Two Close Calls

1. Going east on 12th Ave, between 5th St and 4th St SW, in the right lane. Usually there are cars parked besides the health centre. A guy riding solo in a big, shiny SUV passes me ON THE RIGHT. Then immediately has to stop at the red light. I pull up on his driver's side and start giving him a piece of my mind. The piece that holds all the swear words. Not proud of that, but it is tough to stay calm when you just got near missed by a few tonnes of car. Didn't get a license or anything either
2. Then I was going south on 2nd St SW, and traffic was backed up so I was passing on the right. Still distracted from my previous close call, I didn't notice a car turning left through a gap left by a big work truck. Was closer to being T-boned than I'd like.
3. Anyway, rode really, really cautiously the rest of the way home. 

Taking the Lane

Bicycles are entitled to take the lane if the lane width is smaller than 3.5 m. This is a large lane, since most cars are only 2 m wide. Also, bikes should stay at least 1.5 m from parked cars, to avoid carelessly opened doors.

Source: http://bikecalgary.org/safety and Calgary Cycling Safety Handbook (p. 6)

Parallels between bikes on the sidewalk and cars on the road

There has been an unfortunate trend of pedestrian injuries from collisions with bicycles. Of course, many people have called for more enforcement and penalties for biking on the sidewalk, which is illegal in most cases. And I can agree with the sentiment behind most of this: that bikes, being the heavier and faster mode of transportation, have extra responsibility to not harm pedestrians. But what if you extend this concept from the sidewalk to the road, where bikes should be.

(The parallels aren't perfect between the road and the sidewalk, but some rough guesses show that while a bike has 20 times the kinetic energy of a pedestrian, a car has 50 times for energy than a bike. And this energy is in the form of a hard metal shell.)

This parallel leads me to a couple questions:

If you can't bike on a sidewalk because very occasionally a collision occurs that injures or kills a pedestrian, why can cars use the same road as me on my bike?

Why can a bike share a Multi-Use Pathway (MUP) with pedestrians but not a sidewalk? In Calgary, these occasionally have separate paths for bikes and pedestrians, but are primarily shared. There have been collisions on these as well.

For the Calgarians, would you bike on Memorial Drive while the north side of the Bow MUP is closed? Would you share the lane with this Ford or take the lane? http://g.co/maps/pqbqm

Maybe the inevitable conclusion to this is that bikes need separated bike lanes. But those are going to be a long time coming, and they will never be everywhere, at least not in Calgary.

Spreadsheets with my assumptions for the relative energies:http://goo.gl/dFqXz

Blog about bike/pedestrian conflicts in Calgary:http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2011/09/06/construction-pushing-cyclists-onto-the-sidewalk-on-calgarys-showcase-pathway-says-neighbour/

Crossposted to http://www.bikecalgary.org/node/2972

Urban Cycling has a Learning Curve...

...and that is why we need bike infrastructure.

I have experienced this myself, and anecdotal evidence from other biking websites (particularly Commute Orlando) makes me think it is common. When you first start biking on-street, it is very intimidating at first. Yes, the rules of the road are mostly the same as the rules for cars, but even the most adamant vehicular cyclist would agree that cyclists have a different understanding of how those rules apply to us. And more importantly, how the dynamics of primarily automobile traffic can cause problems for us, or be used to our advantage.

And this is why bike lanes, bike boxes and better bike signage are important part of increasing cycling numbers. They help smooth this learning curve. With a decent network, new cycle commuters will be able to spend most of their time in an easier to use, less intimidating place, where cars aren't passing close and left turns don't require waiting for a big enough gap in traffic.

There probably will still be parts of commute, especially at the start or end, that are done on bare roads, with no bike specific infrastructure. This may be good, since it gives the new cyclist an opportunity to dip their toes in the rushing water that is downtown traffic. And as they acclimatize to biking in traffic, they can begin to use routes that have longer stretches of bare road.

In my experience (in Calgary), it takes at least a few months to feel truly comfortable biking in a downtown area. Not that I necessarily felt unsafe when I started biking to work, but I definitely was tentative and stressed. It took time for biking to become second nature, and for me to be able to commute on "auto-pilot" at the same level as walking or driving.

I was fairly dedicated to biking, but I worry that other people who try it will be discouraged by the learning curve.

So that is why we need bike infrastructure.

Notes on the Calgary Cycling Strategy

A little late...

1. Not enough detail, though if most of the routes on the core map are bike lanes that is good.
2. If car drivers were willing to share road, drive a little slower and safer, sharrowed lanes would be enough on most streets downtown. But the reality is that obviously marked and maybe physically separate bike lanes will be needed in many spots for majority of cyclists to feel safe.
3. The Implementation “tactics” report that actually has some details won’t even be started until 2012?
4. Best Practices from other cities: look at how to sell to majority in SOVs, and avoid backlash
5. Transit / Bike synergy: Solve “Last Mile”
6. Kills two birds with one stone to remove parking on one side for a bike lane eh?
7. Better signage for bike routes, with destinations and distances
8. A certain amount of bike parking should be required for any new development downtown. Perhaps based on a spot per X sq. ft. I'm not sure if there is a parking requirement for buildings, but bike parking could reduce the number of expensive car stalls required.
9. Bike routes, like 2nd St and 10 Ave SW, should have all on street parking removed. Most drivers don't understand the door zone. Could also compromise on this by not allowing parking during rush hour.
10. Bike paths and routes need better signage (direction of travel, distances to major destinations)
1. Meeting of Bow Cres. and Bow Village Cr. NW displays a Cul-de-Sac sign, but gives no indication there is a MUP
2. Joanna: even w/ iPhone, still lost in bike routes; need more direct routes and better signage (e.g. compass direction on signs)

Post 1

Background = Rockwall Pass, looking south