Yo Dawg, I heard You Like Riding Bikes To Work

So I put bikes in your bus so you can bike while you bus…

“We thought, what about doing something that we could do while the [vehicle] was moving? Maybe a bus would work, since it already has the emergency exits, it has the right weight, and it’s designed to fit a lot of people,” Brodie says. “We figured out that the most efficient use of the space would be to put in indoor cycling bikes.” (via)

Or you know, you could just ride your bike to work? This is a whole new level of silliness.

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Monday Fun, Because I Can Edition

You’re welcome.

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First The Came For Our Fixies..

Ok so maybe that is a bit of an overblown title, but Cambridge is back at it again, proposing new bike laws (and taxes?), that in this humble bloggers opinion are a total waste of time and money.

Bicyclists may soon have to register and pay excise taxes on their gear to roam Cambridge, said City Manager Robert W. Healy, giving in Monday to a regular sounding of alarms from residents, City Council candidates and city officials.

“We are hearing the people, we are hearing the councillors representing the people,” Healy said at Monday’s council meeting. “We will spend more time on bicycle enforcement. It’s never going to be perfect — you’re always going to see a bicyclist, just as you can see a motorist, violating the law and there isn’t an officer right on the scene to write a citation. But it is certainly something officers are instructed to enforce.”

There are changes to laws that will have to be made and questions that need to be addressed, Healy said, including making bicyclists show identification when stopped and how best to redirect law enforcement from other tasks.

Read the rest here.

Thing is how is the tiny city of Cambridge going to enforce all the bike traffic from say…Boston. How are they going to prove you purchased that bicycle in Cambridge. Will there be border agents asking for your papers when you cross the Longfellow? People like to shout and make a fuss about licenses for bikers, and registration, and they raise questions about hit and runs etc.

Basically there is no good way to do bike licenses, taxes, or any other bike regulation of this nature on a town by town basis. It simply wont work. It will cost WAY more to implement and enforce than you will get from the program, and it will be challenged in court to the hilt.

On top of all that, its not going to actually do what they want to get done. If they want better rule following, enforce the existing laws better for all user groups, educate all road users, and build more (and better) bicycle infrastructure. Those three have been proven to work, while license and registration schemes have failed many times.

The article does say they hope to simplify and universalize the rules, and increase enforcement (which is great so long as its for every road user), but the tax and tag approach is almost certainly doomed to failure.

Its simple, if you want more cyclists obeying the law, enforce, educate, and engineer.

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Racing The Red Line

I have this thing with the Longfellow Bridge I will putter through my whole commute but when I get to this bridge I drop the hammer, and just go for it. Its a stretch of road where I know no one is going to pull out of a drive way, its very unlikely any peds will try to cross the street, and no one is going to be making any turns. Plus its a long hill perfect for really making your legs sing.

On some rare occasions I will enter the base of the bridge just as the red line is departing the MGH station, or just as its coming up from the Cambridge side…I look to my left, see the red train lumbering up to speed, and the battle has begun. I have been told that the red line can go about 30 mph over the bridge, I have no idea if this is true, but I would like it to be true because its how I judge my performance.

The battle starts as a mad uphill dash, the red line accelerates slowly but inevitably like the specter of death (or taxes.) I have the initial advantage my much lower weight allows for much faster acceleration, but the train has a higher top speed, and it will catch me if I stop accelerating.

The WHHHRRRRRR of electric engines bearing down on me, speed is my only escape. Faster and faster I redouble my efforts as my legs start to protest. “Why for the love all all things holy do you do this to us!” they scream as I froth and struggle, “shut up legs I am the boss of you!”

Meanwhile someone has cleverly allowed the expansion joints to get so bad that each one is like a mini speed bump. I am turning myself inside out in a futile attempt to show my speed supremacy against an big dump inanimate object, and the road surface as the audacity to supply me with moguls? The nerve.

As I reach the crest of the bridge I am usually a car or two behind. Like Jure Robič the red line never sleeps, and has slow and steadied past me. I don’t give up, the downhill portion of the bridge has arrived and my legs are rejoicing. My lungs however usually take this moment to remind me that they fucking hate me and are about to exit the building if I don’t slow down.

Digging deep for the last of my breakfast energy I force my lungs to shut up and my legs to spin even faster (fixed gear + speed + downhill weeeeee). I look over, the red line is approaching the station/tunnel entrance, its her and me, me and her…and its over. The red line comes to a stop, or disappears into the ground, and now I am left alone panting and sweaty at the red light.

In the end it doesn’t matter who wins, but that we battled. We shall meet again red line, this isn’t over.

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