Category Archives: traffic safety

The sun shines today also

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“When you’re born to run, it’s so good to just slow down.”  –Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life Again

Since I started cycling everyday in 1997, the original attraction–the insight of the bicycle as a transformative tool–keeps getting stronger.   I’ve learned that in spite of my love, there is no bike friendly paradise out there that already exists for us.  We have to build our own world.

Rules to govern power differentials in spatial relationships is key for encouraging more walking and cycling.  IMBA (the International Mountain Bicycling Association) offers a simple principle for the trails to direct respectful relations.  “Descending riders yield to climbing riders.”  ( https://www.imba.com/ride/imba-rules-of-the-trail ) With speed comes the responsibility to control it.  On roads, the LAB (League of American Bicyclists) has a similar principal governing orderly flow of traffic.  It’s called “First come, first served.”  “Everyone on the road is entitled to the space they’re using.  If you want to use someone else’s space, you must yield to whoever is using it.”  ( https://bikeleague.org/content/traffic-laws ).  Education is one part.  Instilling the discipline to apply these principles is another.  Policies prioritizing safety over speed are mechanisms.   Safety is a mindset based on self-respect and respect for human individuals.

Prioritizing safety over speed is based on recognizing our limits as a species. We evolved in nature for slower moving activities.  Mechanical assistance brings in a level of responsibility we are not automatically equipped to handle. So training and knowledge becomes essential.  Nature shows us we have biophysical limits.  Travel systems such as the Shinkansen, or Bullet Train, in Japan have achieved an admirable degree of fast transport and system safety by controlling variables.  To keep using our roads and trails with a high degree of autonomy and freedom, we have to implement principles, and be disciplined and restrained to protect people.

To achieve the outcome of a transportation system with all kinds of choices, and safety and dignity for all, we have to focus on the process of following basic principles.  I think we have a head start in America since the idea of respecting the individual is so strong and powerful, and we also want people to set out and explore our country.  It seems a vital necessity.  If we focus on the process and applying what we know, it feels so good to slow down and enjoy life everyday.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.  Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance.

Donations: If you enjoy this blog and want to support our work building sustainable transportation systems, please donate here https://bikeinitiative.org/make-a-donation/

Bird flight

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Mai and I started our year off right, making our first trip together in 2019 to the Bosque del Apache.  I hear the doves singing right outside my window at the moment, but at this National Wildlife Refuge nature is amazingly dense.  You sense the fabric  of life holding the world together.  I hope you enjoy these photos.  I’ve added a few words to guide you.  And if you wish to listen, Andrew York’s song Centerpeace below is a beautiful companion.  He’s interviewed in this video after he plays the song, and York says about his inpsiration: “Everything…Nature, primarily, seeing the patterns, and order, and beauty in nature, the organic quality the natural world has to offer, helps me to form my music…”

Photographers awaiting sunrise. Wildlife photography teaches patience, taking our time

When the Snow Geese decide to circulate, it is a an explosion of noise and color, uplifting for our hearts and minds

After flying out of the their roosts in the morning, birds graze together in the fields

Since moving to Albuquerque in 2014, we’ve been exploring the birds and their habitat.  For this trip we did an overnighter.  Saturday we watched the sunset and transition from day to night. We had a late dinner in Socorro, and spent the night at Days Inn.  We awoke at 4am the next day and left before sunrise to see the birds awakening.  It was gorgeous.

Synching up with nature is really tuning in to our own rhythms.  After it was almost totally dark, Mai spotted this owl in the top of the tree.  We stopped to watch.  Another owl soared across the sky and joined the first owl on the tree top.  What fliers!  The hooting was glorious.

The next day we took a drive around the refuge after the morning flyout.  We had planned on leaving after sunrise, but time flew by and we spent the whole morning there, then ate lunch at the San Antonio Crane restaurant.  Completely full, we changed our plans, canceling our trip to the hot springs.  We are delighted to be feeling more at home in New Mexico, and deepening our understanding of where we live.  My, how nature surprises us if we are open to all it.

We saw tons of wildlife, including a cute pair of Road Runners, our State bird

Last time we saw Javelina was down at Big Bend camping along the Rio Grande.  We saw them here again

Talking to fellow wildlife watchers, we learned more about being observant.  There are many trails there to walk and explore.  We can’t wait to go back and discover more.

Resources:

Check out Sansai Studio’s video of Snow Geese circulating:

Riding with heart: Mike Woods at La Vuelta a España

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North American Mike Woods won his first grand tour stage in the 2018 Vuelta a España.  Riding up steep grades past throngs of cheering fans, through the mist on a forested mountain top, Woods persevered.  Rocking his bike back and forth, standing up out of the saddle, accelerating again and again, Woods pushed himself harder than anyone else could.  When he crossed the finish Woods was caught by his soignuer, who held him so he wouldn’t fall down.  Woods left everything out on the road.  His ride was an amazing display of how sport gives an outlet, a place to put our energies, crystallizing our will into a determined moment, overcoming life’s arduous circumstances.  Sport gives us the opportunity to show what the human spirit can do.

There were so many people on the side of the road today just screaming my name and my director was on the radio.  In the last 500 meters he just said do this for your family.  And, I did.  I did.  —Michael Woods on winning Stage 17, Vuelta a España 2018

Cycling it seems to me is so appropriate for the 21st century.  It elevates human living in so many ways, including Woods’ showcase of the triumph of the human spirit.  And it makes practical sense as a fitting, appropriate technology for daily living.  It’s self-powered mobility that’s clean, renewable, accessible, affordable, and quite fun for everyone.  From kids to families, all generations, young and old, including the many generations to come, cycling works wonders, and gives us a window into the beauty of the human soul and the everyday world we live in.

Resources and further reading:

Stage 17 highlights (3 minutes, including Woods interview).  Watch video on youtube

Stage 17 last kilometer (4 minutes) Watch video on youtube

Professional cyclists used the Vuelta to draw attention to the necessity of increasing road safety for all, including bicyclists, pedestrians, and occupants and operators of vehicles.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/freire-leads-demonstration-for-tougher-spanish-road-safety-laws/

Mike Woods is on Strava, the social network for athletes.  You can view his day to day activities there.  From Toronto, Canada, he trains in Tucson in the offseason.  https://www.strava.com/pros/425147

All of us

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Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?
—Henry David Thoreau

People bicycling are like family.  Cycling has an amazingly broad and diverse impact throughout our communities.  But I still get surprised when I meet new cyclists and experience how the world of cycling is expanding.  Cycling keeps branching out and bridging gaps.  When I picked up the September/October 2018 issue of Bicycling magazine, I was captivated by the story on NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson and his love for bicycling, and how that love is shared by so many in motorsports.


Joe Gibbs Racing mechanic Sean Kerlin is a cycling enthusiast.  photo from bicycling.com

I don’t care who you are…it [cycling] is just a great break in the craziness of life. –Jimmie Johnson

Johnson is one of the great drivers of all time, and he’s also cultivated a passion for cycling.  He uses it for many of the reasons we all do.  Cycling has helped him listen to his body and learn about its needs (which helps him in the race car when he is driving).  Cycling helps him enjoy his travels more.  Johnson gets to explore the places he goes in depth and detail by pedaling, and meets lots of interesting people.   And then there’s the intangibles.  Cycling just makes for a better day.  I bet cycling helps him practice hand, feet and eye coordination too, honing skills.

I’m following Jimmie Johnson on Strava now, and enjoy seeing his almost daily rides.  He has 7423 followers on Strava as of this writing, and posts some awesome pictures of the places he rides and people he rides with, including his wife.  Cycling makes life more beautiful.

To innovate…you need a trained imagination. —Martha Nussbaum, NEH 2017 Spring conversation

I’m a driving enthusiast, but didn’t grow up a NASCAR fan.  So for me, Johnson’s cycling is a way into NASCAR traditions and culture.  I found out they are not so different than what I am used to.  They have a competitive drive that fosters innovation, and they care about the broader world, the environment and all people.  The NASCAR Green program works to minimize NASCAR’ environmental impact and preserve the natural environment and foster sustainability.

No wonder so many of the drivers, mechanics, and staff in NASCAR have joined with cycling culture!  It delivers a balanced approach and real sense of mechanical efficiency, ergonomics and light impact.  Maybe when we ride a bike we are not as alone as we may think.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought.  A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.  —Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”

The bike brings people together.  When we see people cycling we have an automatic connection.  We have a technology that helps us calm our minds, deepen our engagement with our bodies and the planet, and expands our sense of the other, making the world more familiar.

I like this poem by William Safford, called “Maybe Alone on My Bike”.  There’s an analysis in the Literature chapter of this Routledge Handbook that makes me think about the potential of the bicycle.  So much stored energy!  It’s almost like cycling tames ourselves and opens us up to a conversation with the landscape.  We sense a greater connection to the world around us.

I’ve blogged about the manifold applications of cycling over the years.  Here are a few examples of the positive impacts cycling imparts on individual lives, our families, our imaginations of what is possible.  Out of many, cycling makes us one again.  Riding a bike more and sharing the experience with others is a goal that creates the kind of world we want to live in.

The World Bank sees cycling as an investment in health:
https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/high-level-champions-for-bicycling/

The US Military sponsors endurance sports to support our service personnel:
https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/telling-it-like-it-is/

Kids benefit from cycling in many ways:
https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/cycling-in-the-news/

The beautiful necessity of cycling

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…human inventions are magical in that they give life to what heretofore had no existence. Our good working ideas have the capacity to direct our lives in a manner indistinguishable from any other reality.  —Cormac McCarthy, “Cormac McCarthy Returns to the Kekulé Problem” in Nautilus

The invention of cycling is a remarkable achievement.  Along with walking, cycling epitomizes sustainable transportation.  Human beings are designed to move under our own power. Walking is the most basic transportation.  A bicycle is the most basic vehicle.  By designing our cities and streets around the concept of serving walking and cycling well, we improve all types of human mobility. It is the long-term solution to our current transportation challenges.

This song by Rush, Subdivisions, reminds me of the world I grew up in.  It sometimes felt alien, partitioned, and anonymous spending so much time in automobiles.  A new degree of culture is emerging that commands our respect for the inalienable freedoms of human movement.  The culture that embraces an array of transportation opportunities dramatically improves our travel safety, and revs up our lives and economy.  Multimodal transportation–serving all travel modes–is the new helm.  This framework brings health, sustainability, and builds community.  It’s a saner world, one where we are not incessantly rushing, but spending time doing things that truly bring us joy, and listening more to what our bodies have to tell us.

An article in The Guardian today mentions “vehicles are now America’s biggest CO2 source”.  It discusses reducing emissions and improving efficiency, but not increasing walking and cycling.  It’s not an either/or proposition, it is about viewing walking and cycling as priorities, absolute necessities, basic public goods.  Without serving those choices, we are left with a conundrum.  We’ve learned structuring cities and streets around cars reduces choices.  Walking and cycling make healthier, happier people, and better places.  They’re good choices.  Everyone yearns for health, happiness and freedom.  Elevating the idea that streets are for people makes many transportation problems disappear, and creates a system that matches our human potential.

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We need to get more people experiencing cycling to open minds.  It is a key technology for sustainable development.  Cycling aligns with the beautiful necessity of our human nature.  We are an animal designed to move with our legs.  The bicycle unites that reality with an ingenious tool.  Cycling is magical, like having wings or discovering new superpowers.  It changes the way we experience and perceive the world. Cycling joins the power of wheeled locomotion with the sensitivities and keen pleasures of being human.  By designing our streets to serve walking and cycling first, we’ll give rise to a new form of built-environment that connects us through our activities and makes our spirits soar higher.  Once we obey the concept of designing cities for wellness, our culture can expand in new directions, giving our dreams real leg power.

Akemashite omedetō gozaimasu

明けましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year!

Family cycling, an outdoor adventure

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Visit Utah released this promotional video of a family touring the US Bicycle Route System across Utah.  Loving the concept of experiencing the Southwest in this way.  Cycling gets people that authentic experience we are craving, and is central for developing sustainable tourism.

Resources:
Read the companion article on Visit Utah:
https://www.visitutah.com/articles/utah-at-15-mph/

Find out more on the US Bicycle Route System from Adventure Cycling:
https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-route-system/

Read about our 25 scenic byways in New Mexico:
https://www.newmexico.org/things-to-do/scenic-byways/

The fire inside

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I clap my hands in infinite joy and amazement, before the first opening to me of this august magnificent, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert.  And what a future it opens!  I feel a new heart beating with the love of the new beauty.  I am ready to die out of nature, and be born again into this new yet unapproachable America I have found in the West.  –Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience”

I cycle up into the high country
From a city at the edge of where the mountains touch down
Rising above the Río Grande’s winding course through the green center of town

At the top of the Sandias filling my water bottles
People approach me shining with lively curiosity
Conversation flows easily on this August day

Where did you start from?  How long did it take?
From home, not too long, you can do it too!
One foot after the other, eat, drink, be comfortable, take your time

And marvel at how cycling activates our care and joy
The fire inside us flowing upward like an awakening volcano
We see the world with new eyes rediscovering beautiful America

Travels in Japan

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Japan has a well-tempered travel culture, thank goodness, because tourism is soaring.  Travel elicits curiosity and wonder, and emphasizes our mutual interdependence.  If we can treat everyone equally in public travel spaces, and honor each person’s value and dignity, we are on our way to a better quality of life and facilitating stronger global citizenship.  Japan has a good blueprint for treating everyone like we deserve to be treated, like we’re one big human family.

Osaka has amazing shopping districts, with streets made for walking

Kagoshima in Kyushu has bike share and street greening initiatives

Japan’s traffic system is one of the safer systems in the world.  The photo below shows a few reasons why.  The intersection has huge crosswalks, and the stop bar on the street lane is way behind the crosswalk.  This creates space for pedestrians.  There is no left turn on red in Japan (the U.S.A.’s equivalent of right turn on red), and that reduces possibility for conflict and eases pressure on people walking.  The sight lines at this intersection are open, too, so there is good visibility for all users.  The light gives a pedestrian signal automatically, so no one has to push a button.  The speed limits are also very low (30-40 kph, or 18-25 mph) to increase safety for all.

the van in this photo is a driving school van. Driver training is very intensive in Japan!

Safe streets and lots of good transportation choices makes it easy to relax and access all the good amenities a given place has to offer.  In the the shopping district in Komyoike, where Mai’s parents live, we encountered this country western line dancing gig.  It was cool, upbeat, friendly.

I really love the contrasts and continuity in Japan between historical and present culture.  We went to an Ikebana (art of flower arranging) exhibition in downtown Osaka, and saw this shrine on a rooftop pictured in the photo above.  The photo below is of Osaka’s famous walking mall.

In Japan people are walking everywhere so you get used to it.  Crosswalks, like the one below in Komyoike, are clearly marked and signed.  And the neighborhoods in the newer suburbs have dedicated pathways, mostly off street, to connect to markets, work, parks, schools, and transit.

It’s not all about infrastructure for sure.  Many towns and streets were laid out and built a long time ago, and the car was introduced later.  This is where manners and respect is even more important.  The street pictured below is definitely a “yield street”.  I bicycled this street several times.  There is a transit stop on the left.    People get off the bus and walk on the street.  Bicycles and cars yield to pedestrians and share the road.  There are also other hazards you can see, like open drainage and telephone poles on the side of the road.  These close quarters cultivate cautious users and a culture of sharing!  Courtesy, respect and skills guard our dignity.  Japanese cars are smaller, and pedestrian safety measures are designed into the vehicle.

I experienced travel in Japan from many perspectives, by foot, bicycle, train, plane, automobile, bus, subway.  They were all valuable experiences.  Cycling was a special joy.  The vending machines in Japan are so well positioned, just where I needed them on excursions.  Some machines offer an hot espresso drink, hot or cold, at the base of a long mountain climb.  Thoughtful touches for travelers in Japan make it welcoming, rewarding and inspiring!

Declaration of Interdependence, or, A Beautiful Arrangement

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“…the way of the road was the rule for all upon it.”  –Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
“…cities with a high bicycling rate among the population generally show a much lower risk of fatal crashes for all road users…”  —Marshall & Garrick, Environmental Practice 13:16–27 (2011)

Americans spend so much time on the road we deserve to feel at home there.  Safety for road users is one of the most important indicators for our pursuits of the American dream.  Whether we are driving truck, pedaling a bicycle, pushing a baby stroller, or rolling a wheelchair, sharing our streets is an elemental part of what makes America good.  Streets are a celebration of our public life, and what we see and do there, whether we feel safe and included, speaks to us.

crest-switchback-on-the-edge

We are witnessing an ongoing tragedy on our roads.   Every month on America’s roads we lose more lives than we did in 9/11.  Most of them are persons traveling in automobiles.  None of us are invulnerable.  “We know all this and act as if we don’t” (Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic, p. 275).  The illusion of invulnerability walls off our sensitivities.  If we pay attention to the human vulnerabilities in all of us, we realize something like a Declaration of Interdependence aptly describes the nature of public safety on our roads.  The streets won’t feel safe for any of us until they are functioning safely for all users.   Recognizing this interdependence is key.

placitas-horse-gang

Every human being deserves a safe home, a safe workplace, safe schools, a safe neighborhood and a safe road to travel on in between. Every road is like a bridge from one part of our life to another.  And sometimes the simple act of being on the move is the absolute best place to be in a given moment, feeling wonderfully free.  Safe roads are an essential part of freedom, and we’ll do well securing more mobility freedom for our children, grandchildren, and on down the road toward the infinite horizon for the multitude of generations to come.  Exercising a more responsible freedom on the road helps us reach towards a better vision of the world where people are protected, and expands opportunities to pursue our interests and live our dreams.

placitas-friend-good-friend

From Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan’s song Masters of War—

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world

We as a people can address actions that instill fear to travel with children on our public roads.  Speak kindly with caring thought and sincerity.  We deserve to be safe.  “This land was made for you and me.”  (Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land) .  Begin with peace here.  We are worthy.

Old Town Farm's fresh, local flowers make for a beautiful arrangement by Sansai Studios

Old Town Farm’s fresh, local flowers make for a beautiful arrangement by Sansai Studios

Resources:
Check out my blog post “The Quiet Catastrophe” on Edward Hume’s book Door to Door.
In Learning from Trails I look at our expectations for cooperative use of shared public spaces.
In Ride 2 Recovery I explore roads as a place for healing, particularly for wounded warriors.

Inspiration for Planning

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“It is finally, I suppose, a question of which force proves the stronger: the demand for an efficient and expensive highway system designed primarily to serve the working economy of the country, or a new and happy concept of leisure with its own economic structure, its own art forms, and its own claim on a share of the highway. At present we are indifferent to this promise for our culture, and to the extinction which threatens it; is it not time that we included this new part of America in our concern?  It is true that we can no longer enter our towns and cities on avenues leading among meadows and lawns and trees, and that we often enter them instead through roadside slums.  But we can, if we choose, transform these approaches into avenues of gaiety and brilliance, as beautiful as any in the world; and it is not yet too late.”

–J.B. Jackson, Other-Directed Houses, writing from Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1956

atm-aster-city

biopark-glory

Resources–
The quote is from an essay in this work.  Landscape in Sight:  Looking at America
Another encouraging book edited by D.W. Meinig.  The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes
Thanks to University of Nevada, Reno, Geography for introducing me to these works.

The photos are from my cell phone as usual.  First photo is from a ride around the Sandia mountains, and the second from a walk through the ABQ Biopark.  Arigato.