Turtle Carnage

I'm not from this part of the country originally.  I'm from Wisconsin.  There are no road turtles, or Bott's Dots, in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin has lots of very large, frequently-used snowplows, which do not play well with road turtles.

Road turtles vex me.  I have grown to appreciate their third dimension during our wet winters when the more traditional painted lines are obstructed by the sheen of the wet roads.  As a bicyclist, however, I strongly dislike them.  When affixed to the roadway, I often find myself weaving through them as if avoiding landmines.  I'm also equally horrified to discover road turtle carnage that has made its way to the side of the street, into the bike lane or shoulder.

There's no sense in trying to get public works or DOT to use something else, though--these hunks of plastic do more good than harm.

I've often thought that it would be good to carry around a small hand broom for broken sweeping broken glass out of the street as I encounter it on my bike rides, but I hadn't thought seriously about getting one until I started finding turtle fragments.  In an ideal world, our public works departments would be street-sweeping all the time to keep our bike lanes clean, but in challenging economic times, we have to improvise and help out a bit ourselves.

Photo credit: horsesass.org

Embrace the banana seat

Photo credit: Bicycle Porn (Facebook Page)

Potentially Good News About Eliza St.

I was nearly jumping up and down with joy when I read Jared Paben's Traffic Talk post about Eliza St. today. He notes that, while the City Council approved the 6-Year Transportation Improvement Plan that includes the Eliza St. extension in 2012, Council also asked City staff to look in the 2012 budget and see if funds can be found to:

• remove parking on the west side of Eliza south of Bakerview
• add a bike lane to the west side of Eliza south of Bakerview
• pave the shoulder on the east side of Eliza south of Bakerview

Apparently this would cost $125,000 to $150,000. The Agenda Follow Up from the meeting on 6/20 where the Council took this action shows that Council Member Weiss first proposed amending the TIP to expand the Eliza St. project to add bike lanes in both directions, but no one seconded the motion so it didn't go anywhere. Thank you, Mr. Weiss, for trying. Then the full Council approved the motion to ask staff to look for money to make it happen.

Making the changes that the Council did ask for would, hopefully, make it so this stretch of road doesn't become entirely unsafe for cyclists when mall traffic starts using it sometime next year. Of course it's only half a solution to add a bike lane to one side of a busy street....

Previous posts on this topic, 6/3 and 5/23.

Update: The Herald has an article, too.

Lessons for us, from Copenhagen

Some cycling leaders from Seattle recently got to spend a week in Copenhagen studying and touring the bicycle infrastructure there -- the organizers were i-sustain. The Bicycle Alliance of Washington and Cascade Bicycle Club were represented, as was the City of Seattle Dept. of Transportation and the Seattle City Council (and probably others).

The rep. from the Bicycle Alliance wrote a wrap-up post: Ten Lessons for a Vibrant City. It's worth checking out.

The rep. from Cascade Bicycle Club notes a telling quote: "“If you don’t have the infrastructure, you can’t expect people to cycle.” -- Niels Jensen, planner with the city of Copenhagen

And that's the bottom line.

Huzzah to Bellingham for having some! But we've got a whole lot of work still to do.

Whatcom Creek Missing Link Construction Starting!

In very happy news, construction has begun on the missing link of the Whatcom Creek Trail! As of last week there were paint lines on the ground throughout the sections of Meador/Kansas/Ellis where the construction will be, and yesterday I saw that workers had Meador down to one lane between James St. and Whatcom Creek. The lane closure was forewarned by the City, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
But still -- Woo Hoo! Progress!

Bike Racks: Community Food Co-op (Cordata)

The Community Food Co-op store on the north end of town, at Cordata and Westerly, has WONDERFUL bike parking. Like their Forest St. store (previously reviewed), there are multiple racks spread among multiple locations -- specifically 4 racks in 3 locations. Whoo-hoo!

Click to Embiggen

Click through for all the details.

Headwinds

Today I ran into headwinds, both physical and metaphorical.
I powered through the blustery weather just fine, but I still have to deal with the frustration of having half of the lights stolen from my bike on Sunday. It was parked in my condo's semi-secure garage, but somebody got in and unscrewed the mounting brackets for the nicer, newer headlight, and the older, junkier taillight. Not very consistent thieves, if you ask me. A neighbor was hit worse -- she's missing an entire bike and a scooter helmet.

But I'll keep riding. I'll get replacement lights. It's not such a big deal. I don't want to take any more ridiculous car trips than I have to.



No ridiculous car trips from Martin Lang on Vimeo.

(Via)

Bike Racks: Post Office on Prospect

98225

The US Post Office on Prospect St. has a bike rack. It's a double-sided wheel bender. Designed to park 6 bikes. Max. capacity for U-locks is 2.

Good points: it's covered, and it's set perpendicular to the wall so it can be used from two sides.

*Sigh*

Lock one wheel, or your frame. Which do you value more?

Moving Commuter Fringe Benefits Closer to Parity

As you may or may not know, federal law via the IRS Code lets businesses pay for certain commuting expenses on behalf of their employees without that money being counted as income when the employees file their taxes. Meanwhile, the business gets to treat the loot they spent as a tax-deductible business expense. The feds are then short some tax receipts.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the law gives more tax benefits to people who commute by car than to those who take transit or any human-powered mode. The law provides these monthly maximums [see TITLE 26 > Subtitle A > CHAPTER 1 > Subchapter B > PART III > § 132, (f)(2)] [also available from GPO's FDSYS]:

• Parking: $175
• Transit or commuter van: $100
• Biking: $20

And the biking benefit is hard to claim -- there are limits & rules that place a burden on the cyclist to prove their worthiness. Meanwhile the employer does all the work for the parking benefit.

Apparently some of these amounts have been adjusted by recent legislation that is not yet noted in the Federal Code. Here are the IRS rules for employers in 2011:

• Parking: $230
• Transit or commuter van: $120
• Biking: $20

Whatever the exact benefit maximums are, the League of American Bicyclists has a page with information about them. It offers advice to both employers and employees on how to go about implementing and claiming the benefit. There's also company called Commuter Check that's focused on implementing the benefits.

That's the way things stand now.

Rep. Blumenauer (OR 3 - D) wants to change things. He has repeatedly proposed a bill called the Commuter Relief Act (most recently in May), which would set the amounts at:

• Parking: $200
• Transit or commuter van: $200
• Biking: leaves it at the current rate

His bill doesn't just move toward parity in the amount of the benefit, though. It would also make several changes to actually promote not driving.

• makes it easier to claim the biking benefit
• lets employees combine the bike benefit with the transit benefit, with a total cap of $200
• makes employers offering the parking benefit let employees opt for cash instead
• expands the van pool benefit
• lets self-employed people use the transit benefit

Doesn't that sound nice? Instead of preferentially supporting parking for cars, the law would tip the playing field somewhat in the other direction by allowing people to forgo the parking benefit, giving them the option of applying it to other things.
If you support this idea, tell your Representative to Congress to support H. R. 1825, the Commuter Relief Act.

Monday 6/3 Hearing on Eliza St./Mall Connector: Comments to City Council

This coming Monday night the Bellingham City Council meeting agenda includes 30 minutes for a public hearing on the 2012-2017 Transportation Improvement Program. This is your opportunity to speak against Project # 6: Eliza Avenue Multimodal Arterial Connection. I've written about it before. This is the project that will turn a quiet stretch of Eliza into an extension of the mall, thereby choking off the safest portion of the cycling commute between Whatcom Community College and parts south.

The meeting is at 7pm in the City Council Chambers -- here's the agenda. 

I urge you to attend and speak against this project.

If you can't, please email the City Council and tell them your concerns. Here's what I wrote to them:

-------------------------

Council Members,

I'm writing to oppose Project #6 in the 2012-2017 TIP, "Eliza Avenue Multimodal Arterial Connection". This project, as described in the TIP, will have a negative impact on the safety of bicyclists commuting to Whatcom Community College from the south -- and there are more of us all the time.

It proposes to bring arterial-levels of traffic to a road segment (Eliza between Northwest and Matanuska) that cannot handle both that much traffic AND bicyclists at the same time. The price tag of the project is low because it's not a complete project. It will create a hazard where there currently isn't one.

Please do not support this project until it is redesigned to take the safety of bicyclists into account. It should not go forward without, at a minimum, removing parking from both sides of Eliza and also adding bike lanes to both sides. The most preferable alternative is fund the entire sidewalk/curb/gutter/bike lane portion of the project at the same time as building the mall connector.

I wrote to you last year about this project as well.

There's more information at my blog:

http://bellinghambikeblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/eliza-stmall-connector-bad-for-bikes.html

I would speak against it Monday's Council Meeting, but I work at that time and can't make it.

Please tell me you're not going to put me in with mall traffic on a road with no bike lane.

Thank you,

Biking to the Garden

G. & I recently got to temporarily adopt a neighbor's community garden spot. It's about 2 miles away as the crow flies; about 3 miles as the bike rides; and vertically situated 200 feet higher than home. I had hoped it would be a reasonable ride for visits where all I needed to do was water, but was also dreading the route because all of the elevation change happens in a very short segment. And I hate hills.

Today I gave it a try, and it's not bad. Definitely doable. I'll be riding it regularly this summer.

The Community Garden at Lakeway & Woburn, as seen by Google

Bike Racks: Community Food Co-op (N. Forest St. store)

The last post I wrote about bike parking at grocery stores had almost as many recommendations for improvements as it had points of praise. Happily not every store in town puts bike parking in second place. The Community Food Co-op store on N. Forest St. apparently ranks bikes as equal to cars, which makes me happy to shop there.
They don't just have a couple racks, like many stores. They have multiple locations for racks. There's the Hanging Racks Shelter in the Parking Lot:

Hang Your Bike. Or lean it. Your choice.

Then there's the Big Purple Rack on the Sidewalk:

Arty!

And there's also the Place Where The Good Racks Sometimes Are:

Mentioned Previously

I'll review them after the break.