Bicycle Blog Cyclelicious

California budget agreement eliminates transit funds What!!! Okay I am a little confused didn't we just pass SB 375 that mandates better transportation and land use planning. It pushes smarter growth patterns that depend on transit and walkability to cut down on green house gases.

So now we won't fund the transportation. This is just like California, proposed great things but just don't fund any of it. Anon: It's maddening, isn't it? Cyclists to ride in budget protest We need more of this kind of events! Just put yourself in the world of a child these days, put yourself in the head of a individual who doesn't have the chance to explore his or her own world. Someone who's bound to the car of the parents.
Your mother brings you to kindergarten, later to school and then as a result of not knowing any better, as soon as you get the chance, you'll get the drivers license so you can continue the lifestyle you're used to.
We need to provide alternatives, to provide opportunities! Who wouldn't want to protect children from unnecessary slashing? Caltrain hits truck in Burlingame I was on the 312 train. There was a small thump and then all the lights went out and the train rolled to a stop. #&*(*@ We were told the train had "hit a truck". Then we were told the delay would be indefinite and we could get out and look for alternate transportation.

I had boarded in Millbrae so I walked up to ECR, waited for a bus, and bussed back to Millbrae where I just missed a southbound train going through (the 7:32??). Then, unsure about trying to catch another train and not knowing what the delays would be, I drove home and worked from home for three hours.

I finally completed my trip to work (in SUnnyvale) at noon. Ugh.

What I fail to understand is how we have this sort of accident so often. How is it that some people are so blindingly stupid? Thanks for leaving your comment Vicki, and sorry about the headaches.

The train hits and truck and it's a "small thump": I think that's pretty amazing.

295 Bus has his idea to prevent this sort of thing. I don't know if it would fly or not. Caltrain bikes on board: Compare and contrast "Nearing capacity"? For serious? Has Caltrain ever discussed the cost of building in more bike carrying capacity? Have they ever talked about how much it would cost to either purchase a new bike car or retrofit a passenger car for bike carrying? Or how many total riders the typical bike car carries vs. the typical passenger car?

I'd be interested in seeing that sort of financial analysis because it would tell activists if they need to convince Caltrain to overlook short-term expenditure for long-term goals or if they just need Caltrain to accept an immediately win-win proposition. Chester, much of the anger by cyclists toward Caltrain is that they have done nothing to study what can be to increase bike capacity. The technical advisory group that wrote the draft for the Caltrain bike access and parking plan gave several of their own suggestions on improving bikes on board capacity, but Caltrain staff specifically removed those ideas before presenting the document to the Caltrain Board.

The Caltrain Board decided in their meeting today to investigate improving the bikes on board program, so that's a win. Jennifer - yes, many of our transit systems in the Bay Area are now at capacity, and the new state budget that was finally approved this lsat week does nothing to improve the situation. Those cars don't look very full of people, though. Or do they fill up later? That was kind of hte point of that montage, to show how much more bicyclists use Caltrain versus non-cyclists. He's showing traffic from San Francisco, however. From the South Bay (where I ride from) there's a crush of non-cycling passengers, probably because we have parking lots. they are all great views. I specially enjoyed the analysis by Holier than you.
I dont use caltrain as a source of commuting but it looks like it could become a nightmare if actions and effectiveness are not done soon. crazy.
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funny I had just posted a link, also about caltrain, in today's article by the SFchron a bit more focused on fashion tho... ;) Thanks, Yokota. I had always wondered about it -- the least that could be done is to do a cost analysis. My vague personal suspicion is that there will be significant short-term costs but those will pay off in the long run by greatly expanding the potential passenger pool. Hello,

My name is Solly, I am a 6th grade student in Los Angeles.

I am on a team competing in FIRST LEGO League, which promotes science and technology for kids. This year’s theme is Climate Connections, and our team chose to study the connections between rising temperatures and car emissions in Los Angeles. Did you know that these two things both affect each other?

Our team needed to think of a creative solution for our topic. We found that a lot of car emissions come from people who drive a long distance to work every day, such as from Palmdale or Riverside to the downtown area. These areas have commuter trains called MetroLink, and our idea is to add a rail car for bikes only. This would encourage more people to leave the car at home, and get to work with bike and train.

We were surprised to learn that MetroLink has room for only 2 bikes per train car. The other LA train system is a subway called Metro that travels shorter distances. Metro is adding bike lockers at some stations, but this means you have to buy two bikes if you really want to stop driving the car to work.

In LA and other cities, train companies do not want to remove more seats to make room for bikes, because it would reduce their income. Passenger train cars are expensive and take a long time to get. So our idea is to take older rail cars that were used for something else, and make some changes to allow bike racks and ramps to get on and off. After parking your bike in this rail car you just go sit down in a regular passenger car. Adding these simple rail cars to the commuter train would not reduce income, and might even sell more tickets from all the people that could now take their bike to work.

We made several designs of rail cars that could hold between 34 and 80 bikes. We estimate that each bikes-only rail car could reduce 408 to 960 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, if these commuters stopped driving 60 miles each way. This is based on 0.8 pounds of CO2 per mile driven.

We also researched to see if other parts of the world have tried this idea. Some cities in the US are adding more room for bikes by taking out seats, but this is going slow. Some cities in Europe have taken out most or all of the seats, with people standing next to the bikes, but this was on subways and different than our topic of long distance commuters.

If you have read all this, thank you very much, because another one of our assignments was to share our project with people who might be interested. Internet blogs are a good way for our team to try and share our work with a lot of people. Hopefully you like our idea, and please wish us luck in our competition.

Solly Thanks Solly; your contest sounds very intriguing and I like your ideas. Do you know if your designs will be available anywhere on the Internet for others to view? San Jose works to increase bicycle commuting What does the rider making a vehicular right turn do about the rider RIDING into his line in the crossWALK? We just steer around them.

That last photo of Kyle on the yellow bike is near Diridon Station, and the building in the background is the HP Pavilion AKA "The Shark Tank." There's usually heavy pedestrian, bike, bus, and car traffic going every which way around this area, so we just adjust and go with the flow.

I've been known to 'cheat' and use that crosswalk instead of making multiple turns across traffic just to get to or from Autumn Street or Stockton Street. This is awesome. I live in downtown San Jose and commute using a combination of bike and bus. The proposed improvements would be very welcome and wonderful. Currently it is quite a pain to ride on main thoroughfares such as Santa Clara St without going onto the sidewalk. Looking forward to it! Any chance that there will be similar connecting protected corridors to other nearby city centers, ie Sunnyvale etc? I live a mere 12 miles from SJSU, but it would take nearly 1.5 hours one way by bus. I'd bike, but there's no way I'm crossing 150 intersections with SUV's on their cell phone! I wish we could connect bike trails like in S San Jose. Sunnyvale to San Jose can be tricky via bike depending on where you're going to and coming from. Light Rail is impossibly long, but the 522 bus isn't too unreasonable (though you might be hosed if the bike rack is full), and Caltrain is only a 10 minute ride. Caltrain Bicycle Access and Parking Plan now online for what it's worth, the SF bike coalition sent out a bike theft alert last week for that particular garage:

"Elsewhere in bike theft news, steer clear of the 5th and Mission Garage -- bike parking at this city garage has always been pretty sketchy, but lately thieves have been working double-time to swipe bikes parked here, sadly we've heard that entire racks full of bikes have been stolen. We're working on better, more secure parking at this key location, but until that happens you'd be well advised not to park your bike there." Thx Calitexican. I missed that particular bulletin. Why not register your bikes on the nes national database www.immobilize.net The police can check any property on the site. Once you have opened your account you can register any property on the site- FREE
Also why not tag the bike. The RFID tag has an unique ID number which can be read with a scanner. visit www.immobitag.com and the ciost is around $25. Details of the btag, the bike and the owner go on the immobilize website. The bike is 10 times less likely to be stolen. There are 35 different sites in the UK where the police are tagging bikes to reduce the theft rate.
Regards

John Macintyre Norcal bicycle blogs that you read Thanks for the plug!

A sometimes bike-themed SoCal blog that I'm a fan of is The Militant Angeleno. Thank you for listing my blog. I just wonder who referred mine to the survey. I semi-regularly blog about my commuting and general biking in Sacramento. You can read it at www.damncyclist.com Don't go leaving out my "Curtis in Bicycle Land"
http://ccorlew.blogspot.com WOOT! Thanks for the linkage! Here's another new one:

http://sub20olh.blogspot.com Hey there - thanks for the pointer! - Cyclofiend Jim Santa Clara County bicycle fatality locations Has anyone done a similar map showing motor vehicle fatalities and/or pedestrian fatalities? This could go a long way towards determining where the roads need re-engineering or the vehicle statutes need tighter enforcement. Just showing one class of road user really doesn't give enough detail about what is causing the fatalities. A similar map showing motorist fatalities over the past decade would be covered in those little markers. In Santa Clara County alone there are 12,000 collisions per year resulting in over 10,000 injuries and 100 deaths -- that's in a single year, while the map shows a decade's worth of cyclist fatalities. The leading factor in motor vehicle fatalities in the county is DUI. Universal Studios: Not In My Back Yard Back in the 50's my dad used to go messing down around in the LA river and sneak into the backlots.

Guess they weren't always so concerned about security! NEed to get a few starlets and celebs in on this thing. I have to agree with Universal on this. After all, you wouldn't want to make it easy for a bike rider to sneak in and get advance pictures of "You, Me and Dupree II". Windy in Santa Cruz, Bay Area That cyclist is a bad-ass. When I was riding home yesterday I was losing my breath to the wind and today it's far worse. Wait, this is my first commute of the year! Perfect choice - I love riding in this stuff.

The Caltrain bike-car was pretty empty this morning.

Bonus: If the wind direction doesn't shift too much, should be a hella tailwind for my 15 miles back home later today. Now you know what to wear helmets for ;-) And maybe the styrofoam helmet can insulate against falling wires too.

Gazer, watch those limbs and the deep water!

I have some friends who told me the other day they're headed to Tahoe tonight. I told them "No you're not." Darn, not much wind last night.

Left a little early to ride in the daylight (to see those limbs and estimate water depth). Mostly just a bunch of leaves on the ground.

The towns/residents appear to have cleaned up the major limbs very quickly. Bravo! Air Quality District says 'Drive a Car' This is not good but the situation in St Louis is worse: Cyclist told to get off the road and ride on the sidewalks by the Police for "impeding traffic".
http://stlbiking.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9812
It looks like local passivity is finally catching up with the apathetic cycling community. A bad situation is getting worse.
Stay safe,
Jack Jack, I'd be interested to hear of any resolution to the Webster Grove incident that you mentioned. ...so is micheal rich simply ignorant or overly concerned by our litigious society ?...

...wow, gung ho in webster grove... If your state or local jurisdiction has laws that allow cyclists to use the road (I don't know that this is a universally accepted principle), carry a copy of the appropriate documents so you can cite them to an officer improperly interfering with your right to ride. Do so politely, giving as full a citation as possible of the laws in question. That way, if the officer continues to harass you, you have the strongest possible position in any resulting legal or disciplinary action.

It has to happen at street level, on an incident-by-incident basis. Cyclists must educate themselves and then be ready to educate law officers and other road users.

New Hampshire and Maryland both published little digests of bike-related state laws. Check your own state for similar handy resources. Carrying a copy of relevant laws is nice in theory but not effective. Showing these laws to police officers before, I've been told:
1) "I do not have time to read that",
2) "I am the law".
3) "I don't care what the laws says, I care about law enforcement".

The one I have yet to hear is "where's the proof that those words are the law".

Suggesting that it is the duty of cyclists to spend time and energy to educate law enforcement is too often self-defeating and a waste of time. Shameful but true.

Concentrate on riding safely,
Jack ...i have to agree...cafiend's idea is good in theory but i'd even add another line to jack's dismissive list, "ya, well take it to court...you can discuss it w/ the judge"...

...oft times even a friendly cop will see your behavior as trying to show him up...despite your intent... Caltrain: Cyclists turned away as ridership surges One in fifteen???!!! During rushhour?!

-jealous in Chicago When I take my bike on Caltrain (1-2 days per week on average) I regularly see bike commuters get bumped, both in the mornings and evenings. Ridership surges, yet Caltrain STILL only has ONE BIKE CAR PER TRAIN -- what gives?!?!? Slightly better link to the car crashes that held you up this morning.

(Almost wrote 'accident', but I don't believe in that word when associated with car crashes anymore...)

As for CALTRAIN - I don't usually see passenger train-cars more than 50% full - because each passenger typically takes up two or more seats. That's far from being anywhere near capacity. Time to rip out the other side of the cab car to make room for 32 more bikes!

I love making people grumble by asking them to move their bags so that I can sit near the luggage area and keep an eye on my folder...

(Don't know about bullets - they don't hit San Mateo) I'm in the Chicago suburbs going north and south along the Fox River. My bus route services mostly those who can't afford cars or those that get off at the train station going to Chicago.
My bus has a 2 bike rack and about half the time I'm the only bike. Maybe twice I have seen a cyclist waved off because the rack was full. I haven't really seen much ridership increase in the past few months, but as it gets colder I'll ride both ways on the bus, instead of commuting 15 miles home on the bike. I've updated the post by adding a photo of the bike car interior. The bike cars are provisioned for the exclusive use of cyclists, and there is always at least one bike car per train.

Jim, Caltrain wants to electrify the line so they don't want to buy additional equipment right now until they know for sure if electrification will ever happen, or if they're stuck with diesel for the next 20 years. I have seen the passenger bullets packed full during commute times.

Thanks for the link, Gazer. I guess the CHP info times out after a short bit. And thanks for the comments, all! California Safe Routes becomes law Howdy--

The idea that 90 percent should go to engineering solutions is bass-ackward, and it reflects the desire to segregate bikes, not welcome them. The SR2S program emphasizes the first three Es: education, events, and enforcement, with engineering as a final resort. We have a fine system of public rights-of-way in this country, they've just been tyrranized by automobiles.

Where I live, we have a local push to build a $500,000 bike path, which would force riders off of a perfectly good, low-traffic route so that people who "might ride, if we had a path" can dust off their bikes and hurt their delicate butts. If that half-million dollars were directed toward educating the public about cyclists' right to the road, and enforcing the rules for drivers who won't learn, we'd have a better situation all around, instead of a single bike path.

Still, I'm sure that 10 percent is a big pile of money, and I hope it will go a long way toward educating California's auto-addicted masses.
Happy Trails,
Ron Georg
Moab Hi Ron, and thanks for the comments.

The SR2S program with the highest participation in the nation is Longmont, Colorado, with 96%(!!!) of students at Columbine Elementary School walking or biking to school on the designated "Safe Routes" days. Longmont's is also the least expensive SR2S program in the state of Colorado. While other locations requested millions for facility improvements, Longmont requested (and received) a few tens of thousands for education and encouragent.

On non "Safe Routes" days, an average of 70% walk/bike now. This is a huge increase from only a handful of students who walked/biked just three years ago when we started the program. Nearly 200 cars lined up around the block and double parked to drop students off -- these days, there are only a handful of cars at that school.

Volunteers now hand out fliers to the holdouts who continue to drive. Parents who formerly drove their kids to school are now rabid supporters of SR2S in their neighborhood. They walk with their children to school, meet their neighbors, make new friends, and connect in ways they didn't imagine possible. Hey, how about $$ for bike cops to escort kids to skool? Naaaaaaaaaaah. Palo Alto bicycle culture Bay Area bike commuters The guy with the masi is styling. I'm jealous. I might have to reconsider my riding apparel. I sometimes wear 'business casual' slacks like this guy, but rolled up halfway to my knees, partially to keep the chain grease off but mostly to show off my Sock Guy socks I usually wear ;-) I think I'd like to meet Emily too! I like the basket on Emily's bike. It is nice how it tapers a bit at the top. Probably keeps the contents nice and secure. Mass market fixed gear bike Sounds like he's one of the "invisible riders" liek Bicycling magazine's article described (almost made3 me subscribe, I tell ya)... CICLE snagged it at http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=809 tho' sometimes linking doesn't work (but if you google cicle and then do "invisible" search on their site, and look for "L.A.'s invisible riders" you'll find the article).

It's worth reading regular-like for that perspective. When it came out it was discussed and some people did some eyerolling about how those eople would buy cars if theyy could - which is still viewing it through "those people" lenses because my guess is there isn't a lot of time wasted on thinking "if I could, I'd get a car" (especially if licenses would have their own legal problems).

Fixies just kinda befuddle me. Since I can only engage my brain in one thing at a time, one-ness with a machine is an impossible dream... You're right, Sue. I've long recognized that Latinos probably make up the majority of cyclists in America; I got the Denver area Bike To Work team to begin Spanish-language outreach, and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is now thinking about Spanish language outreach after I suggested it. I have the print edition of Bicycling -- it's a good article.

Most Latinos, however, don't ride fixed gear bikes. Many seem to ride discount store bikes or ancient 10-speeds recycled via the perpetual garage sales in Latino neighborhoods. The bike-riding Latinos I talk with view cycling as a poor-person activity and plan to buy a car ASAP because that's what you do when you have money. Right now our bike coop ( www.thebikeproject.org ) is sort of trying to figure out whether discount store bicycles are worth working on or not. We've got both the poor-folks contingent and the very-temporarily and/or not-very-poor student contingent here that are looking for something cheaper than the bike shops, so it will be interesting to see which way the wind blows. One proposal has been to turn the discount bikes into fixies. (Local constabularies seem to be willing to send the coop their abandoned/confiscated bicycles after the wait period, most of which are "junk.") Caltrain nixes WiFi Bummer! Well, I'm not feeling so bad about signing that 2 year Sprint EVDO contract. Sprint EVDO mostly works OK for my Caltrain commute between SF and Mt View.

Allen Transit General Manager drives to work Imagine that...! I'm not surprised - but it does give a chuckle! He could also join the Ultramarathon Cycling association and get some really nice long commutes in. ;) Mass transit and alternative commuting is for us poor unimportant folk. Public transit is for everybody ;-) The CEO of Mattson Technology commutes by bike and train to commute from Tracy and Fremont. Mattson is a $500 million company that designs and manufactures silicon fabrication equipment. Other notable local bike commuters include Webcor CEO Andy Ball, Brocade Networks CEO Mike Klayko, Palm CEO Ed Colligan, IBM VP Mike Dean, Lockheed Martin VP Len Kwiatkowski and Specialized Bicycles CEO Mike Sinyard.

Santa Clara County Supervisor has also become a regular bike commuter this year and even blogged about his experience. He's become a rather vocal proponent of bicycle as transportation this year.

Chris, your blogger profile is "blocked" -- I can't view it. Can you point to a website that says who you are? Thanks! I am pretty sure that Chris' comment was in jest. Still, I like that list of prominent bike commuters. Very interesting.

It is true that most people assume anyone who uses an alternative to the automobile does so strictly for financial reasons. It reminds me of when my son was in first grade. A neighbor kid told him that he must be poor because of the fact that his Dad rode a bike to work and his Mom walked him to school. My son pointed out to the kid that we lived in similar houses in the same neighborhood, so family must be poor too. I guess he could have been defensive and pointed out that we own 2 cars (we shouldn’t) but I like the explanation he chose much better. Henry Cowell State Park mountain biking Bay Area bicycle news Caltrain bicycle survey Useless ride stats Santa Cruz: Wireless internet possible on the Highway 17 Express Real news on Critical Mass WHAT? Still NO Santa?! Unbelieveable. 2007 Sea Otter Class videos San Francisco Police to enforce cyclist sidewalk prohibition Caltrain fare increase San Francisco to require bike rentals at bus shelters Oh those SanFran happy campers are at it again, eh?

I am just trying to get Tulsa Transit to re-design the bus shelters to protect patrons, NOT the landscaping.

Most bus shelters expose waiting patrons to traffic noise, spray from tires slicing through curb-side water, and other unplesantries from moving traffic.

King County Transit, WA has a nifty idea: rotate the conventional bus shelter 180 degrees. DUH. What will they think of next? I believe that Toronto has a similar program of bike share as you will find a small reference to in this post from Lauren's site. I'll add this -- sad press about the Toronto Bike Share program. Yep. Looks good on paper. But, if the market rejects it, it's TOAST. Say, how about try bike parking at the bus shelters?