Gary Cziko is a retired professor of sociology (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and the author of two books on perceptual control theory published by MIT Press. As a CyclingSavvy Instructor, he brought the first CyclingSavvy courses to Illinois, California, Arizona and Washington State. Since moving from Illinois to Los Angeles in 2013, he has been working with bike clubs in Southern California to introduce them to CyclingSavvy and explore with them savvy group riding practices.
Masters bicycle racer and CyclingSavvy Instructor Gary Cziko describes his reaching out to bicycle clubs to get across the message of defensive-assertive driving as taught in the CyclingSavvy program. This talk, given at the 2016 I am Traffic II conference in St. Louis, Missouri, includes descriptions of how he gained acceptance in the fast-riding crowd of a Los Angeles area club, how he got his message across following a tragic fatal crash of one of its members, and how he successfully campaigned for cyclists’ rights to use the road safely.
Gary Cziko is a retired professor of sociology (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and the author of two books on perceptual control theory published by MIT Press. As a CyclingSavvy Instructor, he brought the first CyclingSavvy courses to Illinois, California, Arizona and Washington State. Since moving from Illinois to Los Angeles in 2013, he has been working with bike clubs in Southern California to introduce them to CyclingSavvy and explore with them savvy group riding practices.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/gotofront.jpg445497Gary Gzikohttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgGary Gziko2024-11-23 19:38:002025-02-06 15:48:15Gary Cziko, Reaching Out to Bike Clubs
I love cars. At age 16, my first car gave me access to career-building internship opportunities far away from my childhood home. I’ve owned fun sports cars and handy utility vehicles. I’ve driven over 150 MPH on a racetrack, and I love gawking at classic cars at my town’s annual Wheels on Academy car show. This may sound unusual coming from a die-hard pedestrian and bicyclist advocate, but I consider myself in good company. Jeff Speck, renowned author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules, is also an admitted car buff.1 I suggest that understanding cars and why people drive them is useful for building popular support for walking and bicycling.
Effecting meaningful change in our local communities requires consensus-building among a diverse population. Advocates cannot limit their coalition to those who can be persuaded by rhetoric that is potentially polarizing. Our neighbors who might be car-lovers and climate-change skeptics can become our allies in the walking and bicycling movement if we take care to understand what motivates them as human beings. Strong Towns2founder and author Charles Marohn provides brilliant insight on bridging political differences in an episode of his podcast3 where he describes how conservatives have higher sensitivities to some issues that progressives care about too, but dedicate less attention. Timothy Carney, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, points out4that many of the values that conservatives hold dear are remarkably well-aligned with the benefits of a traditional walkable and bicycling-friendly community. In a nutshell, a safe and convenient environment for walking and bicycling transportation is family-friendly and economically efficient. But perhaps most importantly, bicycling and walking are rewarding activities enjoyed by many people from across the political spectrum. Traveling under one’s own power may be good for the planet, but it’s fantastic for the individual.
Family Values
So yes, I love cars. What I don’t love is car dependency. I don’t love chauffeuring my kids to and from every after-school activity, job, and social engagement. I don’t love the dangerous barriers that wide, 50 mph thoroughfares create for kids — or many adults — trying to travel without a car. Ask any suburban parent if they worry about the dangers that fast motor traffic poses to their children traveling to the nearest school, store, or library, and they will describe the same fear. We are raising a generation of homebound kids, increasingly isolated and screen-addicted, mitigated only by the time parents can spare to shuttle them to “play dates” and soccer practice.
It wasn’t always this way. Many of us from Generation X and older grew up living close to our everyday destinations in traditional neighborhoods with well-connected, low-speed local street networks that better supported children’s traditional travel modes5. Like our parents and grandparents, we lived as Free Range Kids6 before there was a name for it. Such independence has an essential role in child development. Walking and bicycling teach kids self-reliance, personal responsibility, adaptability, and resilience — values all parents care about, but which resonate especially with conservatives. Bicycling teaches the value of hard work, be it conquering a big hill, improving one’s fitness, or fixing a flat on a tight tire. Tinkering with bikes builds mechanical skills and confidence that can lead to interest in lucrative vocational trades and engineering careers. Walking and bicycling teach kids that they have the power to make things happen for themselves if they are willing to put in the work.
Economic Efficiency
This summer my 16-year-old twins will join their older siblings as licensed drivers. Exactly how many cars will be clogging our small driveway remains to be seen. I want them to have the opportunity to work whichever summer and after-school jobs they can get, but from an economic perspective, owning a car for driving to a low-wage part-time job makes little sense. According to AAA, the average total cost of car ownership in the USA is over $10,000 a year7, and according to AutoBlog, the cheapest cars to own cost over $5000 per year8. Assuming 250 workdays per year, the cheapest car translates to about $20 per workday. At a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, one would need to work 2.75 hours a workday just to pay for the ten-minute drive to work.
When we add the work time required to pay for car ownership to the time spent driving to work, we can calculate an effective transport speed. When a five-mile commute is completed in a total ten minutes of driving plus 2.75 hours of working to pay for it, the car’s effective transport speed turns out to be less than walking speed. Only by driving many more miles or earning a much higher wage can the car’s effective transport speed become faster than bicycling speed.
It is unsurprising that many low-wage workers do not own cars, and many will walk or bike to work given reasonable conditions to do so. In a car-dependent environment, the cost of car ownership shrinks the available labor pool and increases the cost of labor. In a community that is friendly to bicycling and walking, the transportation barrier to working is reduced, making it easier for local businesses to secure part-time workers at modest wages. Similarly, many people without cars turn to walking and bicycling to access goods and services. As Timothy Carney describes, people who walk to work are “literally picking themselves up by their boot straps.”9 Car dependency increases the cost of making transactions in the local economy. In contrast, good conditions for walking and bicycling are good for business, good for workers, and good for customers.
Building sidewalks, crosswalks, and bicycling-related improvements into the transportation network isn’t free. However, the cost of this traditional transportation infrastructure pales in comparison to the cost of the infrastructure required to support car dependency. Wide, high-speed roads and large parking lots are expensive to build, maintain, and upgrade, while paradoxically limiting the potential value of the properties they serve. Walkable places tend to be more economically productive and higher revenue-generating per acre than car-dependent places. The tax revenue in walkable places more easily pays for the public costs of maintaining urban infrastructure, while many car-dependent places with more miles of public infrastructure and lower land values can have more difficulty covering maintenance costs, putting local governments at risk of insolvency over time.10
Public mass transit such as rail and bus service is a complex issue beyond the focus of this essay. However, there is one simple fact about mass transit worth mentioning here: Transit can only work if the local street network surrounding the stops is walkable. If walking to and from stops is a bad experience, only the desperate will ride mass transit.
Enjoyment and Health
People who choose to walk, run, and bike for fun and health come from all political persuasions. Walking is the most popular form of exercise in the US; bicycling ranks ahead of golf.11 Whether people walk or bike for enjoyment or transportation, the health benefits are enormous. In communities where people walk as part of their daily travel activities, public health and life expectancy are elevated.12 The health benefits of bicycling also greatly outweigh the risks of injury; statistically, bicycling increases participants’ disability-adjusted life years many times more than reduction from injuries.13 This benefit is amplified where lower traffic speeds and better operational habits improve cycling safety. Compared to sedentary lifestyles, walking and bicycling improve individual health and have the potential to reduce net public health care costs.
Individual Choice
According to a 2023 survey by the National Association of Realtors, most Americans report wanting to live in communities with safe and comfortable conditions for walking to local destinations such shops and parks; most also said they would be willing to pay more to live in a walkable community.14 A survey by NAOIP (a commercial real estate development association) found that office tenants prefer to work in walkable locations four-to-one over isolated suburban office parks. 15 Americans also tend to rate bicycling as more enjoyable than driving16 and often consider bicycle-friendliness when choosing where to live.17 These findings don’t mean that all or even most Americans want to live in high-density urban areas or give up their cars — there is a wide variety of preference among residents regarding development density, and many believe car use is essential to them. But in both vibrant downtowns and quiet suburbs, buyers and renters are looking for pleasant streets with sidewalks, safe and comfortable conditions for cycling, and land use patterns suitable for traveling without a car for at least some trips. Americans appreciate having the choice to travel without a car in similar numbers to those who appreciate the option to drive one.
Supply and Demand
Many Americans who want to live in walkable, bicycling-friendly communities are unable to, because the supply of such neighborhoods has fallen behind demand. Since the mid twentieth century, car-centric government regulations requiring separation of land uses, dendritic street patterns, and high-speed thoroughfare designs have combined to make most newer developments inconvenient, unpleasant, and/or dangerous to travel on foot or by bicycle. Demand for historic walkable neighborhoods has hastened gentrification and has priced out lower-wealth residents18, compelling many people without cars to live farther out in lower-demand, higher-supply car-centric suburban areas where rent and home prices are lower but walking and bicycling is more dangerous.19 This trend has likely contributed20 to pedestrian21 and bicyclist fatalities22 in the US reaching all-time highs in the past few years in contrast to a general decline in fatalities for motor vehicle occupants.23 Where vulnerable, innocent people are being endangered by increasing volumes of high-speed motorists, there is an ethical and moral case to be made for improving the safety of these public ways, and for motorists to have a share in paying for it.
A Non-Partisan Cause
People in communities across the US are advocating to make their surroundings more hospitable to walking and bicycling. Realizing this goal involves a wide range of participants including real estate developers, investors, traffic engineers, city planners, police, educators, and elected officials who have the power to improve the neighborhoods and streets we have now and to build new places better. Quality-of-life improvements that benefit both progressive and conservative residents are low-risk issues for local politicians to support without partisan division. It is important to note that most of the effective policy and market strategies that benefit pedestrians and bicyclists are not particularly anti-car; rather, they restore a more traditional balance of transportation opportunities and priorities that supports walking and bicycling but still preserves safe and practical motor vehicle access.
The policies, designs and tactics necessary to make great communities rely on pragmatism, not ideology. Some solutions require regulatory reform while others require strategic investment of public funds. But many improvements require only subtle changes to existing design standards. For instance, keeping people safe while walking requires limiting motor vehicle speeds in areas of pedestrian activity. The effect of speed limitation on motorist trip times is minimal, however, because walkable activity centers are usually compact, which minimizes the distance drivers must travel within these areas. A street network with a choice of alternate routes around pedestrian centers allows drivers use other roads to travel at higher speeds over longer distances. Meanwhile, a well-connected network of low-speed local streets offers bicyclists and pedestrians safer alternatives to higher speed roads — as long as those local streets ultimately connect with where local people want to go.
Many suburban neighborhoods have been designed to minimize residential street connectivity to eliminate cut-through motor traffic within neighborhoods. This design requires all residents (including drivers, pedestrians and cyclists) ascend the road hierarchy to busy, high-speed, state-maintained thoroughfares to reach everyday destinations like grocery stores and schools. A better solution is to provide residential route connectivity that is passable to bicyclists and pedestrians but diverts through-motorists to non-residential corridors. Where drivers speed through old residential neighborhoods with historic gridded streets, traffic diverters can be added to some intersections to redirect motor traffic to major roads while preserving direct routes for pedestrians and cyclists.24 In new suburbs, short-cut paths can connect cul-de-sac and loop streets into safe, efficient, continuous bike routes at minimal cost.25 Communities that support bicycling and walking don’t have to be more expensive to build and maintain; they just need to be built thoughtfully.
Spreading the Joy
Asking local decision makers along for a walk or a bike ride is a persuasion strategy that many bike/ped advocates find effective. A short and pleasant trip can open people’s eyes to the practicality and enjoyability of walking or cycling, as well as the detailed beauty of their community that cannot be appreciated from behind a windshield. (Not to mention the benefits of making a politician feel like a kid again by way of a bike ride.) Partisan media sometimes falsely casts pedestrian and bicyclist advocates as out-of-touch, radical anti-car zealots who want to take away everyone’s cars and lock them into “15 minute cities.” Engaging with people, bringing them out to see conditions on the ground, and working together on practical solutions can dispel stereotypes and demonstrate the satisfaction that comes from making a community better one street or path at a time. In his podcast, Charles Marohn says that “When bottom-up conservatives work with bottom-up progressives, they find that they need each other.”26 Asking Americans to sacrifice their beloved cars is not a winning political message, but helping them rediscover something they love more can change the world.
BMA, 1992 “Cycling towards health and safety.” British Medical Association ISBN 0–19–286151–4.1992. See also Logan, Somers, Baker, Connell, Gray, Kelly, McIntosh, Welsh, Gray, Gill, “Benefits, risks, barriers, and facilitators to cycling: a narrative review,” Front Sports Act Living. September 19, 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10546027/↩︎
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Bike-route.webp15931890Steven Goodridgehttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgSteven Goodridge2024-11-08 10:43:462024-11-08 18:12:17The Conservative Case for Walking and Bicycling
What is a a Complete Street? And how well is the concept being applied? You need to know. Let’s define “Complete Street” and look at an example.
A Complete Street Is:
Planning literature defines a Complete Street as safe and practical, pleasant even, for modes of transportation up to a contextually appropriate limit of speed, traffic volume and vehicle size. A Complete Street serves pedestrians and bicyclists well.
Restrictions on motor traffic work down from the largest vehicles to what is appropriate in context. The speed limit is low enough that pedestrians can safely cross the street. There are crosswalks, signalized where warranted.
That approach to vehicle types and sizes has been traditional on Massachusetts DCR (Department of Conservation and Recreation) parkways. The quaint restriction to “pleasure vehicles only” dates back to the 19th Century plans of Frederick Law Olmsted, but has been pushed wider to cover passenger cars and commercial vehicles weighing up to 5,000 pounds. Bicycles and e-bikes fall well below that weight limit and qualify as “pleasure vehicles.” See these regulations.
Hammond Pond Parkway Reconstruction
On Thursday, June 13, 2024, I visited DCR’s Hammond Pond Parkway in Newton, now under reconstruction, with representatives of advocacy organization Bike Newton and the Boston area’s Central Transportation Planning Staff.
Hammond Pond Parkway was overbuilt in the mid 20th Century as a 4-lane speedway, reflecting car culture that turned parkways into highways. It would certainly not rate as bicycle-friendly, though I have ridden it, controlling the outside lane (and so demonstrating that the parkway was overbuilt, because motorists could always pass me without delay). The terrain is rolling, with a long, steep downslope to Route 9 at the southern end.
The DCR is currently taking the mile-long segment of the Parkway between Beacon Street and Route 9 down from four to two lanes, installing a 12-foot wide shared-use path 15 feet from the roadway on the west side and a 4-foot wide gravel sidewalk on the east side. The current project imagines Hammond Pond Parkway as a pleasant, park-like experience for bicyclists.
[Edit, January 12, 2025: at its south end, the path is very close to the parkway, with lamp-poost bases immediately adjacent.
I commented on the project proposal when it was in the planning stage. At that time, there was a discussion about making the roadway 28 feet wide, marginally wide enough for today’s largest “pleasure vehicles” to pass bicyclists. A bit wider would be nice, but that is in the nature of political compromise. MassBike Executive Director Galen Mook concurred with my comments.
Really a Complete Street?
So, what is the problem, then? How well will Hammond Pond Parkway meet the definition of a Complete Street?
Galen’s position, and mine, held no weight with the DCR. The roadway will, as I found out during the expedition to Newton, have only two narrow travel lanes, with no shoulders – 22 or 24 feet, as you can see in background of the photo below. The roadway will therefore work well only for people driving a motor vehicle that can hold the 30 mph speed limit. The parallel path is for everyone else.
The DCR’s Dan Driscoll describes the reconstruction of Hammond Pond Parkway, now underway. The path will be in the dirt strip behind the people listening.
Let me be clear: I like paths for park access and a park experience. I ride them. But — the Parkway is not only a route in a park, it is a transportation route through a park. It connects the Newton Center suburban hub with the large Chestnut Hill shopping malls and residential areas beyond. Not only motorists, but also bicyclists in all parts of the behavior spectrum, e-bike riders and users of all kinds of micromobility devices, also electric and gasoline-powered motor scooters, will want to travel this segment end to end.
Safety Issues
Faster bicyclists, e-bike and motor scooter users are a poor fit on a path shared with pedestrians, especially one with steep slopes. Nationwide, communities are grappling with the safety issues of e-bike traffic on paths. A Boston-area local example: the 15 mph speed-limit signs on the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway. It is flat, being a rail trail, and where faster traffic may use parallel Massachusetts Avenue. There is no such convenient alternative to Hammond Pond Parkway.
Proponents of the Hammond Pond Parkway project objected to adding a few feet of roadway width on the grounds that this would reduce spacing to the path and impede stormwater infiltration. I contend that a few more feet of roadway width would hardly make a difference in the middle of hundreds of acres of parkland into which water could infiltrate.
Complete Street for Bicycle Transportation? E-bikes? Motor Scooters? Year-round?
With the design of Hammond Pond Parkway, the positive environmental goal of improving access to parkland has overturned the positive environmental goal of safe and convenient bicycling for transportation. It is even worse for operators of motor scooters, whether electrically or gasoline powered. They are legal on roadways and in bike lanes, but prohibited from using paths. Legality on the roadway amounts to nothing when these vehicles have been forced off the roadway by design.
At least the noise of the gasoline-powered scooters will warn slower path users of their approach. But don’t expect enforcement of any ban or speed limit. Their important effect under the law is to shift the burden of fault in crashes.
If bicycles are to be competitive in terms of travel time, they must not be subject to unnecessary delays, or held to low speeds. But the path now under construction crosses parking-lot entrances and roads in crosswalks, adding delay and inconvenience. Bicyclists must traverse multiple crosswalks at the Route 9 end of the segment. With such treatments, users become impatient and choose their own times and ways to cross, becoming unpredictable and increasing risk.
The narrowed roadway is crowned and has storm drains. The path, on the other hand, lacking drainage, will be unusable or unsafe for weeks or months in winter even if plowed. Or it could be heavily salted, unhealthy for vegetation and bicycles.
A Previous Example
Years ago, the DCR applied the same configuration, narrow, shoulderless roadway and parallel path, to Metropolitan Parkway in Waltham, shown in the video below. Metropolitan Parkway is short and very lightly traveled, so riding on the roadway is practical. Bicyclists on the roadway of Hammond Pond Parkway would have queues of cars behind them and would invite harassment.
So, the most practical solution in winter is to put away the bike, ebike or scooter and drive a car. The path could be left unplowed and unsalted for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
So much for the idea of a Complete Street.
Be Careful What You ask For — and Just Be Careful
I have applauded the efforts of the DCR in extending the paths along the Charles River upstream from Watertown to Waltham. I have supported the Cochituate Rail Trail, the Mass Central Rail Trail, Bruce Freeman Trail and other trail projects. These projects all have improved bicycle access by constructing trails without compromising access on roads. The Hammond Pond Parkway project proposes to forego much of the potential of the Parkway for bicycle, e-bike and motor scooter transportation. In that way, it has a fundamentally different impact.
If you are going to ride the reconfigured Hammond Pond Parkway, please make sure that your brakes are in good working order, and be cautious!
For Reference
I rode the segment of Hammond Pond Parkway under discussion on November 25, 2021. My travel speeds ranged from 6.5 to 30 miles per hour southbound, and 5 to 21 miles per hour northbound.
If you see plans for a road reconfiguration project in your community, please make your voice heard so it is actually a Complete Street, properly accommodating all anticipated uses.
John S. Allen cycles for transportation and recreation, averaging 2000 to 3000 miles per year. He has made a career as a writer about bicycling; he is author or co-author of several bicycling books and has contributed to several magazines; his work may be found on the Internet at john-s-allen.com, bikexprt.com and sheldonbrown.com. He is a former president of the Boston Area Bicycle Coalition and member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Bicyclists. He is a certified League Cycling Instructor and CyclingSavvy Instructor.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Hammond-Pond-square.png181175John S. Allenhttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgJohn S. Allen2024-08-15 16:41:462025-01-13 13:21:11Is Hammond Pond Parkway a Complete Street?
Dan Gutierrez ‘s presentation on his Understanding Bicycle Transportation course at the I am Traffic Colloquium was recorded as video in three parts. Part 1 is here. Scroll down for links to Parts 2 and 3. Links are also in the descriptions with the videos.
Dan Gutierrez is a physicist, satellite engineer, chess master and stair walker. He and Brian Desousa invented the Dual Chase video technique. They also authored the pioneering study of how motorist overtaking clearance relates to bicyclist lane position.
In part 3 of his comprehensive overview of police and cycling, Kirby Beck explains:
What police need to learn
How to get heard by your local police department
Why changes in police departments need to come from the top
Plus: why you need the AAA on your side.
“You need to start reporting things,” Kirby urges cyclists. “They’re not going to know it’s a problem if they don’t hear from you and hear from your friends.
“Now I know the cops will go, ‘Why did you tell them that? That’s all we need is more calls.’ Too bad! Too bad.
“See, I’m not going to be happy until we don’t have to have special programs to do bike enforcement because it’s part of what cops do every day, we don’t have to spend a lot of money on bike lanes and other facilities because we’ve got roads, and people can use those roads. They’re there for everybody, it’s a public right-of-way.”
Beck is a retired police officer and a trainer with the International Police Mountain Bike Association. In Part 1 of this series, he took us through the fascinating history of police cycling, and gave an overview of the current state of enforcement of bicycle law – or lack thereof. In Part 2, Beck explained how to deal with police citations and how to effectively report incidents to 911.
I am an assistant professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. I also serve as Chief Bridge-Builder for the Journalism Bridging Project, a collaborative effort to draw news outlets and academic researchers together through initiatives big and small.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/police-square.png308342Tamar Wilnerhttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgTamar Wilner2014-12-18 10:14:432024-11-09 10:31:11What Police Need to Learn about Cycling
The issue of courtesy often comes up when bicyclists discuss traffic, especially when motorists are part of the conversation. Most bicyclists want to be respectful of others and to set a good example. However, different assumptions, experiences and knowledge about traffic bicycling can result in different opinions of what “courtesy” means. How can cyclists extend courtesies to their fellow road users, while prioritizing their own safety? We’ll answer that question as it’s addressed by cycling classes such as CyclingSavvy and BikeWalk NC’s Traffic Bicycling course.
Defining Courteous
Courteous means “marked by respect for and consideration of others.” Courtesy is voluntary social behavior that exceeds our obligations under the law (such as stopping for red lights). Police cannot write traffic tickets for being rude; they are limited to the statutes that prohibit unsafe movements. All road users must cooperate with one another to avoid collisions; courtesy, however, is making the extra effort to improve the social environment of traffic and optimize the experience for everyone. When it comes to courtesy, we self-police according to our own judgment.
The Golden Rule
As socially conscious travelers we try to apply the rule, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” We appreciate favors from strangers and try to do the same for them. But how big a favor should be expected? One example is holding a heavy door open for a stranger entering a building behind us. How long should we wait? If the stranger is right behind us, we feel rude for letting the door swing shut. If the stranger is too far away, waiting a long time makes both parties feel awkward. Our minds calculate a threshold by comparing estimates of our cost of holding the door and the other person’s cost of re-opening it. We usually extend favors when the cost to ourselves is less than the cost we save for others. When everyone does this for everyone else, everyone wins.
First Come, First Served
We often let a person with one item go first at the checkout counter when we have a full cart. But what if there is a long line of people behind us at checkout? If we give up our place in line, others will benefit, but our individual cost may become too burdensome. Such a large sacrifice is not expected of us; people understand that sometimes the first come, first served rule is the only fair and practical way to limit every individual’s burden to a reasonable level.
Assisting Overtaking
Every bicyclist must decide on a case-by-case basis how much burden to shoulder for an inadequate road design, and how much to rely on the first come, first served rule to get to their destination in a reasonable time.
In the Traffic Cycling class we discuss when a bicyclist should move to the right edge of the road to assist faster drivers in passing, versus when they should maintain control of their lane by riding in the lane center. For safety, cycling instructors encourage cyclists to control the lane when the usable lane width is narrow, because this reduces the risk of sideswipes caused by unsafe close passing. Bicyclists in North Carolina have the same legal right to use a full lane as other drivers. However, we also encourage cyclists to voluntarily move right at a safe location when the usable pavementis wide and it will help drivers pass by, letting them do so without changing lanes. Oftentimes one encounters marginal cases where the lane widens for a limited distance before narrowing again, and sometimes traffic backs up on narrow two-lane roads. In these cases, a bicyclist may elect to pull over where safe and wait until traffic disperses before continuing.
This is where comparison of relative convenience is useful. For instance, if only one car is following the bicyclist on a narrow road, and a safe opportunity to pass via the next lane will appear in several seconds, there is no net advantage to the bicyclist pulling off the roadway and stopping to facilitate the pass. But if multiple motorists are waiting at substantially reduced speed with no foreseeable opportunities to pass safely in the next lane, the bicyclist who pulls over at a safe location for a brief time provides a substantial benefit to the other road users at a low personal cost. One example of such a maneuver is “control and release.”
In a narrow lane, riding double file does not make safe passing more difficult. It discourages unsafe too-close same-lane passing and makes the group shorter, requiring less time to complete a pass in the next lane. (photo by Mike Dayton)
So how often should a bicyclist do this? Pulling over too frequently creates an unreasonably high cost for the bicyclist in return for maximizing motorists’ convenience. Every bicyclist must decide for herself on a case-by-case basis how much burden to shoulder for an inadequate road design, and how much to rely on the first come, first served rule to get to her destination in a reasonable time.
In the case of a group of cyclists, the logistics of moving everyone off of the roadway in a safe and coordinated manner can be particularly challenging. Usually a passing opportunity opens up and following traffic disperses long before a group can find a good place to pull over. One way that a group can make passing easier on a narrow two-lane road is to shorten the length of the group. This can be accomplished by riding double-file within a single lane, thus reducing the length of the group by half, and by riding in separated platoons of a dozen or fewer cyclists instead of in very large groups.
Some roads feature paved shoulders, which in most states are legally optional for bicyclists to use. The width, surface condition, and continuity of such shoulders varies greatly, so bicyclists who consider using them to assist others with passing must continually evaluate the risks. Helping another road user pass a few seconds earlier is not worth a flat tire or crash.
Multi-Lane Roads
On roads with more than one thru lane in the bicyclist’s direction of travel, drivers can move into the left lane to pass with relative ease. On such roads, traffic almost never builds up behind bicyclists for more than a few seconds, so bicyclists usually need not concern themselves will pulling off the roadway to assist passing. In urban areas with significant traffic, multi-lane roads are often the most advantageous routes for bicycling, offering everyone more convenience than narrow roads.
Passing on the Right
Passing stopped traffic on the right creates conflicts at intersections and frustrates drivers who must repeat their passing maneuvers. It is also prohibited by law in some states when not done in a separate marked lane.
Where traffic queues up at traffic lights and stop signs, bicyclists can occasionally be seen squeezing past the queue on the right and moving up to the intersection. In some states, such as North Carolina, traffic law prohibits passing on the right when not in a separate marked travel lane. This rule is designed to prevent right-hook collisions between right-turning and overtaking traffic; right turns are to be made from the right lane and overtaking should only occur left of right-turning traffic. But beyond possible legal and collision concerns, filtering forward often creates a greater burden for the queue of motorists than it saves for the bicyclist. If the travel lane is narrow, it may be unsafe for motorists to pass the bicyclist again without moving into the next lane. Each motorist may wait behind the bicyclist, pass when safe, and stop at the next light, only to have the bicyclist squeeze past again and repeat the whole process. The safer and more courteous approach is for bicyclists to get in line with queued traffic and pass through the intersection on a first-come, first-served basis.
Stopping in Groups
When this group pulled over, the front riders moved forward far enough to ensure the rear riders could easily ride completely out of the travel lane before stopping. Then they offered a friendly wave to motorists who had followed them through a narrow stretch of road.
Groups of cyclists traveling together must sometimes stop for a short time to rest, re-group, or make route decisions. When a group stops in the roadway, however, other road users must figure out how to get around them in order to proceed. This is especially problematic if the group has stopped to chat at an intersection, where moving into the next lane to pass would be hazardous. If a cycling group stops and waits for a reason other than waiting for traffic ahead to clear, it is a simple courtesy to move off the roadway temporarily, and return to it when the group is ready to continue.
Courtesy to Pedestrians
On paths, bicyclists should slow down and give pedestrians lots of space when passing, just as bicyclists need motorists to do for them on roadways.
Some locations, such as greenway paths, are shared with pedestrians. Pedestrians value these spaces as safe and relaxing places to walk with their children and pets, and will sometimes make unpredictable movements. This requires bicyclists to slow down and give pedestrians lots of space when passing, just as bicyclists need motorists to do for them on roadways. When a path is congested or pedestrians are otherwise spread across its width, bicyclists must often slow down to pedestrian speed and alert the pedestrians to their desire to pass. Although a bell can be an effective way to alert pedestrians who are not facing the bicyclist, a friendly voice may be better appreciated. It is also important to receive some form of confirmation from pedestrians (such as eye contact) indicating that they know they are about to be passed.
Disagreements about Courtesy
By making an attempt to understand the genuine difficulties faced by travelers other than ourselves, we can all promote civility.
Debate often arises about courteous cycling when different people have different perceptions of the costs of the available options. A motorist may not see and appreciate the broken glass, gravel, broken pavement, rumble strip, door zone or other hazards at the edge of a road. Some people are unfamiliar with the effective safety benefits of riding near the center of a narrow lane to deter unsafe same-lane passing. A bicyclist may not appreciate the challenges a driver pulling a trailer may face when preparing to pass safely on a two-lane road. Some debates will never be put to rest, and sometimes all the options seem equally bad. But by making an attempt to understand the genuine difficulties faced by travelers other than ourselves, we can all promote civility.
Motorists often do not understand the reasons a bicyclist choses to ride where she does. Click on the image to see the conflicts this bicyclist is avoiding.
A markedly different kind of debate results when one participant believes that another has an inferior right to a shared resource because they belong to a lower caste or class of users, and should therefore defer to the superior group. This type of prejudice often fuels motorists’ complaints about bicyclists using roadways. Sometimes anti-car advocates for increased bicycling can be similarly afflicted. While there are solid legal arguments supporting equal rights to traveled ways, the most persuasive approach to resolving prejudice usually involves an appeal to humanity and development of mutual understanding.
It’s important for bicyclists to view themselves as equally entitled users of our public roads, which means being equally entitled to safe travel. A bicyclist should never compromise her safety to increase convenience for another road user; that is too high a sacrifice to make. The prudent approach is to trade time and effort in an equitable manner to help everyone get to their destinations safely and in reasonable time.
Dealing with Harassment
Suppressing the urge to argue can be difficult, but it is unlikely that a motorist’s mind has ever been changed by a yelling match.
Occasionally a motorist who feels slighted by a bicyclist’s movement or simple presence on the road will harass the bicyclist by yelling or horn honking. This can be very upsetting, and it may be difficult for the bicyclist to keep calm. Understand that the greatest danger in such situations usually occurs when the bicyclist escalates the situation by retaliating with yelling, obscene gestures, or other expressions that can be interpreted as hostile. Such exchanges can result in assaults. But if the bicyclist simply ignores the harassment, the motorist will usually continue on their way without incident. Suppressing the urge to argue can be difficult, but it is unlikely that a motorist’s mind has ever been changed by a yelling match.
If a motorist behaves in a threatening manner, however, stop and report the incident to police as soon as possible. Take note of the license plate, driver description, and location, and be prepared with any witnesses or video that may be available. Note that video can be a very compelling and unbiased witness, and will also show any unlawful or escalating behavior on behalf of the bicyclist. Whenever interacting with other members of the public on our roadways, the most successful long term approach is ultimately to take the high road.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/courtesy_sq_feature.png500500Steven Goodridgehttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgSteven Goodridge2014-11-06 21:24:152024-07-24 09:24:19What is a Courteous Cyclist?
Do you think requiring bicyclists to have licenses, similar to automobile drivers (or a spot on our driver’s licenses similar to motorcyclists), would raise bicyclists’ stature in the eyes of law enforcement and the driving public? Would the inconvenience this would cause to cyclists be worth it to more clearly send the message to everyone else that we cyclists seriously want to be given the same respect as the automobile?
It has often been suggested, usually by non-bicyclists, that bicyclists should be required to pass a skills and knowledge test as a precondition for using our public roads. Anyone can see that inept and unlawful bicycling behavior is widespread here in the US, and studies show that moving violations by bicyclists contribute to about half of all car-bike crashes1. So why not license bicyclists like motorists to improve public safety?
While many proponents of bicyclist licensing have motivations that are hostile toward bicycling, some others have a sincere interest in promoting safer bicycling, and so the question deserves a serious and reasoned response. No US state, and apparently no government on the planet, requires adults to pass a skills and knowledge test as a precondition for exercising the right to travel by bicycle on public roads. There are many reasons why this is so, ranging from beliefs about the appropriate role of government to cost-benefit considerations, regulatory program efficiency and social justice.
Danger to Whom?
Moving violations by motor vehicle operators pose a grave danger to members of the public, killing thousands of people each year in the US alone2. By comparison, moving violations by bicyclists rarely injure anyone but the bicyclist. When bicyclists do injure people, the victims are usually pedestrians, and these bike-pedestrian collisions are more likely to happen when bicyclists operate on sidewalks, paths and other non-roadway facilities that bicyclist licensing advocates usually exclude from their proposed regulations. As a result, a licensing requirement for roadway use is unlikely to protect the safety of people, and may actually increase danger to pedestrians by encouraging more use of sidewalks by unlicensed bicyclists trying to avoid roadways, which studies have shown are the safer location for bicyclists to operate3.
Self Protection
Rather than having a credible goal of protecting the public from bicyclists, bicyclist licensing is usually touted as a way to protect bicyclists from themselves. By that reasoning, why not require people to pass a swimming skills and knowledge test and obtain a swimming license before being allowed to use public pools, beaches, and lakes? After all, more people drown per million hours of swimming than are killed per million hours of bicycling4. But the public would reject such a swimming license scheme because it creates a high government-imposed barrier to entry into a relatively harmless activity where the risks are private rather than public. Instead, most people prefer to invest in swimming skill development voluntarily and gradually as their interest and participation in the activity grows. Another preferred strategy is to incorporate key swimming education components into public school programs. This is the practice for bicycling education in many countries, but here in the US there appears to be less appreciation of the safety benefits of bicyclist knowledge and skill than of swimming knowledge and skill.
Government Overhead
Some “nanny” laws, such as seat belt use laws and helmet use laws, have a fairly low cost of compliance for the individual, and yet these laws are often hotly debated. A bicyclist license regulation scheme, by comparison, would have a much higher cost of compliance, on par with the cost of motor vehicle driver licensing. Not only are there the government costs of developing and administering the testing and licensing program (costs that would presumably be passed on to the bicyclists), but also the time and cost of training. Motorists accept the costs of licensing because they appreciate the potential danger posed to them and other people by those motorists lacking important skills and knowledge. But for bicyclists, the threat posed to them by unskilled bicyclists is not compelling, especially if those bicyclists ride very little.
Unintended Consequences
An avid bicyclist who spends hundreds or thousands of dollars on bicycling equipment and hundreds of hours per year bicycling wouldn’t be deterred from bicycling by a licensing scheme, but many occasional, casual bicyclists would be. Bicycle licensing costs would be especially burdensome for the lowest-income people, many of whom cannot afford cars and depend on bicycling for basic travel. And children make up a significant part of the current bicycling population. The result of a bicyclist licensing requirement would be an immediate reduction in bicycling participation by casual, low income, and young users. Such a reduction would have negative consequences for public health because the health benefits of bicycling greatly outweigh the health risks, even for unskilled participants. A reduction would also have negative consequences for transportation accessibility, transportation system efficiency, and air quality. Many health and transportation stakeholders consider any policy change that makes bicycling more difficult to be a move in the wrong direction.
Police Enforcement
Some bicyclist-licensing advocates have claimed that police will not or cannot ticket bicyclists for moving violations unless bicyclists are licensed. In fact, police have little difficulty stopping and ticketing bicyclists for moving violations when they are motivated to, and have numerous ways to determine the identity of a person without a driver’s license. If for any reason police are unable to obtain satisfactory identifying information in the field, they can always bring the bicyclist to the police station (as happened once to actor Alec Baldwin when he was stopped by NYPD for bicycling against traffic). The real reason why police rarely stop bicyclists for traffic violations is that police don’t consider it a priority, in large part because our society does not consider these violations to be a significant threat to the general public.
In some places, mandatory bicycle registration programs have been employed as a means to identify the owners of bicycles. These programs imitated motor vehicle registration programs with the objective of reuniting owners with lost or stolen bicycles. In some cases, these programs were also promoted as a way to hold bicyclists accountable for moving violations by facilitating revocation of bicycling privileges through seizure of the registration plate or even impoundment of the bicycle5. Most mandatory bicycle registration schemes resulted in several unintended consequences. Cost and inconvenience deterred many occasional, child, low-income bicyclists — and ones who owned multiple bicycles — from purchasing the registration; in many cities, the vast majority of bicycle owners did not comply with the law. Police ended up spending less of their time and attention enforcing actual traffic laws and shifted their energy to enforcing the mandatory bicycle registration laws. Low compliance rates also meant that police could often use the suspicion that a bicycle was unregistered to conduct pretextual stops and searches of most any bicyclist they wished6. Because of the the high cost of bicycle registration programs compared to the price bicyclists were willing to pay, such programs were generally ineffective at revenue generation and often lost money. As a result, most localities that experimented with bicycle registration either eliminated the programs or made them voluntary in the wake of citizen complaints.
Toronto Conclusions
Despite a rich history of problems, new proposals for bicycle registration and bicyclist licensing still arise. In 2004, the City of Toronto studied the issue in response to a request by the City Council and arrived at the following conclusions7:
Bicycle registration is not effective in preventing bicycle theft;
A bicyclist operating license is not required for police officers to enforce the existing traffic rules;
Developing a bicyclist testing and licensing system would be expensive and divert resources from enforcing the existing traffic rules for bicyclists; and
Providing more resources for bicyclist education and training and increased police enforcement would be a more cost-effective approach for improving safety.
Right to Road
Yet the weakest argument that has been levied in favor of bicyclist licensing is the idea that travel upon our public roads is a privilege that should come at a price and that the price should be as high for bicyclists as it is for motorists as a matter of “fairness” or for symbolic “legitimacy.” This argument attempts to turn centuries of road-rights law on its head. Since about the time of the Magna Carta, travel upon the public roads has been considered a basic human right to be protected from unnecessary interference. Early regulations such as medieval tolls were tolerated only when they were demonstrably fair and necessary for road construction and maintenance891011. Motor vehicle-specific regulations, including licensing requirements, were developed in response to the new dangers motor vehicles posed to the general public. As the public costs of motoring dwarfed the public costs of human and animal powered modes, motorists became the focus of revenue collection for road funding. The few direct user fees that existed for nonmotorized travelers were generally abandoned as inefficient and impractical to collect compared to the alternatives, such as property taxes. The regulatory burden for all users, motorized or not, should be kept as low as the safety of travelers and the maintenance of the facility allows. Lower energy modes create much less public danger and pavement wear than higher energy modes, and so will have a lower regulatory burden. In a fair and free society, our traffic regulations are a means to an end rather than an end unto themselves.
What to do?
If bicyclist licensing is not the solution to dangerous bicycling behavior or negative perceptions of bicyclists, then what is? We recommend the following:
Incorporate bicycling education into public-school curricula. Most nations that value bicyclist safety offer bicycling skills and knowledge programs in their schools. Over time, this provides all members of society (including children, adult bicyclists, motorists, police, politicians and traffic engineers) with a consistent concept of operations for effective traffic negotiation by bicycle, instead of the misconceptions, myths and taboos that Americans hold about bicycling.
Educate motorists about bicyclists’ rights. The common myth that roads are for cars and not bikes adds fuel to another myth that the traffic laws are for cars and not bikes. Motorist harassment of bicyclists on roadways breeds contempt among some bicyclists for the driving culture including the normal rules of movement, and results in more unpredictable operation, such as sidewalk bicycling, red light running and wrong-way bicycling. Motorist education is sorely needed to address this social dysfunction and to provide a more hospitable environment for predictable and lawful bicycle driving.
Train police in enforcement techniques that support safer bicycling. Most police are not adequately trained in traffic law as applied to bicycling or how to effectively prioritize enforcement actions to promote bicyclist safety. As a result, police often err by stopping bicyclists for bogus infractions, such as impeding traffic, while ignoring unlawful and truly hazardous violations, such as bicycling against traffic or bicycling at night without lights. Clear policies, priorities and procedures empower police to focus their actions on significant safety problems while promoting respect for the traffic laws.
Invest resources in basic traffic law enforcement and related education. Enforcement campaigns that combine educational materials, advance publicity, verbal and written warnings, and targeted but fair issuance of citations can be highly effective at improving bicyclist and motorist compliance rates while protecting bicyclists’ access to their road system. Consistent enforcement maintains compliance and reduces long term crash rates.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/license.jpg409650Steven Goodridgehttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgSteven Goodridge2014-06-04 08:44:122024-07-25 16:16:36Ask i am traffic: Bicyclist Licensing
The following story is a speech given May 7, 2013 by Michie O’Day at the Active Communities Conference in Waterville, Maine.
I am honored to publish it here with her permission. Michie is an inspiration to me and a heroic example of what it means to be antifragile. Her journey on the tricycle confirms everything we are trying to do here at I Am Traffic—from education, to legal equality and informed law enforcement to inclusive facility design.
Recreational Opportunities for People With Disabilities (breakout session)
Today I’m going to tell you how I became disabled and how I make the most of it. I hope you’ll see that despite the hurdles, I’m an active and contributing member of my community. What I want is for you to return to your communities – all fired up to include more people like me – so that together we can enhance both the social and economic well-being of Maine’s cities and towns.
First, some background.
I wasn’t always the way you see me today. My deafness and trouble walking stem from a rare genetic condition known as neurofibromatosis. I’ll repeat that for you. neuro-fibroma-tosis. Let’s call it NF. There’re several strains of it. I have the one known as NF2 – which means that I grow benign tumors in my brain and around my spinal cord. I was diagnosed with this when I was 26 years old. Since that time I’ve had too many MRI scans to count, radiation treatment and 6 major neurosurgeries for a total of 36.5 hours on the operating table. I consider this bragging rights, but I’m determined not to let it become a way of life for me.
Fortunately, I’m optimistic, and I’m pragmatic. So when my hearing went kaput in my 39th year and I had to give up my career in nonprofit fundraising, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I seized the opportunity to follow my heart and start fresh as a painter in Stonington, Maine – which I loved even more.
Balance has been an issue since my first neurosurgery when I had a tumor removed from my acoustic nerve 30 years ago. As a result, I became deaf in one ear and my vestibular function was compromised. I had to give up skiing and cycling at that time. There were other losses and adjustments along the way, but things didn’t get bad until 2008, when further neurosurgery left me with a paralyzed right leg. Wasn’t supposed to happen. With a lot of work and rehab, I was able to regain most of the use of that leg – and I was glad to get out of a wheelchair. But recovery wasn’t 100%, and power walks – which I’d loved since I was a teenager – are now only a memory. Today, I use trekking poles – or sometimes a walker – to make sure that I stay upright.
Three years ago when it was clear that my poor coordination was affecting my driving, I gave that up and got rid of my car. Stonington is simply the most beautiful place on earth, and I’d be there still, but it’s remote and not a good place to live without a car. So I moved to Portland, and that’s where my cycling story begins….
I used to walk past Gorham Bike & Ski on my way to the Rite Aid store on Congress St. One sunny day almost two years ago as I was plodding along with my walker I looked at all the shiny new bikes in the window and thought, “Hmmmmm…. I wonder if they sell trikes for grown-ups?” Then I thought, “Nah… even if they do, it would be expensive and I’m still recovering from moving costs.” So I kept walking. I got about 10 feet past the shop….stopped. Turned around and went back. It couldn’t hurt to ask.
Fast forward about six weeks, and – thanks to a generous friend – I’m riding home from the shop on my brand new Sun EZ Tadpole 21-speed Recumbent Trike. I cannot describe my excitement to you! It’s great fun to ride – like a go cart, only better – and it’s something I can DO! After giving up skiing, snow-shoeing, swimming, hiking, cycling, power walking… the trike opened up a whole new world for me. It was so wonderful that I upgraded to an ICE trike last summer. ICE stands for Inspired Cycle Engineering, and they do make beautiful trikes. I named mine Ruby, and she’s simply the best….
But cycling gives me more than just gratification…. I’ve made wonderful friends through my adventures. The guys at my bike shop are tops – and have come to my rescue when I had a flat tire. Some of you may know Fred Robie and John Brooking – leaders in the cycling community and friends & mentors to me. Paul Niehoff and Jim Tasse, who will lead bike audits later today, went to bat for me last year when I had a little run in with the police. As civic leaders, this incident might be of interest to you. Here’s what happened:
I explained that I’m deaf and couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was still agitated. I remained calm on the outside, but inside I was shaking. Probably because his holster and gun were in front of my nose.
I explained that I’m deaf and couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was still agitated. I remained calm on the outside, but inside I was shaking. Probably because his holster and gun were in front of my nose.
I was cycling home from Higgins Beach (south of Portland)… happily pedaling along Highland Avenue, which is a main road that goes through some nice farmland and rural areas in Scarborough. That section of the road has a paved shoulder, but it’s not marked as a bike lane. It was sandy and cluttered with recycling containers, so I was riding in the right portion of the travel lane. Cars had to pass me carefully, and a few did. No big deal. Traffic was light that day.
Next thing I know, there’s a car pulled up beside me and the driver had slowed down to my speed. I look over… It’s a police car. His lights are flashing, including the red light on top. If his siren was going, I didn’t hear it. (I don’t hear anything.) But I saw that the passenger window was open and the cop driving the car was looking at me and yelling. I pulled over and stopped. The patrolman stopped his car in the middle of the travel lane, lights still flashing of course. He got out, ran around the his car, stood in front of me and started shouting at me again.
I explained that I’m deaf and couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was still agitated. I remained calm on the outside, but inside I was shaking. Probably because his holster and gun were in front of my nose…. Through pointing and gestures, he made it clear that I was supposed to be riding IN the shoulder lane, and that no part of my 36”-wide trike should be in the travel lane.
I said no, that was not correct and that I had a legal right to use the roadway. Thanks to CyclingSavvy, which I’ll tell you more about in a minute, I knew what I was talking about. But he wasn’t buying. He continued to insist and I continued to refute.
Eventually, two other cyclists rode by. I flagged them down to help. They stopped and talked to the patrolman. Soon enough everyone calmed down, and I rode on home.
End of story? Absolutely not. As far as I was concerned the unpleasant incident was over, but I saw two important training opportunities and wanted to make sure that both happened. I wrote a letter to the police chief who agreed to meet with Jim and Paul to discuss Maine state laws for cyclists.
Isolation is one of the biggest challenges of disability. While my art gives me another means of communication, cycling gets me out there and involved – part of the world.
The other issue, which was equally important to me personally, and which I am qualified to address, is how to identify hearing-impaired people and communicate with them effectively. A few weeks later, I was able to address a staff meeting of the Scarborough Police Department on these topics. My presentation was only 15 minutes long, but that’s all it needed to be. I made my point.
Back to the big picture…. Frankly, isolation is one of the biggest challenges of disability – especially for me due to the combination of deafness and mobility issues. While my art gives me another means of communication, cycling gets me out there and involved – part of the world.
Personal independence is another challenge of disability. I gotta tell ya, I love doing my own grocery shopping on my trike and coming home with two big bags of groceries in my rear baskets. It’s great to be able to shop or go out to lunch on my own schedule, get some exercise, and contribute to Portland’s economy. So yes, it may take an entire morning for me to do something that most of you can do in a few minutes… But I do it because I can.
So what do I wish for? This is where you come in.
I want to be able to cycle safely on roads and designated bike paths. This means better signage & road markings.
I want better education for both cyclists AND drivers. This includes – but is certainly not limited to – bike-law education for law-enforcement officials.
I want standards and best-practices, so that planners and engineers can design roads and bike lanes that are consistent with the rules of traffic movement and safety.
And, I want these lanes & paths to be safe and accessible to all – not just to those who ride bikes but also those us who ride trikes.
A good example is the Eastern Trail, south of Portland. It’s a lovely trail… especially that stretch through the Scarborough Marsh. But the bollards – those yellow posts to keep out the bigger vehicles – are too close together for my trike. When I took the trail to Old Orchard Beach last fall, my companion had to lift the 40 lb. trike over the posts so I could continue on the ride. Otherwise, I would’ve had to turn around and go back home. What a disappointment that would have been!
Last, I’d love for more people who can no longer ride a bike – for whatever reason – to discover trikes. I want company! Maine Adaptive has an excellent program for that. I ride with them in the summer. It’s great to go with a group at my speed. I only wish they rode more often and went more places.
I want to suggest some resources for you.
If you’re not familiar with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, they’re here today. The Coalition is a highly effective organization, and a strong advocate for cyclists.
CyclingSavvy is an excellent course on safe cycling, which is available here in Maine. John Brooking is the instructor. I took it soon after I bought my first trike and it still helps me to be a safer and more responsible cyclist.
And there’s a new organization being formed, whose working name is I Am Traffic. Their mission is education, and their vision is a world where motorists expect to see cyclists on the road and consider them a normal part of traffic. Likewise, cyclists ride responsibly, making their movements and intentions visible to drivers.
I’ve got brochures from all three of these resources for you. And I have my own brochures too. They include my website address if you’d like to see my paintings.
So, as you can see, cycling has done many good things for me. It’s made me stronger physically. That’s no small thing for a person with my medical history. It’s made me more independent. I love not owning a car and using my trike to get to the beach or store and other places I want to go. And, it’s led to new friendships. When communication is challenged by deafness, it takes time to meet new folks and some friendships never gel, but a shared passion for cycling is a nice basis for mutual respect and support.
I want to conclude by sharing my outlook with you. To counter each loss caused by NF, I’ve always sought to benefit — to learn from it and to become a better, stronger, and more loving person for it. With deafness, the benefit was easy: my art. With the mobility loss in 2008, it was harder, and I’m still coming to terms with that. But I can tell you this: If I could still take my long, brisk walks, I never would have ventured into Gorham Bike and Ski asking about trikes.
For years I’ve said when I’m painting I’m not deaf. Now I can add: when I’m cycling, I’m not disabled. When I’m cycling I feel a sense of freedom and empowerment that I haven’t known in years….. I’m out there, a part of nature, and alive.
The reason I’m willing to stand up here and speak about something as personal as my health and related challenges is that I want you to see that disabled people have much to offer. Look at us. See us. Make us a part of your world.
And if you’re on the road near Portland, and it’s a sunny day, you just might see me riding “Ruby.” Give us a wave.
Thank you for listening to me today.
You can visit Michie’s website and enjoy her paintings at michieoday.com
I am a technical illustrator and graphic designer with over 30 years as an urban bike commuter, recreational group rider and ride leader. I am convinced that the greatest challenges facing American bicycling are a lack of education and a destructive belief system about our public roads.
Through CyclingSavvy, Mighk Wilson and I created a toolset for bicyclists to enhance their preferred style of riding. Together, we can transform our traffic culture to recognize that roads are for all people, not just motorists.
Cycling is a great way to spend active family time outside.
Benefits
Bicycling is a popular, fun, healthy, and useful activity that people can do their entire lives. Bicycling provides low-impact exercise of variable intensity that improves health, fitness, longevity, mental focus, emotional balance, and stress levels. Traveling by bicycle is often more enjoyable and affordable than other modes, and can be more convenient where automobile parking is limited. Teaching children to travel effectively by bicycle as they get older develops patience, discipline, self reliance and personal responsibility. Learning to negotiate traffic by bicycle also teaches essential driving skills that will produce safer and more courteous motorists later.
Risk Management
Per hour of activity, bicycling has an injury rate similar to common sports such as soccer, and a fatality rate lower than swimming and similar to that of automobile travel. The health benefits of bicycling outweigh any health risks by an order of magnitude in terms of disability-adjusted years of life. As with swimming and motoring, the safety of bicycling is determined primarily by behavior; education and skill development are key to success. As a bicyclist’s skills and maturity progress, safe bicycle travel becomes possible in an increasingly wide variety of environments. An important consideration for cycling with children is to match route selection and adult supervision to the developmental and skill levels of the child.
Children as Passengers
Many parents enjoy bicycling with children as young as one year old (when they can safely support their own weight and sit themselves upright) by using a variety of child trailers and seats. Transporting children as bike passengers allows parents to start modeling successful bicycling behavior early and helps interest children in bicycling.
Bike trailers let kids ride while you stay in control.
Enclosed two-wheel child trailers are ideal for children under four years old; the low center of gravity avoids affecting the parent’s balance on the leading bicycle, provides good handling, and minimizes the potential for a fall-related injury (the vast majority of injuries to kids cycling). Such trailers also provide room for toys and snacks inside the compartment, keeping little ones happy during the ride. Somewhat older children will prefer trailercycles, aka trailer bikes, which attach to the back of the parent bicycle and feature one wheel, a seat, handlebars, and pedals to assist with the work. These trailers require more maturity and cooperation from the child and can be more difficult for the parent to control due to the higher center of gravity. Tandem bicycles are another option, and can be configured to work for children of various sizes as long as the child can stay seated. Child-carrier seats are also available, and are usually the most affordable option for transporting children. However, a child in a carrier seat can make a bicycle topheavy and difficult to control, especially when mounting and dismounting.
A tandem bicycle can be adjusted as the child grows.
Are We There Yet?
Long bike rides can be tiring or tedious for children; it’s useful to start small and break up longer trips with stops every 20 minutes or so. Planning a round trip to a destination of interest such as an ice cream shop, restaurant, or park works especially well.
Water and snack breaks keep kids happy.
Teaching Cycling to Children
The essential skills required for safe cycling can be learned through informal mentorship (e.g. knowledgeable parents or other experienced cyclists), organized classes, or a variety of media. Children can learn bicycle handling skills very quickly, but take much longer than adults to learn traffic negotiation skills, due to developmental factors, and are limited in what traffic situations they can handle until they reach their teens. This requires that a child’s learning objectives and cycling environment be carefully selected by the parent or educator to match the child’s cognitive development and maturity.
Basic bicycle handling includes starting and stopping, steering, riding in a straight line without swerving, looking back over one’s shoulder without swerving, and emergency braking. These skills should be taught in areas void of traffic, including other bicycle traffic.
Stopping at the Edge
Stop at the edge and scan: left, right, left
An essential traffic behavior that children must learn as soon as they start bicycling is to stop when they reach the edge of a driveway, path, or sidewalk. The most common cause of car-bike crashes involving children is the child’s riding out from a driveway, path or sidewalk into the roadway without stopping and yielding to other traffic. Children often have “tunnel vision” that causes them to overlook or ignore threats outside their direct line of sight, and often lack the maturity to stop and look both ways when they are not aware of traffic before reaching the edge.
Riding with their child affords parents the opportunity to supervise their child’s cycling, especially at edge locations such as street crossings. Practically all bicycling trips, including greenway rides, include intersection crossings and/or entrances into vehicular areas. Parents should model consistent behavior by stopping and looking both ways before proceeding, and invite the child to assist in assessment of traffic conditions.
Kids’ enthusiasm for cycling easily outpaces their ability to understand traffic. Parents need to limit their children’s destinations and routes based on their cognitive ability and maturity.
The Sidewalk Dilemma
Although many parents and children are tempted to think of sidewalks as safe places for children to ride, traveling any distance on a sidewalk inevitably results in crossing intersections and driveways, or crossing roadways mid-block. Such movements are associated with the most common collision types for child bicyclists, in part because of children’s errors, but also because motorists are less likely to notice bicyclists entering their path from sidewalk locations when they are focused on traffic approaching in the roadway. The most common type of car-bike crash in urban areas of North Carolina involves a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk being struck by a motorist pulling out from a stop sign, red light, or driveway. Parents should consider all such conflict locations when deciding where they will permit their children to ride, and should supervise any and all crossing movements as needed depending on the maturity of the child. In general, if a child does not have the maturity to bicycle safely on the roadway portion of a particular corridor, the child probably lacks the ability to handle the more challenging intersection conflicts that accompany sidewalk cycling on that corridor – at least, without supervision. A suggested rule of thumb is to limit children’s cycling to those areas where they are capable of safely negotiating the intersections as well as riding safely in the roadway itself.
Riding Right
A leading contributor to car-bike crashes is bicycling on the wrong side of the road. At intersections, where the vast majority of car-bike collisions happen, other drivers aren’t expecting or looking for traffic approaching from the wrong direction. Between intersections, a wrong-way bicyclist requires a driver to make evasive maneuvers; the driver cannot simply slow down and wait for a safe passing opportunity as with a same-direction bicycle traffic. For these reasons, traffic laws everywhere require bicyclists to ride on the same side of the road in the same direction as other vehicle traffic. In North Carolina, bicycles are defined as vehicles and bicyclists have the full rights and duties of drivers of vehicles.
Children should be taught to ride on the right half of any corridor, including greenway paths and neighborhood streets. In combination with this, they need to learn to ride in a reasonably straight line, without suddenly swerving, so that other bicyclists and automobile drivers can travel beside them and pass them safely. They should choose an imaginary straight line down the roadway that keeps them safely away from surface hazards and parked cars. Before making an adjustment in lateral position on the roadway, such as when noticing a parked car ahead, cyclists must look back and scan for traffic that may be about to overtake, and only make the lateral movement when it can be made safely. Simply riding in a straight line well out into the roadway is not hazardous to bicyclists of any age, especially on the neighborhood streets where most children ride. What is hazardous is suddenly moving into that position unpredictably when a driver is too close to reduce speed.
Supervising as Wingman
Positioning yourself to the left of your child encourages drivers to pass at greater distance. It also allows you better vantage of potential conflicts and makes it easier to communicate as you coach.
When riding with a child to supervise the child’s bicycling, an ideal riding position is slightly behind and to the left of the child, with the child setting the pace. This position allows the parent or instructor to watch and communicate with the child, while also diverting overtaking traffic to pass at a larger distance from the child. The extra passing distance provides the “wiggle room” the child may require as skill develops and makes the ride more comfortable.
Route Selection
Children between the ages of 7 and 10 can develop the traffic and handling skills to operate safely on low-speed, low-traffic two-lane residential streets. By their early teens, they can develop the skills to handle multiple-lane streets. Although some cyclists may prefer more direct, important roads depending on their travel objectives, low-traffic streets and greenways are often the most enjoyable places to ride for a wide variety of cyclists. Some cities provide maps that highlight low traffic streets and greenway routes; these can be of tremendous value in finding an enjoyable route for recreation or transportation. Google Maps includes most of the local greenway trails, which can be used when generating bicycle travel routes. The satellite and street view features of Google Maps are useful for determining the cross section and character of a street when choosing a route.
Older cities often have a grid of low-traffic streets that provide alternatives to busy roads. This is less common in some newer suburbs, but many progressive municipalities now actively pursue development of collector street networks and local-street connectivity to provide redundant travel routes and to disperse traffic bottlenecks. This allows many bicycle trips to be made on lower-speed-limit roads and two-lane roads with wide pavement that afford easy passing at safe distance. Some cities have also developed an extensive interconnected system of greenway paths in their own rights of way. By combining pleasant streets and greenways, a wide variety of enjoyable low-traffic cycling routes becomes available for family cycling.
Older children can develop intersection negotiation skills that greatly expand the range of routes available to them.
Keeping Tabs
Even after learning good cycling practices, kids usually start taking risks and short-cuts when they leave a parent’s sight, and are quick to emulate the bad habits of their peers. Parents can reinforce good practices by riding frequently with their children and discussing the reasons behind the rules. Parents can also monitor their children’s cycling behavior alone or with peers by catching up to them with their own bikes at unexpected times. Lastly, parents should always model good behavior when operating any vehicle.
https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/adult-child-signal-thumb.png434434Steven Goodridgehttps://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iat_fb_profile2-300x300.jpgSteven Goodridge2013-05-04 13:18:302024-08-05 20:26:38Cycling with Children
