Spring is here! And bad cyclists!

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A cyclist died last night after colliding with an automobile. I used to live near the intersection in question. It's one of the more trafficky spots in an otherwise very calm, residential area.

According to the Denver Post article, the collision happened at about 8:30 PM, by which time it would have been mostly dark.

I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate event, but I choose to see it as a symptom of a certain trend I've been noticing. During the last several days, as the weather gets nicer, there has been a considerable increase in the number of cyclists out on the roads. Many of whom, since they weren't out on the roads during winter, are fair-weather pleasure-cruisers. And a large percentage of this group is doing it just plain wrong.

I've become more and more annoyed at cyclists as the temperatures approach 70 degrees. Come 8:30 PM, I am seeing tons of cyclists in dark clothing, with no lights and no helmets, often riding down roads so busy that I avoid them whenever I can.

There is scientific evidence of the presence of these idiot cyclists.

It's a graph. It must be true. That's science!

I had been lulled into complacency this winter by the fact that the majority of cyclists I encountered were careful, safety-conscious, and responsible riders. But now that it's getting nice outside, there are all these ninjas, salmons, scofflaws, and imbeciles. They're clogging up the tubes! I remember now feeling the same frustration last spring.

Well! This I guess is the season to do some Pirating!

I need to prepare some give-away packs.

Two steps forward, one step back

The beginning of March was an excellent time for cyclists everywhere. The Bike League's National Bike Summit was held in DC, and there was some serious advocating and politicking done:

Google maps unveiled it's "bike there" layer.

Bikes Belong launched it's People For Bikes campaign.

It was announced that bike lanes will be installed on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Some really cool looking ones, at that!)

Ray LaHood, your Secretary of Transportation, crashed the conference, jumped atop a table, and shouted down a sea change policy revision meant to be the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.

It was exciting stuff, yall. It was enough to make me feel optimistic and hopeful about the future of our streets and transportation and access.

But then right at the same time—on the last day of the Bike Summit, actually—Tony Kornheiser, host of ESPN's Pardon The Interuption, goes on a good six minute rant about bicyclists. (For the time being, it can be heard on YouTube.) Here are a couple of selected highlights from the transcript posted at washcycle.

I don't mind those one lanes, but you get in Rock Creek Park and 3 or 4 of these people start riding abreast, and I swear to you it's all you can do to not RUN THEM DOWN, like Wile Coyote's, run them over.

They don't share the road. They dominate the road. They dare you to run them down. And then when you do, they get angry.

TK: And so you tap them. I'm not saying you kill them. I'm saying you tap them. Tap them once.
Other Dude: Just a spill, not a fatal spill, but a little spill.
TK: If you're not rubbing, you're not racing right? So you pop them a little bit and see what happens.

The rant was immediately picked up and commented on by Lance Armstrong who, with a few mere flicks of his thumbs, was able to mobilize the entirety of the interwebs. This lead to a slew of complaints, a guest spot for Armstrong on the show, and an apology from Kornheiser.

Which is good. Because it was a horrible thing to have said. Cyclists are attacked by motorists. That happens. For instance, the recent Dr. Thompson trial just got a ton of media attention. Those victims happened to survive the encounter. Plenty more cyclists don't survive theirs. There's a ghost bike memorial near my house in testament to that fact.



And while I am plenty angry at Kornheiser, I don't think he's the guiltiest party. Pardon The Interruption is a comedy/sports show, and the host was putting on a show. He's a shock-jock and a loud-mouth. It's part of his "crotchety old man" shtick. He's an entertainer and he's doing exactly what he is paid to do. He drummed up some controversy, got a lot of attention and a big reaction, and got one of the world's top celebrity-athletes to appear on his show. He was doing his job, and he was doing it well.

ESPN, however, I can fault. They're paying the man to say that kind of stuff. They're the man behind the curtain. So I'll be writing them a good break-up letter. (Radio station management can be reached here.) But I don't consume any of ESPN's products so I don't feel very empowered by doing that. (ESPN is 80% owned by Disney. What hope is there in affecting any kind of change when you're dealing with so large a beast?) According to the wiki, the program is sponsored by Diageo, a beverage company with a lot of products I can choose to not consume out of protest. I can definitely feel good about efforts to get them to pull sponsorship.

Once I'm on this path of escalating blame, though, I realize that ESPN wouldn't air that kind of drivel if it wasn't profitable. It's the consumers who are entertained by violence and bigotry who are creating a market in which Kornheiser is employable.

Which is why I'm encouraged by the outcry and the backlash. Perhaps ESPN will begin to suspect that Kornheiser isn't employable.



Kornheiser, incidentally, was given a two-week suspension earlier this year after making fun of ESPN television personality Hannah Storm's attire. So if endorsing vehicular manslaughter is worse by several degrees than criticizing a woman's wardrobe, then there must be an equally harsher suspension to follow. Possibly a termination!

Right?

Fat chance.

It's so discouraging because there great things happening right now for pedestrians and bicyclists and skateboarders and rollerbladers and public transit-ers and anybody else who may not always rely on a car for transportation. Great things. The US Secretary of Friggin Transportion jumped up on a table and said so himself! Streets are being built, and are being retro-fitted, in such a way that safely promotes all modes of transportation.

But there are still ignorant, or vicious, groups of individuals who actually believe in—and act on!—the kinds of things that Kornheiser said on air. So to give Kornheiser leeway to encourage and incite such behavior is reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, and stupid.

But I continue feel that, in a way, getting mad at Kornheiser is like getting mad at a dog's teeth if it bites you. The teeth are certainly the offensive part, but they are also implements of a larger entity.

Pedestrian safety in Denver and elsewhere

Denver's rankings in T4A's "Dangerous by Design" report

Transportation for America released its Dangerous By Design report this week. The report assesses the danger of walking in major US metropolitan areas, and ranks the cities according to their Pedestrian Danger Index.

Fifty two metro areas were assessed. Denver ranked 23, with a PDI of 75.6, which makes it more dangerous than 55% of other areas. We're off the average of 77.4 by 1.8 points.

It is interesting to note that the ten most dangerous metro areas are all in the south, with the top four all being in Florida (Orlando/Kissimmee, Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Miami/Fort Lauderdale/Pompano Beach, and Jackson). Having spent nearly all of my formative years in the south, I have to say this doesn't surprise me. It has been my experience that roads often narrow and lack sidewalks, and traffic flows through much too fast through residential and commercial areas alike.

Another table in the report shows the absolute number of pedestrian deaths, unadjusted—as the PDI is—for the number of people walking to work. Denver is tied for ninth most dangerous on this list with San Diego.

So absolute number of pedestrians killed by traffic in Denver is well above the norm, but because we have a proportionately large number of people walking to work, our PDI index is close to average.

New York City occupies a unique place on this list. It has among the highest number of actual deaths, and one of the lowest PDIs. Because they have by far the largest number of pedestrian commuters: 6% of all commuters, compared to an average among the other large metro area of 2.2%

Another figure reported is the average federal funds spent each year, per person, on biking/walking projects. Denver allocates $0.65 of its transportation budget, which gives it a ranking of 42/52 on this list. Bottom 10.

Interestingly, Tampa and Jacksonville, the 2nd and 4th most dangerous cities, are near the top of this list, shelling out $1.86 and $2.25 respectively. This is encouraging because it leads one to assume that the cities have recognized and are addressing the dangers detailed in this report.

Here are the figures for the other parts of Colorado.

Safety Rank within state	Metro Area	Pedestrian Danger Index	Total Ped. Fatalities (2007-2008)	% of Traffic Deaths that were pedestrians	Avg Yr Fed $ spent per person	% workers walking to work	2008 Population
1	Denver-Aurora	75.6	79	20.4%	$0.65 2.1%	2,506,626
2	Grand Junction	38.2	3	7.0%	$1.33	2.8%	143,171
3	Pueblo	34.1	2	4.1%	$1.08	1.9%	156,737
4	Greeley	21.4	3	3.3%	$0.41	2.9%	249,775
5	Boulder	16.7	4	10.5%	$3.55	4.1%	293,161
6	Fort Collins-Loveland	12.6	2	3.9%	$1.73	2.7%	292,825
7	Colorado Springs	6.7	3	3.4	$0.69	3.7%	617,714

Denver is obviously the most dangerous place to walk. Hopefully that will change as our Living Streets task force begins accomplishing tasks.

LAB's "Bicycle Friendly Communities" with Pedestrian Danger Index

The League of American Bicyclists maintains a list of "Bike Friendly Communities." as part of their Bicycle Friendly America program. Communities are evaluated on "the 5 Es" (Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation & Planning) and a 28 page whopper of an application submitted by a representative of the community.

T4A's Pedestrian Danger Index cannot be applied directly to this list because the areas are defined differently. T4A defines "metro areas" such as Denver-Aurora, with a population of over 2 million. LAB "communities" tend to be defined by city boundaries, giving Denver a population just over 550,000.

But anyway, for curiosity's sake here are all cities in the top two tiers (Platinum, and gold) with, where available, the corresponding PDI.

City/Community	Rank	PDI
Boulder, Colorado	Platinum	16.7
Davis, California	Platinum	Not available
Portland, Oregon (PDI includes data from Vancouver and Beaverton)	Platinum	36.4
Corvallis, Oregon	Gold	7.9
Eugene, Oregon (PDI includes data from Springfield)	Gold	31.3
Fort Collins, Colorado (PDI includes data from Loveland)	Gold	12.6
Jackson, Wyoming	Gold	Not available
Madison, Wisconsin	Gold	7.8
Palo Alto	Gold	Not available
San Fransisco, California (PDI includes data from Oakland and Freemont.)	Gold	40.9
Seattle, Washington (PDI includes data from Tacoma and Bellevue.)	Gold	31.1
Stanford University, California	Gold	Not available.
Tucson/East Pima, Arizona	Gold	72.8

Like I said, you can't really apply the PDI directly to this list, but it's interesting nonetheless.

That's all for now. I'm going to keep pouring through this report.