Feeling a Breeze on One’s Face at Any Age

The January StrongTowns/Urban3 visit to the North Bay, along with a concurrent webinar on blogging hosted by the StrongTowns folks holding down the Minnesota office, helped introduce me to other urbanist bloggers in Northern California.  Using the momentum from the events, I’ve exchanged business cards, emails, and lunch invitations with bloggers tackling the same subjects as me in the same region, although each with a different perspective.

My favorite connection was lunch with Cheryl Longinotti from Corte Madera.  Although not yet publishing, Longinotti was considering a bicycling blog, including the land-use and transportation issues consistent with a bicycling lifestyle.  Of course, I encouraged her, but we also conversed about other life and urbanist interests.

She joined me in having a degree from the University of California, leaving about the time I arrived.  She was a member of the women’s basketball team, back in the dark ages of women’s sports.  I enjoyed her story of walking into Haas Pavilion for a recent, well-attended women’s basketball game, complete with cheerleaders, and realizing with a rush of emotion how far women’s sports had come since her day.  She also felt a little pride at having helped lay the foundation.

But she really glowed when she spoke about Ole Kassow, a Dane who brought a new concept to bicycling.  As she told the story, Kassow would bike past a senior facility every day, where he noted the extended looks that some residents would give him.  He came to understand that the observers had been bicyclists during their active lives, but were now relegated to the sidelines by age.  Their looks were conveying the envy they felt in watching others still feeling the wind in their faces.

Seeing an opportunity to build bridges, Kassow invented a vehicle which allowed him, with an occasional boost from a small electric engine, to give rides to senior citizens, letting them again interact with their community from the seat of a moving bicycle.

Finding enthusiasm for his concept and his invention, now called a trishaw, he founded Cycling Without Age and began encouraging others to follow in his tracks.  He’s been successful, creating a community around his idea and bringing Longinotti into the fold.  When we lunched, she was awaiting her trishaw.  She was also scheduling meetings with senior housing managers to talk about taking residents for free rides.

She has since succeeded in putting all the pieces together, recently taking her first riders for outings to rave reviews from her local newspaper.

Some may argue that taking senior citizens on bike rides isn’t urbanism because it doesn’t involve building mixed-use housing or public plazas.  I disagree.  In the words of famed urbanist Jan Gehl, “First life, then spaces, then buildings.  The other way around never works.”  (I discoursed on Gehl’s words several years back.)

Cycling Without Ages is about adding another element to life, one that connects individuals across the boundaries of demographics and age that often separate drivable suburbia.   In Gehl’s formulation, spaces will evolve to accommodate Cycling Without Ages and buildings will evolve to accommodate the spaces.

All of which puts Cycling Without Ages, and Longinotti’s efforts to bring the concept to the North Bay, very much in the mold of urbanism.

I applaud Longinotti for her passion, persistence, and willingness to make a difference.

I recently wrote about how education isn’t an adequate response to pedestrian safety, but how we should instead look to how we design our streets.  The post garnered a range of responses, from silence to fervent concurrence to other street design concepts.  I’ll share more in my next post.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

More on Sandy

During this past summer, I was fascinated by the urban planning aspects of the London Summer Olympics.  The hopes and goals of the Olympic organizers for the post-games use of the venues and the surrounding neighborhoods.  The political and financial aspects of the redevelopment plans.  The looks back at what other Olympic cities had done and the lessons to be learned.  The Olympics offered a surprisingly sharp look at many of the issues that surround urbanism.  I found it difficult to look away.

Hurricane Sandy is much the same, although without the cheering crowds.  The storm damage and the issues around recovery put a spotlight on urbanism in the U.S.  New York City and the North Bay may not have much in common.  But there are lessons to be learned.  And I again find it difficult to look away.

This will be first of several looks back at the aftermath of Sandy and the ongoing reconstruction.  I’ll return every couple of weeks to share a few more links, a few more comments, and a few more thoughts about how the lessons apply to the North Bay.

In an earlier post, I linked an article in which Sarah Goodyear of Atlantic Cities wrote about her involvement with a team that delivered emergency supplies by bicycle after Sandy.  The staff of the Project for Public Places (PPS) had similar experiences, but takes a bigger look at how bicycling commuters fared in the immediate aftermath of Sandy.

The number of bicyclists increased significantly, with the PPS staff pleased that they were already experienced bicycle commuters.  The average time for a bicycle commute increased, but far less than the increase for car commuters.  PPS notes that New York City has an aggressive goal for increased bicycle commuting by 2017 and argues that Sandy proved the need to meet that goal.

Interestingly, one bicyclist noted that the greatest risk in the days after Sandy was motorists.  Frustrated by continuing traffic problems, including traffic signals without power, they were being less heedful of bicyclists than normal.

The successes of bicycling in the days after Hurricane Sandy came with irony.  The oft-delayed BikeShare program, now scheduled to begin in March, may have to be further delayed because Sandy damaged the electronic docking stations. 

Which in turn raises another question.  If the docking stations were damaged while still in their boxes at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, how would they have done if they’d already been deployed throughout Lower Manhattan?  Perhaps there is no way to combine unmanned, electronic bicycle-share stations with possible hurricane flooding, but it would certainly be perverse if the bike-share stations were to be out of service exactly when they’re most needed.

To a lesser extent, the same question of resilience can be asked of North Bay cities.  Napa and Petaluma are probably the best examples, but numerous North Bay cities are subject to downtown flooding.  As we become increasing reliant on electrical and informational grids, what actions are required to ensure that those grids remain available when they’re needed in time of emergency?

This isn’t an argument for suburban or rural development.  As Sandy showed with function returning to Manhattan more quickly than in many outlying areas, urban centers are more capable of resilience.  But resilience doesn’t come without forethought and planning.

Although not as quickly as bicycling, many were surprised by the alacrity with which transit returned to service.  After the damage that occurred, especially in lower part of Manhattan and in the railyards of New Jersey, the recovery was quick.  But the recovery was only partial.  As this article from Atlantic Cities shows, there is much damage still to be repaired. 

Nor was the recovery cheap.  The bills are now coming due and the cost estimates being submitted for the work still to be done.  And the transit agencies are looking for the funds to help with the reconstruction.  I certainly support getting the subways back into safe running condition as quickly as possible.  However, I also support looking hard at what subway rehabilitation costs can be reasonably justified over the long term.

There are undoubtedly some subway officials who are seeing Sandy as an opportunity to redress deferred maintenance using someone else’s dollars.  And there are probably street maintenance supervisors looking to do the same.  But StrongTowns tells us that much infrastructure is economically unsustainable.  A disaster is no reason to forget that lesson.  Instead, disaster recovery might be an opportunity to start reconfiguring in a more economically sustainable manner.

Someday soon, the same opportunity to look at the financial sustainability of infrastructure will present itself in the North Bay.

Finally, a look at the issues underlying how we make decisions about resilience.  Writing for Project Syndicate, Michael Spence notes that democracies often systematically underinvest in the resilience needed to survive major catastrophes.  He notes that the problem lays in the principal-agent problem.  Our agents, who are our elected officials, may grasp the need for additional resilience, but the principals, who are us collectively represented at the ballot box, don’t have the same understanding and are unwilling to reelect officials who argue for resilience.

Fellow Project Syndicate writer Ian Buruma, doesn’t disagree, but notes the democracies are still better than tyrannies at long-range planning.

The combined wisdom, with which I agree, is that democracies are the best option, but what is really needed is the willingness to reelect officials who have the courage to give us bad news.

I’ll close by noting that the bad news needn’t be limited to the need for more infrastructure resilience.  It can also be a warning that drivable suburbia is increasingly unsustainable and heading for obsolescence.  Indeed, the two are often related.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

 

A Day of Leftovers

Over the past couple of months, I’ve established a practice of including “Follow-Ups and Schedule Notes” into my midweek posts.  On the follow-ups, good commentary by others always seems to appear on my desk shortly after I thought I’d finished covering a subject.  And I feel obligated to share.

 My midweek additions will definitely continue.  And right now I seem to have a superfluity of follow-up material.  It seems fitting to share this cornucopia of links and tweets on a day when many of us remain in a turkey coma.

I’ve previous quoted Vancouver urbanism consultant Brent Toderian on other subjects, including the complexity of cities and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.  This time, he weighs in with a tweet about bicycling.  “In Copenhagen, people cycle because it’s convenient, not because it's green, healthy, or cheap.”

What a vision!  Rather than arguing that more people should be on bicycles, just make it the most convenient option and let people make their own decisions.  We’re a long ways from achieving that vision, but it’s an inspirational destination to target.

Also on bicycling, the tumult in Toronto over the removal of the Jarvis bicycle lane continues.  As the scraping of the painted bicycle lane markings commenced, local bicycle advocates took to sitting in the street to obstruct the city operation.  There are more photos here.  At least one protester was arrested. 

To further muddy the waters, the City of Toronto began to install parking meters on what was supposed to be a fifth lane for car travel, resulting in this humorous piece by SpacingToronto.

Still on bicycling, Sarah Goodyear of Atlantic Cities writes about a new book on how to help your friends become more comfortable with bicycling.  To note the extent of hurdles to be overcome, New York City resident Goodyear writes about how she offered the use of a bicycle to her friends in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when bicycling was the only way around town for many.  No friends accepted her offer.

Also on bicycling, many new apartment buildings in Denver are including bicycle repair rooms.  And the amenities aren’t limited to benches and tools.  Also offered are energy bars and bicycling maps.  One project is even offering a free bicycle to anyone who signs a one-year lease.

Here in the North Bay, a rash of road rage incidents directed against bicyclists, including an almost incomprehensible incident of an elderly driver chasing a bicyclist onto a golf course before finally striking him, has prompted the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to consider stronger ordinances to protect bicyclists.  Coverage is provided by both the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat and the Petaluma Patch.

Meanwhile, Sebastopol began their own process to adopt an ordinance protecting all “vulnerable road users”, including bicyclists, pedestrians, and  joggers.

Finishing with bicycles, you may enjoy this newest entry from New Zealand in the weird bicycle category.  I absolutely appreciate the creativity, but the Yike Bike just seems to offers too little protection to the bicyclist in real traffic situations.  Of course, I once thought the same about driving Smart Cars at freeway speeds.  I’ve now grown accustomed to seeing them in the next lane.

Another thing the electric Yike Bike does is further blur the line between bicycles and motorcycles.  The day is coming when we’ll need a complete update to how we allocate our roadways.  And it’s likely that cars will lose some of their current prerogatives.

Changing subjects, on several occasions I wrote about the dearth of comments about cities and urbanism during the presidential campaign.  It now seems that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan wanted to speak in urban cores.  His intended topic was poverty.  I think that urbanism would have been a better subject.  But the question was moot because the Romney campaign overruled Ryan’s request.

It’s uncertain that Ryan’s message would have found resonance in the urban centers, but it’s a shame that he wasn’t given a chance to try.  Especially because it might have forced the Obama campaign to respond, pushing urbanism closer to the spotlight.

I’ll close with Venice.  I spent two weeks there in 2007 and fervently hope to return.  Even setting aside its history, beauty, and uniqueness, it is absolutely the most walkable city in the world.  Not because it’s easy to walk there, but because there are few alternatives.

With that said, it’s hard to look at the photos of Venice during the recent extreme “acqua alta”.  During my stay there, I saw a small acqua alta late in my visit, around which a wedding couple had to stage their picture taking in the photo above.  But it was nowhere near as high as the recent event.

I mention this not because my affection for Venice, although I do someday intend to recount my Venetian stay in this blog, but because of the debate over the cause of the increasingly high acqua altas.  There is little doubt that Venice is subsiding.  Indeed, the entire region around Venice is sinking at about one millimeter per year.  There is also little doubt that higher water levels in the Adriatic are also part of the increased incursion of the sea into Venice.

And yet some argue that as long as one cause, the subsidence, can be identified, then no other cause, such as climate change, is valid.  It’s an absurd argument, one that is contradicted by the most casual observation of many natural, political, and economic phenomena.  Many occurrences in the real world have multiple contributing and often mutually-reinforcing causes.  And yet the idea of a solitary cause is often passed off as logical on the internet.  Just like urbanism, reality is complex.  We must embrace complexity, not pretend it doesn’t exist.

Closing Note: My first blog post was published on the Monday after Thanksgiving 2011.  So, today concludes my first year.  After fifty-two weeks of three posts per week, I still have a long list of topics about which to ruminate, to share, and to listen to your thoughts.  It’s been a great start, but it’s only been a start.  There are many more miles to cover before I sleep.

It sometimes seems as if progress on urbanism in the U.S. is a Sisyphean task.  But inspired by the readership of this blog that has been slowly but steadily increasing, I intend to keep pushing on the boulder.  Besides, in the words of anthropologist Margaret Meade, “Can a small group of people make a difference?  It's the only thing that ever has.”

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Halloween is More Fun in Town

After four posts on bicycling, I’ll give the subject a hiatus for a post or two.  But I’ll return with concluding thoughts on some of the directions that bicycling might be taking.

In place of bicycling, I’ll pay homage to the season and to the holiday.  My favorite blogger, Kaid Benfield of the National Resources Defense Council offers a photographic paean to cities in autumn.  I can’t argue that the colors of fall look better in a city than on a Vermont hillside, but an orange-leafed tree silhouetted against a brick building or a walk through a leaf-littered park is a fine accompaniment to everyday life.

My photos are of Chico, California in late autumn.  I was spending a Thanksgiving weekend in the charming college town.

Regarding the holiday, Brent Toderian provides his insights about urbanism and Halloween.  He’s right that children are adept at sussing out “door density”.  And I love his thought that children, especially becostumed children, are the indicator species for healthy neighborhoods.  May you live in a neighborhood to which parents from all over town deliver their children for a great Halloween experience.

Follow-Ups and Scheduling Notes

Morristown, Tennessee: Last December, I wrote about what I can only describe as an ill-conceived downtown redevelopment project in Morristown, Tennessee.  I concluded my comments with a request for anyone who had more information to join the conversation.  Last week, after almost ten months, I received a response. 

In the reader’s words, “I happened to find myself in Morristown last spring, and while there I discovered the walkways as well. Curious (horrified?), I went into the nearby antique shop and asked what the deal was.  The clerk explained to me that in 1962 a local creek flooded and wiped out the downtown.  City planners thought it would be clever to build a ‘Skywalk’ (their name for it) as part of the repair efforts.  They also thought that elevating many of the businesses would avoid future flooding disasters.  The clerk also explained that the creek has since been diverted, and is no longer at risk of flooding the downtown.  A much better use of the money than building an elevated downtown if you ask me!”

When I expressed surprise that the structure might date back to the 1960s, my correspondent had additional information.

“As for the construction looking more recent, the shop clerk did make it sound like it had been 'restored' in recent years.  I'm guessing it would've cost more to tear it down?  Never admit defeat?  I don't know.  The whole thing was such a bizarre idea I still don't know what to make of it.”

If the structures have truly been “restored”, I’m dumbfounded.  To me, restoring that failed concept would be akin to taking a submarine down to polish the brass on the Titanic.  It boggles the mind.

My thanks to the reader for the additional information.

Bicycling to School: After recently opining about the miniscule number of students who bicycle to the schools in my neighborhood, I had a mostly enjoyable experience late last week.  While walking an elderly canine member of the household, I spied a group of five bicyclists, perhaps junior high students, racing toward me on the sidewalk.

Although I had a pending cleanup of a deposit that the dog had just made next to the sidewalk, I stepped back, baggie in hand, to await the bicyclists passing.  Four passed uneventfully.  The fifth hit the doggie deposit with both tires, with what I assume was full intent.

Although it made my cleanup more difficult, I took some satisfaction in the knowledge that, with a fenderless bike, it was likely that the rider arrived at school with a distinctive and unpleasant aroma.

It was great to learn that some students still bicycle to school.  It was less great to learn that seventh graders are just as hormone-filled and clueless as when I was a seventh grader.

Petaluma Urban Chat: The next Petaluma Urban Chat will be Tuesday, November 13 at the Aqus Café.  We gather at 5:30.  It’s a loosely organized group with variable attendance.  There’s always room for another chair or two at the table.  Feel free to join us for an unstructured discussion of urbanism, local politics, and whatever other vaguely related topics may be raised.

Urban Chat has selected “Curbside Chat” by StrongTowns.org for their first shared reading.  I anticipate that we’ll begin discussing the booklet in December.  The booklet is available as a free download on the StrongTowns website.  However, if anyone would prefer a hard copy and doesn't like buying ink for a home printer, we can coordinate the printing of multiple copies at a local print shop.  I’d expect something like $8 per copy.  Please let me know if you’re interested.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Are Schools Part of the Bicycling Problem?

The subject under discussion is why bicycle ridership isn’t higher in the U.S.  The low usage of bicycles harms urbanism because bicycling has a far lower impact on urban settings than cars.

In my previous post, I re-introduced a pair of articles by writers who argue that helmet laws are impeding the acceptance of bicycling by making it seem more dangerous that it is.  Their cases are largely anecdotal and not definitively proven, but strong enough that they can’t be readily dismissed.

(Note: It’s possible to simultaneously believe that helmet laws slow the acceptance of bicycling and that helmets provide a safety benefit.  I’m one of those who does exactly that.)

But surely helmet laws aren’t the sole reason for low bicycle ridership.  Starting today, I’ll offer some observations of my own and of others about bicycle use.  Starting with schools and bicycle use by youths. 

My wife and I live on a busy local street that is less than a half-mile from three different public schools, an elementary, a junior high, and a high school.  I asked her how many children she’s seen riding bicycles to school.  She thought it over and then offered “Two or three.”  My observation is about the same.  So between us, we’ve seen no more than six students bicycling to school.  Total.  We’ve lived on this street for over seven years. That is an abysmal rate of acceptance by what could be a prime bike-riding demographic.

Nor was the acceptance rate much better when I was young.  I remember riding a bike to school frequently when I was in fourth and fifth grades, but otherwise not much.  (Admission: I took many rides to and from school because I played the baritone horn.  The baritone is behind only the tuba and string bass as a bike unfriendly instrument.  Yes, I was a band geek.)

In high school, I don’t recall many students at all riding bicycles.  I don’t remember any overt comments, but the general perception of the student body seemed to be that only misfits rode bikes.  Even on days when I knew I had no other option for getting home, I’d take the bus to school and walk home, which was a 2-1/2 mile hike.  In retrospect, it seems crazy, but at the time it seemed the correct decision.  It may have also been the socially acceptable decision among my peers.

It wasn’t that we didn’t have bicycles.  We certainly did.  I remember friends bicycling to my house for fishing expeditions to a nearby river.   I remember joining large groups of friends for long bicycle rides during spring break.  But bicycles were firmly in the category of recreational equipment, not tools of everyday living.

Nor has the situation improved in the forty years since I graduated.  In fact, it has gotten worse.  This story from Bicycling recounts the battle by a Saratoga Springs, New York mother for her son to be allowed to ride his bike to middle school.  It’s a long article that covers a lot of ground, but it provides many solid insights into the state of bicycling in the U.S.

And then there is this report from Atlantic Cities about a Michigan high school that suspended students for engaging in the dangerous practice of riding bicycles to school.

I’m not arguing that the failure of schools to encourage bicycling or the failure of students to adopt bicycling is the reason for the low usage of bicycles in the U.S.  But I do think that the two failures are symptomatic of a bigger problem.   Under-utilized or non-existent bicycle racks at schools are canaries in the mine shaft.   This will provide the topic for my next post.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

The Need for Bicycle Helmets

I occasionally check in on the world of bicycling.  The increasing use of bicycles for everyday tasks can be a key element of successful urbanism.  A recent coincidence led me to check in this week.
 
A reader of this blog recently commented that bicycle helmet laws may inhibit bicycling by making it seem more dangerous than it really is.  It was the first time I’d heard the argument and I was slow to respond.  Which was a good thing because all of a sudden a pair of articles appeared that made the same argument.

Elisabeth Rosenthal, writing in the Sunday New York Times, compares Europe where helmets are required only for children, few adults don helmets, and bicycling is common to North American where helmets are often required for all and bicycling is far less common.

Her key observation is “… many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles.  That means more obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.  And – Catch 22 – a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes is harder to develop a safe bicycling network.”  Rosenthal goes on to quote an Australian researcher who estimates that the benefits of not requiring helmets may outweigh the costs by 20-to-1.

Chris Bruntlett, writing in Hush, makes the same argument and provides further data, including the estimate that annual medical expenses in Australia are increased by $301 million because helmet laws inhibit the health benefits that would result from bike riding.  He contends that helmet laws have been shown to be failures pretty much everywhere.

I’m not a bicyclist and haven’t been one for years.  (Let’s put it this way.  I’ve never worn a bike helmet.)  But I’d like to hear from bicyclists with thoughts on this issue.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)