Oddly enough, I find the most challenging places to ride, in nicer weather, are bicycle paths. Walkers, dogs, baby carriages, joggers–just afraid to hit someone while going at a high rate of speed. (I’m fine with people using paths though.) Also, bike paths tend to buckle (as opposed to road pot holes) which seems a more jarring bump for some reason.

You want a fee for bicyclists? Fine by me. What, $10-$20? The price of a gallon of gas?

One other thing you might want to address regarding bicycling is companies and buildings needing facilities to accommodate bicycle travel, to take some of the stigma out of parking a bicycle and storing bicycle clothing. Promote a tax break for locker rooms.

Thanks for the article, nice piece…glad to see you ride. I own cars and bikes and cycle as much as possible but I take issue with the comment by Earl Blumenauer that country roads are “a suicide situation”. The roads may represent a potential homicidal situation but not suicide as folks are riding to get killed. It’s the drivers of motor vehicles who operate their vehicle in a manner which has no regard for anybody else on the road…failing to slow down even to the posted speed limit for bikes, other cars, pedestrians, children, animals, dangerous situations, inclement weather, etc. And the fact that these drivers are not held accountable for their actions…These drivers are the danger!

Here’s to passing on the streets…on bikes!

Meade Anderson

Chesepeake Bay is an indicator of our general future if we don’t change our values. Dying in our own filth.

I did some research in Hawaii funded by NOAA/Sea Grant a few years ago when I worked at the Univ. of Hawaii and we found links between nonpoint source pollution and urban hardening on Oahu. The pollution transported offshore was greatly exacerbated by urban “hardening”, much of which is due to the need for roadway and parking spaces. What used to pass for urban streams on Oahu have been reduced to pathetic, concrete channels, which were excellent pathways for nitrates from fertilizing and pollutants from roadways (greases, oils, lead when we put lead in gas, zinc, and other goodies) to reach the coastline and be flushed into the estuaries and backreef environment during storms.

Sitting in front of me is a book of recommendations we made for increasing the number of settling ponds and green space. But green space is always in competition with other human needs, transportation being one of them. If we looked at transportation as part of a bigger picture of environmental sustainability rather than as mere human convenience, we would indeed pay people to ride bikes.

The question is not whether to promote cycling as a benevolent form of basic transportation. The question is how we do it so we actually build safe and efficient systems rather than merely the appearance thereof. The first option is a good one. But rather than adding more asphalt, why not do the engineering to redistribute what we have, in conjunction with rising oil prices and tax incentives to move away from the single occupant car?

Some cities indeed speak of conservation while at the same time mandating minimum parking stalls per business in their zoning codes. We can no longer afford such schizophrenia in our planning processes.

Happy holidays, and here is for a cleaner new year,
Khal Spencer

I enjoyed reading the column about the cycling event at the Newseum.

However, I was a bit puzzled by the remark: “How do bicycles pay their way on the road, since they obviously don’t pay gas taxes?”

First, bicycles don’t pay taxes… just as cars and trucks don’t pay taxes. But I know what you meant: how do people who ride bicycles pay for the roads we use. Well, every study I’ve read on the topic concludes that most road funding comes from taxes on property, income, sales and other items. Because these taxes are not directly related to road use, people who ride bicycles pay just as much as people who drive. Indeed, people who ride bicycles probably pay more on average, because they are more likely to live in cities, where property taxes are higher.

Many people are unaware of how we actually pay for our roads. Recently, a marketing company in Portland sparked strong public reaction with an ad campaign that asked: Should cyclists pay a road tax? The company’s wrap up report included the conclusion that most people simply don’t know that cyclists already do pay taxes that are used to build and maintain roads. “[T]he amount of misinformation shared throughout this campaign was staggering,” the authors of the report by Webtrends wrote:
http://blogs.webtrends.com/blog/2009/11/25/wrap-up-report-for-our-max-ad-should-cyclists-pay-a-road-tax/

Here’s recent summary of the subsidies of motor vehicles:
Analysis Finds Shifting Trends in Highway Funding: User Fees Make Up Decreasing Share
http://www.subsidyscope.com/transportation/highways/funding/

It documents that road users pay les than half the cost of highways. The subsidy for local roads is much higher.

Of course, we all benefit from a good road network whether or not we drive. Still it is important to recognize that every time someone uses a bicycle, instead of a car or truck, he or she reduces wear on the road, reduces congestion, reduces air and water pollution (a recent NPR report documented how much of the pollution and cleanup costs in the Chesapeake Bay are due to oil, gas and other pollutants coming off cars and trucks), etc. Comprehensive economic analyses support the idea that if costs were fairly apportioned, drivers should pay people to use bicycles.

As you well know, politics involves more than numbers. A small sales tax on bicycles and accessories would probably be the most efficient method for people who bicycle to demonstrate that they are directly participating in funding our transportation infrastructure.

That said, our transportation policies should take a clear look at the current system of funding infrastructure, with an eye to making the most efficient and productive use of our investment. Based on the economic analyses currently available, it seems such a review would conclude that all road users (and our communities as a whole) would benefit from dramatically increasing bicycle infrastructure in our cities.

Here’s another useful citation:
Delucchi, Mark A. and James J. Murphy (2008) How large are tax subsidies to motor-vehicle users in the US?.
Transport Policy 15 (3), 196 – 208

Again, thank you for the column. We need more public discussion of transportation policy and how it relates to economic development, public health, and the welfare of our people and communities.

Regards,
Andrew Holtz
holtzreport@juno.com

There is no easy answer in the bike world to this constant argument of car-free bike space vs. bike-free car space. I personally don’t want to give anyone the impression that I am going to go along with any effort to get this bicyclist off the road and onto a yet to be designed and built, equally safe and efficient, parallel universe since we really don’t have that alternative yet. Nor, I am afraid, will we have it in the foreseeable future, given the shape the U.S. economy is in. Share what we got–we already paid for it.

Door lanes:

When riding on roads with parked cars, one should never ride within an opening door’s reach. It is much safer to take the lane (middle of the lane) and encourage overtaking cars to pass using another lane. Bicycle lanes adjacent to parked cars are not safe to ride in and should be renamed door lanes. Bicycle lanes located outside of these door lanes would be safe to ride in.

I use a helmet mounted mirror to monitor overtaking cars. When there is a transition from no parked cars to parked cars, use of a mirror and hand signals can help the rider negotiate to a safe road position. This position change should be established well before reaching the parked car so that drivers have time to adjust their speed and position as needed.

Recommended reading on the dangers of riding too close to parked cars;
http://www.riinsrants.info/bikes/doorzone.htm

For the past two years I’ve chaired Bike to Work Spokane, which started promoting Bike to Work Week actively in 2008 for the first time in many years in our region. We had great response, not only from long-time bike commuters who just wanted a chance to stand up and be counted, but also from new riders who took the plunge and then continued riding.

We had phenomenal media coverage both years. I believe having that visibility along with more cyclists on the street–during the event week but afterwards as well–has made a difference in how I’m treated as a cyclist.

I also notice that when I do drive–which is as seldom as possible–I am a much better driver because I’ve turned off my “autopilot” mode. Besides bike commuting year-round I’m a frequent pedestrian myself, and take transit when the snow is too deep to ride. Behind the wheel I’m now much more aware both of cyclists and of pedestrians. I wonder how much of the reduced accident rate in cities with high percentages of biking and walking comes from this kind of “driver re-education” that becomes evident as those cyclists and pedestrians get into their cars.

I serve on the city’s Bicycle Advisory Board, which worked successfully for adoption of a bike master plan and the creation and funding of a bike/pedestrian coordinator in the city staff in 2009. Spokane is starting to organize around the Complete Streets concept. In November we elected two pro-bike members to the City Council–Jon Snyder and Amber Waldref–joining another bike advocate. Spokane Mayor Mary Verner has participated in Bike to Work Week the past two years, as has the state Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown. A newly announced candidate for state representative in my district, Andy Billig, served on our Bike to Work Committee in 2009. Political visibility and awareness is as important as on-road visibility and awareness for real change. The national movement and the efforts in cities such as Spokane is truly exciting.

@BarbChamberlain
@Bike2WrkSpokane
http://www.biketoworkspokane.org

A decade ago Bike Track developed a bicycle track surface that could be rapidly installed along busy streets and highways as well as through parks and woodlands with little or no excavation or disturbance to existing infrastructure or to natural environments. The modular track system is molded from extremely durable structural plastic which will not crack, heave and pothole like asphalt, concrete or gravel, and does not require any sub-base construction and compaction. The molded in traction arcs on the surface are designed for the vibration free rolling of wheels while providing excellent stopping and cornering control. Each traction arc is paired with a drainage hole to keep the surface free of puddles and sand as well as to greatly minimize icing.

One other great advantage of the Bike Track system is that it can be quickly installed by two or more people with few or no tools.

There is one prominent, seasonal installation of the Bike Track system in Washington, D.C. at President’s Park. For the past several years it has been used as walkways around the National Christmas Tree and for the Pageant of Peace. If you go to http://www.forest-savers.com/Modular_Path_and_Trail_Surface.htm, you will see two photos with caption at the bottom of the page.

If you would like first hand information about how the Bike Track path system has performed, you could try contacting Tom Greer. He is very busy at this time of year, but his contact information is as follows:

President’s Park Maintenance Division
Thomas Greer, Chief of Maintenance
202-287-2610

It was my hope that the Bike Track system would be widely adopted, thus making it far easier for people of all ages to walk or bike for short trips rather than making trips of a few minutes in cars that pollute more before their catalytic converters warm up. Unfortunately we ran into hurdles that were too high for a small company to overcome such as federal cost sharing for asphalt and concrete path and sidewalk surfaces, but not for structural plastic surfaces which coupled with the public perception that structural plastic would not be as durable made the Bike Track system extremely difficult to sell for its intended purposes.

For the past decade we have been able to keep the Bike Track company and product alive by supplying rapid deployment tent flooring systems to the military. In this application it has more than proven its extreme durability in demanding applications.

We can only hope that our society finally realizes the urgency of curbing air pollution and will adopt a myriad of new approaches to the ways we live and travel.

Gerry Hawkes
796 Wayside Road Ext.
Woodstock, VT 05091

Eco Systems, Inc ~ http://www.eco-systems.org ~ Founder/President
Forest Savers LLC ~ http://www.forest-savers.com ~ Founder/Manager
Bike Track, Inc. ~ http://www.biketrack.com ~ Founder/Director