Cambridge To Follow Boston’s Lead On Side Guards For Trucks

I have talked about this a couple of times (here and here and here), and its great to see Cambridge moving forward with this simple and awesome plan.

 Via

On Monday, November 10, the City of Cambridge took a major step towards making transportation safer for bikers as well as pedestrians. The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously in favor of a motion put forth by Councilor Dennis Carlone to take the next step in considering outfitting city vehicles with side guards.

The side guards act as a protective measure in the instance of a collision between a cyclist and the truck and keep the cyclist from being pulled beneath the vehicle.

According to Councilor Carlone’s City Council Blog, “City Manager Richard C. Rossi is requested ‘to work with all relevant City Staff, safety experts, and bicycle and pedestrian advocates to consider the possibility of deploying truck side guards across all city-owned and city-leased trucks.'”

Councilor Carlone introduced the legislation back in September after a cyclist was struck by a garbage truck. Luckily the injuries were non-life threatening but that was enough to inspire the councilor to act preemptively.

At the end of October, Boston became the first city in the nation to adopt such a measure. The Boston City Council also voted unanimously to approve an ordinance filed by Mayor Marty Walsh, along with At-Large Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley and the Boston Cyclists Union, to equip all large city-contracted vehicles with safety side guards.

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Mayor Walsh Proposes A Truck Safety Bill For Cyclists

From The Boston Cyclists Union:

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The City of Boston took a big step forward for the country today as Mayor Marty Walsh presented an ordinance to the City Council that will make truck design far safer for pedestrians and bikes.

“We believe this is the first ordinance of it’s kind in the country,” wrote Mayor Walsh’s press secretary Kate Norton. “The ordinance requires side guards, convex mirrors, cross-over mirrors, and blind-spot awareness decals on all vehicles over 10,000 pounds awarded a city contract. There is a fine for those not in compliance — escalating from $100 for the first offense, to potential termination of the contract.”

The Bike Union began pushing for the ordinance through Councillor Ayanna Pressley’s office in the wake of Eoin McGrory’s tragic death in Charlestown in early April. (Please contribute to a charity fund in his memory.) At the same time, the city’s office of Urban Mechanics was talking to the city’s new mayor about the success of a pilot program that required sideguards first on the city’s public works truck fleet, and subsequently on all trash hauling trucks that contracted with the city. The results of the pilot were positive and all parties agreed that a move toward design requirements for all trucks contracting with the city was the best next step.

Today the Bike Union is also releasing a new“Sideguards Save Lives” fact sheet that illustrates the benefits side guards and blind spot mirrors. The fact sheet is that will give residents in other municipalities, the state, and the country a tool to push forward similar ordinances and legislation.

“The Bike Union knows who’s who and they set up a face to face meeting with Councillor Ayanna Pressley’s staff,” said Alex Epstein, one of the nation’s expert on truck safety design who works at USDOT at the Volpe Center in Cambridge, and also helped advise the Mayor’s staff. “I don’t think it would have been possible without that insider connection.”

Read more here.  I can’t wait to see this passed into law.  There is no reason such a simple and cost effective way to save lives is not mandatory.

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Cyclists Sited For Breaking The Law, But Also Given Helmets And Lights

This is the kind of thing I can totally get behind. These sorts of events are good for cyclists, and motorists alike.

Forty cyclists were cited for infractions, including red light violations, illegal turns, and not signaling, when police conducted a bicycle safety and enforcement operation near Commonwealth and Massachusetts avenues.

Boston, Brookline, State, Transit and Boston University police staked out the area at 8 a.m. Thursday.

Police chose the location due to its history of bicycle collisions and other incidents.

Police also conducted an operation along Commonwealth Avenue at 4 p.m. Results of that operation were not yet available, police said.

During the two operations, police also gave riders dozens of free helmets and bicycle lights donated by the university.
(via)

I would also love to see this sort of thing for motorists who drive dangerously.

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MassBike Continues To Shepherd Vulnerable Road Users Bill Through State House

Last tuesday the Vulnerable Road Users Bill had its first hearing (more info here about the bill), from the MassBike website. I am impressed with this bill, and hope that it will help to continue on the 2009 bike law that MassBike passed. Once cyclists are fully integrated into the law structure it will be much easier to continue to push to make the streets better for cyclists.

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On Tuesday, the Joint Transportation Committee held a public hearing on MassBike’s Vulnerable Road Users Bill. Executive Director David Watson had the opportunity to deliver testimony to the committee, where he described the need to have better laws protecting bicyclists, pedestrians, and other vulnerable users of the road. You can read David’s written testimony here. The committee does not make a decision about the bill on the spot, but expressed interest in learning more about it.

A big thanks to those who came to the hearing and signed in to testify, even though, as feared, the bill was called very late in the day. Even if you couldn’t wait the whole time, by simply signing in, in support of the bill, and submitting your written comments, you sent a strong message to the committee that this bill provides much-needed protection for bicyclists and pedestrians.

It is not too late to submit written testimony. If you or someone close to you has been injured by a motorist while bicycling in Massachusetts, and the motorist was not held accountable, please consider sending an email or letter as explained in our Action Alert.

Now, MassBike will follow up with the Joint Transportation Committee to report the bill favorably and move on to the next step toward making it a law.

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Boston Globe’s Latest Masterwork, A Triumph Of Meaningless Grandstanding

I read David Filipov’s newest article at the Globe with some amount of disgust this morning. For those who have yet to glance upon this masterwork of investigative journalism let me serve up some tasty snippets.

Boston has launched a high-profile campaign to become a friendlier city for cyclists. Now the question is whether bicyclists will become friendlier to Boston. On any hour of any day, Boston bicyclists routinely run red lights, ride the wrong way on one-way streets, zip along sidewalks, and cut off pedestrians crossing streets legally – even though bike riders are supposed to obey the same traffic laws as motorists. Sometimes, a bicyclist will do all of these things in one two-wheeled swoop. The city seems unable to stop it.

(emphasis mine)

Ahh yes, Boston cyclists scourge of the streets. I don’t actually disagree with the authors claims of wrong doing by cyclists. In fact I am just as annoyed and pissed off when I see cyclists running red lights (news flash, running red lights doesn’t make you faster…being faster makes you faster), mostly because I then have to pass their stupid asses as I take off after waiting at the red light, but also because I see them regularly muck up traffic, almost get run over, or fail to yield to pedestrians. In short the same numskulls who run red lights on their bikes, are the same people I worry about when in cars. So why might you ask was I so disgusted with this article?

In short the article is guilty of two things. One, it insinuated that only cyclists are breaking the law, and two, it tries very hard to neglect that different user groups produce different consequences when they break the law.

So to the first point, ‘only cyclists are bad’, lets take a look at some of the crack statistics work that the author did.

At that particular intersection, 12 out of 28 cyclists were observed ignoring the red light over the course of 45 minutes. Some cruised right through; others paused and then went forward. A dozen more rode along the narrow sidewalk, weaving their ways among joggers, people walking to work, and students toting instruments toward the Berklee College of Music. Four more cyclists rode the wrong way on Newbury Street, dodging oncoming vehicles.

…

On Wednesday, over the course of 40 minutes, 20 cyclists ran the light at Charles and Beacon streets; only one did not. Monday morning, over the course of 35 minutes at Copley Square, 12 cyclists sailed through red lights (five waited for green). Monday, during a half-hour at lunch time, 10 out of 23 cyclists ran the red light on Tremont Street at the beginning of Beacon Street, where tourists commingled with hurried business people. Ten more rode the wrong way on Tremont. Dozens more took the sidewalk, scattering walkers.

Nice, random sampling times, no methodology, no sampling of other user groups, tiny samples, in short these numbers mean nothing. They also fail to capture the entire picture. How many pedestrians walked out against the signal, how many cars failed to yield, how many cars failed to use turn signals, how many were speeding? I feel that a detailed multi-user group study of any intersection would show that every user group in Boston has a problem, and that problem is that they simply don’t give a fuck about anyone else.

If you are a pedestrian and you want to be “over there” and the little walk man isn’t showing what do you do? You look both ways (sometimes), if no one is coming (or often even if they are, cause ‘hey fuck it’ they will stop) and you step out into the street. You don’t care if you force the cyclist to move into heavy traffic to avoid you, you also don’t care if a bunch of cars have to suddenly stop to let you cross when you have absolutely no business being in the road at that time.

If you are a cyclist and you want to go through a red light, well ‘hey fuck it’, off you go. You have no regard for the fact that you might get run over, that you might hold up traffic, that you might strike a pedestrian that is crossing the street, that you might hit another cyclist that is following the law, that you might then cause a headache for the cyclists behind you who then have to deal with you when the light does turn green.

If you are a motorist and you feel like getting from point A to point B as fast as possible and you don’t feel like signaling, checking your mirrors, obeying the speed limit, looking before you open your door, yielding to pedestrians, giving cyclists room on the road, well ‘hey fuck it’ it’s your car and you will do what you want.

In short no user group is any more or less lawful than any other. They each break different laws in different frequency, but they are ALL breaking the law with great regularity and mostly because of the “hey fuck it” attitude that so many have in this city.

That brings me to point two. The consequences for different user groups breaking the law are not the same. When a car decides to run a red light, it carries a much greater risk than when a bike does. Similarly the danger to pedestrians who cross against the light are predominantly to themselves, with cyclists a close second, most motorists will not be physically harmed if they strike a pedestrian. All of these actions are illegal, and stupid, but the risk vs reward for each is different. If you are going to write an entire article about how unruly cyclists are, well then you should have lots of facts about how this behavior is dangerous to the public. Statistics showing the hundreds of deaths caused each year by cyclists running red lights, and the carnage caused by sidewalk riding. Don’t get me wrong, I think running red lights and riding on the side walk are stupid and shouldn’t be done, but in all honestly they don’t pose a major threat to public safety. However literally thousands of people are killed each year by or in cars. When a 4000 pound box of metal and glass gets going fast and doesn’t signal it’s turns, people die.

Publishing an entire article about one user group without putting it in context is disingenuous, and dishonest. There is already a strong pubic opinion that you “have to be crazy to ride a bike in Boston” or “bike riders are assholes.” Which is a horrible thing, biking in Boston can be a fun and relaxing activity. Bikers are not crazy, and biking doesn’t have to be a war of US v Them. The car lifestyle has brought us a lot of things, but the most obvious is obesity, congestion, pollution, sprawl , global warming, wars for oil, and as of late an economic crisis. People could do a fair amount of good by simply leaving the car in the driveway and taking the bike out for a spin.

This article was a simple attempt to get some ad revenue for the Globe, shallow sensational journalism lacking context or good research. But the fact still remains: Cyclists break the law, a lot. What can we do about that? The article itself, and the user comments are long on “this is the problem” and lacking completely the “this is the solution.” The solution seems to be two fold.

Education: You need to know what the laws are. This goes for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. You should have a deep understanding of what exactly you are supposed to be doing out there (check out MassBike’s website for a good run down of cycling laws if you are rusty, they just passed some new laws so it might be time for a refresher).

Attitude: Boston must put aside it’s “hey fuck it” (or even worse “hey fuck you”) attitude. What really keeps us all safe and happy out there is not the law, but the social trust. That little white line, or that little red/green/yellow light, isn’t what keeps you from getting run over by that truck. The trust you put into that truck driver to treat that light like it means something, or stay on one side of that white line is what keeps you safe. When you break the law what you are really doing is breaking the social trust that someone else put in you. You are saying to them “everything is chaotic you can’t count on anything” and that makes them mad, afraid and unsafe. If you are a cyclist you count on cars coming to a stop at red lights, otherwise you would never cross an intersection (imagine if cars ran reds with the frequency that bikes do). The entire system is based from the ground up on trust of strangers. Every time a cyclist runs a red light they are eroding that trust.

If each use group continues to erode the trust (by doing all the things mentioned above and more) then eventually the streets will be nothing more than a war zone, and whoever is fastest and toughest will get around, and everyone else will be road kill. Not a happy scenario, but also far from a likely one if some simple things are changed. But hey, at least we can count on the Boston Globe to provide us with poorly thought out, and poorly researched articles so that we can scape goat one group while ignoring the bigger problem. Thanks Boston Globe.

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