Biking in New York

After a bad crash almost three years ago, I've been biking in New York again. Some things have changed, some things have not.

Unchanged: pedestrians. They step into the street without paying attention, they walk in the bike lane, they text and walk, they behave with complete unpredictability. I appreciate the anarchy on a philosophical level, but on a practical level I’d like them to acquire some level of self-preservation.

Changed: a flashy new protected two-way bike lane on 20th Street, between 1st Avenue and the East River. That used to be the scariest part of my ride, with unprotected bike lanes going both directions on a two-way street, constantly blocked by parked and stopped cars, an access road on the other side of a sidewalk, and parked cars that made it really hard to know where the next 2000-pound barrel of death might come from.

Changed: protected on-way lanes on some of the cross streets, with plastic bollards to keep the cars out AND no line of parked cars, so you can actually see the traffic.

Unchanged: construction projects that block the bike lane, forcing cyclists out into the stream of motorized traffic streaming down the avenues.

Unchanged: drivers that use the bike lane as a stopping zone, loading zone, unloading zone, delivery zone, temporary parking. Whatever. Sometimes, every block has an obstruction in the bike lane.

Unchanged: the “protected” bike lanes on the avenues with a line of parked cars that make it so you can’t see the traffic, you don’t know if a driver is going to open a door into your path, and if a pedestrian steps in front of you, your options are to slam on the brakes or hit a parked car. Sometiems both.

Changed: the sheer numbers of cyclists. There are more of them than ever. This provides a certain amount of protection by sheer numbers, because drivers know to look for us. But New Yorkers being New Yorkers, it also means a net increase in chaos, with more people riding against traffic in one-way bike lanes.

Unchanged: the city still doesn't have an infrastructure or a culture that prioritizes anything other than motor vehicles. Vision Zero is still a dream.

Prince Edward Island By Bike

I just found notes on my phone from a bike trip on Prince Edward Island several years ago. I had thought to put individual posts with photos on the blog, but never got to it. Here you go, as dictated into my phone in the tent along the way. The notes end the day before we finished the trip. The pedal broke again, on an uphill, and the boy wiped out, but was uninjured, and we made it back to our car without further incident.

PEI TRIP

Day One. Monday August 15 North Cape Coastal Drive, 50 miles. Jacques Cartier Provincial Park to Mill River

We left NYC on  Saturday  morning. Google thought it was a 13 hour drive to Charlottetown, where we'd meet George, who would drive us to the northwest end of the island. But between traffic, gas stops, and an apparent time warp, after nearly 13 hour we were in Nova Scotia with six hours left to drive. And as we were setting up our (new) tent for the first time (in the dark), it started to rain. 

By morning, it was still raining, with no sign of letting up, so we decided there was no point in rushing the drive just so we could bike in the rain. So George dropped us off at Jacques Cartier provincial park in the evening and we fixed some supper and went to sleep. 

In the morning we rode north and west 28 km along the coast to North Cape where we had lunch and walked to the lighthouse and helped gather stones so the offspring could build a tower. We turned with to ride the road on the west side of the cape making good time until I heard the snap of a broken spoke. I duct-taped it into place and took the downhills slow, and we rode to St. Edward, where Paul Dalton keeps a shop in his basement. 

Paul, it turns out, doesn't just repair bikes but rides them, long distances. He's not sure, but he thinks he might be the only person who's ever ridden two Ultraman triathlons in one summer -- with an Ironman in between. An Ironman is a 2 mile swim, a 120 mile bike ride, and a marathon -- 26.2 mile run. An Ultraman is twice that. He also bicycled from Vancouver to Newfoundland  couple of years back, 4200 miles in 57 days. 

Paul replaced the spoke, trued the wheel, and gave us water for the dog. It was late in the afternoon so Paul suggested we take route 2, the main route through the the center of the island, to save time. He assured us it had a paved break down lane and would be safe. Trucks indeed slowed down before passing us, as did many cars, most of whom also gave us a very wide berth. We arrived at Mill River Campground long enough  before dark to cook our meal. 

Day two, August 16. Confederation Trail, Mill river to Linkletter. 40 miles. 

When I heard about the confederation Trail, a rails to trails path that runs from one end of PEI to the other, I assumed it would be packed--kids, dogs, parents with strollers, hikers, bikers out for an hour or two. But it turns out to be empty. We see half a dozen other people all day and we ride in silence away from the road, the only sounds our own conversation, the breeze in the trees, and birdsong. Goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace and purple flowers I don't know line the path, and the air smells divine: fir trees, camomile, clover, freshly cut wood, and hay. Also the occasional skunk and dairy farm. 

We make an early stop in O'Leary and finally find gas for our stove, for which we've  been searching since we arrived in Canada. (For reasons I don't understand, you can't buy the stuff in NYC. The Mate, who does the camp cooking, has been valiantly producing meals over a can of Sterno, so this is a happy moment. 

The Offspring calls, Stop! and The Mate and I stop. Are you okay?  He points: "raspberries!" We stop and forage; it turns out there are also blackberries. Off the vine in the sun is, as far as I'm concerned, the only way to eat blackberries, and these are divine. 

Riding on the packed gravel surface of the trail is more comfortable, but slower, than road riding, and it takes us seven hours to rise the 40 miles to Linkletter, our next stop. We arrive hungry and tired. 

Day 3 August 17 Linkletter to Cabot Point. Rain.  25 miles

We wake to rain, persistent and soaking. After two fairly long days a rest day might be nice. We bring breakfast into a little shack with a picnic table and study our maps and contemplate our options. A younger couple turns up, suited up in full rain gear and ready to go. They're also towing a dog trailer and Jojo says hi to their puppy. 

We don't have proper rain gear on this trip, but by midday we're getting restless so we pack up and ride to town for lunch. Three miles with a headwind driving rain into our faces and we're wondering if we should just turn back. But after a big meal and lots of hot tea we are feeling rejuvenated and the sky is a little brighter so we press on. 

The first half of today's ride is on the Confederation Trail again. There's a town at our halfway point and we stop for groceries. Briefly, the sun comes out. 

I discover that my overloaded rear wheel has been churning up gravel and my rear brake, both derailleurs, chain, and cog set are covered in gravel. I rinse it off as best I can with plain water, but I really need WD-40 followed by White Lightning dry lube.  My chain makes crunching noises for the rest of the day. 

Then it's back to drizzle. Today is a short day, though, and we make it to Cabot Point Provincial Park in the late afternoon, with enough time to do laundry and get organized.

Like all of the provincial parks, this one has an area for bikers, with campsites separated from the cars and RVs. Our tent is surrounded by thick fir trees. The rain has finally stopped and the moon is near full and I can hear the wind in the trees and the surf in the distance. 

Day 4, August 18, Central Coastal Drive. Cabot Point to Cavendish. 20 miles. 

I'm happy to be back on roads after a day and a half on gravel, which makes for slower travel, plus my gears are still grinding away. After yesterday's ride in the chilly rain, I'm famished. Bananas, orange juice, half a package of cookies, nuts, dried fruit--we're all burning calories like crazy. I'm getting tired of eating. 

Today's roads prove hilly. We have some glorious downhills and some labored hauls back up. Since The Mate is towing Jojo in his trailer, I've got the stove, two cook sets,  camping gas, and all our food. We're both loaded more heavily than usual and we're feeling it. 

Traffic is also heavier here as we approach the birthplace of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the places she described inAnne of Green Gables. A car peels by us going way too fast around a blind curve, the driver leaning on the horn. The license plate tells us the car is from off island. Later we're passed by twelve members of Quebec's Hell's Angels, all in need of mufflers. When the next car is a pickup towing a camper, it's an unusual relief.

We stop at a campground in PEI national park, pitch our tent by the beach, and go for a swim. The water is much warmer than what we're used to on the Maine coast--heavenly. The rain comes in and there's thunder in the distance, and the beach clears.

The Mate and The Offspring decide to ride two miles into town after dinner. While they're out, thunder rolls in again , this time closer and louder and clouds rolling in across the ocean. In a hear the rain on the water and I run to the toilets. While I'm there, the clouds break and I get soaked running back to the tent. A gust of wind flattens the tent as Jojo cowers and I worry about the guys. The rain blows over and I take some photos of the sunset. Right about dark, the guys show up. They'd been sheltered at the ice cream place during the downpour and then biked back from town. 

Day 5, August 19. Cavendish to Stanhope. Bike paths in PEI National Park, plus Route 6 between. 20 miles. 

The guys bought a can of WD-40 on their trip into town and I empty the whole thing onto my chain and derailleurs, getting them reasonably clean. I'm able to ride without constant grinding and crunching sounds. 

The down side: every night in a campsite is a crapshoot. If our tent is downwind of someone's campfire, I end up breathing a lot of smoke. Last night, I lost. The campground was dense and full and lots of people were keeping fires burning through the rain and there's a huge amount of smoke everywhere and it gives me an asthma attack.  I wake repeatedly in the night dreaming I'm drowning and keep taking more medicine.  By morning my lungs are clear but I'm exhausted and it's a tough day's ride. 

We ride along the coast on a paved bike bath in PEI National Park, our nicest ride so far on the trip. But to get to the next section of the path, we have to ride along Route 6, one of the most heavily traveled roads we've been on. As usual, most of the drivers slow down and give us plenty of room, but the occasional truck or RV passes hair-raisingly close. We return to the bike path but the eastern segment isn't as beautiful as the earlier part and we're exhausted from riding in traffic on choppy up and down hills and we cut the day short. 

Day 6 Aug 20 Confederation Trail, Stanhope to St. Peter, 35 miles

Our neighbor last night made a completely smokeless fire, using the trick of raising the fire ring -- like many in OEI's campgrounds, consisting of a truck wheel-- with a small log, allowing the fire to draw. 

We finished out the bike trail in the national park and then went back onto route 6. Traffic was lighter, maybe because of where we were, maybe because it was Saturday morning. But we turned off onto a road with a three digit number and it was seriously quiet and moved back to the Confederation Trail.

The section we rode today is supposed to be the most beautiful section, and it was lovely, but in my opinion not more so than the other sections we've ridden. More birches, less spruce. Lots of wild roses, but all gone by; maybe in season they make that section particularly nice. Raspberries in profusion. Wide open fields of blueberries with signs warning against trespassing. We see more cyclists today, including some other families, but the trail is still very quiet. 

Travelers Inn in Mt. Stewart was playing Supertramp, made us salads with hummus and some of the best home fries ever, and was adorned with huge paintings of women that looked like mug shots. It turns out they are, sort of: they're painted after mugshots of Australian convicts from the 1930s. Creepy and compelling. 

We stopped at a pizza place for gluten free pizzas and subs. While Fhe Mate and The Offspring ordered I sat outside nibbling almonds and keeping The Animal company. A guy roared in on his lawnmower, rode up to the pump, filled it up, and roared back off. Meanwhile an eagle circled overhead. We've also seen great blue herons, blue jays, rabbits, ducks and geese, gulls, and various birds I can't identify. 

We're stronger than we were when we started riding, making better time and riding more comfortably. I'm sleeping soundly and I've almost completely forgotten about the US presidential election. I had the opportunity tonight to get on wifi, but decided I don't have any interest in looking at email or Facebook and I definitely don't want to know what The Donald has been up to. 

Day 7. Confederation Trail to the terminus at Elmira and then local roads to East Point, then back west to Campbell's Cove Campgound. 40 miles. 

The trail from St. Peter to Elmira runs along the shore at first and then cuts into the woods again. A long section is lined with maples whose branches meet overhead to make a long green tunnel, and it's completely magical. A slightly bittersweet day of endings, as we reach first the trail's end, at a railway museum we decide not to enter, and then the end of the island, where there's a lighthouse only I opt to climb. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room. 

We finish the day with a ride back west to the campground at Campbell's Cove. The view is over open ocean and we pitch our tent on the beach. A neighbor in an RV sets up a palm tree and plugs it in. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room. 

After sundown it's a clear night and the moon hasn't risen yet and The Offspring gets his first view of stars without light pollution. He's appropriately awed. 

Day 8 Monday Rest day

We opt for a second night in the same campground, taking our first rest day of the trip. This is one of the nicest campgrounds The Kate and I came Ed remember staying in, a combination of the facilities and the nicest people.  We move to a tiny cabin because rain is in the forecast and it sounds like a nice opportunity to stay dry. We eat ravenously and do laundry. The offspring and I get in a swim before the rain comes while The Mate bikes a few miles down the road to a farm. 

The rain comes, on and off.  We could have ridden through it, but we needed a rest day. The guys have found some other kids to play games with, and I take a nap.

We settle in for the night and I don't hear the wind I've become accustomed to, and I find I miss it. I seem to toss and turn rather than falling soundly to sleep as in the past several nights, maybe because I'm not dead tired from riding, maybe because we're sleeping in bunks, in separate beds, not like pa k animals in the burrow of our small tent. But eventually I sleep and later I wake to the sound of pouring, driving rain, and I'm glad not to be I n our tent above the shore. I wAke again later after the rain has stopped and walk across the grass to the toilets and step in puddles up to my ankles. 

Day 9, Campbell's cove to Brudenell provincial park, 45 miles. 

We awake to discover that the wind has shifted and is blowing due east, and hard. We set off along the East Point coastal road, and the  views are  beautiful and traffick light, but the wind gusty and progress difficult and slow. So we return to the Confederation Trail, away from the coast and protected by trees from the worst of the gusts. But the headwinds still mean slow progress and it takes us s ver hour to ride the 25 miles to St Peter's. We stop for a long lunch and decide to stop our ride and stay in the campground a km away. But then The Offspring decides he'd rather ride anothe 15 miles today so tomorrow's ride will be 10 miles shorter. And so we set off on one of the roads across the center of the island to cross to the south coast. The wind is now a cross wind rather thanked on, but the road is very hilly. We leave St. Peter's at 5 pm and we have to make good progress to make Brudenell by dark, and we push through

On the way up a long hill, The offspring calls to me. I stop. He pulls up beside me and tells me his pedal has cracked. I put a couple of zip ties around it for stability and wrap it in a couple of yards of duct tape and hope we can make it to Brudenell. I twist the tape the last few wraps around so it won't be too slippery. We ride a few hundred yards and I ask him how it feels. "Sticky."

There are No Bike Lanes in New York City

New York City's Department of Transportation publishes a map of bike lanes, and according to the cycle advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, half a million people ride a bike on a regular basis.  There are 10,000 Citibikes and an estimated 450,000 trips by bike every day on more than 1000 miles of green-painted lanes marked with bike icons all over the city. Mayor de Blasio's administration has been promoting Vision Zero, an attempt to keep drivers from mowing down pedestrians and cyclists. (Nevertheless, in 2017 almost 5,000 injuries were reported, and 130 people on foot or on bikes were killed in crashes with motor vehicles.)

Without enforcement, the bike lanes don't work as bike lanes. 

They function as pedestrian overflow: people jogging, walking with dogs and shopping carts and strollers and fishing poles and kids on scooters and coffee trucks and hand trucks and all the other things New Yorkers carry around.

They function as temporary stopping and parking lanes for tour buses, delivery trucks, police cars, school buses, and taxi cabs, on top of all the private vehicles whose owners are loading or unloading groceries, kids, or their latest Ikea purchases.

Alarmingly, they also get used as passing lanes by drivers in a hurry.

New York City hasn't created infrastructure for short-term parking, so the demarcation of all of the "bike lanes" fills a real need -- and forces cyclists to weave in and out of the line of traffic block after block, making cycling even more dangerous.

But what really convinced me that New York City does not have bike lanes is the dumpster on Suffolk Street.

The last time I was on that block, there were several other vehicles parked or stopped around it. If the city were remotely serious about allowing bike lanes to be used by bikes, that dumpster would have gotten towed immediately, and someone slapped with a hefty fine. It's been there for a week already.

Oddly, the streets that feel safest are the ones marked with "sharrows" -- arrows indicating that motor vehicles are supposed to share the road with cyclists. There's no weaving in and out of traffic, and there's not enough room for them to get blocked indefinitely by Fed Ex trucks and cab drivers.

But sharrow lanes are right next to parked cars, and drivers and passengers don't look before they open their doors. I've only been doored once, thrown into (fortunately stopped) traffic, but I've completely lost track of the number of near misses.

Free street parking massively subsidizes car ownership, and it has to go, to be replaced by metered parking expensive enough to keep the spots clear for short term parking and official vehicles. Obstruction of bike lanes by police cars and other official vehicles needs to stop, as this sets the example that the bike lanes are a free-for-all. Cyclists are 150-pound assemblages of flesh and bone atop 25-pound machines, but the culture of New York City treats us as equivalent to ten-ton trucks.

The city needs to fix this. Bike lanes need to be bike lanes.

Fifth Avenue Bike Lane

New York City is working on redesign of Fifth Avenue, and I wrote to a few of my elected officials asking them to be sure to include a protected bike lane. Here's what I wrote...

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

I am writing about the proposal to redesign Fifth Avenue without providing a protected bike lane.

New York City’s streets are very dangerous for cyclists as a result of design and maintenance as well as driver behavior, as I have learned to my peril in nearly 30 years cycling in all five boroughs, though primarily in lower Manhattan, where I have had two serious cycling accidents. I should add that I have biked extensively in Europe and in Shanghai, China, where both road infrastructures and driver cultures support safer cycling: it can be done.

Three years ago, I was “doored” by a passenger while riding in an unprotected bike lane. The passenger opened the car door just as I was passing; I was hit and thrown into traffic, landing just in front of the bumper of a car but fortunately unhurt aside from bruises. Last winter, I rode over a seriously misaligned sewer hole cover while biking at night and crashed my bike, again in traffic; a pedestrian helped me out of the street and helped me avoid oncoming cars, but I injured my spine seriously enough to need surgery.

The more recent crash was a direct result of deferred road maintenance, an on-going problem in the city. Drivers of motor vehicles are less vulnerable to potholes and other road damage as cars and trucks have wider tires than bicycles.

Dooring incidents are effectively prevented by protected bike lanes like those on some of the Manhattan avenues, where the cycling surface is far enough from parked cars to avoid drivers opening doors without checking first and also protected from moving traffic by the line of parked cars — though not protected from turning vehicles, as demonstrated by the recent cyclist death on First Avenue. These lanes also need traffic signals that stop cars from turning while cyclists are allowed to proceed.

Some New York City streets have "sharrows” indicating that bike lanes are shared with vehicular traffic; others have narrow bike lanes between parked cars and moving vehicles. Both are extremely treacherous for cyclists. In “sharrow” streets, the cyclist is completely uprotected from vehicular traffic and vulnerable to being struck from behind. However, from a cyclists’ perspective, such streets seem safer than those with unprotected bike lanes, which are routinely blocked by cab drivers and delivery vehicles. Cyclists have to choose between riding consistently in traffic (which angers motor vehicle drivers) or swerving back and forth between the bike lane and the traffic lane, often every block. Cyclists are also forced to ride right next to parked cars where they are vulnerable to being struck by passengers opening doors without looking first. Unprotected bike lanes are structurally unsafe and should not be part of the city’s plan for street infrastructure.

Streets with protected bike lanes are not just good for cyclists. They improve pedestrian visibility and safety by providing a buffer between sidewalk and street and by decreasing vehicular traffic. New York city needs to design streets that accommodate all users to integrate walking, cycling and driving, rather than prioritizing vehicular traffic and trying to fit other street users around it. Although Europe's population is twice that of the United States, half as many cyclists are killed every year, and the rates of serious injury for pedestrians and cyclists alike are also significantly lower.

Building better bicycling infrastructure increases ridership, thus lowering stress on the city's overburdened mass transit system and hopelessly overcrowded streets. It reduces pollution and improves air quality and quality of life for everyone. It lessens our reliance on fossil fuels and can help to slow climate change. Biking is also good exercise — even with the risk of injury, cyclists are healthier than sedentary citizens.

I urge you to throw your support behind transit plans for New York City that will support all forms of non-vehicular transit and will benefit individuals as well as the environment.

Thank you for your consideration.

A Judge Just Ruled for the Environment

Eight young people -- preteens and teens -- went to the Washington State Department of Ecology last year and asked them to write carbon emissions guidelines that would protect the state, and themselves, from the effects of climate change. When the state refused, they sued, with the help of the Children's Trust and an attorney from the Western Environmental Law Center.

They won. They won!

Judge Hollis R. Hill ruled that the government has a responsibility to protect natural resources on behalf of the people of the future.

Judge Hill wrote:

... as Petitioners assert and this court finds, their very survival depends upon the will of their elders to act now, decisively and unequivocally, to stem the tide of global warming…. The scientific evidence is clear that the current rates of reduction mandated by Washington law… cannot ensure the survival of an environment in which Petitioners can grow to adulthood safely.

Judge Hill reviewed the Washington State constitution, climate science, and statements made by the Department of Ecology, and concluded:

the state has a constitutional obligation  to protect the public’s interest in natural resources held in trust for the common benefit of the people.”

He also commented in particular on the role of automobile emissions and the failure of the state to deal with them. If you're so inclined, you can go read the whole ruling here.

Who knows? I don't know how many other state constitutions make reference to an obligation to protect natural resources. I don't know what potential there is for this to set precedent. But for the kids of Washington State, it's a pretty big deal.

Brooklyn Bike Lanes: Bust

Me: Good morning officer. I've just biked here from the Manhattan Bridge and there's been at least one vehicle parked in the bike lane in every block.

Officer: Welcome to New York, HA HA HA.

...

Me: Good morning officer, I see you're a traffic enforcement officer and there are a lot of vehicles parked in the bike lane in this block.

Officer #2: That's not my block, somebody else works there.

I think it was easier biking in downtown Brooklyn a decade ago, without bike lanes, taking your chances in the free-for-all.

Back on the Bike in New York

I've survived my first few bike rides back in New York City. After a year biking in Cambridge, where the streets are narrow and twisty but the cars are tiny and move slowly and the drivers accustomed to yielding to cyclists and pedestrians alike, I was feeling a little squirrelly.

It's great to be back on my Brompton (which cost me more than my first car, a ten-year-old Datsun purchased back in the 1980s) but there's also something to be said for being able to park a bike and run errands while being confident that the bike, and all its parts, will still be there when I return.

The new 25 mph speed limit is a huge improvement. Most of the cars actually seem to be doing that speed, as opposed to pushing the old 30 mph limit to 35 or 40, and it makes a difference. The traffic lights have been re-timed accordingly and it means that cyclists don't get shut out by red lights, block after block after block.

I ended up on Houston Street by accident because I forgot which one-way streets went which direction, and discovered the new bike lane feels quite safe. Until it's blocked in its entirety by delivery trucks, taxis, and livery cabs. There's a web site where you can report blocked lanes, but when I heard about it I actually laughed: I had just ridden from the Lower East Side to Penn Station and found blockages on every street I rode on, and almost every block.

The joy I felt when I saw one police officer giving a ticket to one truck parked in a bike lane was not schadenfreude. It was self-preservation.

Cars turning across the bike lanes are also still a major problem: they don't yield for bikes, but they do yield for pedestrians, so they cut you off and then stop suddenly, diagonally across the bike lane. Pedestrians stepping into the street while absorbed with their smartphones are also an on-going problem, and I've nearly been in two pile-ups as a result, when one cyclist slams on the brakes and then the next several have to react.

Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero plan is a huge boon for pedestrians and cyclists alike, but there's still a lot to be done to make New York truly safe for cyclists.

But to brighten your day, here's Gianni riding in style with Elizabeth:

Google Maps and the Default Car

I use Google Maps pretty regularly to look for good routes for running* and biking, and to clock distances afterward. 

So I just sent them this message:

Every time I open Google Maps to get directions or track a run or a bike ride, the car automatically comes up as the automatic option; mass transit is second, walking third, and bicycle hidden behind an ellipsis. 

I am writing to suggest that you allow users to choose a preferred mode of transit so as not to have to reset this every time we use the program, or rewrite the program so that it will save the previous transportation mode automatically, rather than always defaulting to "car. 

Thank you for your consideration.

It took a long time to find a place I could send a message. Apparently, Google doesn't have a corporate email address, or if they do, it's well hidden. I got directed first to FAQs and then to a Help forum, but eventually found out how to send feedback on the map.

The comment form warns that users should not expect a reply. But I wonder if they'll give the issue any attention.

------

*No, I'm not back to running yet. I've been swimming, which feels great, and biking, which is okay as long as I don't have to put my feet down. When I can walk without limping, I'll give it a try. Marathon or half marathon on May 4? I don't think so. But there will be another.

Oh My God You Guys, I Signed Up For A Marathon

I ran New York in 1991, half a lifetime ago, and I've been saying for years that I'd run another when I was 50. That used to be a really distant target.

Fifty came and went. But the stars seem to be aligned right this year. After years of exercise only to get back to some kind of base fitness after each illness, I've managed to get a little farther. The injuries that have plagued me for years are leaving me alone. Maybe it's because I'm on sabbatical, and I don't have the commute from hell, and when I need to rest... I can rest.

I was going to sign up for a half marathon first, but the race I had in mind filled up. I found another ... and there's both a half and a full marathon on the same day. And runners can change their registration from one race to the other. So I went hell-for-leather and signed myself up for the marathon.

I may have to switch to the half. I may not make it to the starting line at all. I signed up to make sure I have a spot in case I'm able to get there. And I'm going to give it a try.

I'm signed up for the Milton Keynes marathon on May 4, and I'm fundraising for Sustrans, the rough equivalent in the UK of New York's Transportation Alternative. Sustrans advocates for sustainable transit -- bike lanes and good public transportation network.  If you're interesting in supporting Sustrans and my run, click here for the marathon web site.

May the Fourth be with me?

Winter Biking: Gear List

A friend writes that she hangs up her bike in the fall because she doesn't have the warm clothing to bike in the winter. She's thinking it might be nice to ride, but says she doesn't know where to start in terms of buying the gear.

So, if you'd like to lengthen your riding season, here's a suggested list. You might already own things that you can use for biking; a lot of my gear does double- or triple-duty for hiking, biking, and jogging. Some items are very bike-specific.

First off, safety. Winter is wetter and darker than summer, and drivers are less attuned to seeing cyclists.

• Traction. Make sure your tires still have good tread and make sure they're pumped up appropriately so you don't slip on roads that will stay wet longer after rain or frozen precipitation. If you want to ride on snow or ice, consider studded tires. If you've never ridden in wet conditions, start slow and brake early: wet brake pads take longer to work.
• Visibility. Motorists notice motion, so make sure you have good pedal reflectors, and wear reflectors on your ankles. Get a brightly colored vest with reflective stripes, in a size big enough to wear over all kinds of warm layers. Add reflective tape to the front, sides, and back of your helmet. (You have a helmet, right??) Get blinky red lights and put them all over your back: on the bike, on your helmet, on a backpack if you're wearing one. Use a white light for the front of your bike.
• Vision. If you're going to be riding on roads or paths that aren't lit at night, get a really good light for the front of your bike. This is a place to spend money to get a very bright light with an internal, rechargeable battery. (AA batteries drain fast in cold weather, and drained batteries produce poor light).

Secondly, comfort. Winter is also colder than summer, and wind sucks the warmth right out of your body. The tricky part is keeping the extremities warm without overheating.

• Hands. Lobster claw gloves divide your four fingers into two, providing better warmth than standard gloves and better grip on handlebars and brake levers than mittens. If in doubt about size, opt for slightly larger; the air inside will warm up and help insulate. Whatever you wear, make sure the palms and fingertips are covered with material that grips, not just plain fleece or wool, which will leave your hands sliding all over the place. If it's *really* cold, a pair of breathable-waterproof mittens large enough to fit over your gloves/mitts is helpful. Or you can do like New York City delivery guys, and tape plastic bags around the ends of your handlebars.
• Eyes. Need to be protected, night and day. Biking gear manufacturers make glasses with interchangeable lenses that you can swap out with clear ones for night riding. If you wear glasses anyway, you might want to consider a pair with transitional lenses that go dark in bright sun.
• Ears. Depending on temperature, a thin headband or a thin hat to go under your helmet. A gore-text helmet cover (and again with all the reflective stripes) will also keep your head warmer as well as dryer.
• Feet. Hiking boots or knee-high boots with thick wool socks will work, as long as they're not too bulky and as long as it's not too cold. Another option is neoprene shoe covers, which will also protect street shoes from salt and damp if you're commuting to work.
• Legs. You want both warmth and protection from precipitation or road spray, and the amount and the layers will depend on temperature and your own body. Lined hiking pants are a good starting point. Look for a pair that provides warmth, protects from wind, and resists water. Depending on conditions, you could add long underwear (non-cotton!) and/or rain pants.
• Upper body. Here, you want layers as well as the ability to zip easily at the neck as you warm up, or turn into or out of the wind. Avoid cotton like the plague. Start with a light wicking bottom layer, add layers of fleece or wool, top with tightly woven wool or a breathable waterproof.
• Face. You can get a fancy neoprene mask, or a cheap light-weight balaclava, or tie a bandanna over your mouth and nose, or pull up a scarf. Whatever you do, your glasses will fog up. Once you've been riding for 10 or 15 minutes, you'll probably generate enough body heat to keep your face warm, unless it's well below freezing.

Again, if you're already walking or jogging outdoors (or, who knows, cross-country skiing or canoeing) in cold weather, you may have some gear you can repurpose for winter biking. I've acquired most of the stuff I use for winter biking over several years. I see fastest wear on gloves, but other that (and bike seat and tires), I very seldom need to replace anything because of wear.

But chances are you'll need to buy at least a couple of items. If you're on a budget, the first place to spend is on a good headlight; you can get away with a dirt-cheap vest or pinney and inexpensive tail-lights. Money also helps buy warm gloves.

I've deliberately left off the names of shops or manufacturers from the above list. But I will say that everything I've ever bought from Pearl Izumi has been great quality and very long-lasting. Schwalbe makes great tires, including studded ones; having used their punctureless tires, I'll never go back. If you're wondering where to shop, US readers could try Eastern Mountain Sports, Campmor, Sierra Trading Post, Bike Nashbar; I don't have enough experience with shopping elsewhere to make recommendations.

Questions? Anything I've forgotten? Let me know. And happy riding.

Do Plastic Bag Bans Do Any Good?

The short answer: YES.

Mother Jones reports that California has just banned plastic bags, but says "hold the rejoicing."

The article contains a lot of good information: you have to use a paper bag three times to reap an environmental benefit over plastic, when production costs are taken into account, and you have to use a cotton bag a whopping 131 times.

But if you shop twice a week, you'll get through those 131 uses in just over a year.

I can't speak for suburban folks with big cars to bring home huge loads of groceries, and big pantries and closets and freezers to store weeks of groceries at a time, but as a long-time city dweller, I can tell you I shop at least twice a week.

Some cloth bags might not last a year, particularly once they've gone through the wash a time or two, but I've had many cloth bags for a decade or more.

But here's what I think is the key statistic from the article: in studies in Ireland and California, 40 percent of shoppers didn't use a bag at all after bans or fees were imposed.

That blows all the re-use statistics out of the water.

Think about it: how many times have you left a convenience store with two items in a plastic bag, only to take one item out immediately? or both? Even if your community doesn't ban bags, think about just saying "no" to the bag next time. Or pick up the phone and call your local elected official and tell her or him to add a bag ban to the legislative agenda.

Potty Parity: No Joke

A letter to the Connecticut Department of Transportation:

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The newly designed rest areas on the Merritt Parkway are an improvement on the old ones in several ways. But  every time I stop at one, there's a huge line at the women's restroom (and no line, ever, at the men's.)  Finally, yesterday, while I was waiting in the long line for the women's restroom with my son who had already finished his business, I asked him to go back in and count.

Two stalls, two urinals.

In the women's bathroom? Two stalls, full stop.

This raises several questions.

What were your architects thinking?  Why not provide at least as many options for relief in the women's bathroom as in the men's? Or make several individual, unisex stalls, with sinks outside?  

Why design a series of new facilities that create lengthy wait times for women (and their male family members traveling with them)? Why not create facilities that enable equal wait times, knowing social constructions of restroom activities require more time for women?

(No, it's not simply biological difference.)

How much time is lost by women waiting in these lines, in the aggregate? Would anyone think to calculate lost productivity?

Please consider redesigning the remaining new facilities, and retro-fitting those already constructed to eliminate this disparity. Thank you.

---

If you use the Merritt Parkway, and you're so inclined, you could submit your own comments on the situation here.

So You Want to Play in Traffic?

You're thinking about riding your bike to work, but nervous? Here are some answers to the questions that might be worrying you.

Problem: You'll sweat on the way to work.
Solution: Bring a spare shirt. Keep deodorant and, depending on the level of formality expected at your office, a couple of blazers at the office. Or even drive in on Monday morning with the week's wardrobe and drive home with it again on Friday afternoon.  If you use hair gel, keep that at the office too and use it when you get there after you take off your helmet.

Problem: You haven't ridden a bike since you were thirteen.
Solution: Practice. Take the bike out early on a Sunday morning when there's not much traffic and, if it would bother you, not too many spectators. Go to an empty playground or a park, and...

• Practice riding in a nice straight line.
• Keep your thumbs hooked over the handle bars, and one finger on each brake, and your elbows nice and loose so you don't feel like your fillings are going to fall out every time you hit a crack in the road.
• Look over one shoulder, then the other, to see what's coming, still while riding in a straight line.
• Practice signaling left and right, by sticking one hand and then the other wayyy out to the side so nobody can possibly miss it. And make sure you're still riding in a straight line.
• Come to a complete stop, still in that nice straight line, and then start up again without letting the handle bars sway left or right. Much.
• Try braking and accelerating while signaling.
• Practice turning with one hand, and then the other, off the handlebars.
• Find some parked cars, or a parked car by a building, and practice riding between them. Get to know how much clearance you need.
• If you can, find a dirt road or a trail and ride around to see how it feels. If you hit a patch of sand or gravel, you'll notice that you can stay up if you can keep the bike in a straight line (there's that again) and keep the wheels turning.

Problem: It might rain.
Solution: Check the weather forecast the night before, and again in the morning. Buy rain gear according to your budget, and carry it with you depending on the chance of rain and the temperature and how uncomfortable you'll get if you get caught out. If you can, get a waterproof/breathable jacket, but even then, see item one.

Today, there was a 30 percent chance of rain in the morning, plus cooling temperatures throughout the day. I biked to the train station in a T shirt, with blazer and rain jacket in my bag; I wore the blazer for the ride from train station to office, and on the way home, wore both blazer and jacket -- for warmth. I didn't get rained on during any of the legs. Layers are helpful year-round, because you'll warm up after 10 or 15 minutes of riding, and temperatures can change quite a bit between 8 a.m. and 5 or 6 or 7 p.m., depending on when you head home.

If you do get caught -- or decide to ride -- in the rain, slow down. Braking takes longer, sewer hole covers and train tracks are treacherously slippery, and you never know what's under that puddle. Also drivers will be less likely to see you, because of crud on the windshield plus because they won't expect bikers out there -- so take extra cautions.

Problem: It's dark.
Solution: Lights and brights.  Your rain jacket can be any color, as long as it's neon; you might also want a reflective vest and ankle reflectors. Put red blinking lights on the back of the bike, on your helmet, on your backpack if you carry one, and a white light on the front of the bike.

Are Bike Lanes for Biking?

Dear Mayor DeBlasio,

Yesterday morning, on my bike commute from the Lower East Side to Penn Station, I encountered 24 obstacles in the bike path.  I ride along the East River for approximately half of my route, so I was only counting for two miles.

I'm not counting vehicles crossing the bike path while turning, even though they're ignoring the law that says they're supposed to yield to bicyclists.  I'm also not counting vehicles or pedestrians or other objects partially in the bike path -- only complete obstructions.

Today, I "only" counted nineteen.

That comes to 8.25 obstructions per mile, on average across two days.

I've been biking in New York City for 25 years.  This morning I wondered if having to ride in and out of the bike path so frequently, cutting in and out of the stream of cars and trucks, might be more dangerous than not having a bike path at all.

If you’re serious about Vision Zero, you need to get serious about sending a message to drivers of motor vehicles that the bike lane is not a passing lane, a standing zone, a double-parking zone, or a turn lane. 

Pedestrians might also be encouraged to remember that it’s not a texting zone or a jogging path.

Thank you for your time.

Heide Estes

New York, NY

Copy: Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg

Thinking About Biking To Work?

Biking to work has huge benefits.  It gets you out of your car and/or off public transit, out in fresh air, with a guaranteed workout built into your day so you don't have to take time to go to the gym.  Right now is a great time to start planning to ride to work later this spring.

Best time to start is in April.  Daylight Saving Time will have kicked in so the evenings are long enough you won't be riding home in the dark; the weather is warm enough to ride without a lot of special gear, yet cool enough to ride without needing to carry clothes to change into when you get to work.

Here's what you need to start preparing now:

Bike:  If you haven't ridden it all winter, give it an overhaul (or take it down to the local bike shop now, before the wait times get long).  Pump up the tires, make sure the brakes work, and check all the nuts and bolts and screws to make sure nothing has come loose.

Helmet:  Ninety-seven percent of people who die in biking accidents weren't wearing helmets, according to the authors of The Urban Cyclist's Survival Guide.  Get one.  Make sure it fits snugly over the top of your head, front of the helmet just above the eyebrows (not at the hairline) and the strap is snug under your chin.  Leave enough room to yawn or yell, but not much more. 

Route: Scout it out by car and Google maps (click on the little "bike" icon to see bike routes in your area, and if there aren't any, call your local elected officials).  Take a test ride early on a Sunday morning, when there's hardly any traffic.

Riding Skills: Study this guide, and also this one to biking safely in traffic.  Practice while you're out there on your Sunday morning ride. 

Prepare for the inevitable: flat tires happen, as do other mechanical failures, sudden rain showers, and falls, most of which don't cause serious injury, but might leave you rattled.  Have a back-up plan: a friend or a cab company you can call for a lift or a bus line you can catch.  Just in case.

Plan your first ride!  Pick a day when you don't have an important early-morning meeting, in case it takes a little longer to get to work than expected, and when you'll be able to ride home while it's still light out.  If you normally work in pretty formal clothes, bring an extra outfit to work the day before, or pick a casual day.  The day of your ride, pack deodorant and hair gel.

For starters, you might aim for one ride a week to work.  Once that starts getting routine, you might aim for two days a week, or three.  Eventually you might find a rhythm where you mix it up, driving some days, riding others.  Or you might get so hooked you ditch your car.

If you're still riding in September, you'll need to invest in lights, reflective gear, waterproofs, warm gloves, and some other gear.  But you don't have to worry about any of that now.

---

Oh, and if you've read this far, I have one copy of The Urban Cyclist's Survival Guide by James Rubin and Scott Rowan to give away to a random commenter.  I bought the copy -- no sponsorship deals to reveal; I just want to give it a good home.

Vision Zero -- Eliminate Traffic Deaths

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner William Bratton held a news conference yesterday to announce a program of changes designed to eliminate traffic deaths in the city.

The plan has 62 different elements, including reducing the city's speed limit, better enforcing existing traffic laws including the requirement that -- did you even know? -- cars are supposed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.  De Blasio also wants to install more speed bumps, remodel intersections, and increase bike lanes and illumination.

Some of this can be done at the city level, some requires cooperation from the state legislature.  Please contact Governor Andrew Cuomo and let him know you support Vision Zero.  You can send email using this form, or call his office or send a good old-fashioned letter:

(518) 474-8390
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

Don't live in New York?  That's okay, tell him you commute to or visit the city.  Tell him the city's residents have the right to live without the fear of being mowed down by an irresponsible driver.

Thank you.

Uncle

I've been walking a lot lately.  It's a nice winter activity.

In other words, I gave up.  I haven't been on my bike in a week.  I gave up right before the most recent snowstorm: It's just too much not-fun any more.

I drove my car yesterday, and on returning home found a parking spot, but couldn't get my car into it because of the ice and crusted snow that remained.  The vehicle that had vacated it must have been a jeep or SUV, because there was no way my little hatchback was going in the spot without getting damaged.  (I tried.)

I dug out the spot to make room, throwing the ice chunks... in the bike lane.

The other alternative was the sidewalk, and that seemed worse, especially given the various elderly people who need to get out in this weather just as much as the rest of us.

During and after the previous storm, I gave it my best effort.  I learned that on my bike, the crusted ice and chunks of hardened snow and puddles of salty slush make riding treacherous.  I took one fall when a pedestrian stepped in front of me, and fortunately only got bruised.

Temperatures aren't going above freezing for long enough to melt all the crud for at least another week, so for the foreseeable future, I'm walking and taking public transit to get to work and around the city. 

I could possibly navigate in this snow if I had a different bike, probably a mountain bike with studded tires.  Or I could manage if the city did a better job clearing bike lanes: they were plowed, but not salted.

But for now, I'm slowing down and seeing my surroundings a different way.

Vision Zero

New York's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, wants to bring Vision Zero, an approach to traffic that prioritizes pedestrian safety over vehicular convenience, to New York, with the goal of eliminating pedestrian and bike fatalities.

He's going to need a lot of popular support.

There's not a lot of corporate and capitalist infrastructure that supports walking or riding.  But there's an immense amount of it behind driving cars and trucks, and the interest groups and lobbyists that work for those infrastructures are going to oppose anything that interferes with profit.  (See: climate change denial.)

It's also going to require a sea change in driving -- and pedestrian -- cultures.  I'll spare you the bruise obtained while biking the other day, when I braked to avoid a pedestrian who stepped right in front of me, and hit the pavement instead.  Had I hit the pedestrian, I'd likely have been charged.

Unlike the vehicular driver who hit my friend Karen, the Poor Princess.  Karen was proceeding legally across the street in a crosswalk somewhere in New Jersey.  The driver stopped for a traffic light and then started up again without bothering to check if anyone was in the crosswalk, and hit the Princess, sending her to the doctor's office and her bike to the repair shop.  The driver of the car was not charged.  Like most drivers in such situations, unless they're falling-down drunk or leave the scene, the driver said, "oops, sorry" and got off.

But Karen was on a bike at the time. 

And so the responding police officer *issued HER a ticket* for ... I don't know, riding a bike with two wheels on the street.  After a day in court the ticket was dismissed.  Meanwhile on the Upper West Side, three pedestrians died in traffic accidents last week, and the NYPD responded by giving out more tickets for jaywalking.

Jaywalking pedestrians are part of the problem, indeed.  But what needs to happen is for traffic engineers to find ways to de-incentivize jaywalking by, for instance, making crosswalks, where most pedestrian deaths occur, safer: right now in NYC, most crosswalks require people crossing on foot to compete with cars turning off cross streets, with parked cars making them invisible to each other. 

The focus needs to be on changing a culture that treats pedestrian and other deaths as "accidents."  the focus needs to be on changing infrastructures so that pedestrians can move through neighborhoods safely, quickly, and confidently in ways that make sense to a human being, not to cars in a grid.

You can support de Blasio and Vision Zero by making phone calls or writing letters to the Mayor's office.  You can join Transportation Alternatives or the Complete Streets Coalition, advocacy groups fighting for safer streets.  Or contact your local policy makers and urge them to prioritize pedestrian safety.

One more death in traffic is one too many.

Why Am I Biking In This Weather?

The Mate would really like to know.  There are probably a few other people who think I'm nuts. They might not be wrong.

It comes to this: curiosity; stubbornness; solidarity; convenience; that car accident; environment.

The service industries have a whole raft of employees whose job it is to keep moving, whatever the weather.  People who are largely invisible to the middle class except when they make headlines by biking on sidewalks or the wrong way in traffic.  I ride in solidarity.

I biked to the train to get to work yesterday in the beginning of the snowstorm, and discovered my bike handles pretty well in just a couple of inches of fluffy stuff.  In the middle of the snowstorm on the way home, I discovered my bike doesn't handle so well in four inches of snow that's been driven in.  Also, the derailleur freezes and doesn't work so well.  I pushed my bike where I had to, I rode it where I could; I made it home.

I grew up in New Hampshire, and played and skied and snow-shoed and walked in conditions considerably colder than what New Yorkers consider reasonable.  I'm also aware that people live in far colder climates.  The saying is, there's no bad weather, only bad clothes, and there's a fair amount of truth in that.  People typically own clothing appropriate to their own climate, so dressing for significantly colder temperatures can be a little complicated.  Lots of layers is a good start.

I biked to my physical therapy appointment this morning because it's the quickest way to get there.  Public transit takes at least an hour; I could walk the distance in somewhat under an hour.  Plus, curiosity again.  Turns out bike lanes were plowed but not salted, and blocked by the usual obstacles such as parked trucks.  Also, people were shoveling snow into them off the sidewalk (plowed and salted) and their parked cars (buried).

Plus, after an "accident"* in which my car was nearly totaled by a runaway truck, I still have a phobia about getting in a car, any car.  (I also still have chronic pain, weakness, limited range of movement.  Hence the above-mentioned PT.)  If I can avoid it by taking my bike and/or public transit, I'll almost always choose that option.

Finally, the environment.  Riding my bike and taking mass transit require far less fuel than driving a car.  I'm committed to doing what I can to reverse climate change.  On my own, it's not much.  Biking in all kinds of crazy weather gets people's attention and, I hope, gets them thinking, "I can do that too!"  (I would recommend that anyone who hasn't been biking regularly wait until April.)

Even I have my limits, however.  I'll be driving to my 4:30 class this afternoon.  And I'm grateful I have the option.

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*The NYPD has recently started using the word "collision" instead of "accident," in recognition of the fact that at least one of the drivers screwed up almost every time.

Pedestrian Fatalities

That would be pedestrians killed by cars.  Because let's face it, pedestrians aren't killed in collisions with each other.  One pedestrian in New York was killed in a collision with a cyclist several years ago, and what with the publicity surrounding the event, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was part of a plague of bike-related pedestrian deaths.  But no, as far as I can tell that one was a unique event, in the actual unmodified sense of the word.

Pedestrians are routinely killed by cars, however.  It seems every week there's another report of a kid killed in NYC, usually crossing at an intersection in the company of a parent or older sibling.  The number of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in New York State has been static over the past five years, hovering at around 300 deaths a year.

And most of the time, the driver isn't charged.  Unless the driver leaves the scene, or is drunk or on drugs, he (usually) apologizes, expresses his horror, and walks away.

Under Bloomberg, New York City's response to pedestrian deaths was to put in new traffic signals, with countdowns telling pedestrians it was time to get out of the way.  But the problem that pedestrians cross the street at the same time that cars turn from cross streets was not addressed.

There is no time when pedestrians are the only legal occupants of crosswalks: they always have to compete with motor vehicles.

So there's a simple solution: the city needs to re-time the lights, so that there are opportunities for people to cross without having to compete with turning cars.

Limiting street parking near intersections would also help, as it can now be difficult to see if someone is in a crosswalk when turning from a cross street.

This is going to be my advocacy issue of the year: letters, phone calls, blog entries until you're sick of them devoted to trying to persuade public officials to make real infrastructure changes to end this plague of pedestrian deaths.

Are you with me?