Chicago Plans Its First Cycle Track

Just a few days ago I wrote about the Chicago's results of their bike count, and the success of their investments in infrastructure has proven to provide higher rates of ridership. With these successes, a new type of bike lane is being designed for Chicago to boost the confidence of cyclists that is safe to ride on streets without fear of being struck by vehicles.

The special lane is called a cycle track, and it's unlike the regular marked bicycle lanes that run next to vehicle traffic lanes and are separated only by paint on pavement. The key to a cycle track is a physical barricade, such as a construction Jersey barrier or a raised concrete planter box located to the left of the bikes-only lane. The curb or a sidewalk would exist to the right of the cycle track, and all motorized vehicles — whether moving or parked — would be on the left of the cycle track barricade.

The Chicago Department of Transportation received a $3.2 million federal grant to build and test a cycle track. A section of Stony Island Avenue, between 69th and 77th streets, was selected for the experiment.
The cycle track will be wider than a traditional 5-foot bike lane to provide space for whatever type of concrete barrier is chosen, officials said. The Stony Island cycle track would be the first in Chicago. Cycle tracks are becoming increasingly common in other bicycle-friendly cities as a tool to encourage more travel by bike and less car use, especially on shorter trips.

Studies have shown that the vast majority of people who bicycle restrict themselves to off-street bike trails because of fears about riding in traffic. Cycle tracks will open up the streets to more than die-hard urban bicyclists. The perception of traffic danger is the No. 1 reason people cite for not biking on streets. Cycle tracks have become popular among motorists too. Drivers say they don't have to worry about passing up bicyclists or getting tangled up with cyclists who weave from lane to lane and ignore traffic laws.

Stony Island was chosen for the test because it is four lanes in each direction on the roughly mile long stretch between 69th and 77th, providing ample right-of-way to build the bikeway without restricting traffic flow. The cycle count study showed that there is already a lot of bicycling on the route, and they envision the cycle track as being a good connection to Jackson Park, the lakefront and the larger bike network in the city.

Malicious Crash at Brazilian Critical Mass

Cyclists around the world have been gathering on the last Friday night of the month for years, in an event that is called Critical Mass. On Friday night an angry motorist mowed down a group of about 150 people on bicycles riding for Critical Mass in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The motorist accelerated his vehicle directly through the group of riders, injuring about 20 riders and sending 8 victims to the hospital ER with at least one victim still remaining hospitalized in serious condition.

This callous cold blooded attempted murder hasn’t seemed to make the news outside of Brazil, so here are some quotes translated from Brazil news agencies:
From the YouTube video:

"I am here at the Critical Mass ride. A car just ran over with the entire critical mass ride. At full speed! A black VW Golf. He hit everybody!! Are you seeing this?!
What a horrible thing... oh my GOD. Someone call the police, call the ambulance
Police! Call the Police!! The Ambulance!
Everyone is scared, son.
A car hit the whole, entire Critical Mass ride!! At full speed.
Voice: What's going on?
This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen! I cannot believe"

Here is a first-hand video showing the Volkswagen Golf ploughing through the group of bicyclists (scroll to 0:52). WARNING: This is an extremely graphic and up-close video of this terrible incident:

According to the latest reports, they are still looking for the driver of the Volkswagen who went into hiding after abandoning his car shortly after the incident.

“The Civil Police expect the driver who ran over at least 20 riders in the Lower City district late on Friday to submit voluntarily next week. The owner of the vehicle involved has been identified.”

Here is a photo of the Volkswagen that was found after the incident:

Upon reaching the corner of Rua Luiz Afonso, the driver of a black Golf, who was driving behind the group since the beginning of the track, would have accelerated, hitting cyclists.

“The car passed by my side, it was a horrible scene.There were people being thrown all sides” - tells the rider.

Here are some videos of the deliberate callous murder attempt by the driver of the Volkswagen (thanks to Tino from Bike Lane Diary):

Here are some other news articles about the incident translated to English:
Sul21 – Group of cyclists is hit in the central region of Porto Alegre
Radio Guaiba – Driver flees after running over cyclists in the Lower City
Verbicide Magazine blog – Tragedy at Critical Mass Bike Ride in Porto Alegre, Brazil

Chicago's Bike Improvements are Paying Off with Higher Ridership

Thousands of bicyclists travel along Chicago streets each weekday, according to the results of a first-ever bike-count study conducted by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT).

 “This study confirms what we already knew: That bicycles are a popular and convenient way to travel in Chicago,” said CDOT Commissioner Bobby L. Ware.

The study, conducted in summer and fall of 2009, counted bicyclists at 26 locations throughout the city.  CDOT’s Bicycle Program staff used automated pneumatic tube counters designed to count bicycles, but not motorized vehicles.

Counts were taken for 24 hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in warmer-weather conditions.  Nineteen of the 26 locations have dedicated bike lanes; four have marked shared lanes; one location has a shared bus/bike lane; and two locations have no bike-related pavement markings.

CDOT compared the bike counts to existing vehicle counts at the same locations.  In many instances, the mode share—the percent of vehicles that are bicycles—was less than 2 percent.  But in a few cases the mode share was significantly higher:

640 N. Milwaukee Avenue—21.9 percent in September, 15.8 percent in November1325 N. Wells Street—7.8 percent in September, 5.25 percent in November1616 N. Milwaukee Avenue—7.7 percent on October

Additionally, 17 of the 26 locations saw more than 200 bicyclists daily, with the highest count of more than 3,000 bicyclists recorded at 640 North Milwaukee Avenue.

The bike counts not only document the use of existing bike facilities, they will be used to plan future facilities, said Ben Gomberg, the CDOT Bicycle Program Coordinator.  The Bike 2015 Plan (www.bike2015plan.org), the master plan for bicycling in Chicago, lists gathering bike counts as a goal, noting that the counts will help the CDOT Bicycle Program gauge the effectiveness of Plan strategies.

CDOT Bicycle Count Study 2009

Rolling Stops for Cyclists May Be Coming to Utah

Oregon tried unsuccessfully to implement a rolling stop for bicycles during its last legislative session in 2009. Now it looks as if Oregonians are likely to be upstaged by that biking mecca of the western U.S. known as Utah. In case you weren't aware, Utah has approximately 13,000 commuting cyclists (according to the last American Community Survey), and soon all of them may be able to yield, but not stop, at stop signs.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, this week a state House committee endorsed a bill (HB 155) that would allow cyclists to proceed through an intersection after yielding and checking for oncoming traffic.

According to the paper, the chief sponsor of the bill, Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, said the bill would "reflect what cyclists already do."

While Spackman thought the bill would make cyclists safer by leading them to use smaller arterial roads in the knowledge that they would be able to keep a steady speed, insurance companies AAA and State Farm opposed the bill. A spokesperson said that the new law might lead to tragedies as motorists expect cyclists to stop at stop signs.

Here's the language of the bill, which is surprisingly simple:

This bill:
. provides that a person operating a bicycle approaching a stop sign shall stop before entering the intersection; and
. provides an exception for a person operating a bicycle approaching a stop sign to
cautiously make a turn or proceed through the intersection without stopping if the person:
. slows to a reasonable speed;
. yields the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another highway so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard;
. has reasonably determined the movement can be made safely and without interfering with the movement of any vehicle or pedestrian; and
. is 18 years of age or older.

The law would allow cyclists to make the move as long as it can be made safely and without interfering with pedestrians.

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Biking

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Biking from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

This is a great video that captures much of what we I been saying for years; that bikes take up less space, use less energy, build healthier citizens and that the key is to give them their space, their place in the City. It's now a national movement, where people are voting with their pedals.

For this video we spent some time with leading thinkers in New York, San Francisco and Portland to discuss the direct relationship between providing safe cycling infrastructure and the number of people biking. The benefits of cycling are simple. Biking helps reduce congestion, air pollution, meet climate action goals and makes for healthier communities.

New Bike Stats from Netherlands in Video

This video was posted a few days ago, and it is a great illustration of the latest (2011) figures of the Dutch Cyclist's Union in one video. These figures show that the scale of cycling in the Netherlands is quite phenomenal.

"In the daytime on a normal working day in the Netherlands, more than a million journeys are made by bike every hour."

Remember that the population of the Netherlands is just 16 million. That's only twice the population of New York or London. However, the number of journeys, spread across a whole country is much higher.

New figures from the Fietsberaad throw light on the astonishing number of journeys per day made by bike in the Netherlands. The table below gives a picture of what's going on, but there's also some more detailed text accompanying it:

Dutch people cycle a lot. Of course there is more cycling in the summer than in the autumn and winter. But cycling rates also vary between days of the week. On an average working day, 5 million people make an average of 14 million cycle journeys. Monday and Thursday are the top days with a million more journeys than on the other days of the week. On Saturday, 11.5 million cycle journeys are made, and on Sunday 6.5 million.

Through the week, between 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, more than a million cycle journeys are made each hour. The high point is between 8 and 9 in the morning with 1.75 million cycle journeys during the hour. In that hour, many journeys to work and school are made, and more bicycles are in use than cars. Cycling on a typical week-day:

Time	Description	Total
8:00	By 8 in the morning, 750000 cycle journeys have already been made. Most of them are to work.	0.75 M
8:30	Most children are now at school. Another 450000 cycle journeys pass in half an hour.	1.2 M
9:00	Most adults are now at work, and college students are now on the way.	2.5 M
12:00	Another 2.5 million cycle journeys during the morning for a variety of reasons.	5 M
13:00	1.5 million more rides. Primary school children (5 - 11 years old) cycle home for lunch.	6.5 M
14:00	Another 1.2 million cycle trips pass in the early afternoon.	7.7 M
16:00	Most children have left school, and they cycle to friends, sports clubs etc. In the last two hours, 2.5 million cycle journeys were made.	10 M
17:00	Another 1.2 million cycle journeys pass in the late afternoon. Many people make shopping trips and school children head home from sports clubs. The evening rush hour is about to start	11.2 M
18:00	Most people are now home. Another 1.2 million cycle journeys have passed.	12.4 M
24:00	Another 1.75 million cycle journeys are made in the evening. Many club (sport) cyclists go for rides, night school students ride, club members meet, and people go out on the town by bike.	Over 14 M

In the day, 5 million cyclists have made around 14 million cycle journeys.

Streetfilms: Moving Beyond the Automobile-Transit Oriented Development

Streetfilms.org is launching a ten part series called Moving Beyond the Automobile. It's first installment was released today. Great stuff, as always.

"For the first chapter in our Moving Beyond the Automobile series we'll take a look at Transit-Oriented Development, more commonly known by its "TOD" acronym in transportation industry circles. TOD is a high-density, mixed-use residential area with access to ample amounts of transportation. There are usually many transportation nodes within its core and contains a walkable and bike-able environment.

We decided to take a look across the Hudson River at New Jersey's east coast where over the last two decades the amount of development has been booming. Transportation options are as diverse as you can get: the Hudson-Bergen light-rail, multiple ferry lines, PATH station, NJ Transit commuter trains, and buses are all plentiful, while in some areas car ownership is as low as 40% to 45%."