Take The Lane

It's only a bike

Those four little words that so irritate cyclists are the subject of this column of opinion in the Cambridge Times this week.

"It's only a bike." Tom Speed had been cut off by a minivan and went over the handlebars, landing hard and requiring a trip to Cambridge Memorial Hospital. The driver stopped and gave him the necessary information -- name, address etc -- which turned out to be false. Speed then called the police, where a constable apparently said those four little words: "It's only a bike."

It is the most curious thing that riding a bike somehow sets us apart from the conventions of the street. If a pedestrian had been knocked over by a minivan in Cambridge, the police would have issued warnings about pedestrian safety and called for witnesses to call the Tips line. If a car had been struck by a minivan, there's an accident reporting centre for the minor ones and the police show up with tape and cameras for the big ones, all to satisfy the requirements of the Highway Traffic Act, the Criminal Code and the machinery of the auto insurance industry.

But a cyclist goes down, and what is the law enforcement response? If the cyclist is dead, often the only witness is the motorist, who is invariably remorseful and totally surprised that this cyclist "came from out of nowhere." If the cyclist is alive, the response is often something similar to what Tom Speed experienced, or at least that is what I have heard from too many cyclists. The cyclist is treated like a clumsy road user who somehow got in the way and has been hurt. The investigation seems to be focused on what the cyclist did wrong that allowed the incident to happen. And the loss of the bike itself is inconsequential, akin to a ripped pair of jeans.

It's not always that way. I know there are bike-riding police out there who understand a bit of the roles and responsibilities of all road users. But I wonder sometimes if it is just that, like so many motorists who don't now how to respond to these two-wheeled road users, there are some police who don't have the training or experience with cycling accidents to know how to respond. Not a car, not a pedestrian. Oh, it's just a bicycle.

Montreal bike-sharing firm scores big Euro-deal

A homegrown bicycle-share company may do better abroad than it does in Canada.

Bixi is the street-side persona of the Public Bike System Co., which is an offshoot of Montreal's public parking authority. According to this article in the Montreal Gazette, Bixi is about to launch a 6,000-bike Bixi fleet in London. Yeah, the one in England.

The Record wrote about the Bixi experiment coming to Waterloo back in May, when RIM jumped in, being the first company to try the program. Bixi tends to deal with municipalities, and has operations in Washington, D.C., Washington state, Australia, Minnesota and soon, Toronto.

The London venture would be Bixi's biggest client yet, bigger even than its home turf of Montreal. It would be ironic if a Canadian bicycle-sharing company wound up being more successful abroad than it is in its home country, but that's the way things go sometimes. I bumped into the Bixi team at Velo-city Global 2010 in Copenhagen last month, and there was considerable interest from bicycle advocates and municipal planners from around the world.

Go, Bixi.

Risks of bicycle injury, nicely argued

Whether you are pro-helmet or anti-helmet, you will find some solid thinking in this blog post from Brian Schreurs in his blog, O Pine.

He crunched fatality and injury numbers (U.S. statistics) to find the risk of fatality and injury from various modes of transportation (largely driving, motorbiking, bicycling, walking, although horseback riding is in one of the comparisons) and found that cycling is essentially as inherently "dangerous" as walking. Good news for helmet-makers, he says, who will just have to convince legislators to make helmets mandatory for pedestrians.

These are global numbers, of course and in one of his "Cave drawings" responses, he agrees that the rationale behind helmets should be risk. Flat neighbourhood spin with the kids: low risk. Downtown, at-speed cycle commuting: big risk.

The anti-nanny helmet objectors might say that this is all the more reason to oppose helmet laws, since helmet wearing should be done at the discretion of the rider. I suppose you could say the same about seat belt laws. Going to the corner store for milk: no seat belt. On the freeway: seatbelt. (Of course, if you are going to the corner store for milk, you should walk or ride...)

And the problem with letting people make their own decisions is that the impact of their decisions falls on the rest of us. Now that America has health care, and the cost of someone's personal decision may have to be carried by everyone else, perhaps there will be more pro-nanny arguments.

National census doubles questions relating to cycling

It's easy to say that the new national census form has doubled the number of questions related to cycling, because up to now, the "long form" only asked one.

In a recent post, I lamented that with the demise of the mandatory long form, there would be no certain national counting of cyclists. The Statistics Canada people sent me the old long form and the new, voluntary National Household Survey, and indeed, there really was only one question on the old mandatory form: No. 47 -- How did this person usually get to work? The options were: Car, truck or van - as driver; Car, truck or van - as passenger; Public transit (bus, street-car, subway, light rail transit, commuter train ferry); Walked to work; Bicycle; Motorcycle, Taxicab; Other method.

On the new voluntary form, there are two questions: No. 47 -- Where the category for "Car, truck or van" is now parsed into sole occupant, two occupants or three or more; where the question about "Public transit" is now subdivided into four groups (Bus; Subway or elevated rail; Light rail, streetcar or commuter train; Passenger ferry); and where the "Motorcycle" category has had scooter or moped added; and No. 48, which has two parts: What time did this person usually leave home to go to work? and How many minutes did it usually take this person to get home from work?

Obviously, commute times are of interest, and esp. of interest to transportation planners across the country who will use this information to plan transportation options in their communities.

Too bad this form is voluntary. You can bet that infrastructure gurus are cursing the feds for the missed opportunity. Numbers win battles in council chambers.

Cycle tourist killed in Quebec

A 56-year-old man believed to be from California was killed Wednesday when he and his wife were hit from behind by a motorhome while participating in a long-distance group ride.

The Toronto Sun has a pretty good report here, but in brief, the couple was part of a group of 20 riders in a hilly area northeast of Quebec City, returning from a trip to the eastern townships. They were turning left when the motorhome slammed into them. The man's wife escaped with minor injuries.

The driver said the crash was "unavoidable," but we'll have to wait to see what the police report says.

Cheap loaner bikes appear around the world

Municipalities everywhere seem to be looking at cheap "loaner" bicycles as a key to bringing people into their downtowns.

Check this article in the Daily Yomiuri Online, about the various municipalities in Japan that are tapping into the bicycle rental market to serve tourists and businesspersons.

For example, the relatively small (for Japan) municipality of Maebashi (pop. 325,000) is boosting its bicycle rental fleet to 46 from the previous 16, to attract tourists. The rental charge is a flat daily rate of 200 yen, about $2.40 Cdn. Since the rental station is open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., it could be the best transportation bargain in Japan, where a prepaid commuter rail card can start at 1,000 yen and go up to 20,000 yen.

Compare that daily rate with the expected charges for the Bixi system that is coming to Toronto. You'll pay $95 for an annual Bixi membership, and can ride up to 30 minutes per Bixi use for no extra charge. From 30 minutes to 60 minutes will cost you $1.50, and keeping the Bixi up to 90 minutes costs $3.
Not sure what a daily rate would be, but for the average bicycle user, the Bixi system should still be a bargain.

The membership campaign kicks off Wednesday night at the Gladstone Hotel at 1214 Queen St. W., Toronto. The Bixi folks hope to attract 1,000 committed users by November to make the thing work. If all goes well, Bixi will be launched in 2011. If the users aren't there, the plan could stall or die.

Even the Autobahn can be closed for bicycles

Whenever I talk about cycling in Europe, the response is something like: "Oh sure, they cycle all over the cities, but look at the autobahns: full of cars and no speed limits."

OK, you might have liked to look at the A40 on Sunday, July 18. Bundesautobahn 40 was turned into the world's longest bicycle museum, a 60-kilometre stretch of the A40 that was called "Woodstock on wheels" by the European Cyclists Federation.

The north side of the highway was full of tented displays and presentations, while the south half of the highway was filled with non-motorized transport (largely, bicycle). More than a million people came out (well in excess of the 350,000 expected) to look at displays about bicycles, talk about bicycles and ride bicycles.

Check out the ECF report here, where there are more links (for which knowing German would be an advantage) about the event.

They should do this more often.

Died on a ride, #9 2010

Vars. Toronto media are reporting that a 66-year-old man was killed while riding his bicycle Monday night around 10 p.m.

The incident occurred in the Markham end of the city, east of Woodbine. Police said the victim was southbound  when he was struck by a northbound van that was turning left. From all reports, he was dead at the scene.

Texting while cycling can be dangerous

The following story from The Canadian Press should be required reading for everyone with a bicycle and a cellphone (or BlackBerry).

OWEN SOUND, Ont. — You've heard about the dangers of texting behind the wheel — here's a case of texting behind the handlebars.

Police in Owen Sound, Ont., say a 16-year-old boy was texting on his cellphone while riding a bicycle Sunday morning. The boy — who wasn't wearing a helmet — hit the rear of a parked vehicle and was ejected from his bike, striking and smashing the vehicle's rear window.

Police spokesman Stephen MacKinnon said it's the first time police have seen a case of texting while biking. "This is the first time I've heard of somebody being so enthralled in texting that they've actually lost control, and weren't watching where they're going and hit a parked car," he said.

Insp. MacKinnon said the boy was treated at hospital for some scratches and was released. But the errant rider is being charged with careless driving.

"There's a place for texting, but not when you're on the move," MacKinnon said. He added walking while texting is also dangerous. "You need to be careful and have your wits about you and what you're doing, because you can walk into things as well as ride into things," MacKinnon said.

Now, one of my colleagues was mightily surprised that the cyclist could be charged with careless driving while on a bicycle.

And it bears repeating: Cyclists in Ontario are subject to the Highway Traffic Act. While laws regarding drinking and driving, and speeding are written specifically for motor vehicles, a solid chunk of the HTA applies to all vehicles, including bicycles. You can be charged for careless driving, for riding on closed highways, for not obeying signs and signals, and for not yielding the right of way to a pedestrian or person in a wheelchair, among many others.

Maybe Lance Armstrong can double-thumb his BlackBerry while tooling around Waterloo Region on the Ride with Lance, but don't try this on city streets, kids.

Ditch your clunker and save $490 on your next bike

Want to save up to $490 on a high-end commuter bicycle? Then ditch your clunker.

The Retire Your Ride program is a national undertaking to get cars, model years 1995 or older that are still running, off the road and replace them with more fuel-efficient means of transportation. That could be a newer car, membership in a car-share program, a transit pass, cash or a deep discount on a new bike. 

The program is funded by the feds and run by Summerhill Impact (which used to be the Clean Air Foundation). Environment Canada and the Automotive Recyclers of Canada set guidelines for the safe recycling or disposal of the clunkers and their parts.

It's pretty simple: you contact Retire Your Ride here, or in Ontario, call 1-877-773-1996 and prepare to retire a still-running vehicle that you have owned and insured for the previous six months.Your "ride" is claimed and you collect your "reward."

So far, Retire Your Ride has accounted for 83,368 vehicles taken off the road across  Canada, including 36,602 in Ontario.

Not surprisingly, the Number One choice for participants is the cash option: $300. Nationally, only 1,465 people have opted for bikes, including 115 people in Ontario. Perhaps not surprisingly, the national conversion to bicycle rate is 1.7 per cent, about the average percentage of people using bikes in urban areas. But the Ontario numbers are abysmal: 0.3 per cent of Ontarians ditching their clunkers chose the green cycling reward.

People! Do the math. The minimum discount on a new bicycle is $350. Buy an "affordable" commuter bike and you're still fifty bucks ahead. Buy a decent bike and get a $490 discount. Name brands that are a part of the program include: Devinci, Jamis, Marin, Norco, Opus, Rocky Mountain and Specialized. Pretty decent lineup. 

In Waterloo Region, McPhail's Cycle and Sports, in Waterloo, is the retail partner with Retire Your Ride. Have a look at their bikes and then imagine ditching your clunker for a summer of fun riding.

The program began in January 2009, and runs to the end of March 2011. Still plenty of time to get on board.