across the land.  Hemmed in by the Everglades, the tyrant’s power concentrates even more as one moves into Broward and Miami-Dade counties.  It then squirts out along US 1, the Overseas Highway that runs from Key Largo to Key West.  The Highway is now mostly overwhelmed by the tyrant; its miles of ugly strip commercial development making it look like nearly any other four-lane highway.  If it weren’t for the palms and tropically-themed signs you might think you were outside Atlanta along some stretches.

N. Roosevelt: sidepath on the left side; destinations on the right.

One-hundred and two miles down the highway you enter the Conch Republic, aka Key West.  It’s the end of the road.  The tyranny of speed has pushed its invading wedge westward into the island along US 1, and its commercial minions — fast-food purveyors, big box retailers… — have come in behind to claim territory.  At its ironic intersection with Eisenhower Drive, it loses nearly all its power as it changes names from N. Roosevelt Boulevard to Truman Avenue and becomes a narrow, two-lane street.

Most of the tyrant’s soldiers relax and drop their weapons when entering this human-paced paradise, but enough keep their warrior mentalities to make trouble as they scatter throughout the fine grid of narrow streets.  The saner ones leave their cars at their hotels as they visit, or even sell them if they decide to stay and put down roots.

The End of the Road. Welcome to human-scale.

The tyrant’s soldiers have a deal with the pigeon cyclists of Key West; the cyclists scatter out of the way of their cars, the tyrants look the other way when cyclists run red lights or ride with a beer in one hand.

I traveled to Key West over the first weekend of December with Keri Caffrey and John Schubert.  As we biked around the island we found ourselves running afoul of their pigeon-deal.  Not accustom to getting out of the way, we annoyed quite a few of the soldiers, and they made threatening motions with their weapons.  The problem became severe as we traveled N. Roosevelt; no doubt the leading edge of an army is where the fighting is the bloodiest.  The tyrant had provided the pigeons with a place to keep out of the way; something called a “bike path.”  The path was pleasant enough as it followed the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, but on some stretches the commercial minions had build driveways across it, and the soldiers were not terribly polite about yielding at those crossings.  At the very first driveway we were nearly taken out by one.

Our purpose that weekend was to introduce some key Conchs to the principles and practices of vehicular cycling.  In that we feel we were quite successful; all who attended our course said they saw real value in it.  The larger challenge for Key West though, is getting local motorists to accept vehicular cycling.

Conchs in Training

The local cyclists may feel the current situation is pretty good.  After all, bicycling makes up a far greater proportion of traffic on Key West than in perhaps any city in the nation outside of Davis, CA.  Eddie Marsh, proprietor of a pedicab and bike rental business, told us the tourists who rent bikes for a week usually return reporting that they had a great time.  But I wonder how many crashes are caused by their relatively new door-zone bike lanes and their sidepaths.  It’s common for untrained and inexperienced cyclists to be unaware of the conflicts posed by such facilities, and see only the “benefit” of “having a place to ride.”

I’ve been traveling to Key West since 1982.  During that first visit I noticed how some motorists were easily aggravated.  The juxtaposition of aggressive driving and the “mañana” mentality was surprising.   But it was still a fairly sleepy island at that time.  In ’85 I rode the Old Town section of the island with a friend and it was roughly the same.  My next visit in 1994 was as a budding bicycle transportation professional, spending a week observing and analyzing conditions and behaviors for an FDOT-led project.  Locals were increasingly concerned that cycling was becoming dangerous on the island, but many of our team routinely rode the N. Roosevelt roadway with no grief from the soldiers.  In 1998 I went down there for a Florida Bicycle Association advocacy-building effort.  The attitude from the locals was much the same as in ’94; “it’s a dangerous place; we need more bikeways,” yet I still saw it as a fairly easy place to ride.

Now, a decade later, they have those bikeways they asked for, and my perception of the island is that motorist attitudes towards cyclists are worse than they’d ever been.  Motor traffic levels are much higher (especially on N. Roosevelt) and motorists are much more intolerant of roadway cycling.  (So much for the theory that increasing the amount of cycling improves motorist attitudes towards cyclists.)  On the other hand, the locals we spoke to think things are pretty hunky-dory.  It’s so rare for American cyclists to say they live in a good place for cycling; one needs to respect that, so I question my own perspective.

When I visited in 1994 the cyclist crashes we were hearing about had little to do with the lack of bikeways; they were mostly instances of cyclists not yielding or otherwise violating the rules of the road.  I wonder what the causes are today.  Has safety actually improved along with its perception?  Nothing I saw this year would lead me to expect objective improvement.  But without actual data that’s just conjecture.

It’s an important question.  I hope someone can provide answers.  Because if Key West is perceived as a success while actual safety has been degraded, it becomes yet another misleading example in support of misguided planning and design.

The sad irony in this story is that Key West prides itself on tolerance.   “One Human Family” is the official city motto.  The mayor wrote that this motto “reflects our commitment to living together as caring, sharing neighbors dedicated to making our home as close to ‘paradise’ as we can.”  The city is known for accepting and welcoming those who wish to live differently from the norm.  Such tolerance does not, however, appear to extend to those of us on bicycles who behave as equals on their streets.  You can flaunt your sexual orientation or your outrageous artistic sensibilities, or wear a t-shirt that would get you thrown out of your mother’s house…but drive your bicycle like you’re a first-class citizen?  Now you’ve crossed the line, bud.

I have estimated the percentages from the chart and converted it to numbers showing percentage increase from the historic low to 1995.

For those who believe The Netherlands’ and Denmark’s high cycling numbers are due to facilities, you might consider that many of these places never dropped below 20% cycling mode share.  Cycling has always been a prominent component to their traffic environment.

Take a look at what they themselves say about the effectiveness of bikeways to increase cycling:

“Since 1990, the total length of cycle paths has increased to almost 19,000 km, doubling the length in 1980.”
“Results: In 1994, the total distance cycled was 12.9 billion km, compared with 12.8 billion in 1990. The number of km traveled by car was 125 billion in 1990 and 129 billion in 1994.”
“Expansion and improvement of the infrastructure does not necessarily increase the use of bicycles.”

From “The Autumn of the Bicycle Master Plan”
1994, Dutch Ministry of Transport

And

From “The Economic Significance of Cycling”
The Netherlands Interface for Cycling Expertise
“Experiences in Amsterdam show that the increase in bicycle use in the city centre in the last 10 years is mainly due to increased parking rates.”
“The policy of reducing car traffic in city centres therefore often consists of reducing parking facilities, and this method is used to cut car use.”
“Many cities have started to reclaim space from the car in the last 10 to 20 years. … A good example of this is Copenhagen where, between 1962 and 1996, the number of parking spaces was reduced from 3,100 to 2,000…”

The existence of an extensive rail transit system is also a very important factor:

“In 1991, 44% of [transit users] went to the local train station by bicycle.”
From “The Autumn of the Bicycle Master Plan”

If you start with different ingredients for two recipes, then add the same new ingredient to both recipes, do you end up with the same results?

The common belief about European cities is that they have so many bicyclists because they have extensive (and “safe”) bikeway systems.  This travelogue from 1937* shows Copenhagen streets filled with cyclists.

Granted, auto ownership in 1937 Copenhagen was rather tiny compared to present-day American cities (or for that matter present day Copenhagen).  But watch how the motorists and cyclists interact.  To us it looks like chaos.  Traffic control appears minimal at best, yet the cyclists all seem blithley unconcerned.

It is certainly true that bike used plummeted in Denmark after World War II, and one can argue that the increase in auto use made it “necessary” to build segregated bikeways in order to increase bicycle use.  My point is: look at how they all behave.  Integration inspires cooperation — especially when the bicyclists are dressed just like everybody else.

Thanks to Copenhagenize for the find.

* YouTube shows this as from 1953, but info from IMBD and auto styles in the film indicate it’s 1937.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Working up a sweat may be even better than angioplasty for some heart patients, experts say.

Studies have shown heart patients benefit from exercise, and some have even shown it works better than surgical procedures. At a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology on Sunday, several experts said doctors should focus more on persuading their patients to exercise rather than simply doing angioplasties.

Read more…

Similarly, many cyclists (and motorists who seem to revel in hanging out in cycling-related comment boards) seem to think lane control (aka “Taking the Lane,” aka “Commanding the Lane,” aka “Riding in the Middle of the Road,” aka “Impeding Traffic,” aka “Getting in the Way of the Important People in Cars”) is an all-or-nothing proposition.  As though lane control proponents do nothing but ride in the middle of every lane.

Of course that’s not the case.  We control the lane when it’s prudent; when keeping right will invite motorists to squeeze by dangerously close, when intersection conflicts are an issue, when pavement is bad, when we’re going as fast as other traffic, and in a variety of other situations.

I and others describe a lane that is too narrow to share as less than 14 feet wide.  (By the way, it’s not just us arrogant lane control advocates who say this; FDOT does, too.  See Florida Green Book, page 211.)  But there are situations in which a narrower lane might be shareable; particularly when motorist speeds are low.  One of the many benefits of lane control is that it slows motorists down so that they can pass safely.  While many cyclists like to tout Florida’s 3-foot law (motorists are required to give at least three feet of space when passing a bicyclist), many of us are comfortable with closer passes when motorists are going only a few miles per hour faster than we are (but want more than 3 feet when speeds are high!).  I’m happy with 2 feet when cars are doing 20 mph and the pavement is good.

Here are the factors I take into consideration:

Two-lane road

Lane not less than 12 feet

I’m not turning

On-coming traffic makes it difficult and dangerous to move into the on-coming lane to pass

Just one or two cars behind me

No debris or bad pavement ahead of me

The vehicles trying to pass are not very wide (no trailers, large trucks)

No intersection conflict issues

With those conditions I will move over towards the curb, but only after the following vehicle has slowed to my speed.  Then when it passes it will only be going a few miles per hour faster than I am.  If you have too many cars backed up behind you the later ones will get up a good head of steam by the time they pass you and will be more aggressive.  In such a case it’s better to just pull over into a driveway and let them all by.

From Contract Magazine:

VOA Completes Oviedo, Florida Public Works, Administration and Engineering Facility

July 8, 2009

The Orlando office of VOA Associates has completed the 5,500-sq.-ft. Public Works, Administration and Engineering Facility for the city of Oviedo, Fla., public works department, a project which has been submitted for LEED Gold certification.  …
To achieve LEED Gold, the team incorporated a number of environmentally sustainable elements, such as highly reflective roofing materials, a changing room, showers and bicycle storage for 5 percent of the occupants …

UPDATE: Here is the link for the Pedal Co-op in Philly.

I took this little detour away from strictly practical cycling material today because James Howard Kunstler spoke in our town (Orlando) this morning. I’ve been a reader of his work for quite a few years, but his most recent book, The Long Emergency, is his most important. For those of you not familiar with the concept of Peak Oil, The Long Emergency is an excellent primer. It will explain why gas is at over $3.00 per gallon, why it will continue to climb, and why “alternative fuels” will not permit us to keep driving cars the way we currently do.

A great source of up-to-date information on this matter is The Oil Drum.

Bicycling might not solve any of those problems, but if it helps you feel like you’re doing something positive about them…well, that’s surely a very good thing.

I hope you’ll join me every so often to learn about how you can make bicycling a bigger, better part of your life. I’ll be posting about bike selection, basic skills, safety, accessories and equipment, and neat tips and tricks to make your cycling life easier.

Have a question? Post a comment and I’ll post an answer.

And if you like what you see here, please pass it along!