January 23, 20144 Comments on Attention expat gaijin and Japanophiles
Byron Kidd, an expatriate Australian who works and bikes in the Tokyo area, has asked me to forward this appeal for petition signatures to a wider audience.
January 9, 20145 Comments on Social media and cycling advocacy
Yesterday, we learned how Barb Chamberlain became director of Washington Bikes, the cycling advocacy group for the state of Washington.
I first met Barb online; both of us actively use social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus to interact with other cyclists and advocates. I asked her how she and Washington Bikes use online media for cycling advocacy.
January 8, 20141 Comment on The Secret Diary of a Bike Advocate, Part 1
For my very occasional series on bicycle advocacy, I interviewed Barb Chamberlain last December. Barb is Executive Director of Washington Bikes (nee the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, the bicycle advocacy organization for the state of Washington.
January 7, 20145 Comments on Santa Clara County BPACs
If your New Year resolutions included a greater commitment to civic engagement, find out when and where your local bike advisory committees meet. If your town or county doesn’t have a BPAC, find something applicable like a traffic committee or even the planning commission. Start showing up to your city council meetings. Make some noise. Hand out suggested solutions instead of just being that annoying crazy person who spends his allotted three minutes speaking into the microphone with random rants and insults.
Note: The photo shows a Santa Cruz County BPAC meeting because I don’t have any decent South Bay BPAC meeting photos. Unless you know what your BPAC meeting attendance look like, don’t gripe about their lack of effectiveness or your city’s failure to improve cyclist safety. When you can jam a standing room crowd of 150 cyclists into a council meeting chamber, you too can see 10% of your county transportation budget spent on bike facilities.
This list of bicycle / pedestrian advisory committees and similar for the 15 cities in Santa Clara County, California is a quick reference for me, but hopefully helpful to you too.
Government websites seem to change a lot; if you see a dead link please ping me by leaving a comment here. BPAC = “Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee” (or commission); BAC = “Bicycle Advisory Committee” (or commission).
November 25, 20132 Comments on Advocacy is hard: A Ventura County case study
I was hunting for details on this Ventura County hit and run in which a reckless driver hurtling past traffic in the bike lane fled the scene after seriously injuring a cycling when I found this short news item about a proposed fixed gear ban on Ventura County bike paths.
Ventura County officials are considering banning fixed-gear bicycles from county park trails after a bicycle collision severely injured a rider.
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Oct. 22 approved a first reading of a new rule in the county parks general ordinance that would restrict bicycles without brakes from county park trails.
In my area, I routinely scan the agendas for several governing boards in Santa Cruz County to keep abreast of issues that may potentially impact cycling and cyclists. Hopefully, bike advocates in Ventura County do the same thing. If so, it’s easy to see how they could have missed this one. Here’s what they saw on the agenda for the October 22, 2013 County Supervisors meeting.
This seems completely innocuous, right? Even if you drill down to the actual proposed county ordinance, you see a 24 page document that modifies Ventura County code regarding rules and regulations for county parks. We finally see something halfway interesting way down on page 19.
No person shall operate a bicycle, motorized bicycle or power-driven mobility device on a County trail or path unless the bicycle, motorized bicycle or power-driven mobility device is equipped with functional brakes.
You had to attend the meeting or view the online video and stay awake for nearly three hours to learn this ordinance is intended to target the unsafe operation of fixed gear bikes on county park paths. Ventura County Supervisors apparently believe that fixed gear bikes all lack brakes, and the discussion at the October 22 Supervisors’ meeting focused on the danger of operating fixed gear bikes.
It’s easy for laws like this to fly completely under the radar, even when people are paying attention to the issues. I sometimes hear from friends about ineffective bicycle advocacy groups here in California, but they really depend on people like you to watch these meetings. Besides county supervisor meetings, other government boards to look for in your area include city councils, planning and zoning commissions, school districts, community college districts, water districts and transit boards. There are also regional bodies responsible for transportation planning and air quality that have an influence on the attention cycling receives.
Ventura County passed the ordinance to modify the county parks regulations last October. A second reading and passage is required before this ordinance becomes law. The second reading will likely be included in the consent calendar sometime in the very near future, which means pro forma approval unless somebody in Ventura County makes a stink about it to the parks department and the supervisors.
California already has an equipment law requiring brakes on bikes, so this county ordinance seems superfluous. I don’t know why supervisors for this county north of Los Angeles County believe another law is necessary.
About that Highway 101 hit and run near Rincon Beach Park
About 11:15 A.M., the driver of a black Hyundai Elantra was reportedly driving recklessly on southbound Highway 101 near Rincon Beach Park about midway between the cities of Santa Barbara and Ventura. She was passing traffic on the right by driving in the bike lane when she struck the cyclist and fled the scene of the collision.
The cyclist was sent to Ventura County Medical Center with major injuries.
The suspect vehicle may be missing the cover to the passenger side mirror. Officers were sent to address 4014 Modoc Drive in Santa Barbara; I don’t know if that’s the address on the suspect vehicle registration or not.
There’s no word on if Ventura County Supervisors propose to ban Hyandai Elantras after this hit and run injury collision.
November 21, 20132 Comments on The myth of the 1894 horse manure crisis
You’ve probably heard the story of how cars saved cities from the problem of crushing piles of horse manure. The usual telling rings true to modern ears: 19th century cities depended absolutely on horses for the transport of people and goods, so much so that great stinking mounds of manure polluted streets and our air. Luckily for western civilization, the automobile came along just in time to solve our problems.
