Maybe Mr. Ravenstahl could get someone out there to paint the bike lanes, and they could film that. What good press that would be!
Streetfilms showing at Bike Pittsburgh Office Wed. night, 7pm
If you're not familiar with the work of Streetfilms, now is an excellent time to start watching their ~200 short films about livable streets all over the world. Their work has proven incredibly useful when demonstrating to public officials the benefits of many of the changes that we work towards.
If you have ideas of things that we must show off, please let me know!
Seriously. Here is an opportunity for Luke to appear that he gets it.
Show them the pot holes below the Liberty Ave sharrows!
Seriously though, the Market Square redesign and perhaps the work on the trails that is being done, including the Mon Wharf which still needs connecting.
Up on the incline and down Sycamore.
Me getting almost run over daily biking through the sharrows on Liberty,
Perfect time for one of those nekked rides... Joe, point of contact?
My finger is firmly on the tip of my nose.
Not it.
I highly recommend checking out this video to see how New York has been transformed in just a few short years when there is a political will.
http://www.streetfilms.org/mapping-your-nyc-bike-commute/
We could have this in Pittsburgh some day not too far in the future!
I don't like using NY as a model.
Or Portland.
We should be able to do better.
A brief reprise of the Dress Ride, just for the cameras? Nobody else has done this! (I don't think...)
I think, in November, I'd rather ride in a dress than nekkid.
Mounting bike on an outbound 8 Perrysville, followed by plummeting down Federal (at the speed limit). Or a 4 Troy Hill. The idea being, it really is a Pittsburgh thing to have a bike and live at the top of a huge hill. If you don't feel like pedaling up, the bus can get you there. Then you go wheeeeeeeeee!! down the hill in the morning.
hey, I do that, only with the 48, and arlington/josephine streets. I'm sure there's plenty others, we could get lots of examples of it.
I didn't post that video so we can try to become New York or Portland. But they have incorporated very diverse bicycling infrastructure and I think seeing it in action is more valuable than reading that "separated bike facilities" would be great.
In order to do better, we will need the serious political will that Portland and NY have been able to put towards bike infrastructure.
In order to do better, we need the judgment, expertise, and caution to do bike infrastructure *right* instead of simply asserting that "anything is better than nothing" because "separated bike facilities attract cyclists" and "more cyclists makes everything better for everyone".
And we need advocates who will be honest about the pros and cons of various designs and won't lie about the numbers the way New York's advocates do.
I certainly don't think that anything is better than nothing!
I do feel and am much safer when separated from motor vehicles. If we plan our lanes so that we're not sandwiched between speeding cars and parked (and parking) cars, so that we have a barrier that's more than just paint on the road, we will be safer.
I'm concerned with people being able to safely and confidently choose bikes for transportation. Anyone and everyone, not just people who are bold and experienced cyclists.
I heard someone say recently that she'd been hit by a car, that everyone she knows has been hit by a car and it's something you should expect if you ride a bike. I do not accept that. I have also been hit by a car and it's not something that I hope to have happen again. I want to ride my bike always and I want to be able to do it with limited risk of injury or death to myself or others.
Expect to get hit by a car? That's completely nuts. I've never been hit by a car, and my expectation is that I will never be hit by a car, so that's how I ride. I don't ride sidewalks, I don't go out of my way to ride trails, and even IF there are separated bike lanes, there will be occasions when I will choose to ride in the road, but I wouldn't begrudge people those options. But to expect to be hit? I am flabbergasted.
hmm the expect to get hit by a car saying sounds like a co-opted version of the motorcycle saying that a motorcyclist that hasn't had an accident is a motorcyclist hasn't had an accident YET. It will happen, or so they told me when I took my course.
Of the 140 million registered passenger vehicles in the US, about 10 million each year are involved in an accident serious enough to get a police report. So in a car you can expect to be in such an accident about once every 14 years.
Cyclists account for 2% of all traffic injuries and 2% of all traffic fatalities. If total cycling is less than 2% of all traffic (which seems likely), that suggests a typical cyclist gets in an accident requiring a police report more frequently than once every 14 years. About 0.5% of commuting is by bike, and if that's representative of how much traffic is bikes, I think that means the average cyclist gets in a crash requiring a police report every 3-4 years.
Of course that average includes cyclists with a wide variety of different safety behaviors, so a particular individual's risk will vary.
I really don't think Market Square merits a video.
We'll be showing a bunch of different short films for about 30 minutes tomorrow night (Wed. November 10) at 7pm (3410 Penn Ave, upstairs/back) Then Clarence Eckerson who made most of them will talk for a few minutes, we'll have q&a and discussion.
There will be the opportunity to watch more after if people are interested.
This will be very informal. BYOF&B&F (friends, beer, food)... and if you have any portable chairs, pillows, etc, bring those too. We have about 15-20 chairs, a love sac (really a huge huge beanbag) and a hardwood floor.
(edited for location)
Where is the viewing?
Sorry about that, I had just changed it in the title. It's at the Bike Pittsburgh office in Lawrenceville. We'll be upstairs / back, where we normally have volunteer night.
Don't miss this tonight!
And.... yet another post from me on this subject.
If you're planning on coming tonight, please come around the back entrance (off 34th St) and lock your bike to the valet rack.
Unfortunately, I will have to miss the screening. Hope all goes well. Great to have Clarence in Pittsburgh, and to have Pittsburgh join the (once again) the list of cities where biking is happening.