How to Not Get Hit by Cars

This came across one of my lists today and it seems like good advice.

One tidbit:

Around 44,000 people die in car crashes in the U.S. each year.
About 1 in 54 is a bicyclist.

We Copied that inane Cow Parade what about this?

Laurie and I visited Chicago last summer. Without getting to Critical Mass or any events, we were really impressed. People ride everywhere and each neighborhood has its own unique little shop and they are all on the Chicagoland Bike Map.

For example, Pilsen, a predominately Hispanic neighborhood, has a shop, Irv's Bike Shop, with a good amount of low rider type bicycles with 80 spoke wheels and twisty handlebars. Other shops had folding bikes. Every shop sold fenders and they did repairs on old bikes. Unfortunately, we visited Yojimbos on Wednesday and he was closed.

We don't do this here in Kansas City. Look at what they offer on this page. Hard to imagine that here, but it's possible. We can have a city like that here in Kansas City. There is a different mentality in Chicago. People who use public transit aren't regarded as second class citizens or better stated, they all use it.

I'm not intending to bag on Kansas City all the time but it's frustrating to see what another city can do and we're not emulating it. I still have hope for my fair city, though.

KC bike/ped stats

I've been wondering for some time how the amount of bicycling and walking the the KC metro area stacks up to the national average.

For some reason I had the feeling we might be a bit lower than the average.

Sure enough we are.

Bicycling and walking are 9.5% of trips nationally (2001 data).

In KC bike/ped makes up 4.3% of trips.

A Gallup poll says that 27% of adult Americans bicycle regularly (defined as at least once per month during the summer months).

In KC it is only 24% of adults bicycle even once during the entire summer.

Got some work to do . . .

Not Toys

I haven't been to as many meetings as my wife, preferring a "bottom-up" rather than a "top-down" approach to bike/ped activism, but I've gone to a few. Invariably, the city officials refer to bike lanes and paths as recreational. In my mind, these are transportation issues. Stadium renovations are economic development, not recreational issues. If I didn't know better, I'd say the civic leadership would rather have me sitting on my posterior drinking overpriced bad beer watching someone else do something physical than riding my bike to work.

On KCUR's Up To Date awhile back, there was a discussion of bicycle transportation. One caller said the solution is "load them on the back of the car and drive out to 175th Street. You can ride safely out there." Perhaps but I doubt even that point. Too many soccer parents with SUVs jockeying around out there. I see little use in loading my bike in a vehicle and carrying it more miles than I may ride it. I just want to go get a cup of coffee or see what's in my own neighborhood. If I wanted something down in the area I refer to as Northern Oklahoma, I'd move there.

Simply put, bikes are not toys. I have several and I enjoy them, but they aren't toys. There is a fixed-gear commuter bike, simple for getting back and forth to work. I have a touring bike capable of carrying stuff, for shopping. I have one that I just own for historical and interesting value. I have too many bikes. But I use them, for doing what I have to do, shopping, getting to work, going places. Too often, people want the same Trek Madone that Lance rides. Nobody would drive an Indy car to work. Well, almost nobody. People drive cars that they enjoy but we don't consider them toys. I have something that costs me nearly nothing compared to the price of even the low end of the automotive market and I get frequently harassed for it.

Bicycles delight me. I love looking at them, thinking about them, learning about them, tinkering with them. I can somewhat justify my obsession by placing them with new riders. At any age, it brings back the joy that came with learning to ride without training wheels. It's independence, self-sufficiency. When we can get around without fouling the air, without conceivably funding the other side in the war on terrorism, it's a great thing.

I went to the MS150 Bike Fair yesterday and came home with a beautiful old $25 Nishiki bicycle, that I want to clean up and put on new tires and get it into someone else's posession to ride to work. I'd love to keep this one with the beautiful lugwork and classic old steel frame but I don't have room to keep them all, so sharing them is the next best thing.

Kansas City actually taking environmental steps?

This Kansas City Star article about KCMO's "first environmental steps" (Feb 15th issue) is very interesting:

As early as next week, city council members could get a peek at a groundbreaking proposal from the city's environmental commission. The commission wants Kansas City to implement a far-reaching citizen-based initiative to combat global warming.

The program is based on the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which has been signed by more than 200 mayors across the country, including Mayor Kay Barnes. It is an attempt to slow global warming. The mayors came up with the agreement after the United States spurned the Kyoto Protocol that was ratified by 141 nations. Those countries are introducing measures to try to stabilize dangerous greenhouse gas concentrations.

Barnes signature caught area environmentalists by surprise. Until then the mayor had not been considered environmentally astute. . . .

nitiatives of the climate protection program include:

? Maintaining healthy urban forests and promoting tree planting to absorb pollution.

? Increasing the average fuel efficiency of municipal fleets.

? Making energy efficiency in homes and businesses a priority, while promoting green homes and buildings and encouraging purchase of Energy Star appliances and equipment.

? Reducing sprawl, preserving open space and creating compact, walkable urban communities.

? Educating the public, businesses and industry through schools, jobs, and professional associations about how to reduce global warming pollution.

If successful, "you could end up with a sustainable city that not only works better and operates more efficiently at lower cost, but it's dramatically more beautiful than the asphalt jungle we look out the window today," said John Ware, an architect with Gould Evans Associates and an environmental commissioner who put together the climate protection resolution and report.

Judy Widener, Volker Neighborhood Association president, believes the global warming protection initiative will work because of lessons activists learned from the recycling effort.

The answer, she said, is grassroots.

This opens up some real opportunities for bicyclists and pedestrians in the city. Bike/ped should be a big part of the effort to make KC "greener".

A quick calculation based on MARC & census figures shows that if the MARC region moved from (current) 4.3% bike/ped mode share to (current national average) 9.5% mode share we would save these whopping amounts:

385 million kg of nitrogen oxide annually
5.9 million kg of particulates annually
107 million tons of carbon dioxide annually

Lighten Up

Fotag writes of bike lights and his irritation with riders who won't use them. I concur with his assessment of the rear lights. The Blackburn Mars 3.0 is handy, clips on the back of my Bell Metro, and is visible from a number or angles and relatively cheap.

I haven't used a front light that satisfies me yet. Riding in the city, I simply need a "be seen" light most of the time with all the streetlights. I'm intrigued by the Schmidt and Shimano generator lights.

I currently using on my fixed-gear Stella a set of Reelights from Jim at Hiawatha Cyclery. Not that bright, but reliable and no batteries to and no stuff to remember. Just saddle up and ride. The lights are there.

Makes Sense to Me

When Laurie and I visited Chicago last summer, we took the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation map one day and made a tour of Bike Shops. One thing that struck me was the number of folding bicycles in the stores. Another thing was the number of old heavy bikes on the road. Actually, I was impressed by the number of bikes on the road but that's another story.

Folding bikes make great sense for commuters. Especially in Chicago, where mixed-mode commuting has been the norm for years. Ride your bike to the El. Fold it up. Ride the El. Get off the El. Ride to work.

Here in Kansas City, where one of the perks of employment is free parking, taking money away from what could be more useful benefits, the parking lots are like missing teeth in the cityscape. As we grow into a more mature city, folding bikes would make part of a nice personal transportation plan.

On the Kogswell Owners Group list, Dan Gurney writes,

"Folders rock.

Folding bikes are to regular bikes as
Laptops are to desktops."

Let's build more sidewalks

The thing about KC's poor walkability that always strikes me the most is that we have so many neighborhoods without sidewalks. The two big examples are the Waldo area and the older, north-central part of the Northland south of Vivian Road. The big reason they lack sidewalks is that most homes there were built before the areas were annexed into the city - they were built on unincorporated county land with few of the urban planning guidelines that govern development of incorporated areas. And this is just in KCMO, the problem is even worse in many of the suburbs.

The problem today is that sidewalks are the responsibilty of the property owner. If the original developer of the subdivision didn't build sidewalks, then the current homeowner has to pay for it. There are some ways to get city assistance, but the bulk of the responsibilty falls to the individual and their neighbors.

So, let's lobby our City Council members to make sidewalks a priority for city infrastructure spending. If we can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on projects like arenas, stadiums, bridges, fire stations, etc. then we can also spend a few million to make sure all parts of the city have basic sidewalk infrastructure in place. It's also something that the often opposing north and south halves can join together to support.

Make KC more inviting for walking

Ron McLinden of the Sierra Club has a great letter in the KCStar today:

If Kansas City is to move up in walkability, we need to make our streets more inviting for walking. Our streets should encourage walking as part of people’s daily lives rather than a separate activity that involves driving to a park.

We could start by acknowledging that streets are more than just vehicle travel lanes. Streets are public space for all, including people not riding in motor vehicles, and they must be safe to cross as well as walk along.

We’ll make progress when the region’s traffic engineers — and The Star — lose their auto-centric view of streets and the urban environment.

The first step is the hardest and the happiest.

A few weeks ago, I woke up early, made coffee and checked my email. There was an ad on Craigslist for a couple bikes for $60.00. They were unsuspended Mountain Bikes, which are a great base for a commuter bike. So, I snapped them up. The seller told me he'd be home at noon, so I was there, cash in hand.

They needed a little work. The tires were flat from disuse. The brakes needed a tweak. I doubt that there was 50 miles on the 2 of them. But they had nice steel frames, which I like. They didn't need too much, or so I thought.

Little by little, by way of backstory, I've been getting my fellow team members at Whole Foods Market to ride to work. So, my intention in purchasing these two bikes, was to fix them up and hand them over to team members, not to make a fortune.

So, last week, our frozen foods buyer, Charlie comes to me and tells me he's ready to go look for a bike. The wheels start turning in my head. Breezer? Electra? What does Acme have? He says, "I need something for a 57 year old fat guy."

Since we were both free on Thursday, I had him meet me at Acme Bicycle Company around noon. I loaded up my truck with the 2 Raleighs and headed over there, grabbing a file on my way out of the garage to take off the "lawyer lips" which annoyed me each time I had to take the bikes off of the truck rack. One was 20 inches, the other 22. He's a taller guy but the smaller bike fit him about right. Christi was there to make certain he was fit right. She told me the shifters weren't repairable.

"I guess they just want you to buy a new bike when the shifters go bad. You'll have to take a hacksaw to that part and put on some new shifters. This one has seven speeds and they want 8, 9, 10 speeds now."

"How about friction? That's what his other bike has and it's a lot less fussy to maintain." So she handed me a new set of thumbshifters and a used one for the other bike. I went to work with a a hacksaw and file, removing the offending pods and smoothing away the excess metal. Installing the new ones was simple, with just a few tweaks the bike was shifting like a new bike. The new Tektro cantilever brake went on the front where the cheap Shimano Alivio had broken, exposing the brake spring beneath the flimsy plastic. They also needed a few tweaks to line up the brake pads.

Charlie got on his bike and rode around the alley, somewhat haltingly. "Like riding a bicycle" is after all, just an expression. Riding is a skill. It comes back to you but you have to practice.

But as we were leaving, he said, "This is going to be fun. I can ride the mile to work and back, ride to the coffee shop and ride to church." He had a big grin on his face, like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Do you think having a basket will make me look like a dorky 57 year old guy?"

"Charlie, I use one. Anyway, being a 57 year old guy means you don't have to worry what anyone thinks.

So, we put a nice Wald basket on the front handlebars. He can carry his lunch, carry home groceries.

One step. One "old fat guy" (in his words, not mine) gets a little healthier, the air gets just a little less exhaust and the roads get clearer. One more parking place is available. Change comes slowly but good things can happen.