The weekly Bike News Roundup is here! As always, this is an open thread (discuss whatever is on your mind in the comments below).
First up, a pedal-powered machine that actually flies (a couple feet off the ground for almost a minute). Obviously, this is how we’re going to save the airline industry. Boeing, get on it!
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Pacific Northwest News:
- BikePortland.org » Metro report: Road carnage costs region more than congestion
- McGinn’s South Lake Union rezone plan has towers up to 400 feet | The Seattle Times
- “Amazing what a few extra feet of bike lane width feels like”
- New Aurora BAT Lane Starting Today – Seattle Transit Blog – I asked the STB readers for their opinions on people biking in the new Aurora bus lanes. Interesting conversation ensued.
- July Greendrinks sponsored by Skanska and featuring the Cascade Bicycle Club | Seattle Greendrinks
- Getting transit oriented development right in Rainier Valley | Crosscut.com
- Books on the Bus — Transportation Choices Coalition
- Traffic Forecasting: A Blast from the Past | Sightline Daily – How not to predict traffic growth
- West Seattle Blog… » Much-used wagon stolen from ‘single mom with toddler, no car’ – I love the community response to this story.
- Seattle Waterfront and Red Light “Scofflaws” | Seattle Likes Bikes!
- Nick Licata » Neighbors Win Pedestrian Improvements
- Photo Request: Bikes and Kids | Sightline Daily – Send ’em in!
- West Seattle Blog… » Major new Delridge rechannelization plan emerges at district-council meeting – this time, the south half
- Beginner Pedal Parenting: How Hauling an Infant Returns One to Cycling Infancy | Riding on Roadways
- Travel Blog: Feedtheneed’s Great Adventure – Seattle-area woman blogging her cross-country bike tour
Halftime show! BikeBot was in Portland for a move by bike. I want to see this happen in Seattle more often (I’ll help!).
National & Global News:
- The poster for San Francisco’s 20th Anniversary of Critical Mass is stunning (see right).
- Paris Bike Hire Scheme is Five Years Old – SPIEGEL ONLINE – Also, it has changed the city dramatically
- Kansas City Residents Build their Bike Share Scheme | This Big City – I would love to help King County save some cash by doing this. Seriously, let’s pass a bike share package.
- Building Safety Awareness joins the new trend of Tumblr blogs featuring cars smashing into buildings (this time, the buildings wear helmets)
- Georgia and the United Nations: Why walking leads to one-world government | The Economist – Did you know biking and walking trails are a plot by the UN to take away your freedom? Next time you’re on the Burke-Gilman, pay homage to all the liberties you had to give up in order to get that trail… (how the hell were these people elected?)
- League of American Bicyclists * National Women’s Bike Summit – Sept 13 in Long Beach
- ‘Generation N’ is Steering Clear of Auto Showrooms – CNBC
- Transportation For America » Top 10 Reasons Sen. Boxer Must Keep Her Word on Bike/Ped Programs
- Cycling helmet laws not so clear-cut on many issues – The Globe and Mail
- Surveillance Video Shows Hit-And-Run Of Cyclist – NewsChannel5.com – Warning, extremely fucked up video.
- Santa Monica Traffic, Is It Really So Bad? (Part 1) | Streetsblog Los Angeles
- Guest Post: Why don’t women ride the Tour de France? | Taking the Lane
- Gazette.Net: Popular College Park bike shop owner sells business to stay with partner – Complete bullshit (as you have noticed, this is the point in the news roundup where I resort to cursing wildly at the madness of the world).
- Getting the Story Straight | Road Rights | Bicycling.com – Re: SF bike-caused fatality. A good perspective on a tough, sad story.
- Technology – Megan Garber – The Blind Spot: A Requiem – The Atlantic – YES. Let’s put an end to blind spots in cars. Federal government, get on it.
- Put onus on drivers, says cycling world champion Mark Cavendish | The Times
- Magazine – World’s Worst Traffic Jam – The Atlantic – Next time I-5 backs up a bit, remember that it could be worse.
Comments
12 responses to “Bike News Roundup: I can’t wait for Boeing’s first pedal-powered passenger jet”
I’m a stickler for obeying red lights and stop signs, but even I admit I’ve ran a few red lights in the new waterfront configuration. I hardly think of it as “running” a light, though, when it involves stopping and waiting at the light for a minute or two without seeing a single car pass, before giving up and safely (but, alas, illegally) pedaling out into the still-empty intersection against a meaningless red light.
Scofflaw cyclist? Perhaps. But I maintain I’d do the same thing if I were driving.
Exactly! I have a multi-pronged approach to my cycling interactions with lights and signs:
1. During the course of normal riding and traffic I always stop for red lights (though I often start pedaling as I see the light change to get a jump on traffic). I California stop at stop signs where it is safe to do so (just like I, and almost any other driver, do in a car).
2. At night when nobody is around or if a light just doesn’t respond to bicycles I will treat it like a stop sign and ride through once clear. Again, I would do this in an auto. In fact, when I used to ride a motorcycle I had to do it quite a bit since the lights don’t always respond to even large, motor-powered bikes.
3. If other cyclists run reds or blast through stop signs and there are drivers around I noticeably shake my head, not because I really give a shit, but to try and do my little part to stop the ridiculous “all bicyclists are scofflaws!” mentality.
Last Wintereenmas I got a copy of the excellent book Bicycling and the Law. According to the author (who is a lawyer) you’re only running a red light if you fail to stop and yield. It’s still typically illegal to cross the intersection against it, but it is legal to cross an intersection against red if the signal is defective. If a green light in your direction is triggered by a sensor, and the sensor does not detect your vehicle, it’s considered defective.
This often happens to cyclists: there’s no other traffic in their direction of travel and their turn in the light cycle is skipped. In this situation it’s legal for us to cross against red. Had I known this when I lived in CA I would have fought the ticket I got for doing just this (after sitting through three whole cycles without getting a turn).
I’m not sure if the reason people are stuck at red lights is because the sensors aren’t picking up their bikes or because the light cycles are just way too long. If it’s because sensors aren’t picking up their bikes it’s actually legal to cross against them provided they stop and yield to all other traffic first.
I don’t think the author covered the question of determining whether a light is actually defective. My understanding is that the signal doesn’t have to be incapable of detecting cyclists for it to be considered defective, it simply must have failed to detect you in that instance. So if you stop legally at the intersection without tripping the sensor but could have tripped the sensor by riding in a different lane position or riding a bike made of rare-earth magnets or leaving a burnt offering to the stop light gods the light still may be considered defective. I personally don’t make much effort to appease the stop light gods, as it distracts from all the other stuff I should be keeping a lookout for. But I am not a lawyer.
Alternately you could get one of those horrible NITE-BLINDER-ELEVENTYMILLION lights the supercommuters use and angle it up to trip the emergency vehicle sensor. Just make sure to perform your adjustment in such a way that you don’t get caught on camera fiddling with your light angle. I’m sorry, what I meant to say was, I in no way approve of breaking, bending, or scoffing the law, please bow down at the feet of the mighty stoplights that have been so generously built by the State for your protection.
SDOT is pretty responsive at adjusting the sensitivity of light detectors. If you find a light that won’t detect your bike, call 684-ROAD or report it online: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/potholereport.htm
That said, there is the issue of arriving at a traffic signal that never detects your bike. Are you expected to wait through signal cycles before going through the light, or can you just run it when you get there (knowing that waiting is futile)? I can tell you what I think makes sense, but I’m not sure the judge will accept it as an argument…
Note that the machine in the video holds a record for pedal powered helicopters.
The current record for pedal powered airplanes is held by a team from MIT. They named their machine Daedalus ’88, and flew more than 70 miles across the mediterranean sea. It’s a pretty cool story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus
Just a reminder, but the Gossamer Albatross hangs (quite majestically, I might add) at the Museum of Flight…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross
to be sure…the Gossamer Albatross II
That’s awesome! I now have an excuse to finally go there. Thanks for the info.
I wish they would let you try it out…
Author of the waterfront article here…the light on the waterfront are timed, no sensors. Several of the intersections have very long cycles due to difficult traffic patterns which result in periods where no traffic is going through the intersection at hand, but the nearby intersection. Which creates confusion for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.
I should add that a few side streets do have sensors and do pick up cyclists, but those are not long waits.
There was a down tree across the Burke Gillman Trail in Bothell at Blythe Park on Monday. Any updates on that? I’ll probably ride through it tomorrow.
The Critical Mass poster was created by Mona Caron. She has created many, many bicycle themed pieces of art. If you ahve been to San Francisco and seen the Dubose Bikeway Mural it is hers also. As is the cover art on CRITICAL MASS : BICYCLING’S DEFIANT CELEBRATION, which I have numerous photographs in from both San Francisco and Chicago.
Chicago will be celebrating 15 years of Critical Mass in September.
You can see 15 years of Crtical Mass pictures at my link above.
Tomorrow is Critical Mass, Westlake Plaza, 5:30.
Daniel