Google Maps Bike There…for a safer, healthier, happier world. :-)

Already available in some cities, Google is trying to make alternatives to driving more obvious:

With directions in Google Maps, we’re working on helping you find the quickest way to get around, and now finding the right route is a bit easier. For areas with transit information in Google Maps, previously you could compare driving and transit directions by selecting the appropriate icon. Now, when you search for driving directions, transit options may appear directly in the results.

This is a great idea mainly because, putting alternative modes of transportation into people’s ‘mental maps’ can be difficult. It is still the case to this day that people who know about and even use Google Maps regularly or even often, may have no idea what you mean by ‘Google Transit’ and may have no idea that it is possible to get transit directions (much less walk or bike directions) from Google Maps. It’s a sort of inattention blindness — you can be unable to see something which is right in front of you, because you’re not expecting it to be there.

I don’t know if it’s the best/most effective possible implementation, but it’s worth the effort. With cycling blowing up in cities around the world, in particular in places with bike-sharing programs like Hangzhou (60,600 bicycles), Paris (20,600 bicycles), and Washington (1,100 bicycles), we may eventually get to the point where defaulting to walking or biking directions is the preferred option — maybe this can be a user option for those signed-into Google services.

[Don't forget about LA's CicLAvia this Sunday!]

I recently ruined some of my favorite/only T-shirts in the wash, so decided I needed to get some more. I got a couple of inexpensive ones — like this $6 tee from Sports Basement — but decided I wanted to step up my game a bit — possibly with some cool, custom t-shirts. [Update: My Black Star Co-op t-shirt just came in (in grey)! ]

While I figure out how to get some custom t-shirts designed and then made, I stumbled across a website/company doing a couple of interesting things — fatamerican.tv. In particular, I liked their play on the Smart Car. Here is the Smart Car logo:

And here is the cool t-shirt design from fatamerican.tv:

What may be even cooler, though, is that the explanation of the design is on the inside of the t-shirt:

The “Smart Car” isn’t smart; it gets the same fuel efficiency as other economy cars but only seats 2 passengers. When compared to bicycles, all cars tend to look down right idiotic. Where’s the logic in working tons of hours to pay for a car to get to work to pay for a car? What’s the sense in driving to the gym to pay a membership to get some exercise?

Move within biking distance to work, sell your car, cancel your gym membership and start living smarter. Increase your quality of life while not contributing to the political, environmental, social calamity created by the world’s dependency on oil.

There’s a bunch of other cool ones, too — Fred Hampton!, Noam Chomsky, Tommie Smith, social commentary on Monster Trucks, etc.

Great weekend!

[Hat tip: Urban Velo]

This post was inspired by a bit of news about a new BRT line that was just approved to run from Hartford, Connecticut to New Britain, Connecticut. The existing rail line will be torn up, virtually guaranteeing that dignified motorized transport will never again be possible on this right of way — unless they eventually allow cars to use it.

And since buses take up so much more room than trains, it is not likely there will be enough space for pedestrians or cyclists to share the right of way, but who knows? The Cleveland BRT line has a small bike lane along part of it that almost nobody uses — because people aren’t into cycling next to monster buses, apparently. And the BRT Orange Line in LA has a bike path along part of it — I’m not sure how many folks use it — it can be difficult to use, has at times fallen into trashy disuse with overgrown vegetation and homeless encampments, and suffered from the myriad problems that bike paths typically suffer from (lack of subjective safety, etc.).

As a final insult, this Hartford busway project will actually pave new roadway (which will require expensive and ongoing maintenance, like the LA Orange Line BRT) — which is why BRT is often correctly criticized for being a road-building tool which clears buses off of roadways to make room for cars. Folks in Bath, UK are facing a similar BRT road-building scheme in their town.

This is not the first time rail lines have been torn up to make room for paved busways — much of the LA Orange Line removed existing rail lines.

It’s long been my contention that one of the purposes of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is to destroy public transit, and ultimately put and keep more people in cars. BRT is just the modern form of bustitution, which really accelerated the destruction of mass transit in America. Many ‘progressive’ transit/transportation advocates are incredulous — they say, “Can’t we all just get along?” But this is ignoring the reality of busways. BRT is being used as a poison pill to stop the development of high-quality public transit, and in doing so also destroys sustainability and livability efforts.

It’s rare that I spot a comment in the wild that actually agrees with one of my main contentions against BRT — that it is fundamentally anti-human:

One other thing that gets lost in the discussion of the wonderfulness of Bogota or Curitiba’s systems is how anti-urbanist they are, at root. In the central core they are, together with the parallel roads for cars, tremendously massive multilane monsters.

And these multi-lane monsters are no different than any other highway or freeway that we’re used to having to avoid and ride over or under while we try to avoid being killed — these monsters are not conducive to human life, to a dignified existence — and we should not tolerate them — they should be dismantled, and re-appropriated for suitable uses.

The commenter goes on with a sentiment I don’t agree with:

I suppose if you’ve already carved up your city with a twelve-lane expressway, then re-dedicating some of the lanes to express buses is not a bad way to improve the mobility of the carless. But it’s not the sort of thing you’d want to build from scratch.

The commenter seems to be saying, if you’ve already destroyed your city with bad urbanism, then building some new thing which is slightly less horrific could be a step in the right direction — but I’m with JHK on this point — we have to do things right, not just less wrong:

And in fact, the remedy for wounded and mutilated urbanism is good urbanism, good buildings.

Which brings us to the latest pro-BRT video from Streetfilms. I want to compare the urban/walking/biking environment created by BRT (Bus-Sharing) in the town of Guangzhou (pronunciation) to that created by Bike-Sharing in Hangzhou (pronunciation). Both of these cities would be among the top 5 largest cities in America:

Now compare that with the Hangzhou bike-sharing system, as profiled by the often-excellent Al Jazeera English:

These are, of course, not the same systems. The BRT system moves approximately 800,000 people per day, and the bike-sharing system moves 300,000 people per day.

And we should keep in mind that China was once known as the “Kingdom of Bicycles” for a reason. There are all sorts of quotes from leading politicians over the years, even some Americans, who have gone to China and come home proclaiming how awesome bikes are and how everyone should have one, etc. — however, any American politician hoping to further their political career would have been quickly reigned in by Detroit.

A new study on the Hangzhou bike-sharing scheme says the following (pdf):

Abstract: Over the past 20 years, China has experienced a steady decline in bicycle use. To address this trend, China’s central and local government for urban transportation created the “Public Transit Priority” to encourage public transport initiatives. As part of this effort, the Hangzhou government launched “Hangzhou Public Bicycle” in 2008. This service allows members to access a shared fleet of bicycles. As of March 2011, it operated 60,600 bicycles with 2,416 fixed stations in eight core districts.

Yes, some of the numbers coming out of China are truly astounding. But don’t lose focus — keep your eyes on the prize — do you want your town to look and feel and consume energy like the dystopia that is Guangzhou, or do you want to live some place with at least a trace of greenery and calmness and livability like Hangzhou?

I’m not the first to suggest that BRT should be promoted as Bike Rapid Transit, not Bus Rapid Transit. Of course, the largest oil and gas and car and bus companies in the world are not going to be interested in pouring millions of dollars into advocacy efforts aimed at promoting non-motorized transport, but we shouldn’t be disheartened — bicycles are near-perfect working machines — all we have to do is tell people about it, and organize them around it.

So says Noam Chomsky in his book Class Warfare (pdf). This means that an increase in fares is an increase in taxes. We should oppose these tax increases, which are very regressive, aimed at everyone but the rich — (in part) because, generally speaking, rich folks don’t take public transit.

And now that bike-sharing schemes are increasingly falling under the umbrella of ‘public transit’, it is likely their fares and fees will be raised, too — for example, up to 70% for Paris’ Velib system (hat tip: World City Bike).

Keep in mind that you don’t have to be a socialist to be against raising taxes against those who can least afford it — even relatively conservative/capitalist institutions like the Editorial Board of the New Jersey Star-Ledger understand that raising public transit fares is a tax that is going to make it even more difficult for working families to get by. Even avowed individual capitalists understand that class war is being waged by the rich against everyone else, and the rich are winning.

There may be reasons why we may decide that having non-rich folks pay more in taxes for public transportation is required or desirable, but for me, I’d rather we have rich folks start paying some taxes — and corporations, too.

Prospect Park West has a cycletrack (not shown in Google Street View imagery) — it may be going away.

The New York Daily News has harsh words for this particular band of bike lane opponents:

Why do normal, rational people turn into spittle-flecking, pitchfork-carrying mad villagers when confronted with bicyclists and bike lanes?

That’s a pretty strong characterization.

Implicit in the argument to keep the cycletrack/bike lanes on Prospect Park West is the fact that the presence of these bike lanes effectively allows people to bike there. Yes, people are technically, legally, allowed by law to bike on Prospect Park West, but we know that without the bike lanes, most people don’t do it — for obvious reasons, like, it’s scary as all get-out to do so. So, restated, we can say that removing these bike lanes will effectively prevent people from biking on Prospect Park West. OK.

Now let’s move to another street in New York City — this one not in Brooklyn, but in Manhattan. Brad Aaron, writing for Streetsblog New York, referred to opponents of the ’34 Street Redesign’ as ‘haters’:

With the axing of the 34th Street pedestrian plaza, you can bet the haters — the “real New Yorkers” for whom pedestrians and bus riders are obstacles on the other side of the windshield — smell blood in the water.

I’ve made the case before that we should allow people to bike on 34th Street — even going so far as to suggest allowing it if only for the politics (of getting your overall project goals accomplished). Proponents of the 34th Street Redesign are on record as supporting the street as a ‘Transitway’ — that is, a street for pedestrians and cars and buses, but not bikes — that is, the redesign will have no bike lanes, no bike infrastructure at all, in fact, save perhaps, for some bike parking somewhere. So, proponents of the 34th Street Redesign want to effectively prevent people from biking on 34th Street. OK.

So, my question is — who are ‘the haters’ in NYC?

Riffing off yesterday’s post about our need to prioritize non-motorized transport over motorized, I thought of a parallel situation that might help make things a bit more clear about the obvious need to provide dedicated space for cyclists — namely, the title of this post:

Would you build a street without sidewalks?

No.

To build a street, or rebuild a street, without sidewalks would be crazy, or 1950s America, or third world, or worse. It’s just unthinkable — at least for ‘livable streets’-type folks — to consider building a street today without at least pedestrian access. And that, generally speaking, means sidewalks.

No matter what the actual implementation, however — be it sidewalks or some other form of traffic calming/shared space/etc. — most of us would agree that we should allow people to walk on a particular street — whether a new street, or a street being redesigned — and they should be able to walk safely, comfortably, directly to their destination, and be able to hold onto their dignity while they do it. The same should apply for cyclists.

If you would not build a road/street/bridge/tunnel without sidewalks or special accommodations for pedestrians, then you should not build a road/street/bridge/tunnel without cycletracks or special accommodations for cyclists.

Update: Pedestrians need sidewalks, cyclists need cycletracks — it’s not complicated.

Update: Articles like this do a good job of arguing for sidewalks, but they don’t ever – to my knowledge – address the need for cycletracks. We need to make that automatic.

Too many streets continue to be optimized for motorized traffic at the expense of non-motorized traffic — in particular, bicycle traffic. We should not allow this to continue to happen.

An example we’ve mentioned before is 34th Street in Manhattan/NYC. It seems whoever is pushing for changes are having a bit of trouble:

Pedestrians who navigate Midtown’s crowded sidewalks won’t get as much as they could have from the proposed 34th Street Transitway. The Times reported last night that NYC DOT will not pursue plans for a pedestrian plaza between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue as part of the project.

But let’s look at the current use of the street — what types of modes does the street currently accommodate?

OK, so bikes aren’t currently allowed to use 34th Street. Fine.

So, the redesigned street is going to allow bikes to use it, right? Maybe we’ll get some sharrows, or a narrow bike lane, or maybe even a buffered bike lane, or maybe what is actually, minimally required, a cycletrack, right?

No. None of that, actually.

This redesign will benefit motorized transport — buses — and pedestrians, and it will do it while keeping cyclists from being able to use this all-important corridor.

So, let’s just put aside the motive question, and let’s not even worry about where this particular design lives on that continuum between incompetence and sadism — instead, let’s just go straight to the politics.

If you actually wanted a street redesign to be implemented, would you:
a) offer a design to allow cyclists to use this street, or
e) prevent cyclists — the city’s most vocal livable streets constituency — from using this street?

Obviously, more than a few folks in New York City thought that e) was the correct answer. And this is causing problems — there is not enough support for this project.

If you would like to bike around New York City, and in particular, Manhattan, are you going to go out of your way to get excited about and support a street redesign which prioritizes motorized transport over cycling, and which may, in fact, actually legally prevent you from riding your bike on 34th Street in the future? You are already barred, practically-speaking, from using this street, but you’re going to go out of your way to support a project which will continue to bar you from using this street?

Of course, not.

In fact, you could even decide to, for several good reasons, oppose this project. As we know, any project that attempts to force people to ride the bus without offering them a dignified alternative is going to produce a heap of problems — namely, automobile traffic, angrier drivers, less political support for continued street improvements, etc.

This same process is playing out all over America — in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, etc.

The lesson?

Even if you despise cyclists and cycling with the very core of your being, if you want to get your project implemented, then consider allowing cyclists to use the redesigned street. If for no other reason, do it for the politics.

Dangerous rhetoric directed at cyclists should not be tolerated, much less condoned, by any of us. Gosh forbid any of us actually participated in anything so crazy and reckless.

We warned that the verbal attacks by NYCDOT and TA would lead to cyclists being physically attacked even more than they already were — and now we have at least one physical attack, caught on video, that lends credence to this argument:

The cops will not be charged, in part, because there will be little to no pressure applied to them for one or more reasons, which include, but are not limited to:

1. NYCDOT and TA have given the police and other citizens even less reason to treat cyclists respectfully, and
2. The full surveillance video hasn’t been released, so none of us can see the full beat-down.

It is theoretically possible that this is just another case of police brutality by steroid-popping cops — like the cop who tackled an unsuspecting cyclist, but it seems unlikely — whatever crime had allegedly been committed was already done/over with. The cops needed a pretext, and bicycle ‘advocates’ gave them one. Riding on the sidewalk an arrestable offense? In the new New York, yes. At least the Critical Mass cop was arrested, if not eventually convicted of assault (though, he was convicted of lying) — but his victim was white. Will this assault on a non-white victim make the Huffington Post? I wouldn’t count on it. Even if we could count on overcoming the race issues, this is a new New York City — one that slanders cyclists as ‘jerks’.

If this violence was not caught on surveillance camera, we might never have known about it. Who knows how many cyclists these cops beat up, arrested, and humiliated off-camera.

And if police officers, who are sworn to ‘protect and serve’, are doing this to citizens, imagine what type of free reign non-officers have to harass and terrorize cyclists. It’s a scary proposition. I wouldn’t want to be a cyclist in NYC right now — especially not a cyclist of an easily-identifiable minority race.

Hopefully the head of NYCDOT, Janette Sadik-Khan, and the head of TA, Paul Steely White, call off this attack on cyclists and cycling in New York City before anyone else is seriously hurt and humiliated, or worse. It’s time for cycling ‘advocates’ to renounce their harmful rhetoric and speak about the respect that every human being deserves, even cyclists, and they should do this even if it is not a popular position with drivers.

And it should go without saying that the reason people ride on the sidewalks is because there is no safe and comfortable place to ride on the streets in that area — that’s on the Mayor and City Council, and NYCDOT/JSK. I can’t tell the exact location of the deli/sidewalk in question, but the Google Street View shows no bike lanes in and around Westchester Square, and the Google Maps Bicycle Layer shows about zero bike lanes in and around that area. There are plenty of things NYCDOT and TA can be doing instead of attacking cyclists with reckless rhetoric.

NYC is cracking down on cyclists. Transportation Alternatives (TA) signed off on the attack, and then had the audacity to question the validity of the attack. New York City Officials — Janette Sadik-Khan, in fact, The Queen of Livable Streets — authorized a “Don’t be a jerk” publicity campaign directed at cyclists — effectively calling them ‘jerks’. It was a twisted and cowardly act.

In an imaginary system where bikes were not daily subject to random violence and threats of violence (‘domestic terrorism’ in every sense of the phrase), including the possibility of severe injury, maiming, and death, calling cyclists jerks might not be such a big deal. However, in the reality-based community, we know that the violence directed at pedestrians and cyclists, caused by law-breaking drivers, is all too real, and it continues — often, with impunity. One of the main reasons drivers are able to act so reprehensibly, and with such impunity, is because cyclists are vilified in the press — by drivers, by pedestrians, by politicians, and now, by cycling ‘advocates’.

These verbal attacks on cyclists from high-ranking officials is bad enough, but when cycling ‘advocates’ chime in, you really start to wonder what their actual motives are. Are they trying to get you killed?

Attacks on cyclists from right-wing politicians is fairly common, and they are always condemned, but why is the condemnation of Janette Sadik-Khan so muted, if not completely absent? I, for one, think she should resign immediately. Paul Steely White, the head of TA, should resign too.

Almost every week I meet someone new who has been maimed by a car — really. Just in the past couple of weeks I met a former cyclist who got his jaw crushed and various other gruesome injuries when he was left-hooked by a law-breaking driver — he no longer bikes. I met a girl who was a scholarship-caliber collegiate lacrosse player who was run down in her neighborhood as she was walking across the street — the cop told her she wasn’t in a crosswalk, so she was given a ticket for jaywalking — there are no crosswalks in her neighborhood, and she can no longer run. I, myself, quit cycling because I was tired of getting terrorized by cowardly drivers, and tired of dealing with police who would rather violate my rights than help me catch an outlaw driver. In fact, when a driver is jailed for attacking cyclists, it actually makes international news.

These verbal attacks can lead to physical attacks, and lead to an even more profound lack of protection for cyclists under the law. They delegitimize cyclists even more than they already are, putting them in even greater danger. We have years worth of data and anecdote to tell us that pedestrians and cyclists alike are hunted classes out on the streets — and yet we have our top leaders condemning cyclists. It’s really unbelievable.

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) has signed off on a similar, if not quite-as-extreme, attack against cyclists. This ‘resolution’ did achieve some blowback, though not nearly enough. I called the attack ‘pernicious’. But it was much worse than that. It was, and remains, a disgrace. Shane Farthing, the head of WABA, should also resign immediately. But first he wants DC-area cyclists to — wait for it — testify at a DC Council hearing to express “our concerns about the protection of cyclists by our laws.” Is that some kind of sick joke, Mr. Farthing?

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) has come very close over the past few years to signing off on a similar attack, but it has not, as of yet, fully materialized.

And now we have missives from bloggers defending cyclists as actual human beings who deserve the right to live free from violence and threats of violence — as if that’s going to stop the physical assaults, or do something about the profound lack of protections afforded to pedestrians and cyclists by our streetscape and the legal system.

There is absolutely no justification for attacking cyclists in this way. There are lots of ways to stop the slaughter on our streets — making cyclists obey unjust laws is not one of them. Instead, create bike-specific laws that accurately reflect the nature of biking. Create safe, comfortable, direct, and dignified cycling facilities. Pass stronger laws against distracted driving. Make it easier to prosecute all manner of driver law-breaking that routinely injures, maims, and kills pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers alike. Train police officers to take pedestrian and cyclist complaints seriously, and put some of them on bikes, in plainclothes. And tell non-biking pedestrians that we’re sick and tired of sticking up for their rights while they attack us — they need to be more responsible and go after the people who created the conditions that force cyclists up onto the sidewalks in the first place — you don’t just have rights, you have responsibilities, and just because you don’t bike doesn’t mean you get to abdicate those responsibilities to your fellow man — start acting right. The list goes on and on.

A blog called The Dirt by the American Society of Landscape Architects has a new blog post up titled ‘Designing For Active Living.’ It is not good, though I can’t say that I’m surprised. I feel like anyone who has been practicing anything related to urban planning/development in America for ten years or more should change careers, retire, or head directly to The Netherlands for some retraining — not that you have to be an experienced professional to know how to prevent active living.

Here’s the latest attack on American society, delivered in the form of a short animation video:

Designing for Active Living from ASLA on Vimeo.

Let’s start with a screenshot, at the 0:18 mark, of a bike lane in a door zone — perfect — exactly the type of development we want to encourage — if you want to ‘get active’ by getting doored and ‘stress test’ your body under the wheels of a city bus. And check out the incorrectly-installed bike racks on the sidewalk — perfect for tripping pedestrians:

At about the 0:23 mark, we get a slight positive with an overall negative — a multi-use path (MUP) with separated walk and bike lanes/areas (good, as many MUPs have proven dangerous), but the mini-walk path means you wouldn’t even be able to walk two-abreast, and the animation and narration suggests that bikes are only meant for exercise, and only to be used on ‘trails’ and ‘paths’ — not on roads. The rack also seems to be full — and that makes sense, because it doesn’t feel safe to ride a bike anywhere but on that mini-MUP:

Here’s a great picture with lots of motorized traffic, but nobody walking, and nobody biking. No bike lanes, no cycletracks, not even any sharrows — and, as best I can tell, the light rail line is running in the outer lane on the street shown, guaranteeing that the street will be unusable by bikes — similar to how Portland mis-designed some of its early streetcar lines, and how DC did some of its early streetcar lines (and may yet build more malignant streetcar lines). The outside lane is not designated, so we can only assume it is for car parking and bus stops. And notice the corner curb cyclist push-out — guaranteeing that we will never be able to see a cycletrack here, and guaranteeing that the 12-ton city bus will have to cross what I think is a (yellow) bike lane. [Is yellow the new color for bike lanes in Landscape Architect-landia?] Us cyclists and would-be cyclists love playing leap-frog with buses.

The ‘network of trails’ comment (1:40) says it is a good way to get people to ‘stop using their cars for 5-minute trips’ — this is the exact wrong way to deal with the malignant design of our road system — instead of giving people a real option to go by bike, we scold them and tell them ‘not to drive for short trips’ — as if exhorting them to save the polar bears or keep their kids from having to learn to swim in the streets is going to change their behavior. If the streets are not comfortable for biking, people won’t bike — simple. You don’t need a degree to know this, but maybe you need to be a member of the ASLA to not know this?

At 2:06, we get a picture of our first bike lane — and I’m not even gonna bother to tear it apart — it’s perfectly sadistic the way it is — I love it. This is how ‘professionals’ want to fix our towns — after they fixed them the first time around. How many more times can we afford to let them get it wrong?

At 2:23, we get what could be our first well-designed bike lane — it’s not in the door zone — but if the road is so gargantuan, then why can’t cyclists have a cycletrack, separated from motor vehicles — you know, the kind of separation that is required if we want to allow people to bike? But that’s not the only problem here — notice that the bike lanes only appear to be on one side of the street — what possible explanation could there be for this? Are these massive uphills going in both directions? And what about those center yellow lines — are they really necessary? On the street going out to the right, is there really a landscape architect in America who thinks that that tiny little bike lane, sandwiched between parked cars and moving cars, is going to be comfortable for anyone other than the most extreme cyclists?

The sad truth is that very few professionals working in the planning-related fields have knowledge of how to allow bikes into the public realm. I don’t much care if they ‘care’ or not — I just want them to do a good job — I just want them to allow people to get around by bike.

It is possible that some of them mean well, but by continually pumping out this hollow, jingoistic, anti-bike propaganda, they are hurting our efforts to make the world a safer, healthier, and happier place. Ignorance is not acceptable. We have to start getting it right — we have to start prioritizing walking and biking, in that priority order, according to the Livable Streets Transportation Hierarchy. We have examples of ‘active living’ all over the world, including now in the United States — there are no more excuses.

If we can’t start getting this stuff right, I’m thinking we just need to shut down the entire American Planning/Architecture/Development/Landscape educational and certification systems, along with all corresponding ‘professional’ associations. If someone really shows a strong desire to not damage America even further, then we can send them to planning school in The Netherlands. Yeah?