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.
November 11, 20131 Comment on Bicycling through a storm
With the extreme loss of life and record breaking devastation created by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the record-holding Typhoon Tip in 1979 becomes a historical footnote.
Typhoon Tip
Typhoon Tip was the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded. With a diameter of 1,380 miles / 2,220 kilometer, it was almost equivalent to the continental United States in area. Standard atmospheric pressure is 1013.25 millibars or 29.92 inches of mercury. U.S. Air Force weather reconnaissance aircraft measured a worldwide record low sea level pressure of 870 millibars or 25.69 inches. That’s more than enough to make your ears pop and is equivalent to the air pressure at over 4,000 feet above sea level, where the boiling point of water is only 204°F / 96°C and you’re supposed to use the high altitude cooking directions on your box of Betty Crocker red velvet cake mix. Wind speeds exceeded 190 MPH over the ocean.
When Tip made landfall in southern Japan on October 19, the former super typhoon had weakened to Category 1 strength with 80+ MPH sustained winds. The wind, storm surges and heavy rainfall from Tip resulted in millions of dollars in damage and the loss of nearly 100 lives.
And as a 13 year old kid living in a western suburb of Tokyo, I rode my BMX bike during this record breaking storm.
It was mostly like riding through a heavy thunderstorm, though things got really intense when the wind gusted to 100 MPH. I just went around the block. I mostly just remember leaves whipping by, but when a large tree limb flew nearby, I decided to end my attempt to claim a Darwin Award and go back indoors. That was my first and last experience with biking during a large cyclone.
Tip killed nearly 100 people as it roared across Japan. On this Veterans Day, I’d be remiss not to remember the 13 U.S. Marines who lost their lives on a training exercise during this storm. The men nailed the doors to their barracks shut to prevent them from flying away during the storm. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but flooding damaged a set of fuel storage bladders and a surrounding retaining wall. When 5,000 gallons of gasoline gushing from the bladders flowed downhill into the barracks into a space heater, the resulting inferno destroyed the barracks, killed 13 individuals and injured another 68 people.
Typhoon Haiyan
The U.S. Air Force ceased weather reconnaissance out of Anderson Air Base, Guam in 1987, so we really don’t know if Typhoon Haiyan has set any new intensity or wind records. NOAA estimates pressures as low as 858 mbar for Haiyan, though we’ll never know if Haiyan exceeded Tip without direct observation.
We do know Haiyan set new records for windspeed at landfall. Wind speeds exceeding 190 MPH when Haiyan slammed into the city of Guiuan would classify this super typhoon as a F3 tornado on the Fujita scale, if Haiyan were a tornado. F3 tornados are capable of lifting heavy cars, lifting roofs from well constructed homes, overturning trains, and uprooting forests.
With fatality estimates ranging to 10,000 and $14B in total economic damage, Typhoon Haiyan is no joke. This is the most expensive natural disaster in Filipino history. The previous two most expensive natural disasters — $1.7B from Typhoon Bopha in December 2012 and $2.2B caused by Typhoon Trami just three months ago — both occurred within the last year.
This is not a “bicycle are the cockroaches of disaster” story, but this is a bicycle blog. Photojournalists have captured several people riding bikes in the aftermath of the storm. This man parks his bike inside of a damaged Catholic church in Tacloban. Another survivor rides his bicycle rickshaw on an unlit street covered in storm debris. These two guys share a ride on a bicycle built for one.
Haiyan has since weakened to Category 1 status but is still capable of significant damage as it crosses into Vietnam. This is the third large storm to hit Vietnam in the past six weeks.
November 4, 201311 Comments on I’m like that crackhead fat guy with a drinking problem
October 31, 201317 Comments on Radicals, conservatives, liberals, progressives, and cyclists
How do you radicalize bike riders?
I wasn’t always a wild-eyed anti-car bike radical. I, and probably thousands of other people like me, were just people who liked to get around by bike. I had no particular “bicycle idealogy.” I accepted that our transportation network was built for cars and made myself fit in by cooperating with traffic and making myself small. My thinking and my practices, however, have changed over time, mostly for self-preservation.
But first of all: Conservatives, liberals and progressives. Which of these groups do you identify with?
I’ve been participating in a series of online book club discussions with Anthony Ryan on Jason Henderson’s book Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco. To help break things down, Professor Henderson creates a loose categorization of the three sides of this battle: the Conservatives, the Progressives, and the Neoliberals.
Henderson devotes an entire chapter to these ideas, but to grossly simplify:
October 25, 20134 Comments on Public safety & traffic in San Jose
33 traffic fatalities — including 20 pedestrians and cyclists — in San Jose this year
San Jose city council member Sam Liccardo formally kicked off his campaign for mayor yesterday. He currently represents the downtown district, and he’s known for his recent strong support for creative bicycle infrastructure throughout downtown.
Four of the five candidates currently running for mayor are sitting council members, and they share a common handicap: the powerful San Jose police union has it in for them because of their support for pension reform.
San Jose has long been known as the entry-level city for anybody beginning careers in city government. The Bay Area’s largest city pays fairly low wages compared to other nearby cities. Once engineers, planners, police officers and other city workers get their feet wet in San Jose, they seek out greener pastures in nearby cities with larger comparative tax bases like Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
When the 2008 recession forced San Jose to cut budgets, the police department was particularly hard hit. The city laid off hundreds of officers, and voters approved Measure B to reduce the city’s pension for new police officers. Remaining officers have been asked to work ludicrously long hours. The result is a poisonous atmosphere in which the police union actively encourages new candidates to leave the force and find employment elsewhere.
A startling series of shooting homicides earlier this year led to the city and council asking for a greater police presence around town. With police resources stretched thin, San Jose’s traffic detail has born the brunt of the cuts. In the name of focusing on more important public safety issues, almost the entire motorcycle traffic force was eliminated, and the San Jose police department now has a policy of not enforcing most traffic infractions between dusk and dawn!
Yes, you read that right: You’re free to speed down city streets, run stop signs, run red lights and even drive drunk all night long.
The result: accidental traffic deaths in the Capital of Silicon Valley are nearly at parity with homicides. Catherine Marie Maxwell, age 60, became the city’s 32nd traffic fatality for 2013 on Monday, followed on Tuesday by 43 year old Joel Holguin Jr. Maxwell and Holguin are the 19th and 20th pedestrians to be killed this year.
The city of San Jose has some important crime issues to address, and I think the city council is doing what they can with the resources they have available. Shootings and gang violence capture headlines and the public’s attention, and the city should work to reduce these problems, but the city also shouldn’t continue to overlook automotive traffic as the single most important contribution to public danger.
More carnage below
October 18, 2013Leave a Comment
Oil was once so plentiful it came out of the ground like artesian wells, like the bubbling crude made famous by Jed Clampett fame and the dangerous gushers from fields in Texas, California and Oklahoma.
The heyday of easy oil began to fade when U.S. oil production peaked in 1970. Big oil could collect petroleum from the Middle East and ship it halfway around the world cheaper than local production.
When Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on October 6, 1973, the U.S. imported 12% of its oil supply from the Middle East. After the Soviet Union began sending arms to Syria and Egypt during the Yom Kippur War, President Richard Nixon asked Congress for $2.2 billion in emergency aid for Israel on October 19, 1973. Libya immediately embargoed all shipments of oil to the United States. The other Arab members of OPEC followed suit the following day.
