BMTS Article Digest

April – May 2018

BMTS Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee Members: The following is a compilation of articles that may be of interest to BMTS Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee

members. This and past digests can also be accessed in the Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Committee page of

www.bmtsonline.com. Scott

CenterLines is the bi-weekly electronic news bulletin of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking. CenterLines is our

way of quickly delivering news and information you can use to create more walkable and bicycle-friendly communities.

Go to www.BCWalks.com!

Check out these websites for Bike & Pedestrian Information!

https://www.facebook.com/coexistnys/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/CoexistNYS or www.capitalcoexist.org

In particular, view the interactive educational video clips.

Take a look at the National Center for Bicycling & Walking's newsletter, CenterLines . You can also arrange to have it emailed directly to you.

See http://www.bikewalk.org/newsletter.ph p .

for

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page A07

Saturday, 7 April 2018

$7.2M Watkins Glen road project begins

Kate Collins

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin USA TODAY NETWORK

A groundbreaking was held in Watkins Glen on Friday for a $7.2 million roadwork project aimed at revitalizing the village and surrounding areas.

The project, which began this week, is part of Southern Tier Soaring, a regional

development plan focused on long-term economic growth and community development. “There has not been a project like this in the village in Region

6 in over 20 years,” said Todd Westhuis, New York State Department of Transportation Chief of Staff.

The Schuyler County project includes the paving of 15.8 miles of Rt. 14 from Watkins

Glen to the Town of Reading. Improved sidewalks, designed to comply with the

Americans With Disabilities Act, will be constructed throughout Watkins Glen and new traffic signals with pedestrian accessible push buttons will be installed.

A gateway entrance to Watkins Glen will be added to the northern end of the village

and “traffic calming” raised islands will be built to help slow traffic for enhanced cyclist and pedestrian safety. “The department has a commitment to the governor’s Complete

Streets Act and this project illustrates that,” said Westhuis.

Signed into law in 2011, the Complete Streets Act states that transportation projects receiving state and federal funding should be designed to consider the safety,

accessibility and mobility of all roadway users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities.

Cosmetic improvements are also part of the project: Pedestrian crosswalks will be

painted in a checkerboard flag pattern to reflect the village’s legendary auto racing history and historical information signs will be placed along the course of the first road

race course, which took place on the village streets in 1948.

Additionally, a new Watkins Glen welcome sign will be created to welcome both tourists

and residents.

While DOT crews have already begun work on the project’s initial phases, Westhuis stated that construction will be halted in the downtown area from June 22 to September

10 to accommodate the peak summer tourist season.

In addition to the auto racing events, which bring in hundreds of thousands of tourist each season, the Finger Lakes region is also a destination for outdoor and wine

enthusiasts. This summer, Watkins Glen will also attract legions of Phish fans for the three-day “Curveball” music festival.

“We’re sensitive to the fact that Watkins Glen and surrounding areas are great summer tourist destinations,” said Westhuis.

Rebekah Carroll, President/CEO of Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, said the

organization is supportive of the DOT project and emphasized that downtown Watkins Glen businesses will remain open throughout construction, which is slated for

completion in June 2019.

“We want to see our business community thriving,” said Carroll. “And we’re passing along the really

sound and loud message that Watkins Glen is open for business.”

Village of Watkins Glen Mayor Sam Schimizzi addresses

the audience gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony Friday in Watkins Glen.

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page B03

Tuesday, 10 April 2018

Uber takes Jump into bike-sharing business

Nathan Bomey

USA TODAY

Soon your Uber ride could have two wheels instead of four.

The ride-hailing app company announced Monday it has reached a deal to acquire bike-

sharing service Jump.

The deal accelerates Uber’s entry into the rapidly expanding market for so-called “dockless” bikes, meaning riders can leave them in any bike rack when they reach their

destinations. They don’t have to be “docked” in an official Jump stand. The bikes remain disabled until the next user unlocks them by using a code on their smartphone.

Jump had more than 12,000 bicycles in 40 cities across six countries in 2017. It is one

of a bevy of start-ups from Washington, D.C., to San Diego offering electric scooters or

bikes, a convenient way for people to commute between home and public transit. But they are controversial because of those services that, unlike Jump, allow them to be

left behind on street corners or other places that clutter the cityscape.

Jump recently switched to customdesigned electric bikes, which make it easier to get around in hilly cities such as San Francisco, where Uber has been testing the service

through its app.

Uber declined to provide details on plans to expand Jump bike-sharing or pricing plans. For now, the bikes cost $2 for 30 minutes of use.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a blog post the acquisition will help the company

drive toward its goal of reducing car ownership.

“We’re committed to bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app — so that you can choose the fastest or most affordable way to get where you’re

going, whether that’s in an Uber, on a bike, on the subway or more,” he said.

Jump CEO Ryan Rzepecki, who incorporated the company in 2010 and launched its first pilot a few years later, said the company’s brand will live on.

“We will remain good partners to cities

while delivering excellent service to our riders,” he said in a blog post. “Together

with Uber, I firmly believe we can make a more significant impact on the world.”

Uber, through its app, has been testing Jump

bikes in San Francisco. UBER

Transportation Tragedies Shine Light on Pedestrian Infrastructure Needs BY: Daniel C. Vock | April 2, 2018

Two transportation-related tragedies in recent weeks -- the collapse of a bridge in Miami and the death of a woman in Arizona who was struck by an autonomous Uber car -- have shined a light on the challenges of deploying new infrastructure technologies.

But the two incidents also highlighted something else, according to many safety advocates: the inadequacies of legacy designs when it comes to pedestrians.

And they come as pedestrian deaths have been climbing. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates there were 6,000 pedestrian deaths in 2017. That's essentially unchanged from the year before -- but 2016 saw a higher level of pedestrian deaths than the country had seen in 25 years.

In Tempe, Ariz., an autonomous vehicle from Uber struck and killed a pedestrian while going 40 mph on a dark street on March 19. Most of the attention so far has been on Uber’s driverless technology and whether the company was testing that technology responsibly. But some safety advocates have also questioned whether the design of the street itself played a role, because it gave pedestrians no convenient, safe place to cross.

The pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg, was walking her bike across the street when she was killed. Although there was a bike lane along the road, a brick path through the median was marked with a sign indicating pedestrians weren’t allowed. The sign says “Use crosswalk,” with an arrow pointing to an intersection 500 feet away, where two six-lane roads meet. The brick path with the no-pedestrian sign appears to be directly across the street from a dirt path.

Arizona has seen a recent surge in pedestrian fatalities. The number of walkers who died jumped from 197 in 2016 to 224 last year. In a one-week span shortly before the Uber crash, 10 pedestrians were killed in the Phoenix area. A recent report showed that Arizona had the highest pedestrian death rate, per capita, in the country.

The Uber death came just three days after the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Miami killed six motorists. The Miami tragedy raised a different set of questions about pedestrian infrastructure, but with a similar underlying concern: Was the massive pedestrian bridge being built for the convenience of pedestrians, or for the motorists who traveled under it?

Florida International University chose a new technology, called accelerated bridge construction (ABC), to erect its $15 million, 289-foot-long pedestrian bridge. The chief benefit of that approach is that it limits the amount of time the

road below needs to be closed to traffic. But the pedestrian bridge itself would have also benefited motorists, because it would have limited the time cars had to sit at red lights waiting for walkers to cross.

The pedestrian bridge, though, would not have addressed larger concerns about the safety of Eighth Street, the arterial road that passed beneath it. Seventeen people died on a four-mile stretch of the road between 2007 and 2012, and one FIU student died there just last fall. But local planners were looking for ways to ease congestion -- in other words, speed traffic up even more -- on the major thoroughfare.

For many safety advocates, both situations appeared to be the result of transportation officials prioritizing the quick movement of cars over the safety of pedestrians.

“An effective approach to traffic safety would consider the dangerous conditions for pedestrians that led to the construction of the [Miami] bridge in the first place,” writes Angie Schmitt of Streetsblog, a site that advocates for less car-centric infrastructure. “If we don’t think critically about these systemic risks, our transportation networks will keep on failing at public safety.”

Victor Dover, a Miami architect who promotes “livable communities” over sprawl, says pedestrian bridges show planners’ concerns about cars and motorists.

“The thing is, ‘pedestrian bridges’ are not really about providing safety and delight to pedestrians,” he writes. “The real purpose of the bridge was to reduce the pesky crosswalks and speed up traffic, to minimize signal phases when motorists would have to wait for people to cross on foot. Meanwhile, the effect of such bridges is to permanently surrender the at-grade pedestrian experience.”

Dover and Kenneth García, a town planner with the same firm, even designed an alternative to Eighth Street’s current configuration to illustrate how the road could become more pedestrian friendly. It includes transit, but not the pedestrian bridge.

“The Eighth Street of the future should have multiple places to cross at intersections where pedestrians are on an equal footing with cars, matched up with multiple walkways over the canal to Sweetwater and other neighborhoods. In our illustration, there are more traffic signals, not fewer, with broad high-visibility crosswalks. And yes, traffic will move more slowly.”

Linda Bailey, the executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), says the public’s initial reaction to the autonomous vehicle crash in Arizona said a lot about how the American public, and even local leaders, view pedestrian deaths.

“It brought out all the things that we hear when a pedestrian is killed, especially because the pedestrian is not around to tell the story. We hear about how it was dark, the pedestrian came out of nowhere, that she was not in the crosswalk,” Bailey says. “It’s really indicative of how we treat pedestrian deaths in general. We are still focused on idea that people who died in traffic in the United States did something wrong. It’s pervasive. Most people don’t know anything else.”

Indeed, Sylvia Moir, the Tempe police chief, remarked after watching video of the crash taken by the Uber car that “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway.”

But Bailey says the crash also shows design flaws in how many roads are built.

“It does point out that the roadways there are designed for unsafe speeds for pedestrians. It’s a remnant of the highway and mini-highway era, where engineers set speed limits as high as possible and pedestrian crossings are viewed as slowing down traffic,” she says.

But that type of engineering doesn’t reflect how non-motorists actually use the roads.

“We have to engineer for actual human behavior. There are no hardware or software upgrades for actual human beings.”

NACTO has long pushed for autonomous vehicles to be limited to 25 mph or less in areas where pedestrians are likely to be present -- not just in downtowns. At that speed, pedestrians are much more likely to survive a crash with a vehicle, which is a major reason why many cities that have adopted the Vision Zero safety strategy have lowered their speed limits to 25 mph.

“People want to be able to hit the gas between red lights,” Bailey says. “As transportation officials, we have to ask ourselves, are we designing a safe system or not?”

Of course, street design did not change overnight to suddenly imperil more pedestrians. And pedestrian deaths have not risen at the same rate on all roads.

Take Arizona, for example.

“Over the past five years, the total number of pedestrian-related crashes on the [Arizona] state highway system has remained consistent,” the Arizona Department of Transportation told Governing in a statement. “An increase in pedestrian-related crashes has occurred on other roadways, including city streets and county roads. In Arizona, more than 80 percent of pedestrian fatalities occur on these other roadways.” The Uber crash did not occur on a state road.

The state department will also fund projects to reduce fatal and serious-injury crashes as part of its highway safety improvement plan.

Alberto Gutier, the director of the Arizona Governor’s Highway Safety Office, says the biggest change he’s seen is just the sheer number of people on the road, whether they be drivers or pedestrians, as the state’s population has grown.

But he also sees lots of problems in people’s behavior.

“The problem is that people don’t cross in the crosswalk. People looking at their stupid phones. They’re crossing the tracks of the light rail [in the Phoenix area] after they get off, going between cars” in the middle of the block.

At the same time, though, drivers are often so eager to turn right when the light changes that they forget to look for pedestrians, Gutier says.

“We have dumb, stupid, idiot drivers."

Gutier’s office recently secured funding to start “selective enforcement” actions in more than 20 cities in Arizona’s major metropolitan areas. He wants cops on bikes, especially, to confront people who cross streets illegally, although motorists will also be included. The goal, he says, is to change people’s behavior, not to give them tickets.

“I’m not promoting ticket, ticket, ticket, but I’m sure somebody will get a ticket.”

But Gutier says he is also impressed by the work of New York City, where he once lived, to prevent pedestrian deaths. New York City is one of the most aggressive in rolling out Vision Zero. Like other safety campaigns, Vision Zero relies on public education and aggressive enforcement of certain traffic laws. But the biggest difference is its emphasis on building safer infrastructure, so human error doesn’t lead to human deaths.

Better infrastructure sounds good to Gutier, and he’s encouraged by the state transportation department’s work on a pedestrian plan. “But it’s millions of dollars we don’t have in the highway safety office, and I don’t know if ADOT can get it,” he says.

Gutier has hung up print-outs of the New York projects in his office. But he says he hasn’t yet talked with his boss, Gov. Doug Ducey, about implementing those sorts of changes in Arizona.

This article was printed from:http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-miami-

bridge-collapse-tempe-uber-pedestrian-autonomous.html

Instead of a Pedestrian Bridge, How About a Street That Works for Walking, Biking, and Transit?

By Angie Schmitt Mar 30, 2018

If you build a street that's safe to cross, you don't need a pedestrian bridge. Image: Dover, Kohl & Partners

When a hastily constructed pedestrian bridge collapsed onto Eighth Street at Florida International University, killing six people, it should have been a wake-up call for transportation officials.

In addition to being a fatal failure of engineering and construction, the bridge collapse was a failure of street design and transportation planning by Miami Dade County and Florida DOT. Eighth Street is wide, fast, and deadly, but instead of making the crossing safe for pedestrians, state and county officials opted to build a bridge over it.

How can car-centric Eighth Street be redesigned as a safe, multi-modal street? Planners Victor Dover and Kenneth García have some ideas.

Writing in Miami’s Community Newspapers, Dover says it’s time to make Eighth Street work for walking:

We are correctly focused right now on the six victims killed under the bridge collapse. But in the last 4 years, more than 2200 crashes occurred along this part of the corridor, and at least 12 other people died in those collisions.

The real purpose of the bridge was to reduce the pesky crosswalks and speed up traffic, to minimize signal phases when motorists would have to wait for people to cross on foot. Meanwhile, the effect of such bridges is to permanently surrender the at-grade pedestrian experience.

Here Dover and García show Eighth Street in its current form, designed solely to facilitate fast driving:

Image: Dover, Kohl & Partners

Dover and García propose curbside protected bike lanes and a median busway. Combined, these interventions also calm car traffic and greatly reduce crossing distances for pedestrians:

The Miami Dade Metropolitan Planning Organization considered bus lanes for Eighth Street in 2015, but officials rejected the idea.

Obviously, overhauling the street for transit and safe walking and biking would be a more complicated undertaking than snapping a bridge on top of the road. But the benefits would be much, much greater and would compound over time.

Everything decision surrounding the bridge — from declining bus lanes, to choosing a pedestrian bridge over a road diet, to using a “quick build” process to install the bridge and then stress test it without closing traffic — was about accommodating drivers and not delaying them. It’s time for local planners to move past this failed paradigm.

Eastern States Cup mountain biking series adds life back to old Binghamton ski

area

Tom Wilber

Published 11:58 a.m. ET April 19, 2018

Aqua Terra Wilderness Area in Broome County has been added to the prestigious Eastern States Cup mountain bike race circuit. Clif

Enduro East

(Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur) CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE

Broome County will be in the limelight of mountain bike racing next

month with the addition of Aqua-Terra Wilderness Area to the

Maxxis Eastern States Cup circuit.

More than 200 riders are expected for the May 20th event featuring

world-class competition and separate races for amateurs and

youth.

“It’s a bit like a traveling circus,” said series director George Ulmer. “A lot of the riders and families go to these

events and see each other throughout the season, racing, camping and cooking out together.

The course, which cascades down the slopes of the former Innsbruck Ski Area, was added to this year’s 11-race

series in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Maxxis Eastern States Cup race series features categories for youth

and amateurs in addition to professional riders. (Photo: Jeb Wallace-

Brodeur)

Men and women racers are vying for a share in $25,000 over the

course of the season, with $2,000 paid out at each race and

$5,000 for series winners. The championship is determined by

racers’ top seven finishes of the 11 races.

The Town of Binghamton will join some of the country’s iconic

outdoor recreational venues on the circuit, including Sugar Bush

and Killington ski resorts in Vermont, and courses in the Adirondacks and Catskills parks.

Headliners include men’s national enduro champion Seamus Powell, and Rachel Pageau, women’s Canadian

national champion and World Cup rider from Quebec.

The Aqua Terra venue was added to the Maxxis Eastern States Cup after a successful regional race at the county

site last year organized by Greg McCausland, a former Binghamton school teacher and long-time cycling

enthusiast. Word got around.

“This course got great reviews from people who are familiar with it,” said Ulmer, a former Broome County resident

who remembers when Innsbruck was operational as a downhill ski area.

Unlike larger venues on the circuit, Aqua Terra has no lodges, shelters or even toilets — remnants of the ski area

having been destroyed long ago. For this reason, while technically a park, the county bills it as a “wilderness area.”

Its remote beauty — long cherished by area hikers, cross-country skiers, dog-walkers and nature lovers — is

considered a hidden gem for mountain bikers.

While the race series features world-class talent, Ulmer said, it thrives on grass roots energy from local racers,

spectators and organizers. The course crisscrosses the mountain, allowing spectators to walk short distances from

one stretch of action to another. Hiking shoes are recommended.

In hosting the Maxxis Eastern States Cup, Aqua-Terra Wilderness Area in the

Town of Binghamton will join some of the most iconic outdoor recreation

venues, including Killington and Sugarbush ski resorts in Vermont. (Photo:

Jeb Wallace-Brodeur)

Broome County officials see the event as something of a windfall,

with virtually no cost to the county.

“This is certainly great exposure for people who don’t even realize

what type of resource we have here for mountain biking,” said Judy

Hess, director of Visiting Binghamton, part of the Greater

Binghamton Chamber of Commerce. “It’s amazing for the area, and

once you get on a national calendar it has a lot of potential to

grow.”

The county is arranging portable lighting provided by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and a

public safety detail that will be billed to the event, said Broome County Park Director Matthew Gawors. The county

will also fill in potholes and ruts in the parking lot.

Portable toilets and other essentials will be handled by race organizers. The county’s overriding concern has been

satisfied: “They have good insurance,” Gawors said.

Enduro races are decided on the cumulative time of five runs from the top to bottom of the hill on a winding mile-

long course over roots, rocks, jumps and drops.

The Maxxis Eastern States Cup mountain bike race series will be at Aqua-

Terra Wilderness Area May 20. (Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur)

Racers have to get their bikes back to the top under a certain

time limit. Although the uphill portion is not factored into the

results, it adds to the physical demands of the race.

The course is based on a landscape well known to local

mountain bikers for years, with improvements and trails

specifically for enduro racing added by McCausland.

“Climbing hills is part of it, but that’s not why we do it,”

McCausland said. “It’s really all about the descent.”

The Maxxis Eastern Cup Series will feature pro and amateur classes. (Photo:

Jeb Wallace-Brodeur)

After last year’s race, riders from Rochester and Buffalo have

routinely been returning to the area, McCausland said. He

expects the national exposure next month to increase the park’s

reputation as a bike destination.

“I now see cars in that parking lot all the time that were never

there before,” he said “They’re mountain bikers.”

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page A01

Friday, 27 April 2018

Lee Barta Center opens after expansion

Building is more than twice its previous size

Hannah Schwarz

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin USA TODAY NETWORK

A year and a half after officials said they would expand the North Side’s Lee Barta

Community Center, the building officially opened its doors Thursday — more than twice its previous size and now with a kitchen, bike shop and computer lab.

The $500,000 project included the demolition of a next-door property, 110 Liberty St.,

an area now occupied by the the expanded building.

“We are so happy to be home,” said Kim Schwartz, health initiatives manager of the

United Way of Broome County, as residents sitting in the building’s new main area yelled her name and stood to applaud her.

Binghamton put up $150,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding

for the project, the state gave $300,000 and Visions Federal Credit Union provided $50,000.

The center now also includes an exercise area and a space for CHOW to sell produce.

“Poverty and struggle is a very real issue,” said State Sen. Fred Akshar, R-District 52,

who Binghamton Mayor Richard David credited with securing the state funding. “We are acknowledging those issues, and dealing with them in a very positive manner. My hope

is that every level of government can share in the model that we put forth.”

Lisa McGowan sat in the audience as David spoke, awaiting the official opening of a center she said she’d been going to for a year. She comes every Thursday from 11 to

noon for a class where, she says, staff bring in people from Medicaid and the Department of Social Services to talk to residents who may need help.

A bus used to pick up people at the community center and take them to Walmart, she

said, but that no longer happens.

Beatrice Moore said she’s been involved in the center for only about a month, but when her friend told her they were expanding she came to check it out.

“If they need me to help, I’ll be glad to help,” she said. With more room and more

activities, “there’s more for the kids to do — they’ll stay out of trouble.”

Standing in front of about 50 people who had come to see the new center, David made clear where the praise

should focus.

“It’s not about the people

standing here,” he said, gesturing to himself.

“Today is about the employees who make this

center work.”

Follow @HannahRSchwarz on Twitter

A mural at the newly

expanded Lee Barta Community Center.

PHOTOS BY HANNAH SCHWARZ/STAFF

The outside of the newly expanded Lee Barta

Community Center in Binghamton’s North Side.

The center now also includes an exercise area.

News TOPICS

COMMENTARY

Riding a bike to work may be the secret to happiness by Guest on April 18th, 2018 at 12:58 PM

4

To most commuters, the word “congestion” carries with it negative connotations, and is something to be avoided at all costs. But to those that regularly ride a bike, it doesn’t carry nearly the same weight, being perhaps the only mode of transportation where running into traffic makes it even more enjoyable.

That’s the fascinating paradox offered by Charles Montgomery, author of Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, and founding principal of the international consultancyof the same name, who cycles daily from his East Vancouver home to his office in Gastown along the Adanac Bikeway in Strathcona.

“It’s one of my favourite places in the city,” he declares, noting the undeniable look of contentment, freedom, and ease on the faces of passing cyclists. “But what I find most remarkable is when there’s congestion on the bike route, it’s more fun. It’s more joyful because we’re exchanging comments, glances, and flirtations. Honestly, that route in particular has made my commute the single happiest part of my day.”

Montgomery isn’t alone in his sense of satisfaction over his two-wheeled travels. Many studies from around the world have found that those utilizing active modes of transportation report greater levels of happiness, along with much lower levels of stress.

“A growing body of research clearly shows people who commute by foot or bike report feeling more joy, and less rage, fear, and sadness than people moving any other way,” Montgomery suggests.

Happy City author Charles Montgomery says people who

commute by foot or bike report feeling more joy, and less rage,

fear, and sadness than those who get around in other ways.

But if hopping on a bike is such an enjoyable experience, why isn't everyone doing it yet? The answer is both structural, in terms of how we design streets, and cultural, in terms of our opinions on biking.

“An obvious conclusion is people don’t do it because it’s perceived to be uncomfortable, dangerous, or a hassle,”

Montgomery explains. “If cities want to open up this opportunity for joy and health in the lives of their residents, they have to ensure that cycling is the easiest, most convenient, and safest choice.”

.CYCLE CITY TOURS

Underpinning this notion of contentment is the irrefutable connection between cycling and sociability. Montgomery asserts that positive social relationships are the strongest contributor to human happiness, pointing to the research of psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Dunn at UBC.

“It turns out our superficial interactions in the city—when they’re positive—have as strong an effect on overall life satisfaction as our relationships with close family and friends,” he reveals. “In other words, those little glances, smiles, flirtations when we’re riding our bikes, they’re really good for us.”

Prioritizing automobiles also has a profound impact on the happiness and independence of our youngest citizens. “North America culture obsesses about the care of children. We declare their well-being is the most important thing in society. Yet we keep building places that steal their freedom and put them in danger,” Montgomery laments. “I often wonder, ‘what kind of place would we build if we really wanted to meet our stated ambition of caring for kids?’ ”

CYCLE CITY TOURS

With significant improvements to the Vancouver’s bike infrastructure in the past decade, Montgomery’s daily journey has shifted from sheer terror to total joy. “It reminds me of when I used to bike as a kid on the quiet streets of the Cowichan Valley,” he states fondly. “It has made it so much easier to be a good citizen, and to be kind to others.”

His is a beautiful testament to how officials can build happier, gentler, and well-connected cities, simply by reconsidering the design of their streets.

HUB Cycling, a registered charity that works to get more people cycling in Metro Vancouver, is

celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2018. #20ReasonsToBike is a HUB Cycling initiative sponsored

by Modacity and local media partners, including the Georgia Straight. Throughout 2018, HUB Cycling will

be publishing articles showcasing the many reasons why more people cycling makes happier, healthier

and more connected communities. For more information visit bikehub.ca or check out #HUB20.

I Have Seen the Future of Urbanism and It's a Scooter

Andrew Small

MAR 16, 2018

While you’re still trying to figure out dockless bikes, there’s a new two-wheeler to share around town. It could be a bigger deal than you think.

Hold onto your glasses, nerds: The scooters are here.

As cities around the U.S. still try to figure out what dockless bikesharing is, a leader in that nascent industry is

betting that some urbanites are already ready for the next big thing—scooter-sharing. LimeBike, one of several

firms operating docklessly in Washington, D.C., unleashed a fleet of electric-assist scooters in the nation’s

capital this week, marking the scooter-share’s East Coast debut. (They first hit the streets last month, in San

Diego.)

“Cities are craving solutions to downtown congestion,” LimeBike’s strategic developer Maggie Gendron told

me as we rode on some of D.C.’s quieter streets. “It may be a bike for one, a scooter for another, but we are

trying to create opportunities for residents to commute or reconnect to their downtown.”

For at least some people, it might help that they connect to a bit of the past, too. The new scooters look like a

souped-up electric version of the folding Razor kick-scooters that were a wild fad in the early aughts, and

remain tremendously popular with the first-grader cohort. This grown-up version boasts solid rubber tires, a

kickstand, and—perhaps most importantly for adults—an electric-assist throttle on the handlebars, which allows

riders to zip alongside their pedal-driven brethren at speeds of 10 to 15 mph. A smartphone app handles

location, unlocking, and payment.

Matthew Yglesias

✔@mattyglesias

I rode to work on an electric dockless scooter-share and I don’t even know who I am anymore or what’s real. 9:09 AM - Mar 15, 2018

It’s with a mix of novelty and familiarity that companies like LimeBike, Bird, and Waybots hope to usher in a

gritty and grown-up reboot of the 2001 Toy of the Year. They have a hunch that the market goes beyond

Millennial nostalgia, and in a boom time for mobility innovations, they might be right. Adults might not be

buying these next-generation electric scooters in droves (the consumer versions retail for about $400), but

maybe they’ll shell out a buck or two for one they stumble upon on the sidewalk.

“I couldn’t imagine biking to work wearing a dress, but I can definitely see it on a scooter.”

As LimeBike chief program officer Scott Kubly tells it, this could be an important step in the goal of more

multimodal cities. Having a new toy on the block might lure customers out of their cars, he says, and they just

might surprise you and become “complete streets” constituents along the way.

“[Scooters] could end up changing what people think of as a ‘bike lane,’” says Kubly, who was the director of

Seattle’s Department of Transportation until last month. “The bigger the constituency you have, the easier it is

to get infrastructure like that installed.”

Even on a short ride, it’s not hard to see how this fills a gap. The electric glide’s stand-up stance is easier on

business attire, compared to a traditional bicycle. Comfort feels less tied to the weather, with electricity lending

a hand against the heat or wind. Before joining LimeBike, Gendron worked as staffer with Senator Patrick

Leahy of Vermont. “I couldn’t imagine biking to work with my old job wearing a dress, but I can definitely see

it on a scooter,” she says.

Taken together, that could all make it a real contender to solve everyone’s favorite mobility cliché: the first- and

last-mile problem.

Charles Girard@charlescgirard

Spotted the new @limebike scooters in DC this morning and figured out the requirements for riding:

But does it have an image problem to overcome? Does a grown-ass man on a scooter look any more or less

foolish than one on, say, a Segway, an electric unicycle, a “hoverboard,” or any of the other comical

conveyances that the 21st century has foisted on us? It’s too early to tell if scooter-shares will be conspicuous.

On my own trial run, passersby turned their heads as I rode by, but I have a feeling it’s because it’s brand new;

it didn’t feel like virtue or fashion statement like an early bikeshare, or even my old Razor scooter. There’s less

room on the frame for the flashy colors that make dockless bikeshare stand out; it even feels a little

camouflaged by design. Personal scooters aren’t nearly as common as bikes; it seems the more this quiet

vehicle says “this is easy” instead of “this is my dork-mobile,” the better its chances for scaling up.

LimeBike is pulling some of its 400 dockless bikes that have been rolling around D.C. since September as part

of a trial by the District’s Department of Transportation. The company says it will replace some of them with

scooters, to somewhere between 50 and 100 by the end of this week. (DDOT confirmed that Waybots, another

scooter-share, is authorized to operate in the city, though they have very few scooters online so far, and haven’t

responded to requests to comment.)

LimeBike doesn’t have useful scooter ridership numbers yet, but its scooter-only competitor, Bird, claims to

have logged about half a million rides on more than a thousand scooters in less than six months of operating in

parts of Los Angeles. A very generous, but admittedly rough estimate would put those scooters at an average of

2.7 rides per day. Compare that to findings by the app Transit that calculated 1.6 daily trips for D.C.’s dockless

bikes, or 5.3 daily rides for Capital Bikeshare bikes since the dockless trial began. Bird hopes to launch in 50

markets, including Washington, D.C., this year, after raising $100 million on a $300 million valuation.

“We think electric vehicles can help solve this chicken-and-egg problem [of road space], because we know

cities don’t necessarily want to carve out lanes to take away from cars,” says Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden.

“But if we see massive adoption, now there's evidence for cities to make an investment to make more bike lanes

now that there’s another mode. Making dedicated lanes is easier than boring tunnels underground.”

Kubly, who also worked for DDOT back in 2009, says the closest feeling to the current optimism and

skepticism about dockless bikes and scooters was when D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare launched out of the very small

10-station SmartBike pilot.

“I remember a friend saying, ‘No way, those crappy bikes that nobody uses?’” he says. “It might be the same

with the scooters—until you experience it, it’s hard to figure out how big it’s going to be. But once you’re on it

and you realize how fun it is, you think, ‘Why didn't we think of this before?’”

The Electric Scooter War Is No Joke

LAURA BLISS

APR 18, 2018

As Bird, LimeBike, and Spin unleash dockless scooters in new cities, turf battles are breaking out.

Save your battles over affordable housing for another day. There’s a new urban crisis afoot: the scooter.

Not the Razor scooters that kids used to zoom around on, but dockless scooters—the electric, rentable, bitty-

wheeled cousins of the dockless bike. They seem to have first emerged in Santa Monica in September 2017,

when scooter-share startup Bird dispatched hundreds of its motor-assisted, foot-powered black vehicles into

public streets without city permission. Since then, LimeBike, Spin, and other players in the dockless

bikesharing industry have entered the fray, spraying thousands of their own scooters onto the sidewalks of San

Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Washington, D.C., and Austin.

Like their pedal-powered relatives, the scooters are available to book via app and can be parked and picked up

anywhere, thanks to GPS and sensor-enabled technology. And much like the early days of Uber and Lyft, the

out-of-nowhere appearance of these scooters has triggered a backlash from locals in virtually every city.

Meanwhile, the players are competing fiercely for territory.

These battles reached new heights this week. On Monday, LimeBike launched the opening salvo in Austin: It

inserted more than 200 bright-green scooters into public rights-of-way, having sent a sorry-not-sorry letter to

Mayor Steve Adler last week. Previously LimeBike had been negotiating with Adler’s office to launch its

various wares through a city-backed dockless mobility pilot program. But after Bird unleashed its signature

black scooters into the streets earlier this month, and the city responded with only a timid attempt at

enforcement, LimeBike took its gloves off.

“It is now apparent that our competitor will be allowed to operate without any significant repercussions,”

LimeBike CEO and founder Tony Sun said in the letter, which also referenced Bird’s controversial arrival in

Santa Monica. After the city attorney’s office accused the company of failing to obtain a proper business

license, the city took Bird to criminal court and eventually settled for $300,000. “[W]e are considering our next

steps as a company if the City of Austin is unable to vigorously enforce its dock-free mobility policies,” Sun

wrote.

The same day, scooter-rage reached fever pitch in San Francisco. There, the city attorney’s office issued a

cease-and-desist order against LimeBike, Spin and Bird for routinely breaking the law and “endangering public

health and safety," following a mess of complaints from residents about disorganized parking and hazardous

sidewalk usage, epitomized by a hashtag befitting of this fraught political moment: #ScootersBehavingBadly.

The scooters aren’t actually banned in San Francisco—the city has given the three companies until April 30 to

submit plans for how they’ll straighten out. But that didn’t stop a major scooter-share investor from penning an

op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle accusing the city supervisor who is pushing to regulate the new mode with

“refus[ing] to embrace the changes necessary for our city to reach our climate goals.”

Followers of the earlier emergence of shared mobility modes such as ride-hailing and dockless bikes may detect

a pattern here. San Francisco had previously asked that electric scooter companies hold off on launching

services until a new scooter-permitting process was completed. Bird disobeyed that request when it deployed

scooters in the Bay Area in late March (though LimeBike had arrived a few days prior).* Announcing the

launch, Bird also challenged its competitors to match its “Save Our Sidewalks” corporate pledge, in which the

company promises to organize scooters at the end of the day, remove underutilized vehicles, and remit some

revenue to the city to support bike lanes and other scooter-friendly infrastructure.

A few days later, San Francisco-based rival Spin released a handful of its own dockless scooters, and its CEO,

Euwyn Poon, responded to Bird’s pledge on Medium. “Our competitors’ recent overtures, including a recent

‘Save our Sidewalks’ campaign, come off as insincere given recent criminal complaints and settlements,” he

wrote. “Unlike the other operators, we reached out to the appropriate stakeholders before operating in San

Francisco.” But, as LimeBike did in Austin, Spin followed Bird’s lead and started operating in the Bay.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Bird is the most aggressive in the pack—its CEO Travis VanderZanden was

formerly an executive at both Uber and Lyft, and it has $100 million in Series B funding to pursue its vision of

deploying scooters and scooters alone in 50 U.S. cities. Its competitors, meanwhile, are more focused on bikes.

Following the Uber-esque business ethos of move-first-apologize-later, Bird is essentially forcing its rivals to

enter cities faster than they might have otherwise. It’s classic tech industry hubris.

But the upside to the “micromobility wars,” as lawyer-writer Jim McPherson recently dubbed this multi-city e-

scooter standoff, is that it seems to force local regulators to move a little faster. After Bird settled with Santa

Monica earlier this year, the city issued a stopgap emergency ordinance legalizing the scooters under certain

conditions. Now, both San Francisco and Austin are hustling to update codes and regulate the new mode.

Yesterday, San Francisco city officials heard proposed legislation that would permit scooter companies and

enforce laws around parking and usage. And Austin authorities are feeling the pressure: “In order to forestall a

predictable and unmanageable swamping of our streets with thousands of vehicles, (the department)

recommends a more nimble response than our previously expressed pilot time frame,” Austin’s transportation

department director said in a memo to city council on Monday.

That would seem to be a good thing—like their bicycle brethren and unlike their ride-hailing predecessors,

electric scooters have the potential to replace trips that might otherwise be made in cars. Cities that want to cut

down on vehicle miles and emissions should encourage them, not shut them down. No wonder

#ScootersBehavingBadly has already created its own backlash, complete with counter-hashtags,

from pedestrian and cycling advocates (and certain faux anti-urbanists). They argue that scooter crackdowns are

a distraction from the real threat to street safety: #CarsKillingPeople and #CarsAreTheProblem.

Whether they are saviors or sidewalk menaces, dockless bikes, scooters, and other micromobility modes may

face a very uncertain future once the venture capital that funds them runs out. The scooters are considerably

pricier to rent than bikes, which rent for about $1 per 30 minutes; both Bird, Spin, and LimeBike charge scooter

riders $1 to start and then 15 cents per minute thereafter, which comes to about $10 per hour. That could make

for a profitable business model, especially once it’s legalized. But there are many questions about how well

these things actually perform at their mobility tasks. Compared to bicycles, they are limited in their range and

speed: On a full charge, the maximum range of Bird scooters is just 15 miles (other companies seem to go a

little further), and have a claimed top speed of 15 mph. It’s too soon to say whether that’s quick and efficient

enough to sustain “last-mile electric vehicle sharing,” as Bird describes it services.

For now, perhaps the scooter’s moment in the limelight of urban turf wars should be savored for the levity it

brings to the news, compared to the national and international political scene. There are much graver battles

happening between private interests and public good, and indeed other scooters to indict. “Apparently Bird, or

LimeBike, or both, misinterpreted Trump’s order last week pardoning scooters. Or perhaps I’m

confused,” quipped Ben Wear, a transportation reporter for the American-Statesman in Austin. A city can

dream.

*CORRECTION: Bird representatives maintain that the company was in touch with Austin officials prior to

launching there, and that operations in Santa Monica were in fact legal, contrary to a previous version of this

article. Also, Santa Monica officials filed a criminal complaint, not a cease-and-desist order, against Bird.

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page B01

Monday, 7 May 2018

Press and Sun-Bulletin | Page B01

Tuesday, 8 May 2018

Perils of walking in USA increase

Study: Pedestrians die in greater numbers than terrorism, war fatalities

Eric D. Lawrence, Chris Woodyard, Zlati Meyer and Kristi Tanner

USA TODAY NETWORK

Pedestrian fatalities in the USA have skyrocketed 46% since 2009, creating a public health crisis as researchers try to understand the reasons.

The increases far outpace hikes and other traffic-related deaths, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Almost 6,000 pedestrians — people who might have been out for a walk after dinner, hurrying to get to work or rushing to cross a street — were killed by motor vehicles on or along America’s roads in 2016, the latest year for which numbers are available. That’s almost twice the number of deaths tied directly to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and more Americans have died as they walked than died in combat in Iraq each year since 2003.

Distraction behind the wheel, texting while walking and even marijuana legalization have been tagged as potential culprits in research.

A study released Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggests at least part of the blame rests with Americans’ increasing love of SUVs. The study shows an 81% increase in the number of SUVs involved in single-vehicle pedestrian fatalities from 2009 to 2016.

David Harkey, Insurance Institute president, said one reason SUVs have an outsized impact on pedestrian fatalities has to do with their design.

“SUVs have higher front ends, and often the design for the vehicle is much more vertical than passenger cars,” Harkey said. “We do think that the number of SUVs on the roadways now and the size of the vehicles is playing some role.”

Pedestrian fatalities reached 5,987 in 2016, the highest level since George H.W. Bush was in the White House.

Nationally, more pedestrians die in collisions when they are crossing at points other than intersections along busy arterial roads. More of those fatalities occur at night and involve males. Many of the crashes involve alcohol, though federal safety researchers said that does not explain the increase. In 2016, pedestrians accounted for 16% of traffic deaths; in 2007, that figure was 11%, according to the NHTSA.

“There’s a lot of unknowns in this space right now,” said Jana Lynott, a senior strategic policy adviser with the AARP Public Policy Institute.

The crisis is felt most keenly in America’s cities. The highest rankings in 2016 among cities with more than 200,000 people were not just in older industrial centers such as St. Louis and Newark but also in Sun Belt cities such as Phoenix, Baton Rouge and Miami.

In Detroit, which had the highest rate among larger cities, nearly a quarter of the 118 people who died in traffic crashes in 2016 were pedestrians. Despite its ranking, the city saw improvement in its fatality numbers in 2016, which dropped after 65,000 streetlights were installed over a three-year period. Officials hope an

aggressive sidewalk improvement plan — the city intends to replace 125,000 sidewalk slabs in the next few years — keeps more pedestrians out of the street.

The NHTSA began a major examination into the effect of personal electronics device usage on pedestrian deaths. That process could help clarify the role that distraction, particularly connected to cellphone use, plays in pedestrian fatalities. The NHTSA said no studies show “a direct link between the behavioral effects of distraction and pedestrian crash risk,” but distraction- affected motor vehicle crashes lead to many deaths and injuries.

Targeting drivers

In 2017, 101 pedestrians were killed in New York City, the lowest the number has been since the city began keeping that statistic in 1910. The number has dropped 45% since Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was elected in 2014, implemented a strategy called Vision Zero, a multiagency effort that uses engineering, education and enforcement. Compare that with the 184 pedestrian deaths in 2013.

The city began redesigning the roadways, using methods including installing plastic lane bollards to prevent drivers from making sudden, sharp left turns and tweaking walk/ don’t walk signs to change before the traffic lights do to give pedestrians several extra seconds of crossing time.

The city has spent more than $700 million since 2014 and has $1.6 billion allocated to use through the summer of 2022, according to the New York City DOT.

In Los Angeles, the focus is on making streets safer. After identifying the corridors that have the highest number of deaths, the team went about finding solutions.

Some intersections, for instance, were given “walk” signals that activate before the main traffic light turns green. That way, drivers see pedestrians in their field of vision. Crosswalks are being made more visible “If we can design our streets to protect our most vulnerable users, we can create a better environment for everybody,” said Nat Gale, program manager for Los Angeles’ Vision Zero program, noting the high number of pedestrian fatalities. “What we find is our walkers are overrepresented. They represent 15% of traffic collisions, but half of deaths.” The city also has more “scramble crosswalks,” where intersections are closed to cars entirely so pedestrians can cross however they’d like.

“We do think the number of SUVs and the size of the vehicles is playing some role.”

David Harkey

Insurance Institute president