Pedestrian Master Plan: Workshop

The City of Bellingham is working on a Pedestrian Master Plan, and they'd like your input. The first public workshop is coming up:

When: Wed. May 11, 2011 from 5:30 to 7:30
Where: City Council Chambers (210 Lottie St.)

If you can't make the meeting you'll be able to watch the presentation online via Bellingham TV Channel 10 and submit comments online at cob.org/walk.

Source.

Will You Ride With Sophie?

Cascade Bicycle Club has a cute cycling advocacy campaign: "Will you ride with Sophie?" I think it's new.
The video is very well done (if maybe a smidge too long).

Via

Our team is ready to go...

May is nearly upon us, which doesn't leave you much time to find a team for the Team-Up for everybodyBIKE contest (as mentioned previously). If you were hoping we'd join your team, I'm sorry but we're spoken for! Earlier tonight I filled out the team registration form for the team I'm captain of (which includes G.), and the 6 of us are ready to start logging our trips come the 1st.

Maybe I'll see you at the everybodyBIKE Kick Off Reception on Friday at Chuckanut Brewery?

Wet

Today's commute was drips and drops, splashes and splops, rain-down-the-drain, soak-through-your-socks, traffic backed up for blocks...and yet.
And yet.

And yet there were cyclists. Some well-dressed for the weather, prepared for the deluge -- and some not quite so prepared but out in it all the same.

So yay to those out in the weather, who let the rain hit their helmets (and glasses) instead of their windshield. Keep up the good work, us.

(Photo Via)

Trip Chaining

One of the best ways to achieve transportation efficiency is to incorporate the idea of trip chaining into your life.

The basic idea is to run errands only when you've saved up multiple stops such that you can minimize total distance traveled. It works with any mode of transportation. For example:

• Friday I drove 7.5 miles and visited three stores in one trip. Driving to each individually would have been 17.4 miles. I avoided driving 9.9 miles by planning ahead. 

• Saturday I had four stops lined up before I ventured out on my bike. Totally distance traveled was 3.9 miles. Round-trip distance to each would have been 6.8 miles, so I shaved off 2.9 miles.

Even if you don't care about saving money on gas, or reducing your carbon footprint, or avoiding the effort of biking so many miles, trip chaining will still save you time.

Here are some tips on trip chaining from "Drive Less Save More".

And that's the lesson for today.

My Pedaling Career, Part 4: Rock Hard

Bikes played no part in my undergraduate experience. Campus was in an isolated part of a hilly city. It was great for taking walks, but there was no cycling infrastructure and the roads were fast and narrow. I had a car, and that worked for me.

After finishing my undergraduate degree I moved to Bellingham for a few months before heading to grad. school. I had spent breaks here in town, including two summers, but it wasn't until after graduating that I really got to experience the nice urban trail system. Discovering them on foot, I came to desire a bike for better access to more places.

The real catalyst that made me buy a bike was that I was going to graduate school in Seattle and I knew I wouldn't be able to park on campus. Also, I had heard tell of the Burke-Gilman Trail. Miles of nice trail were waiting to be explored by bike. So I went around Bellingham to a few bike shops and found something used, affordable, and good for trails. I ended up with a barely-used Specialized Hardrock, vintage mid-'90's, no suspension. Oddly enough the color scheme was reminiscent of my first cruiser -- two-tone purple & fuchsia that fade into each other. It wasn't on purpose; mostly I just don't care. It was the kind of bike I wanted, and it was pretty close to being the right size for someone as tall as I am.

The Hardrock stickin' it to the Man on the streets of Seattle

Arriving in Seattle I soon learned that their trails, unlike those in Bellingham, are paved. I made sure to buy a bike for the kind of crushed limestone surface we have on trails in Bellingham, but which Seattle apparently doesn't. It wasn't a disaster or anything, as the bike still worked, but the Hardrock ended up being overkill for the riding I was doing.

I found an apartment a mile and half from campus by sidewalk, and biked to school most every day. Driving to campus wasn't an option since I couldn't afford to park there. My car sat around at the apartment for a week or two at time, while my bike was a constant companion. I had a plastic milk crate bungeed to the rear rack, a pair of Apex Defender fenders, and with that setup it was quite the urban assault grocery-getter. I could take the Burke-Gilman from campus to the nearest grocery stores and return home the long way, i.e. the flat route, wobbling along with way too much weight in the back, placed way too high. There were many inadvertent wheelies heading home from the grocery store.

My biggest triumph with the Hardrock was getting confident enough to ride down some of the broad steps on campus. I hadn't ever ridden down steps before, so I felt it was something of an accomplishment.

Probably my proudest moment with the bike was riding to campus on the day of the big Boxing Day snowstorm of 1996. I was scheduled to work at my campus job so I drove back down from Bellingham on the evening of Christmas Day, then woke the next morning to at least 6 inches of snow. My Hardrock was up to the task of plowing through it all, though, and we made it to campus just fine. Unfortunately my boss did not, and he had the key to the lab where I worked. He hadn't come back from vacation in time to miss the snow, and the roads were mostly impassable to cars. So, while I got TO the office just fine, I couldn't get INTO the office. I eventually gave up and had to head back home, snow still piling up around me. But my bike and I had triumphed all the same.

Dec. 26, 1996 -- I biked right up that snowy slope to get to work in the building where the camera is housed.
From http://www.washington.edu/cambots/archive.html

We had a very nice year & a half of grad. school before I finished up and moved back to Bellingham. Then four months later I moved back to Seattle, having landed a job in my field. This time I lived a long way from work, but I was entirely car-free. Most of the time I took the bus to the office, but from time to time I did ride the Specialized some 8 miles each way.

The shortest route from home to work took me along the one unfinished stretch of the Burke-Gilman trail, through the industrial underbelly of Ballard. That stretch is STILL unfinished 13 years later, and cyclists are still riding with trucks and being injured crossing the railroad tracks that slant across the street in a couple locations. It's sad that fears about reduced freight mobility have as their consequence real injuries to individuals.

At least there's a warning sign and some sharrows now.
From http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2012187424_pacificpburke11.html

After a year and a quarter with this commuting solution, my office moved to a new location about a mile closer to home. The new place was much simpler to bike to, but extremely difficult to bus to. The whole situation just wasn't working, so I moved.

The place I moved to was two miles from work by foot, or at least 2.75 miles by bike. The difference was due to shortcuts involving parks and stairs -- the route was a hilly one. My bike was too heavy to carry up and down the extraordinarily long sets of stairs on my route so I'd have to pedal a substantially longer way. In heavy Seattle traffic. With wicked grades. I could bike to work in 12 minutes flat, but biking home would take me 40 minutes. Walking took just under 25 minutes either way. The buses were every bit as inconsistent as biking, so I tended to hoof it.

Denny Way: fun to sled down; not fun to pedal up.
From http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008885019_sdot19m.html

Which left the Hardrock locked up at home most of the time, affixed to my custom-installed bike rack in my personal parking space. If I had also always used my u-lock I'd probably still have that bike. But I felt my parking space was secure enough to use a cable and padlock when I covered the bike with a tarp, and after about a year somebody cut the cable and absconded with my nice bike.

Insurance gave me a meager payout for the loss. I did a little shopping around and picked up something comparable from a local bike shop (no photo available). The shop salesman I worked with did nothing to dissuade me from buying a bike that was way too small for me, and I ended up riding it only a couple times before selling it for a loss. Thus my cycling career in Seattle concluded.

Legislature Funds 2 B'ham Bike/Ped. Projects

Traffic Talk notes (here and here) that the Transportation Budget that passed the Washington House and Senate this week includes grant funding for two bicycle & pedestrian safety projects in Bellingham.

The City applied for grants through the State's Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety grant program. The program's recommendation to the Legislature ("2011-2013 Prioritized Project List and Program Update" - PDF) for this biennium included these two local projects:

• Priority #7: Indian Street Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Project: Total $478,000 project, requested state grant funding of $193,000.
• Priority #8: Samish Way Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Improvement Project. Total $500,000 project, requested state grant funding of $400,000. 

Indian Street Project

The Draft Sehome Neighborhood Plan 2011 (PDF) notes that "Bellingham Public Works has applied for WSDOT grant funding to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety along Indian Street between Chestnut and Oak Street" (p. 27). The City's bike map PDF shows this stretch of Indian St. already has marked bike lanes. The State grant program's report says, "The project includes curb extensions, curb ramps, pedestrian lighting at intersections, signage, parking removal, public awareness and education campaign, safe bicycling classes, enhanced traffic enforcement (2011-2013 PPLPU p. 25)." 

Click to enlarge

Samish Way Project

This is "N.Samish Way Pedestrian Safety: Flashing Crosswalks & Median, Abbott St & Consolidation Ave" noted in Bellingham's "Six-Year (2011-2016) Transportation Improvement Program" (PDF), project number 10. It will add a flashing crosswalk, center median/pedestrian refuge, and overhead lighting at both Abbott St. and Consolidation St. The crosswalks will be offset from the intersection to allow a left turn lane. The PPLPU also says the project includes a "neighborhood public awareness and safety campaign" and "target speed and crosswalk enforcement (p. 25)."

Click to enlarge

So congratulations are due to the City for getting on the grant list, and thanks go to the Legislature for funding the projects! 

 

Seattle Road Diet: Mayor Gives Go-Ahead

http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bikeprojects/ne125.htm

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn  has decided to accept his Dept. of Transportation's recommendation to change a dangerous stretch of road from 2 lanes in each direction to one lane plus a center turn lane, plus bike lanes, plus bus pullouts, plus pedestrian crossing improvements. He makes his case clearly, publicly, and with citation to evidence. His conclusion:

I understand the concern that these changes will harm mobility or cause cut-through traffic. But the evidence from prior projects demonstrate that on a street like this, the capacity should be sufficient to handle the projected traffic without significant impacts on mobility or cut-through traffic. It also shows that the safety issues are real and substantial, and the proposed changes will help. For this street, the changes make sense.

Read the Mayor's entire explanation at his blog.

Now that's what I like to see -- a mayor moving ahead with a road-safety project even in the face of organized opposition. But note that there was organized support as well, and they out-performed the opposition. Lessons to be learned...

Via Seattle Bike Blog.

Bike to Work & School Day, May 20

Local info.:

http://www.biketoworkandschoolday.org/

Feds Approve Green for Bike Lanes

Green Bike Box. Photo: www.pedbikeimages.org / Laura Sandt

BikePortland.org reports that the Federal Highway Administration will now let states and other local jurisdictions use green to mark on-street bike facilities (like bike lanes and bike boxes). It's 'interim' approval because the change hasn't been incorporated into the official FHWA's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), but it'll likely get incorporated in the next official update.

I think it would be great to see Bellingham start to implement this idea. Does anyone know if the City has been thinking about it?

The FHWA memo:  http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/resources/interim_approval/ia14/

May is Bike Month: Team-Up for everybodyBIKE

Once again this May Whatcom County residents are being encouraged to use human power for transportation instead of driving with the Team-Up for everybodyBIKE event. Join a team, log at least three trips with Whatcom Smart Trips, and you're eligible for raffle prizes. There are also team prizes for the top scoring teams.

Teams are 4 to 6 people, and can be organized around anything you like -- family, friends, work, school, whatever. The key is to find someone to be a Team Leader. That is the person who will register your team online.

Team Leaders get invited to the kick-off event at Chuckanut Brewery on Friday, April 29 (they can bring team members if they RSVP...).

So, what's your team going to be called?

Bike & Gear Swap, Sat. April 30

Whatcom Events is hosting a swap for bikes & gear: the Great NW Recreational Gear and Bike Swap. It's a fundraiser for The Bike Shop, a nonprofit that teaches kids to maintain & repair bikes -- 10% of sales price is donated.

When: Sat. April 30, 2011. 10 - 4
Where: Bellingham Sportsplex (1225 Civic Field Way)
Entrance fee: $2 to enter before noon, kids <12 y.o. free

If you're going to bring stuff to swap, you should register ahead of time.

Contact:  Matt or Whatcom Events  758-2035 or thebikeshop1@gmail.com

Meeting TONIGHT re. Galbraith Mtn.

WMBC is hosting a Galbraith Mountain Community Forum TONIGHT, April 18, 2011.
Where: Bellingham City Hall Council Chambers
When: 7 p.m.

This isn't a City Council meeting, but apparently some elected officials will attend.
More info. at http://www.whimpsmtb.org/

This is all concerning the future of recreation on the mountain now that the owners have decided to disallow access.

Bike Racks: Downtown, Bay & Champion

Ka-CHUNK.
Ka-CHUNK.
KA-Chunk!

That is the sound of the City of Bellingham installing staples. By which I mean 'staple'-style bike racks on the sidewalks of downtown. Like this one on Champion St. between Prospect and Bay:

Ka-CHUNK!

Or this one on Bay St. between Champion and Prospect (there's a 2nd behind the tree):

Ka-CHUNK!

These things are great. Two bikes can be squeezed onto each, although admittedly they have to get pretty up-close and personal with each other.

Nuzzling up on either side of the staple. Oh, and don't lock up to trees, you'll hurt their bark.

Probably the best thing about them is how simple and inexpensive they are so the city can scatter them about anywhere and everywhere. There are three in the shot above.

You don't usually find them under shelters, and security varies by the block, but mostly it's hard to complain about them. They're convenient because they're ubiquitous, at least in some spots.

Elsewhere in this scene, from mid-afternoon on a cold, windy, gray Sunday in April, I am pleased to see variety, ingenuity, and quantity in parked bikes. Thusly:

Bikes as far as the lens can see

A very encouraging scene. Bikes 1 & 2 are locked to a staple. 3 uses a cable to affix to a chain. 4 is locked to a screen with a cable. 5 may be locked to either a screen or a lamppost. 6 is definitely locked to a lamppost, while 7 is leaning against another staple. 

Add to that the 4 bikes in the photo above, and G's (which isn't shown), and you get 12 bikes parked in two very short downtown blocks.

Way to go, us, for biking; and way to go, City of Bellingham, for making sure we can lock up!

Bikelove, or: Why I decided to stop worrying and love the commute.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, historically, I was only a fair-weather biker and usually only rode out of necessity.

I've been aware of the environmental destruction associated with petroleum-powered transportation for a long time, but unfortunately, I had a tendency to make excuses (to myself) for my personal automobile usage, such as:

My car gets great gas mileage.
My car is 12 years old and it's only logged 84,000 miles (overall, I'm not driving much).
I plan my errands so that I don't have to make frequent trips.
I don't want to be late--I HAVE to drive.

But a year ago, a couple of events happened that began to haunt me.  On April 2, 2010, there was an explosion at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes.  Seven people were killed, which made it the deadliest workplace event in Washington state history.  Then less than three weeks later...Deepwater Horizon.

After those events, every time I found myself behind the wheel of my car, I felt terribly guilty.  I knew that it was humanity's oil addiction that drove the dangerous business of oil refining.  It drove us to put oil rigs farther out in the ocean, which was risky and tested the limits of our engineering abilities.

A few weeks after the incident in the Gulf of Mexico began, I took my car in to a local mechanic to have the oil changed.  For the rest of the day, I reflected on that normally benign act of vehicular maintenance in such a negative way, that I began to make myself physically ill.

My home is about a mile from my workplace.  Given the recent tragedies, my excuses for why I couldn't ride my bike or walk to work seemed a bit shallow.  I knew I needed to make a change.  No more excuses...

My Pedaling Career, Part 3: 10-Speed

At some point, I think it was after 2nd grade, I outgrew the coaster bike. Like my older brother, I then got to pick out a new one. Not 'new' new necessarily, but a replacement within a budget. My brother's blue dirt bike was new and within budget. My choice was to go fast rather than to jump high. I went with a used, purple, 10-speed road bike.

Hand brakes! Shifters! Tube Socks!

I had that 10-speed until I headed off to college, although it was used very little once I got a driver's license. Most of the time the shifters barely worked which made riding it less than enjoyable. Unfortunately I've never had much success tinkering with anything mechanical, and this was no exception. I traversed my suburban neighborhood quite well when it was working, but I may actually have spent more time on my brother's dirt bike than on the road bike. The dirt bike was definitely more fun on the bmx tracks made by older kids in the empty fields.

My enthusiasm for the bike waned after riding it to junior high a few times. Somebody smashed the little odometer I had installed on it the summer before, when I would take it out for long-ish fun rides through the neighborhood. And I seem to recall being taunted for having a bike that was ugly or old. I was made fun of for all sorts of things in junior high, so why would my bike have been spared? I ended up walking to junior high a lot even though it was far enough to make riding reasonable (3/4 mile). The winters in the city where we lived were pretty harsh and cycling wasn't always possible. But mostly I think it was a combination of the bike not working very well, and the ridicule.

High school was given over to cars since I had a driver's license all four years. I didn't get to drive much for the first two years, while my brother was still at home and had dibs on the extra car. My final two years, though, that car was mine. Even so, during the final couple months of my senior year I started walking to school whenever I could. It was a mile and half by the shortest walking route (two and half miles by car), so it wasn't at all unreasonable to walk. 

I'd like to note that, contrary to most understanding about the suburban pedestrian/biking experience, the subdivision I grew up in was an incredible place for kids to get around safely. While proponents of connectivity today rail against circles & cul-de-sacs, in my neighborhood walkers and cyclists had the upper hand on autos because every one of those isolated streets had at least one sidewalk that cut through to the next one over. Many configurations were such that it was quicker to walk to a place than to drive. Looking at a map today's planner would be appalled at the lack of direct road connectivity, but I want to attest to the fact that, done right, circles, loops, courts, & cul-de-sacs can be great for pedestrians & cyclists.   

The barely functioning purple 10-speed was sold around the time I headed off to college. For several years I went without a bike, but that was just a passing phase...(to be continued).  

New Theory on Why Bikes are Stable

An article (subscription required) published in Science this week (preprint available from authors at their project site) proposes an addition to knowledge about why a bike in motion tends to go straight & stay upright. As explained by Cornell's Chronicle Online, if "the center of mass of the front steering assembly ... is lower than that of the rear frame and forward of the steering axis ...." then if the moving bike starts to fall, "the front tends to fall faster, and this causes it to turn in the direction of the fall," and it recovers. Apparently this effect works at the same time as the conventional wisdom about the gyroscopic effect and front wheel trailing behind the steering axis, but they've also proven it works independently of those two effects.

Test device which cancels out the gyroscopic and trailing effects, yet is still stable

There's a video (download) at the Cornell article which offers some explanation.


So, huh.

(via Engadget)

Bike Racks: Rite Aid on Northwest

Rite Aid on Northwest Ave., across from the Birchwood shopping center, has a bike rack. Which is being generous.


I hate this kind of rack.
I hate how they placed it.
I hate how they treat it.

It's the "Bike rack? Yeah, I gotcher bike rack right here, buddy, and whaddaya gonna do about it? Now park it up and get inside" of bike racks. It's about doing the absolute minimum and nothing more. It's about asking, "What's the very least we can get away with? Yeah, how 'bout that one."

The City of Toronto calls this type of rack a ‘wheelbender’. It’s not a kind name. They mean it be pejorative. You’re supposed to stick one wheel in-between the narrowly-placed bars, magically have it hold your bike upright, and then run a cable or chain through the bars and your bike parts.

Insufficient Support Leads to Bent Wheels

I’m sure this works for some bikes and some locks. If you have a 10-speed with no fenders, one of your wheels will probably fit. Big knobby tires? No dice. Fenders? Ha! U-lock instead of a cable? Sure, if you don’t mind locking only one wheel to the rack.

The ‘bender’ comes in when your bike falls over. If you park head-in, the gripped wheel is in front of the pivot-point of your headset. If something should bump the rear of your bike, like, say another person tries to park their bike, your bike will probably fall over since the frame isn’t supported. That will torque the front wheel, and often cause it to warp. Have fun walking home!

And let’s talk about rack placement. Even noting that I hate this type of rack, when placed far enough away from obstructions, it can be used from both sides, which can increase parking capacity. They’ve placed it about 4 inches from a wall. There’s barely enough room to pull a bike into it, and of course hardly any bikes can fit on it from a single side. This particular one is designed to fit five bikes.

And they treat it like an obstacle. Note the plant racks pushed up against the right side, and almost up against the left side. It really looks like it’s in their way. Boy, this bike rack sure is an inconvenience!

In order to lock my bike to this kind of rack with my u-lock I have to nestle up to one side and lock to the support tube. I have a really long u-lock, but it’s not long enough to use when the bike is parked with a wheel in the wheelbender's grasp. Regardless how big this kind of rack is -- and there are really long versions of it, designed to grip up to twenty wheels -- there are only two support tubes that I can use with my lock. One on each end. Maximum capacity: two.

When I visited, there was only one spot I could park, because of the plant racks. 

Other notes:

• It’s not sheltered from weather.
• The area is well-lit and has good visibility.
• There’s one curb cut not too far away so it is possible to ride up onto the sidewalk without having to pop a wheelie.
• The rack is reasonably close to the doors.

Even though there are some positives about the general situation, this rack rates a strong BAD. I’m going to ask that they consider replacing the rack with one that’s more conducive to using a u-lock, and place it further from the wall. 

With all of the talk about adding bike lanes to Northwest Ave., businesses along the street should be thinking about how to attract some of the new riders that will soon be pedaling past. Improving their bike parking situation would go a long way toward communicating the message that customers are welcome when they arrive by bike.

Keeping Safe During Road Construction

Copenhagenize.com has a great post about how Copenhagen deals with cycling infrastructure when work of any kind could impact safe passage. In short, the city prioritizes bikes, whenever possible. With so many bikes being used for transportation, blocking bike lanes and cycle paths would cause major inconvenience as well as safety problems. Routes get re-routed and trucks aren't allowed to block the lane. It all comes down to priorities:

This maintenance truck is blocking a car lane but NOT the bike lane.

"At all times, prioritising bicycle traffic is of the utmost importance. A city must send concrete signals that it takes bicycle traffic seriously. Cycling citizens need a city that is reliable in its maintenance and prioritisation of bicycles. If they can count on their infrastructure being taken care of, it will encourage them to ride. If trains, for example, are unreliable, fewer people will use them and look to other modes. The same applies to bicycle traffic. Rain or snow. Roadworks or smooth sailing. 24-7."

Does anyone know what Bellingham's rules are regarding keeping bike lanes open? I wonder every time I go past Whatcom Middle School and see Halleck St. completely blocked between D St and F St due to construction on the school, even though Halleck normally has quite a bit of bike traffic.

Galbraith Mtn. Recreation Ending?

While recreational mountain biking isn't my thing, I know a lot of people will be affected by the announced end of the agreement between Polygon Financial and the WHIMPs. This could close the trails.

Update:
There's also another group working on keeping it open -- Preserve Galbraith.

Are Bellingham's storm drains bike hazards?

While skimming my Facebook news feed this afternoon, I saw a headline from the Seattle P-I:

"City: 3,600 storm drains are bike hazards"

Silently to myself I said, "Yes!"

Of course, problem storm drains are far fewer in number here in Bellingham, but when you ride through one, it's almost enough to ruin the rest of your ride.  So now I'm on a mission...I'm going to attempt to map all the bad storm drains in town, but I will need some help from our readers.

PLEASE send me locations of bad storm drains, whether in GPS coordinates, permalinks from Google Maps, or written description with very specific location information.  If it's particularly bad, snap a photo.  And just for clarification, by "bad storm drain," I mean one that you would feel you need to swerve around instead of ride over or through.

Poorly designed (or poorly executed) storm drains are very hazardous, especially on the secondary streets and roads that already have very little shoulder room for bikes to ride.  Thanks in advance for your help!

UPDATE:
The morning after I wrote this blog entry, I carefully paid attention to storm drain hazards on my commute to work, but didn't find as many as I thought I would find.  Maybe I was getting the storm drains confused with some of the other road hazards that I encountered on the way, such as rough roads or scary manhole covers that aren't placed in the best location.

I also took a look at BBB's suggestion, Bikewise.org, a project brought to you by Cascade Bicycle Club.  I think that would be an excellent substitute for what I had imagined.  It doesn't look like they're collecting a lot of information outside the Seattle metro at this point, but when I registered on the site and set my default location to Bellingham, I discovered that there were already a couple of people here in Bellingham that had used the site to report a couple of incidents.  So, go there!  Use it!

Bike Racks: WCC LDC Bike Shelter

The thoughtful folks of the WCC Bike Club have provided a pump

I'm very happy with the racks where I (usually) park when I'm at work. Whatcom Community College has some good racks and some bad racks -- luckily I can use one of the good ones.

On the north side of the college administration building, the Laidlaw Center (LDC), is a long row of dual racks under a clear roof. Bikes are protected from the weather, and the area is well-lit day and night.

The racks combine a wheel stirrup at ground level with an angled upright. The two sides are spaced far enough apart that it's not much trouble to park when one of them is already half utilized. It would be nice if the individual units were had a bit more distance between them, but it's still workable.

The metal uprights have a plastic or rubber wrap near the top to help protect the finish of nicely painted bikes. I don't care about my paint job, but I know some people really get uptight about theirs. Wait'll I show you my bike... 

The rack design keeps your bike from rolling away (the stirrup) while simultaneously providing a nice support for the frame (the padded upright). It's nice to have the bike be stable while detaching/attaching lights & bags, and this rack design provides that stability. No hip-check is required to keep the bike in place before you lock it to the rack. 

My be-stickered bike, happily secured with a u-lock

It almost goes without saying, but this design is great for u-locks. It's dead simple to secure a frame and one wheel to the upright. And riding to the racks is easy -- there are wheelchair accessible curb cuts in the parking lot adjacent to the shelter so you can just roll right up off the street.

Is it the perfect bike parking solution? Just about -- but there are a couple niggles. First, smokers use one end of the bike shelter as a smoking shelter. They probably shouldn't be, but they're being allowed to. Second, I don't work in the LDC! I wish I did, just to be closer to the nice bike shelter, but I work elsewhere on campus. Not so far elsewhere that I can't manage the walk, but still. You'll soon get to be delighted by the bike racks at my building and you'll no longer wonder why I think the trek is worth it. Finally, on the busiest of sunny days every parking spot gets taken. This is a good problem to have, but it's still a problem.

 Verdict: The WCC LDC bike shelter rates a firm Good. I just wish there were more like them sprinkled around campus. And I wish the smokers would take their foul pollution elsewhere.

My Pedaling Career, Part 2: Coaster Brakes

I learned to ride two-wheelers when I was around 5 on a little tiny bike (with coaster brakes), small enough my feet could touch the ground so I could learn to balance. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a picture of it. I recall it was old, well-used, a bit ugly, and perfectly suited to its task.

Some of the other kids in the neighborhood started off on larger bikes with training wheels. I maintain that I learned to balance more quickly than those assisted by the training wheels, and I recommend the short bike/no training wheels approach (not that anyone's asking my thoughts on the matter, but there it is all the same).

The rainbow bike, the purple bike, and flags! I'm in my brother's shadow...

After properly mastering balance, stopping, and steering, my parents rewarded me with a big bike. They trolled the garage-sale ads one weekend, found something promising, and we came home with a rainbow-colored, slant-bar 'unisex' coaster bike with a banana seat. It wasn't as cool as my brother's purple coaster bike, but it was ok. And at least it didn't have a Huffy seat -- those squared-off things were ugly! The purple bike's banana seat was replaced by a Huffy seat at some point, so I know from which I speak on the matter.

So it was great! Finally I could keep up with my big brother on his bike, and my parents on theirs (we sometimes had family bike rides, and the mini bike was not a success versus their bigger ones).

But then -- disaster. When I started school, we learned that kindergarteners weren't allowed to ride bikes to our school! Even those that could ride, couldn't. Total bummer. So I had to walk while my brother could ride, although when I walked he usually did, too. We could take a bus to school, which we did when the weather was bad, but I often walked the .8 mile home after my half-day.

First day at new school -- note the Huffy seat. I walked.

First grade was at a different school in a different town. There were expansive bike racks in several location, so they were always convenient and available to me -- if I had wanted to ride, that is. Turned out we lived so close to school, a third of a mile, it didn't make sense to ride. So I walked from first through sixth grade. Having the rainbow slant-bar bike may have had something to do with not wanting to bike to school, as well.

As an aside, this new elementary school had no bus service, and most kids walked. The school district had drawn the boundaries for this school (and possibly only this one?) so that nobody lived too far away to walk. A few parents regularly drove their kids, but there weren't many of those. My brother & I only got rides when the temperature was well below zero. 

The rainbow bike, and the new blue dirt bike

   

Back to coaster brakes: my brother got to pick out a replacement for his purple coaster bike after he finished third grade. He chose a new blue dirt bike, which was cool and even had a handbrake, but it still wasn't a Redline. So not really that cool. And he almost never let me ride it! Ever tried riding the dirt bike track with a banana seat? You can't get any leverage on the handlebars to help with jumps, so you can't look cool AT ALL.

My first bike with handbrakes followed not long after ... .


UPDATE: The Bicycle Alliance of Washington agrees that my preferred method of learning to ride is the best.

Bike Racks: The Good, The Bad, and the Arty

Today begins what will be a continuing feature highlighting bike parking here in Bellingham.

One of my concerns as a cyclist is having a place to securely park my bike at my destination. Most of this parking is made available by businesses, employers, and landlords, and there's wide variation in availability and quality.

What defines good and bad when it comes to secure bike parking? Why, me, of course. Although I guess that's really a 'who'. But the criteria I use to judge my happiness with a rack includes such things as:

• Can a u-lock secure both the frame and at least one wheel to the rack?
• Can a bike lean against the rack in such a way that the bike won't tip over (preferably 2 points of support)?
• Is it covered/sheltered from the rain?
• Is it well-lit and and have good sight-lines?
• How easy and safe is it to get to the rack?
• How close is it to the entrance I want to use?

Some of those criteria are detailed in the City of Toronto's advice re. Bicycle Parking - Choosing a Rack. The City of Portland also has great advice for anyone looking to install bike parking, which was helpful when the condo board I was on for several years was considering adding capacity.

I'll be praising bike parking that makes me happy; criticizing parking that needs improvement; and noting with wonderment some of the crazy things people do with metal tubing. The ultimate goal is to use this as a springboard to improve poor bike biking  parking situations.

It's worth noting that twice in my life I've spoken to a grocery store manager about poor bike parking, and both times the situation was substantially improved not too much later -- one of them was the Trader Joe's here in town. I highly doubt I was the only person to speak up in these situations, but it does emphasize the importance of letting your suggestions for improvement be known.

If you know of a bike parking situation in Bellingham that deserves a "Needs Improvement", feel free to let me know, and I'll see if a tiny bit of publicity can help. But also, please be sure to tell whomever would be responsible for making a change. Most likely they don't use a bike for transportation and don't know their bike parking is sub-par. 

After the jump you'll find the first bike rack!

Big Wheel vs Bus

And speaking of pedaling a three-wheeler: can a guy riding a Big Wheel go faster than a city bus? Maybe in NYC. Watch and see.

(Via)

Another project that will need cyclist input: Meridian, I-5 - Horton

WSDOT has announced a project to improve traffic mobility on Meridian from I-5 north to Horton, as reported in the Herald's Traffic Blog. WSDOT will brief the Belligham Transportation Commission next Tuesday, April 12, in a meeting set for 6-8 at City Hall.

Keep an eye out this May-Aug. for "community/business interviews and meetings" -- looks like that will be the public's opportunity to weigh-in.

Construction is expected to begin spring 2013.

Brr.

Maybe it's just me, but I was surprised at how chilly today's 48 degrees felt.

And maybe I should have waited to shave off the winter beard until May...

My Pedalling Career, Part 1: 3 Wheels

My big brother & I, in the great indoors

My pedalling career started, unsurprisingly, with a tricycle. My older brother and I each had one, his larger, mine smaller. We could ride them inside the house because the walls were logs and we couldn't do much damage except to ourselves.

Banished, but street-legal

A year or two later our family moved, and since our new house wasn't as resilient as the log house, the indoor pedalling was over. But, we did get to add spiffy hand-me-down license plates to make them 'street legal'.

It wasn't too much later that my brother learned to ride a two-wheeler. Then I was finally allowed to use the bigger trike.

Always with the hand-me-downs

Next up: graduation to 2 wheels!


P.S. This was all long before moving to Bellingham...