We have a new addition to the Feed, and the rest of the Feed

Join me in welcoming infrastructure news magazine Next City to the Feed today. I got several “back issues” sent when I signed up so there will be many links from them in today’s post. I think this will be a good resource for the future for this blog. On a less happy note the spring equinox ritual for tomorrow afternoon at my church has been rescheduled because of forecast bad weather.

Up first Friend of WoaB Carlton Reid has another article on the fact that paved roads in the US and UK owe their existence to cyclists. “Roads were not built for cars”: how cyclists, not drivers, first fought to pave US roads That’s right, we paid for the first paved streets and highways between cities to get paved, not the motor vehicles that did not exist at the time. I know that, you probably knew that, too, we just have to get the news to about 100 million other people in the US who still think roads did not exist prior to the invention of the motor vehicle.

News from Our Daily Ted. Weekend Links: Witnesses wanted in El Segundo death, Westwood votes for bike lanes, and more Valley CicLAvia

And Bikeyface has got this infrastructure thing nailed down. A ZOO That’s kinda what I feel like out there on the roads some days.

And David Hembrow weighs in on the Sydney Rd. door prize in Oz, placing the blame squarely on crappy Oz infrastructure designs. Eliminating the risk of “Dooring”: Good cycle infrastructure design keeps cyclists out of the door zone and saves lives

Making a coroplast honeycomb material may be the next phase of bicycle helmets. The New Materials That Are Revolutionizing Helmet Safety Right Now More expensive than the current EPS material that is standard for bike helmets, but potentially this could make helmets work almost as well as people think they do now.

The first of the Next City links is about the best bike lanes in the US. Cycling Advocates Pick 10 Best New Bike Lanes in the U.S. The “Best” bike lane in the US would still fail to meet the minimum standards set forth in the CROW manual.

Memphis is feeling the loss of their streetcar revival. Memphis Streetcars Will Come Back, But When? And if you are wondering what this has to do with bikes, the increase in cars caused by the shutdown of the streetcars makes use of the parallel bike lane just that much more dangerous…

Does anyone recall how many times I wrote in this blog that stale greens and short amber phases were getting cyclists killed? Investigation Says Mayor Emanuel’s Office Is Ignoring Traffic Safety Numbers Seems like some other people had the same idea…

Surface level highways without grade separation do not belong in neighborhoods, period, full stop, end of story. Vision Zero Activists Target New York Arterials, Including “The Boulevard of Death” You can’t mix fast cars with cyclists and pedestrians without getting dead and broken bodies, they just are not compatible. And if you can’t get the cars away from the people, you have to slow them down to the point that they can mix with people. Recent studies have shown that the maximum safe speed for motor vehicles on streets with pedestrians is 25 MPH. Any faster than that and the survival rate for the inevitable collisions between motor vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists just get’s unacceptably low. I mean people are rightfully appalled at a 91% survival rate for gunshots when motor vehicle collisions survivability rate goes under that at 23 MPH (90%).

Gee, why encourage people to make your downtown a desirable destination when you can turn it into a free parking wasteland. Parking Wars Play Out Differently in Two N.J. Cities One way gets sales and property tax money back to the city and the other lets car thieves have a choice of an open-air or covered market to select a vehicle from, assuming that anyone actually uses them for parking, because why stop and park when there’s nothing to see or do?

I wonder if this is because they don’t like bikes, or because they don’t like people spending money and generating sales tax dollars? Utah Appears Set to Ban Bicycles From Drive-Thru Lanes

Well this is interesting, a deputy threatening arrest for trespassing for riding a mountain bike on a posted mountain bike trail. Dust up over trail access in Oro Valley’s Honeybee trails

Gee, how DO you get people to ride bikes other than providing them with safe infrastructure that gets them from where they are to where they want or need to go? Four Ways to Inspire Bike Riders in Your Small Community

OK this is just as appalling as people getting shot. Mansfield Woodhouse car crash man walked away after injuring a cyclist He wrecked his car hitting parked cars and knocked a man down causing some injury when he pushed one of the parked cars into the man’s bicycle, then he wandered off because he “lost his passenger”? what was he on at the time? drugs, booze, massive amounts of beer?

Gee, why are huge vehicles with poor outward visibility that take up massive amounts of space when they turn killing people with no protection when they are forced to share the roads? TRL to study London’s HGV operations

Before and after court articles from the same Feed. Before New Milford man to be sentenced in cyclist death and after Lee gets eight years in cyclist’s death That’s 30 years of state supervision in all, with the first 8 in prison of he doesn’t mess things up, otherwise he gets to spend the full 25 in prison, then the 5 years of probation.

OK I an absolutely gobsmacked at this verdict. Van driver cleared of killing teenage cyclist in Kent also Texting van driver cleared of responsibility for death of 18-year-old cyclist He admitted he was trying to text but ran out of battery before he completed the text right before hitting the cyclist, and he was still found “not guilty”? And another view. SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT HERE A detailed review of the wreck taken from the published testimony and court record.

At least there was a trial for that one even if the jury was composed of wannabe F1 drivers… One year on, ‘justice’ plea for cyclist dad who died in collision with car That’s right the plods won’t even send the case on to prosecutors.

This Irish cyclist may have missed seeing a pothole at night, but she didn’t miss the pothole! Pothole leaves cyclist with head injuries Interesting that the pothole was filled after the time of the wreck and before the cyclist was released from the hospital. 😛

No rush at all to build this memorial to a dead cyclist killed riding to ball practice, he died in 1983. Board OKs Stoughton pavilion for youngster killed riding bike That’s right he was killed by a motor vehicle while riding his bike July 21, 1983! Almost 32 years ago!

A LEO in AK wants to see how big a difference bike lights really make in drivers seeing cyclists do they really pay that much attention? JPD starts bike safety project

It turns out it is very hard to get people to change their commute once they have a set pattern they follow. The Problem With Paying People to Bike to Work Even when you pay people to bike, if they have already established the pattern of driving to work they will probably continue to drive unless besides paying to ride you also do something that strongly disincentives driving at the same time, like charging hourly rates for parking or putting in meters that need to be fed coins regularly.

This link is a bit out of position because it came in after midnight and I was not in the mood to scroll back up 1200 words and put it over by the rest of the CA stuff. YUCAIPA: Driver jailed in cyclist’s death That is one of if not THE harshest sentence I have ever seen anyone get for killing a cyclist, that I can remember. And they did not even have to prove BAC%. I have seen cyclist killer drivers with proven BAC% in the “you’re gonna die” range get lower maximum sentences than this guy’s minimum sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

And I’m done, no more links and I don’ wanna do this anymore today. 😦

Billed @€0.03, Opus the Poet

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and a humongous Feed

I just opened the Feed folder in my inbox, saw how many links I have to open and filter to decide if I want to include them that I knew I was going to get at least one computer crash from excessive flash animated ads and wanted to get at least one paragraph saved to WP before I Filtered. After weeks of wearing long pants and sweatshirts (yes I know it was only a few days, stick with me on this one) I’m now sweating in shorts and a (ANSI Safety Lime green) wicking polo shirt in my office. Seriously, it went from 59°F to 77°F in my office in 3 days and I normally turn the AC on when it hits 78. I haven’t had time to acclimate to being warm yet, it wasn’t even this warm yesterday when I was doing that trouble-shooting ride on the new trike. We went from deep winter to summer in a long weekend, with the sounds of lawnmowers filling the air where only last week people were shovelling snow and sleet off their sidewalks. I hope you are enjoying this, because I think it would be freaking hilarious if it was happening to someone else.

Also the entire house is permeated with the smell of corned beef and cabbage cooking as Mrs. the Poet prepares our traditional St. Paddy’s Day dinner. I think I may have mentioned that I am descended from a long line of Irish bards and scholars (for a while that was a redundant phrase as bards were the keepers and purveyors of History among the Irish) so of late we have been getting a little more into our roots, at least culinarily. I have a recipe for Irish Soda Bread that is basically a one-pound buttermilk biscuit made from whole wheat flour, we have about a hundred ways to prepare potatoes, and every March 17 we have corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

Up first the story that is reverberating across the Internet about a callous hit and run in the UK. Teenage Cyclist Hit By Car Told ‘Sorry, I Can’t Stop, It Would Upset My Kids’ and Mum releases shocking photo of cyclist son’s bloodied face after motorist ‘failed to stop’ also UK teen cyclist hit by car told: Sorry, can’t stop, your blood would upset my kids, we’re late for school The blood would upset her kids? What about the kid shedding said blood because of her (presumed) husband’s bad driving? Things like this are what places the category “people in cars” on my version of Sydney Scoville’s “List”. My elder daughter has a much shorter “list” : “I hate people.” followed by a short list of exceptions.

And a stark reminder of where the real danger comes from on the roads. Homeowner cheats death after driver lost control of car and ploughed into KITCHEN Hey! was that house properly painted in HiViz so the driver could see it? And this is the part I really liked: “The building was deemed structurally unsafe and the property was evacuated along with a neighbouring house.” The house was so dangerous they had to get people out of the house that was hit and the house next door in case it collapsed. This is why I compare motor vehicles to artillery in degree of danger.

Another story that is gaining momentum but not at the same rate is a “joke” hate-filled rant by a purveyor of artisanal meats on his company blog. BiteClub: Sebastopol butcher’s cyclist rant sparks outrage and ‘I hate cyclists’ blog post ignites Internet firestorm I did have three more links to this story but they have been deleted since I initially filtered the links. Suffice it to say that the links that were deleted were very hot responses to the also deleted blog post.

Or Daily Ted. Morning Links: NoCal meat man meets justified anger from cyclists; getting ready for Sunday’s Valley CicLAvia

One wonders if this person just does not like people spending time (and money) in her town. SAUSALITO LEADERS CONSIDER CAP ON BIKES ENTERING CITY STREETS First of all, there is the logistics of the proposal, how would they even enforce it? Second, why bicycles that take up little space, are quiet, and non-polluting, but not cars that are none of those?

If you want to kill someone in this country look for someone riding a bicycle. Novi man gets 1 year for killing bike rider and Novi man gets 1 year for killing Port Huron cyclist This point has been made many times, if you want to get away with murder, don’t drink, and hit a cyclist from behind and claim blindness (“I didn’t see him”), and stay at the scene of the wreck.

A little good infrastructure news from OR. Bill in legislature would legalize safe crossings against unresponsive red lights I can’t tell you how many times I have waited 5 or more minutes at a traffic light that does not sense my presence but there is too much cross traffic to run the light…

Community news from where my brother lives. Hundreds turn out for ‘Come Clean for Jae’ community bike ride

Legal update on a wreck in the UK. St Margarets-at-Cliffe van driver Philip Sinden knew fatal crash cyclist Daniel Squire, jury hears And he persists in the SWSS “rode off the pavement (sidewalk) right in front of me” narrative. Stupid git.

Aww, the killer is sad. Is he sad because he killed a little old lady, or because there is a slight chance he may get a small prison sentence? Worcestershire trucker fought back tears at Dudley woman’s crash death inquest

More on the idiot cyclist that almost killed a couple riding a tandem when he ran a red light and crashed into their bike. Cyclist who hit tandem after pulling wheelie while going through red light pleads guilty to dangerous cycling Dollars to doughnuts the cyclist will get a stiffer sentence/fine/community service than a driver that killed.

Less than 4% of traffic, but killed more than 50% of cyclists killed, and most of those were women. Why are lorries responsible for so many cyclist deaths? There is something going on here, and I suspect it is vehicles not suited for the purpose (The HGV).

A little lifestyle in Oz. Close encounter led to long road back

And another Oz passing bill hits their legislature. Drivers to leave cyclists a one-metre buffer when overtaking, under proposed road rule change

And I’m done, and nearly done for.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

So how do you pronounce “Francis/es” anyway, and the Feed

Short answer to the question posed by the headline, two syllables with the second syllable vowel sound a schwa (ə) or fran’ səs. Since Francis/es has expressed no gender, or much of any personality traits aside from a tendency to go in a different direction than expected at startup, I will not assign gender to it. I mean I know it’s a truck, made for carrying loads, but I detect no masculine tendencies nor feminine ones either for that matter. Sure Gigi was like a 9YO girl who swore like a sailor, and Blue was like an eager puppy, and Stratus was like Eeyore except not as talkative, but each of those bikes was either old or abandoned or both. Francis/es is for all intents and purposes a brand new bike and hasn’t had the time to develop a personality yet. There’s no “magic” there yet aside from the stubborness.

On another front, I’m having a small problem with the interior diagonal for the passenger compartment of the Sprint T. To get maximum torsional stiffness I need to run the diagonal from the top of the rear hoop to the bottom of the front hoop or vice-versa. Since the front-to-back diagonal will have to run through the side of the body to get to the base of the rear hoop that only leaves the rear-to-front as a viable alternative. And even that has its difficulties, because that diagonal would have to meet the bottom of the front hoop just to the left of my left foot in this picture:

And as you can see, it’s already pretty crowded there.

Up first, we finally have a clear picture of the jihadist squirrel that suicide attacked a CA cyclist. Cyclist recalls being ‘torpedoed’ by squirrel I would say that fork definitively passed the “squirrel test”.

Still in CA we get a Ted Rogers report on a red-light running cyclist. Alleged red light running cyclist killed in San Diego; first bicycling death in city this year and Cyclist killed in Midway District collision As Ted reported local cyclists say the signal does not detect the presence of a cyclist and does not change when one is there, which kind of conditions cyclists to run that particular light in particular and traffic signals in general. Intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

Moving up the coast a tiny bit (by TX standards). Cyclist seriously injured in crash with car on PCH in Long Beach Not much to go on with this one, I think because that new passing law makes hitting a cyclist from behind an automatic ticket and if the ticket isn’t acknowledged publically there will be outrage from cyclists and drivers. But since there was no intersection given it is pretty much certain that this was a hit-from-behind wreck. Protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get that infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

Still in CA but in the northern half of the state. Police: Napa cyclist hit by pickup, seriously injured Looking at the Street View of the scene we see a T intersection with 6½ lanes and no sensor in the bike lane to trigger the signal. This configuration all but demands that cyclists run the red when there is no motor vehicle traffic to trigger the signal unless that camera can detect a bike in the bike lane (if you move on step closer to the intersection than the link I picked you can see the camera). Depending on the cycle time for the light a cyclist could leave on the green and still be in the intersection when the light phase turned green for the other direction. Not knowing the timing of the light phases I can’t say precisely what happened here, but I do know that getting that infrastructure “up to Dutch” would prevent future wrecks.

Two guys riding one bike in GA are hit, one dead, one injured. Bicyclist hit and killed by car in DeKalb County Note that this is a secondary wreck induced by bad infrastructure after the actual cyclist lost control of the bike in limited visibility. The only way to avoid this wreck was to not have the first wreck that caused the cyclist to go onto the road in front of the weapon vehicle. The way to prevent a future wreck is to get that infrastructure “up to Dutch” so that a bicycle wreck doesn’t turn into a car wreck.

Breakthrough in a FL hit-and-run. Possible vehicle in cyclist hit-and-run recovered This was a hit-from-behind of a cyclist riding in the bike lane. I hope they throw the entire law library at this fool because what happened was in front of dozens of witnesses.

More on a MI wreck. Police identify bicyclist killed in early morning crash as Hudsonville man, 54 Cyclist now definitively was lighted beyond legal minimums when hit from behind by a literrally blind driver (oncoming headlights!). Not much the cyclist could have done to avoid this one as the wreck took place just before a merge from 3 lanes in each direction to 2 and a cyclist would need to be where he was hit to prevent motor vehicles from forcing him off the road. Still would require Dutch-quality infrastructure to prevent.

A wreck in far West Canuckistan. Cyclist injured in collision with car on Island Highway Still trying to figure this one out. They were both at fault? How does that happen?Get that infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

More on the bike/ped wreck in West Canuckistan. Cyclist’s speed not a factor in Stanley Park crash that killed Chinese tourist Outside witnesses have come forward with statements that the pedestrian stepped out right in front of the cyclist leaving no time to react or avoid the wreck.

This is a scary wreck in Oz. Dashcam video: Young girl cyclist in head-on holiday park crash with car (but gets up and walks away) This demonstrates what getting infrastructure “up to Dutch” looks like in a wreck. In the Netherlands this would be exactly the same as it is in the video, shared space with an extremely low motor vehicle speed limit, and you see the outcome. Nothing! the kid gets up and walks away from the wreck unharmed except for needing a change of pants and underwear.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Automakers build in deadly distractions; CD15’s Buscaino multi-modals his way to work

Infrastructure! news from CA. Injured midtown resident challenges Sacramento law allowing sidewalk cycling I actually see this as a positive for cycling if this suit is allowed to continue, as cyclists would then be allowed to sue for the state allowing cars to take over the streets and roads without designing the infrastructure for all users.

A little whimsical infrastructure from West Canuckistan. Vancouver to remove mysterious unicycle markings on bike lanes Turns out unicycles are already legal in Canuckstani bike lanes, no additional signage needed.

Are you still paranoid when they really are out to get you? Cyclists: Motorists See You as Moving Targets The scary thing is a cyclist will get passed by hundreds of cars during a long trip, if only 0.01% of them have socio- or psycopathic drivers that could mean you’re life is in peril 2 or 3 times a day.

And those were all the bicycle-related links I could find for today. I have some on-deck for tomorrow…

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet