NYC Critical Mass Confrontation Officer Found Guilty

Here is some good news on Critical Mass Friday.

A former police officer was convicted on Thursday of lying about a collision with a bicyclist who was taking part in a Critical Mass ride in Times Square in 2008 — shown in the video below.

The jury found the officer, Patrick Pogan, 24, guilty of filing a criminal complaint that contained false statements concerning the cyclist, Christopher Long, including an assertion that Mr. Long knocked Mr. Pogan down by intentionally steering his bicycle into him. (The video showed that Mr. Pogan remained on his feet, while Mr. Long flew to the pavement.)

Mr. Pogan’s conviction carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

Mr. Pogan, who resigned from the Police Department after the episode, was also convicted of a misdemeanor for attesting to the complaint’s truthfulness, even though it contained a warning against making false statements.

But Mr. Pogan, who was in his 11th day on the force when the collision happened, was acquitted of a misdemeanor charge of reckless assault.

Bike Miami Days

This past Sunday was the return of Bike Miami Days with the permission of City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and the leadership of Bike Coordinator Collin Worth, and was the result of an amazing number of volunteer hours from the Miami Open Streets Team and others. Bike Miami Days is an event that mimics Bogota, Columbia's Cyclovia. Miami's event is held in Coconut Grove and closes the streets of downtown Coconut Grove from 9am to 2pm. Bike Miami Days consisted of a bike parade, yoga, raffles, an after party, and of course plenty of cycling, skating and walking around on the car free streets.

Despite a budget only a fraction of last year’s and a smaller route, Sunday’s event was an incredible success. Only weeks ago, rumors suggested the event could be canceled, until Mack Cycle and Fitness came in to cover over half the city’s costs for the event. Their huge contribution, combined with small donations from the public and the support of organizations like the Florida Bicycle Association, the Green Mobility Network, South Florida Bike Coalition, the Dutch Consulate, the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District and so very many others, saved Miami’s largest free and family-friendly street party.

Check out their website or blog to see when the next Bike Miami Day will occur, but hopefully with the proper support, it will become a regular event.

Photo credit goes out to my friend and fellow rider, Steve Rolles, who personally attended the event and reported its success.

National Network of Bike Trails!

As noted at FABB and BikeLeague, DDOT Director Gabe Klein and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were on NPR'S All Things Considered to talk about making cycling as important as driving.

Klein referenced DDOT new plans and how Portland is the urban model of the future. He also talked about the 15th St NW road diet that allowed for the installation of a contraflow bike lane and retrofitting bike lanes into the city. "We want to build support amongst all people in the city, including drivers, for our bike and ped programs." He also said "we're going to have a very large bike sharing program" and he talked about plans to have separated lanes. And in response to criticism that we shouldn't invest in cycling when only 2-3% of people use bikes for transportation, he notes that where they've added bike facilities they've seen a sizable increase in cycling.

LaHood called bike trails "equal components" to other transportation elements. "We’ve put almost all of our resources into roads," LaHood says. "Our commitment at DOT is to create options." He talked about creating a national bike route system so that people can bike around the country, and about how there is space enough for both highways for trucks and routes for cyclists. He also talks about biking the C&O Canal with his wife on weekends.

New Facilities Catching On

As I plan on heading back up to DC this week, I am encouraged by new articles that I am seeing in conjunction with Earth Day and DOTs allocating funds for summer implementation of new facilities in many US cities. Denver opened 40 B-cycle stations that will provide 400 bicycles for the city's citizens and visitors to use. New York is pushing forward with adding new cycletracks and additional miles of bike lanes. Of course here in Orlando we are still required to ride on the road and contend with cars and hunt for safe routes on our own.

I am excited to see more of what DC is doing when I visit there this week and see how "a bucket of Portland is being spilled on the Capital". The cycletracks that are being constructed there are the main arteries that are going to feed the city with cyclists. Bicycle ridership generally increases 18-20% when cities add cycletracks, but only 5-7% for bike lanes. New York's cycletracks also reduced injuries by 56%, crashes by 48%, injuries to pedestrians by 29%, and injuries to cyclists by 57%. Pennsylvania Avenue is getting bi-directional cycletracks running down its median, 9th Street (a 1-way) is getting a new bike lane on the right side and a contraflow lane on the left, I and L Streets are getting buffered bike lanes, and many other streets are getting restriped with narrower travel lanes and new bike lanes.

I admit that not all of these facilities will be successful and I am sure that redesign will occur, but although they are not ideal, they are better than nothing and may be the best way to get cycletracks implemented on a broader scale. Cities that are implementing bike boxes, contraflow bike lanes, center bike lanes, turning lanes to the left or right of bike lanes, bicycle only lights, sharrows, chevrons, driveway markings and two-stage crosswalk cycle track turns, mixing zones... are going to be the cities that increase ridership and get the United States into the game of urban cycling. It will require some education to say the least, but good changes are on the horizon.

Another Piece of the Pie

Today was another beautiful day in the "Sunshine State". The morning Lakemont Ride was good and fast. The B group caught the A group at about mile 4, because they hit several lights that we missed. That just meant that our group grew to about 125-140 riders and then our average speed was increased to 23! The pack broke up into a few smaller groups, but I stayed with the lead pack and finished strong.

It was a good hard morning ride and after getting home and giving the old bike a much needed washing, we decided to head downtown for lunch and the Earth Day celebration at Lake Eola. It was really cool to see all of the eco-friendly products and services that were being advertised and sold. Rusted Chain was there to provide bike valet, so it was good that they were promoting their group and to see all of the bikes there.

When we left the park, we went to get some yogurt at Mochee, at The Plaza on Orange Avenue. We rolled around looking for bike racks for about 5 minutes, and finally got a security guard to point us to a rack down in the entrance to their parking garage. The little bike rack could only hold 4-5 bikes and was in an unlit corner, Needless to say we didn't park there and just rolled them inside the restaurant and leaned them against the wall.

I haven't ever paid much attention to the lack of bicycle racks in the downtown area, but it is really shameful. My office is on Orange Avenue, but we have 3 bike racks inside our office and a locker room with showers, and I know of a few other offices, apartments, and condos that have similar bike rooms or bike lockers. The Plaza is a huge condo building with a movie theater and several restaurants inside it, in addition to the other bars and restaurants that are in the immediate area, and yet they only accommodated 5 bikes! That is a big issue.

For a city to increase bike ridership, it has to not only provide comfortable routes, but also provide places to park bikes where they won't get stolen or damaged. Orlando has no problem building parking garages for automobiles, but until they put some more effort into creating places for bike parking, we will still have low ridership, no matter what other facilities or plans they implement.

Portland Cycle Tracks and Buffered Bike Lanes

The streets in most cities currently work fine for people who are comfortable riding bicycles in mixed traffic. However, my designs are intended to make bicycling more comfortable for the majority of cyclists who are not comfortable riding under such conditions. Analysis indicates that most cyclists/potential cyclists would use a bicycle much more often than they currently do if they didn’t have to mix so much with automobiles. A cycle track provides that opportunity and is one of the reasons that bicycling is so well-used in cities that have features such as these facilities.


On the Right Track from Mayor Sam Adams on Vimeo.

"Close Brush" Commute

Well I had my quarterly brush with an automobile on my commute home tonight. I was heading east on Livingston, coming up to the Mills intersection. The light was turning red and I stopped just before the cross walk, about 3' from the curb. As you can see from the photos, this stretch of road is interesting because the bike lane disappears and the cars freak out and typically don't know what to do around the bikes that get tossed out into their lanes.

Well, as I am sitting in the lane, a minivan behind me moves up and around my left side, and pulls in front of me to make a right turn. It happened so fast that all I could do is yell "Hey!" and give them a tap in their side window (yes that is how close they brushed along side me). The female driver actually stopped suddenly and rolled her window down and exclaimed that she didn't see me. I just said, "You had to pull around me to get to where you are." She replied, "I thought you were going to get on the sidewalk and not stay in the road." I told her that it was OK, and that she should watch out for bikes next time.Luckily all of this happened during the red light and we could talk it out.

My designer hat made me think of several solutions to this type of situation. Extending the bike lane to the intersection is one. The other is to add a bike box to the edge of the crosswalk (see graphic below), so that cyclists can queue up and the cars would be warned that bikes would be in front of them and right turns on red would be prohibited. Just a thought. Seems way too simple of a fix, but it works everywhere else that they implement it.