Longfellow Bridge…What The Hell?

I have been noticing all sorts of strange markings and changes, on the Longfellow outbound towards Cambridge side.  And today like a chrysalis, the Longfellow bike infrastructure has emerged into a giant ugly moth.

Honestly its the worst.  I have no idea what anyone was thinking.

This design is rotten. Impossible angles, ramps, intense pedestrian conflict, poor marking, a reversal of the usual order of traffic (Both pedestrian and cyclists traffic on the left? Is this the UK?) it has everything you don’t want in a bike path.  And those railings are totally invisible in the dark, its only a matter of time before someone plows into them, or into the many raised concrete partitions, or into a pedestrian not wearing bright clothing, this design becomes ten times more ludicrous in the dark.

Moments before I took these pictures 5 cyclists almost ran over like 10 pedestrians. The smartest cyclist of the bunch simply crossed over and rode down the wrong side of the bridge for a 100 yards, and then popped back over…a dangerous option, but one that puts the cyclists in less conflict with the many (many) pedestrians.

I sorta get what they were going for, and I would love to believe that this set up was thought up to protect cyclists from cars? But at the expense of putting pedestrians in danger? To be clear it would be one thing to set up a system by which cyclists were to dismount and walk for 100 feet and then get back on, but this system is set up to encourage them to remain riding, and in the process get in all sorts of conflicts with all sorts of pedestrians.

In my opinion there is ample room to move the concrete divers over a couple feet to the right and put those plastic bollards on the left hand side of the striped area to keep cars away from the cyclists, thus leaving plenty of room for everyone, without putting pedestrians and cyclists into dangerous conflict.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

There Is No Good Way To Be Hit By A Car…

But if for some insane reason, you absolutely must be hit by a car, make it like this.

I can’t get over how this mattress soars off this truck, knocks the bike out from under this guy and then he just lands on the mattress…amazing.

Dear drivers, slow down, and tie your bed down better.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

The King Of Freak Bikes

Holy wow…just look at this thing. It’s ALIVE! Too ugly to live, too amazing to die this smash mouth recumbent was someone’s grocery bike, as I saw it locked up outside the stop and shop in JP. If you are the owner of this bike, please tell me what inspired this amazing creation in the comments.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

New “No Excuses” Helmet Safety Campaign Misses Its Mark

I have been noticing a new safety campaign around town, and have gotten a couple emails about it. It seems the Boston Public Health Commission has been putting up posters, and laying down stickers in bike lanes to alert cyclists to the importance of wearing helmets.

Sure its a little in your face, but wearing a helmet is a good idea. Reading the stickers you might think its the law to wear a helmet (it isn’t if you are over 16), but other than that no big deal. Wear your stupid helmet people, come on.

Then I ran across this.

Holy shit! Really!

That is some seriously heavy imagery, not the least of which because its a young black man with a bloody face posted in area of town heavily trafficked by young black people.  This is some seriously violent imagery for a public safety campaign.

I get what they are trying to do, its sorta like those anti-smoking campaigns.

The idea being that you make not wearing a helmet socially unacceptable by appealing to the fear people have of getting injured. Anti-smoking campaigns work in a similar way, appealing to peoples fear of mortality in order to get them to make different choices. However there are some important differences.

1. Smoking is an addiction, addictions require stronger pushes to get people to fight them.
2. Cycling is GOOD FOR YOU! Showing bloody images of people on posters is not going to encourage people to cycle.
3. More cyclists seem to equal safer cyclists. Several studies have shown that increasing the number of cyclists on the road will actually make them safer.
4. Most fatal crashes involve vehicles and cyclists. Helmets are good, but driver/cyclist education, better engineered roads, and enforcement will go a lot further in preventing these crashes than helmet usage will.

In my mind public safety campaigns should be about doing the most good for the most people. So lets take a hard look at this sort of campaign.

1. This does nothing to educate drivers or cyclists to change their behaviour (cars turning without looking being one of the biggest safety threat to cyclists)
2. It actively discourages cycling, I know I would not be cycling if I thought my face would end up like that
3. Less cyclists = less safety for cyclists, safety in numbers works the other way when your numbers decrease.
4. Cycling is good for reducing other public health threats (fights obesity and diabetes, reduces car pollution which causes asthma by replacing car drivers with bike riders, reduces heart disease, etc)
5. Therefor less cyclists = more harm to the public health

So adding it all up, these bloody violent ad campaigns might actually do more harm than they avoid.

I would have rather these dollars spent on ad’s that warn car drivers about checking their mirrors before making turns.  You could use the exact same image, but instead put it up on a billboard near known traffic jam locations, with the text “Do you want to be responsible for the death of someones son. Check your mirrors for cyclists before turning.”

You could still put little stickers in bike lanes encouraging people to wear helmets, you could use the same slogan. But if you want to do the most good for the public health, you are going to want to encourage more people to bike.  Then educate drivers about how to handle the increased number of people on bicycle.

If you need a visual ad for encouraging helmet use, you could appeal to sex.  Have hot people in nothing but helmets (I guess its ok to see bloody faces but not naked people, use some bushes to hide the “naughty” bits), with the ad text “You look better in a helmet.”   Or a picture of a mother with the text “Your mother worries, wear your helmet” or any of a number of funnier/better ad’s that wouldn’t scare people away from cycling.

Helmets are good, and people should wear them. But showing a kid who looks like someone took a bat to his face is not going to get more people to ride their bike, and I think we would all be better off if more people rode their bikes, with or without helmets.

I tried to find more information about this campaign, but the URL on the poster doesn’t seem to work. Have you seen more of these posters around town? Are there other bloody imagery or just this one picture? Do you think the potential reduction in cyclist numbers is worth increasing the current percentage of cyclists who wear a helmet? Do you think these ad’s are effective? Let me know in the comments.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

HOLY SHIT AN EARTHQUAKE!

For serious, that was a fucking earthquake….

I don’t really have anything else to say about that.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet