Brooklyn Spoke

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to help you appreciate your city.  Via Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org:

As we walked around Manhattan, I saw roadway space being allocated to include bicycle access everywhere I looked: buffered bike lanes; green, curbside bike lanes; physically separated bike lanes; multi-use paths, and more. (And for walking, there were plazas, abundant striped crosswalks, median islands, curb extensions, and more.) And there was a wide mix of people of using the bikeways; from workers on delivery bikes to families to fixed gear daredevils, fashion-conscious women, and more.

Here are two car commercials shot decades apart that follow the exact same premise: a boy, too young to drive, rides his bike to a car dealer to check out the latest model, hoping that he can one day sit behind the wheel and drive it off the lot.  It’s a classic car industry tactic, playing to consumer’s ideas of casting off childish things.  No surprise there.

But what struck me about the first ad, a vintage Chevy OK spot, is that the boy appears to be fresh from his paper route, as if he’s saving up money to one day by a “practical” car, in the announcer’s words.  “He’ll be back,” only when he can afford to pay for the car he wants.  Compare that to the second ad, in which a young boy daydreams and doodles his way through class, fantasizing about the Porsche 911 that drives by his school.  There’s no sense that the kid needs to do anything to afford this luxury sports car such as study or work.  Just thinking about it hard enough is enough to make the dream come true.

Its the can-do spirit of the Eisenhower era versus the something-for-nothing mentality of The Secret and post-9/11 America.

Photo: Michael Cairl. (Click to enlarge)

Michael Cairl, the president of the Park Slope Civic Council, snapped this picture of a Citi Bike Station at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Without any bicycles attached this one obviously isn’t operational, but it still gives a better sneak peak than the faux one-bike docking station used for the sponsor announcement in May.

Note the solar pole on top of the kiosk and the fact that this particular station seems to allow for parked bikes to alternate directions.  Most stations in other systems tend to have the bikes all facing the same way, so perhaps they’re tailoring some to squeeze a lot of bicycles into some tight New York City spots.

Thoughts?

Looking for something fun to do and want to support the best news and information sources on livable streets in New York?  Then please come to Street of Dreams, a fundraiser for Streetsblog and Streetfilms, on Friday October 26th from 7:00 – 9:00 PM at WNYC’s The Greene Space.

Via Open Plans:

What does your Street of Dreams looks like?  Are there children playing? Neighbors congregating? Is it car-free? Are there places to sit and amenities to enjoy? Is there dedicated space for transit? Is it paved with cobblestones? Is it lit by human-scaled light fixtures? Are there plenty of trees and flowers? No parked cars? Plenty of bike parking?

If you said yes to any (or all) of the above, we’d love to invite you to an event: “Street of Dreams, a fundraiser for Streetfilms and Streetsblog”. Enjoy local food and drink, a silent auction full of bike-tastic prizes, and great conversation. When you buy your tickets, you’re supporting media that makes our streets safer, greener, and more livable.

The guest of honor is City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was instrumental in the campaign to bring protected bike lanes to East Harlem.  I’m emceeing.  Tickets available here.

Why do drivers often fail to see cyclists, even when they’re right in front of them? Psychologist Ian Walker has a few theories. [PDF]

There’s actually a (very) small psychological literature on this, particularly the ‘looked-but-failed-to-see phenomenon’, which is where the rightturning driver looks at the rider but does not consciously become aware of the hazard. Unfortunately, this literature is so small it doesn’t provide very hard answers, but it’s likely the problem is drivers’ expectations, making it a topdown processing problem. The hypothesis is that drivers don’t expect to encounter cyclists at junctions and so their visual search patterns go to the parts of the road where cars and trucks are to be found, skipping the parts of the road where cyclists (and, to an extent, motorcyclists) are found. The way to test this is incredibly simple: behavioural analysis of drivers in, say, Cambridge or York (where one would expect cyclists at each junction) and Basingstoke (where one would not). We expect to see different visual search patterns – and fewer conflicts with cyclists – where cyclists are more prevalent.

Short of moving to a place where drivers can expect to see cyclists all the time, what can cyclists do to avoid getting hit?  As much as government education campaigns may tell you that reflective clothing is the way to go, it’s not always the answer, according to Walker.

David Shinar in Israel has recently been doing studies to suggest that riders’ smaller physical size plays a role in throwing off drivers’ judgements. Most interesting of all, he found that the visibility of riders depends very heavily on the background they happen to be passing at any given moment: if you’re riding in front of  a white house it’s far better to wear black than so-called ‘high-visibility’ gear. To a psychologist, it’s pretty obvious that visual contrast between figure and ground, rather than the rider’s clothes per se, is what will matter. But this seems to be a difficult message for wider audiences to swallow – they won’t let go of the idea that ‘high-visibility’ clothing is always the best thing.

Incidentally, there are other reasons to be suspicious of high-visibility gear, not least that it transfers responsibility from the driver of the metal box that creates the danger to the victim of that danger.

Bike Chattanooga, Chattanooga’s bike share system, faced some of the same software issues that affected Citi Bike and was delayed by about three months before launching in July. It has 300 bicycles at 30 stations and is off to a decent start.

Larry Zehnder, city public works administrator, said the city’s new Bike Share program has had 10,000 riders since it was launched in late July.

He said there is an average rental of 127 bikes a day from stations placed all over downtown and the North Shore.

Mr. Zehnder said the busiest day was 298 riders and the most active 48-hour period was 427.

The average ride time is 25 minutes.

Total mileage logged thus far is at 2,000.

He said that means that 400,000 calories have been burned by the riders.

Smartly, Chattanooga calls their program a “Bicycle Transit System.”  That kind of tagline might have helped Citi Bike avoid the initial confusion about its pricing.

It’s hard to argue that the NYPD is taking a “a more targeted approach to policing bike riders” when stuff like this happens.  Via Gothamist, a Bushwick residents reports that he was biking home and turned right on red and before continuing to go through at least two more red lights.  He was stopped by a police officer.

He began asking me what I thought I was doing and we discussed what had just happened, he asked for my opinion on what I thought certain bike laws should be but quickly dismissed my answers as wrong.  He told me I went through 3 red lights and I was wearing 2 headphones so he wrote me 4 tickets.  He couldn’t give me a price of how much the tickets would be, but estimated it would total around $700.

The total was actually $1,555.

Let’s forget for a moment the typical explanation of going through a red light as a harmless action and instead live in a world where it is The Most Dangerous Thing a Cyclist Can Do.  If Operation Safe Cycle is really about safety it’s hard to see what benefit there is in allowing a dangerous cyclist to recklessly run light after light after light.  Why not stop him after the first infraction and make sure his habit of ignoring traffic signals doesn’t land some poor pedestrian in the hospital.  Once evidence of a “crime” is established one would hope the police would stop the criminal before he has the opportunity to really do some harm.  It’s like an officer witnessing a purse snatching and then thinking, “I’ll wait to nab this guy until after he robs a convenience store or a bank.”

Sure, one could argue that a ticketing cyclist so punitively has an effect on overall safety in that a person who finds himself on the receiving end of a string of tickets worth more than his rent is going to think twice about ever going through a red light again, but that opens up an argument about quality versus quantity of enforcement.  Do we want the cops catching murderers in general or do we want them really going after that one guy who killed a bunch of people?  It’s not as if murderers are surfing Gothamist and reading the story of the serial killer who finally got busted by the cops as a cautionary tale.

Maybe the WNYC report is right.  Is there anything more “targeted” than following a lone cyclist for blocks on end and cataloguing his infractions before punching him in the wallet?  Operation Safe Cycle is not about safety.  It is about generating revenue, meeting quotas, and doling out punishment to people who are an affront to the “real” New York.

Erin Farber has a list of “10 Things Americans can Learn from Amsterdammers.”  Number 6:

Integrate exercise into your everyday routine. This goes hand-in-hand with eating in moderation. Part of the reason the Dutch manage to stay so fit is because they cycle everywhere, come rain or shine (well, more like rain and rain). Exercise isn’t a chore — something you dread and have to squeeze into your busy schedule — it is simply a means of getting to work (even if you’re a CEO!), picking up the kids from daycare, or avoiding driving home in your car after one too many Heinekens.

When everything is exercise nothing is exercise.

Surprising no one, Alta Bicycle Share just won Portland’s $4 million bike share contact.  Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland has an interview with Mia Birk of Alta Planning + Design, who offers a tiny slice of insight into Citi Bike’s delay.  Birk says that New York’s “software testing is going well, and we’re on schedule for the March launch.”  She also mentions that her experience in government and planning has taught her that “It’s not surprising that things have taken longer than initially envisioned.”

Officials tend to publicly pick launch dates before having everything worked through. For example, funding issues — often a mix of federal and local dollars and sponsorship — tend to create a longer timeframe than officials (and the public) initially hope for. Capital Bike Share launched quickly because they had all government money and DC as a unique sovereign entity had complete control of the funding. The other cities don’t have that; most are using federal dollars that flow through state DOTs and/or regional agencies –with very complex and challenging bureaucratic requirements – AND they are raising private funds as well. In NYC, which wanted a completely privately financed system, we had to secure not just an underwriting sponsor but a large bank loan. It’s awesome that we were able to do this in such a short amount of time, as anyone involved in fundraising will tell you, and a real testament to the dedication and brilliance of Janette Sadik-Khan and ABS [Alta Bicycle Share] President Alison Cohen.

Then, besides sorting out funding issues, you also have to do site plans and secure permits, hire staff, buy equipment, and work though a long list of hundreds of other details. In other words, short delays are not surprising given the complexity of issues. We try to take a long view, and believe that it’s important to get it right on the front end in order to ensure long-term success.

I know Birk is toeing the company line here and isn’t likely to give much more info than what we already know, but I agree with her about the long view.  This time next year no one will remember the six-month delay.

UPDATE 11:33 AM: After chatting with a DOT contact, I should add that much of what Birk is talking about here does not apply to NYC.  Almost all of the siting issues surrounding Citi Bike have already been worked out with community boards, City Council Members, the MTA, private property owners and other stakeholders.  Once the software issue has been worked out, getting the system up and running will be as simple dropping the stations into place.  The bigger point, that the “long view” is what matters in the end, stills stands.

“Towards a Slower, Simpler, More Civilized Bicycle Culture,” via Vancouver’s Hush Magazine:

In choosing not to participate in the needless consumption and fear-mongering that typifies militant cycling, it is also just as important to avoid the riding style it encourages. Not only does that protective gear imply that cycling is inherently dangerous and complicated (actively discouraging the average by-stander from giving it a try), it also leads to risk compensation, causing the wearer to ride faster and more recklessly than they otherwise would. In choosing style over speed, and elegance over exertion, you are a completely predictable vehicle on the road, travelling at a jogging pace, yielding to pedestrians and cars, and following all traffic laws. Think of yourself as walking with wheels; you are Mary Poppins, not Bradley Wiggins. You’re likely riding a few leisurely blocks to the grocery store, not zooming through a construction site or a war zone.

Once you discover the simple comforts and pleasures of civil cycling, you won’t look back. There are few things in life as enjoyable as cruising half-speed in the sunshine, watching all the other motorists and “avid cyclists” racing for the prize. My daily ride to work on my three-speed, Dutch-style bicycle is an absolute dream: dressed for the office, sitting up straight, never breaking a sweat, and turning plenty of heads. In doing the same, your mere presence in the urban landscape inspires others, without being labeled an activist. If the bicycle is ever to move past the dismal 5% mode-share it enjoys in Vancouver, it will have to be with more than just the middle-class, middle-aged road-warriors who currently dominate the bikeways, seawalls and separated lanes of our city. Every citizen will consider cycling a feasible mode of transportation, irrespective of age, sex, ethnicity, fitness, politics or financial means. That is the basis for the new bicycle culture: advocacy in a blazer, dress shirt, and pinstriped trousers.