In an era of transition, the new did not simply displace the old. Instead, old and new coexisted in a casual melange. Almost every mode of transport could be found on the streets of Beijing: automobiles, trolleys, rickshaws, bicycles, animal-drawn carts, and, on the backstreets, cargo-laden camels.
I got here too late for the camels! Until railroads were laid around 1900, much merchandise was brought into Beijing on camels via Silk Road routes.
I took this photo while in Seoul. That's a stairway to cross over an el platform for the Metro. Note the rail along the right side of the stairs to wheel a bike up. Even inexpensive improvements to make bike/transit combinations more accessible are welcoming.
Those yellow inlays at the forefront of the photo are for the blind. You see them all over Seoul and even on newer Beijing sidewalks, usually near the edge away from the road.
Crain's is reporting that the lakeside bike path will receive an important upgrade:
The Daley administration is reviving plans to build an elevated pathway to keep bicyclists and pedestrians off the streets near Navy Pier, roughly doubling the original cost to $40 million by extending and revamping the route across the Chicago River to fix the biggest choke point in the 18-mile lakefront trail.
The only question is how to pay for the expansion of the 10-year-old plan. Funding will probably come from a big chunk of federal money and a mix of state, local and private dollars.
Construction is planned to start next year. To pay for it, the city is now seeking an additional $13.7 million in federal highway money set aside for projects that reduce pollution by taking cars off the road, on top of $8.6 million received years ago for design and engineering work. The federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program could eventually pay up to 80% of the cost.
I've heard numerous cyclists complain about this chokepoint, so I'm delighted that the city is deeming it such a high priority.
Elvis would have needed to cycle 160.74 miles at 17mph to burn off his 65,000-calorie daily intake. Conclusion: What killed Elvis was his chronic lack of cycling.
I don't quite get where Withrow is coming from on his proposal to relax traffic laws: we're already in a situation in which bikes and pedestrians traffic laws are almost never enforced (I've never been ticketed for jaywalking, for example, never seen a bike pulled over for any reason) which sounds a lot like what the Dutch are doing in Withrow's blog post. I don't want to see motor vehicle laws relaxed or go unenforced (I'm a big fan of the right-hand turn cameras!) - I think that would make street more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, not safer.
I find myself in the odd position of urging tolerance for bicycle and pedestrian law-breaking, yet also complaining about society's lack of respect for the rule of law. I'd rather have fewer laws that we can all count on being enforced.
That bike and pedestrian laws are rarely enforced is problematic in both practice and theory. Overly-discretionary enforcement is unfair enforcement, sometimes feeding identity politics. Even when that's not an issue, a rarely-enforced rule that's suddenly enforced on me is damned infuriating. And there's also the potential for officers to trump up a misdemeanor into an arrest. It's worthwhile to keep in mind that all laws are enforced-- ultimately-- at the point of a gun, which makes laws aimed at keeping us from harming ourselves somewhat ironic.
I'm not suggesting that we rid ourselves of automobile traffic rules overnight. I'm just arguing that good design makes us safer than laws. In fact, the cyclists' anecdotes about automobile misbehavior describe what happens in an environment with plenty of laws & regulations. The problem is that it's impractical to enforce them consistently. Even where technology helps with enforcement, those cameras at intersections are only a good idea until the point where the government begins to use them for purposes other than vehicle infractions.
An expanded separate infrastructure makes cycling safer and attractive. Slowing cars down to 20mph makes us all safer. Beyond that, the best cyclist safety program is to greatly increase the number of cyclists so that drivers get used to looking out for them. Once that happens, support for great design improves and we all live happily ever after.
Steamboats are ruining everything is the swell name of a blog by Caleb Crain, who seems to be an expert on the 1800s. He has a wide variety of interests: "dogs, torture, etymology, American history, gay marriage, political rhetoric, movies, tree climbing, indie rock, Mars, peak oil, anarchism, and literary criticism." Lately, he's been highlighting his boyfriend's book, which is sweet, but I could use a little more anarchism and I think he missed an opportunity with his recent post Bike Salmon: Omen or Harbinger?
A "bike salmon" is someone who rides with little regard to the rules of the road (and more specifically someone who bikes against traffic). Crain's theory is that since he was a bike salmon when he first started cycling and then became more law-abiding that the increasing numbers of American bike salmons may mean that more folks are just starting out. Crain guesses that bike salmons may actually make the road safer for other cyclists just because drivers have to pay more attention. I'm skeptical of that first assertion but agree with the latter.
The Dutch don't see much sense in going after cyclists and walkers when the only people they are putting at risk are themselves. "It's their choice," shrugged [Amsterdam top traffic-safety official Jack] Wolters.
Crain immediately follows up the Mapes quote with this thought: "Such laissez-faire will probably not arrive in America. For one thing, there’s no question that it’s dangerous to ride a bike lawlessly." Well, the two sentences have little to do with each other unless you just accept the nanny-state as a given here. Granted, it seems like we've been grown increasingly comfortable, far too comfortable, with nanny-state intervention in our daily lives, but I think most Americans are very open to the idea that the government's primary purpose is to protect us from others, not to protect us from ourselves.
I'd be happiest with an incremental anarchist approach, a gradual ratcheting down of laws & rules & signs, replacing them when possible by creative design. Again, I'll include a video of the late Hans Monderman's traffic circle in the Dutch town of Drachten, which now boasts practically zero traffic lights or signs, a goal known internationally as the Shared Space movement.
Frankly, I feel that most rules of the road were invented to keep traffic
flowing efficiently, with "traffic" defined as "vehicles". At the very
least, we should progress to defining it as "people in vehicles",
which would lead us to swiftly implement priority signalling so that
busloads of people stop at fewer lights than single-occupancy cars. If
the emphasis were on moving people instead of moving vehicles, the stoplights would focus on pedestrians and buses-- not the relatively small number of drivers. Given the
anti-humanist nature of traffic laws, I have no patience for moral
disgust over jaywalking or bike-salmoning.
All I'm saying is give anarchism a chance. Drivers will look out for cyclists & pedestrians. And in America, as long as we give tort reform the cold shoulder it deserves, I think we can function efficiently & safely.
Cal Audrain sent me a note and some pics from his recent trip to Amsterdam. Here's what thought was interesting:
We noticed that they ride upright, not bent over, and the adults don't wear helmets. I tried getting a picture that showed the distinction between the road for cars and trucks, the path for bicycles, sometimes separated by a curb and the path for pedestrians, again separated by a curb. We quickly learned not to linger in the bike path when crossing a street, but continue directly on to the pedestrian path. What a great city for getting around. We got passes at the airport for transit - bus or tram - and just showed them each time we got on.
Cal and his wife Ann are globetrotters and it's not unusual for him to tell me about something those foreign biking that he likes, but he doesn't usually gush like this.
Pic-left gives us a pretty good idea what all those lanes might look like on the wider avenues. Note that the bike path is delineated from the auto lanes not by a curb (or maybe it's a very short curb), but by a two-foot wide demilitarized zone of brick paving, which strikes me as excellent design. The brilliantly dressed mom is wearing no special gear. The guy on the bike behind her is talking on his cell, but that doesn't look so dangerous with this lane set-up.
Cal didn't explain the second pic, but I'm going to guess this is a tree in Amsterdam that the locals believe is inhabited by the spirits of bicycle gods, so every 4 years an offering is made and left to rust, replenishing the iron the tree's inhabitants crave.
The third pic shows gobs and gobs of bike parking along a canal. And those crafty Dutch figured out that if you don't have room alongside the canal, you can just park a boat and use it for more bike parking.
Streetsblog reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is promising a change of attitude:
At the outset of his remarks, he said, “I want all of you to know you have a full partner at the US DOT in working toward livable communities”. A key theme of LaHood’s remarks was that he and President Obama will work hard help make communities nicer places to walk and bike. LaHood said that he and Obama, “Will work toward an America where bikes are recognized to coexist with other modes and to safely share our roads and bridges.”
One bright spot that did not go unnoticed by the crowd is that LaHood said he and other transportation officials plan to study European models of bike and walk-friendly facilities this spring (something Portland, New York City, and others have already been doing).
Well, there's about probably some 10 percent to 20 percent of the current spending that is going to projects that really are not transportation, directly transportation-related. Some of that money is being spent on things, as I said earlier, like bike paths or trails.
Grrrr.
The advantages of having Barack Obama as president will be numerous and often below the radar of main stream media.
Chicago 2016 sent their new head of neighborhood legacy projects Arnold Randall to the TIF meeting on Monday night where the finalists for developing Harper Court were announced. Not that Randall had to be briefed on what the 53rd Street TIF does; he was a board member of the original TIF council here. Randall's an impressive spokesman, promoting the Olympics when he can and deftly changing the subject when he needs to.
Randall claimed that tourism measurably increased for Barcelona, Sydney and Atlanta in the years after the Olympics were held in those cities, although IIRC only Barcelona's increased significantly. While economists who've studied the subject tend to agree that both athletic stadiums and the Olympics end up being money-sucks, that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions. Camden Yards in Baltimore brought attention to a number of amenities located on the Inner Harbor and tourists from the region started visiting. Well-known destinations like New York City, London, Beijing, Los Angeles or Tokyo might get less out of the Olympics than smaller, lesser known cities who can use the attention.
Which group does Chicago belong to? Well, Chicago's large & well-known, but until you're here in the summer I doubt you'd understand its attractions-- cleanliness, relative safety, ethnic diversity and a huge variety of things to do. When I host visitors, they always leave impressed. I think you can make the argument that Chicago might possibly come away better off after hosting the Olympics, but only if the legacy projects are well-thought out.
That's a big "if" and Randall has his work cut out for him, balancing the needs of 16 days in 2016 with what's left behind, figuring out which legacy projects will add to our general welfare and which will be expensive white elephants. I have a clear conscious advocating the Gold Line project because I firmly believe it simply rationalizes the resources we already have. And Randall made vague promises of federal help for transit projects during his presentation.
Still, knowing I had only one question at the TIF presentation, I brought up biking. Bicycle improvements are cheap compared to other demands and I think we could come away with about whatever we wanted if we pushed a little. "What improvements for bicycles do you foresee?" I asked. Randall spent 45 seconds saying nothing and then shifted to parking, though neither I nor anyone else had asked about parking. Pretty darned sad. Almost as sad as not having a strong bicycle coalition to pressure him.
Listen, maybe the Olympics will be nothing more than an expensive vanity project for Mayor Daley. Even if that happens, it'll still be worth adding cost-effective transit and bike improvements. And we shouldn't expect that others will make the case for what our neighborhoods need. That's up to us.
As part of my set of New Year's Resolutions, I invited folks to contact me to arrange one-on-one chats about transit. My goal is to do one of these a week and I'm only slightly behind, with three in the first four weeks of this year and another scheduled for tomorrow. The main idea is that instead of calling people to a large meeting, I can get input in a casual setting, just letting folks talk about what matters to them, and then use that information to figure out what the Transit Task Force or my blog should address.
So far, the chats have been pretty informative. One of my opening questions is "What do you use transit for" and my first one-on-one made it clear that garnering ingredients for cooking is still a major concern. The neighborhood's lack of retail clothing options doesn't bother me much because we're just a 30-minute bus ride away from one of the best shopping districts in the world, but it's silly to have to scour the north side for food.
A couple of the one on ones have veered off into bikes and, since it's an alternative to automobiles, I'd like to now formally include biking as a one on one chat subject. Biking improvements are cheap compared to roads or transit and this strikes me as an excellent time to advocate for them. If you'd like to schedule a one-on-one, just e-mail me here. (Image attribution.)
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