Take The Lane

Tech conference adds urban ride to agenda

Those who are attending the annual Fluxible conference in Waterloo, and any other interested parties, are welcome to register for a guided bicycle ride through some of the area's cycling infrastructure on Monday, Sept. 16, at 5:30 p.m.

The 12K ride, with several stops to talk about cycling infrastructure, will be led by Darren Kropf, Active Transportation Planning Project Manager for the City of Kitchener.

Interested riders can register here.

Fluxible is the top conference in Canada for those in the tech industry tasked with UX (User Experience) design and implementation. It attracts participants from across the country, partly due to the week-long "festival" nature of the programming, with good food, good music and, this year, some good cycling. Fluxible runs Sept. 16 to 22 at a number of venues in Kitchener and Waterloo.

Are women cyclists more at risk than men from passing vehicles?

Are women on bicycles more likely than men to experience close calls from passing vehicles?

That was one of the questions considered by University of Minnesota research summarized in The Gender Policy Report last week.

Researchers at the university used handlebar-mounted radars to measure the passing distances of vehicles in roughly 3,000 instances, in a variety of cycling infrastructure situations. Anything closer than the 36 inches (0.9 metres) of separation required by Minnesota law between passing motorists and cyclists was termed an "encroachment." In Ontario, the one-metre passing law makes that separation slightly larger, at 39 inches.

Not surprisingly, there were few encroachments in segregated bicycle lanes or clearly marked cycling infrastructure, which provides more data for those planners and cycling advocates pressing for more segregated cycling infrastructure. Passing distances ranged from roughly 60-90 inches (1.5 metres to 2.3 metres). 

Researchers were interested to find that the average passing distance for men was 71 inches (1.8 metres) while for women, it was 68 inches (1.7 metres). That gender difference in the average might seem somewhat slight, but when the instances of actual encroachments were examined — so those are instances when cars passed cyclists with less than a 36-inch separation — 24 of the 33 instances involved female cyclists.

Women are almost four times likely to have a close encounter of the worst kind, than are men.

And you wonder why there seem to be more men on bicycles than women?

 

 

Come have a beer and fries, and talk about cycling

CycleWR is inviting those interested in talking about safe cycling, and those interested in doing something about it, to Arabella Park in Kitchener's Belmont Village on Thursday evening, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

There will be talk about CycleWR's need for volunteers — to do such things as riding with elected officials, creating engaging cycle-centric graphics or flying the CycleWR flag at public events — from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m, and then there's social time for general cycling talk from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

CycleWR is a volunteer-run organization, and every hour or so that you can commit will help move forward CycleWR's agenda for safer cycling in Waterloo Region.

And they have good french fries at Arabella Park. Just saying....

Safer cycling infrastructure means more cyclists

A CBC post notes that the supporters of bicycle infrastructure are using the 10th anniversary of the Burrard Street Bridge bicycle lane in Vancouver, to gently call out those who criticized the project back when it was announced.

I recall Dora's late Aunt Ina, who lived just a few blocks over from the bridge at the time, saying what nonsense a dedicated bicycle lane would be. In her view, the lane would benefit "just a bunch of cyclists" and hinder motorists.

Today, Vancouver officials say the Burrard bike lane is the busiest in North America, with some one million uses every year.

It is worth noting to those who want cycling infrastructure that data, whether gained from observation or from traffic counters, is a very useful tool in arguing for the bicycle-friendly urban adjustments.

One of the quotes in the CBC piece is from Charles Gauthier, President and CEO of the Downtown Business Association, who said, "None of us had a crystal ball back then. . .  We couldn't have predicted how popular cycling would become if you made it safer for people."

Let's see, that was 2009, right? If I remember correctly, cycling advocates and planners from around the world were saying that more people would cycle if they felt safer doing it. Nothing as magical as a crystal ball was needed then, and it's not needed now.

 

Michael Enright is so right about speed and cyclist fatalities

Speed kills. We know it, but while the 42 SARS deaths in the GTA in 2003 resulted in a massive political and medical response, the 42 deaths of Toronto cyclists and pedestrians in 2018 have been greeted with relative indifference, says CBC host and luminary, Michael Enright. Best to listen to him tell the story.

My consumer muscle twitched when I saw these

The brain says No, No, NO, but the first reaction on seeing these programmable bicycle wheelset lights was: I want them!!!

 

 

Take the City of Waterloo streetscape survey — Do it!

The headline says it all. The deadline for taking the City of Waterloo's streetscape survey is Friday, Nov. 30. 

You have a little more than a week to take the survey. So do it, do it, do it!

 

Some good thoughts on wearing bicycle helmets

This National Post video and Ottawa Citizen story make some good points about why one might want to wear a bicycle helmet.

 

Bill's Bicycle Basics: This tip could save your life

This cycling tip could save your life: Look over your left shoulder before you change your position on the road.

You can be turning left, or turning right. You can be changing position in the road to go around a parked delivery truck or other obstacle. You can be changing position in the road as a part of a multi-lane shift.

Every time, check over your left shoulder.

Different programs have even branded the shoulder check.  I'm a CAN-BIKE instructor, and the CAN-BIKE brand is the Lifesaving Shoulder Check (or LSC).

The LSC is a three-part package:

1. A shoulder check to see who or what is behind you, to hopefully make eye contact wit the motorist behind or at least cue the motorist behind that you are looking behind you before you do something.
2. The hand signal.
3. A SECOND shoulder check to ensure it is safe to change position, because circumstances behind a cyclist can change quickly, and the cyclist wants assurance that the negotiation to change position has been acknowledged.

The Cycling Into the Future program, delivered to many Grade 5 students in Waterloo Region, brands the package as the Signal Sandwich: the shoulder check is a slice of bread, the signal is the contents of the sandwich, and the second shoulder check is the second piece of bread.

The province of Ontario's Cycling Skills handbook just refers to Shoulder Checking and Signalling, but in boldface type says, "always shoulder check before signalling to make a turn, and, again, just before making the turn."

It would seem to be a no-brainer. After all, motorists always check their blind spots before changing their position on the road, right? 

Sadly, not. Which leads to collisions.

Those kind of highway scrapes and bruises only damage vehicles. For cyclists, the damage can be much greater. 

I regularly see both student cyclists and apparent road veterans who check over their shoulder once, signal and then begin to change position in the road. 

Some are even changing position or turning as they use their hand signals.

Signal your intentions, not your achievements!

It could save your life.

 

 

 

 

Too-funny public service announcement for cycling safety

Trust the Transport For London authority to have fun with a PSA for cycling safety.