Dreaming Out Loud

Riding in this morning, I noticed a long poem written along the PATH trail, but I was riding right-to-left and this wasn't in Hebrew. I thought if there was enough light coming back home the poem might make a nice video.

Once again, bike speed is the right speed.

This isn't far from the Chicken Feet sculpture I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.6
Number of Cyclists seen: 12
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Chilly enough to pull out the gloves for the first time this season.

What would make good routes for Sharrows?

Atlanta has an opportunity to be at the forefront of cycling. Although we're not banning automobiles from all surface streets just yet, there are only a handful of municipalities in the US that are considering sharrows.

What are these innovative lane markings for cyclists?

The Wikipedia article for Shared lane marking (or sharrows) describes sharrows as markings on a road where the lane is too narrow for a bike lane or the bike lane would put cyclists in the "door zone" of parked cars. They indicate the location on the pavement where cyclists are expected to travel (typically about where the right wheel of a motor vehicle would be).

The intent is to mark favorable bike routes and help both motorists and cyclists understand the best lane position for a cyclist to maintain when the lane isn't suitable for bike lanes. Atlanta has a number of good roads for cyclists that are a little narrow for bike lanes. Sharrows are the proposed way to indicate those routes.

I had put together some criteria for choosing appropriate roads in Atlanta that would be suitable for an initial set of sharrows:

• Minor thoroughfare with substantial, but not heavy traffic;
  
• Single travel lane too narrow for bike lanes;
  
• On-street parking;
  
• Intersects with other facilities (planned or actual).
  

For initial selections, the following criteria will improve the chances of acceptance by both motorists and cyclists:

• Already has substantial bike traffic;
  
• High visibility;
  
• Pleasant route regardless of what it connects. In other words, the route can be its own cycling destination.
  

It was several months ago that I posted about sharrows. Since then, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition has started talking with the City of Atlanta about a pilot program to introduce sharrows within the city. Starting with the criteria above, we've proposed a few routes:



This website allows browsing the map and getting more detail about the routes. The website will be updated as we generate more proposals for routes.

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions for either routes or criteria for selecting a route. The routes listed are examples we'd like to expand upon.

Cycling through Forest; sometimes over it

Atlanta has lots of trees for an urban area, and this greatly improves the cycling experience. The lure of deep forest has not quite yet enticed me to get an off-road bike. In part, this is because I can spend a lot of time amongst the trees even while riding my road bike.

Sometimes however, the trees impose on the roadway.



Sunday evening, the rain was so hard, winds were being kicked up by the volume of rain coming down. The thunderstorm pushed things around even more so there were a few trees down. Statistically, a lot of trees to knock down means a lot of trees will come down.

And so, we're riding not only through the forest, but sometimes over pieces of it.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Pace: Recovering from Sunday's Recovery Ride which was to recover from Saturday's Ride.
Number of Cyclists seen: 19 total, 3 in AM, 16 coming home.
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Humid from the storm that came through the night before.

Sharrows anyone?

This topic has been on my mind for some time, but what prompted me to write about sharrows is a petition to add 'Bike There' to Google Maps.

Lots of people would support Google adding an option to plan out a route appropriate for cyclists between two points. Cyclists are always asking each other the same thing, so certainly the demand would be there. How do we get this thing built?

I'm a software developer and can appreciate something called "software re-use". Re-using software means finding existing software close to what we need, exploring the gaps, and then considering how those gaps might be filled.

Google Maps relies on existing databases of street maps. Does the information specific to cycling -- hills, lane width, traffic velocity, and bike paths/lanes -- exist in similar databases?

For some cities, the database and sofware both exist. Atlanta's own A-Train Trip Planner is an example of software that combines cycling with mass transit and knows about hills and traffic volumes. In moments it plots routes that I've spent years working out. On Wikipedia, several such systems are listed under the page Intermodal Journey Planner.

These systems probably go beyond what we're asking Google Maps to provide in one important aspect: they take into account putting your bike on a bus or train and thus have knowledge about your departure/arrival time and the transit schedules.

What else do we have to help cyclists get to their destinations? I really like the Bike Suitability maps (Midtown/Downtown example) that grade routes by color and indicate hills. This collection of maps is an excellent condensation of cycling route knowledge.

There are also on-line route databases such as bikely.com that list routes that other cyclists have worked out.

Finally, we come to sharrows, which we don't have in Atlanta. Yet. These have advantages over Bike Lanes in a few respects:

• Not limited to streets wide enough for separate lanes
  
• Indicates a lane position that avoids the door zone
  
• Provides motorists with a visual aid for judging the 3-feet clearance cyclists need
  
• Reduces the number of wrong way cyclists
  
• Still performs the function of letting both motorists and cyclists know the route is frequented by cyclists, but does so more prominently.
  

I support efforts to add "Bike There" to Google Maps, but I also understand there are both good alternatives and good existing software to build upon.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 11 (5 in, 6 out)
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Full-finger gloves for the first time this season and windy.

Density good for Cycling?

Intown Atlanta is going through re-development. Under-utilized properties are planned for more square-footage and that brings more traffic, right? More traffic = bad, right?

The Beltline proposal that was released this past week for the northeast segment argues that density is good and made some good points about how it is good.

For non-local readers, the Beltline is a proposed light rail system that forms a roughly 3-mile radius loop around downtown. It is exciting for the city because this will likely turn into a magnet for new urban development. Parts of this are already being built. My neighborhood Virginia-Highland, borders a northeast stretch of the Beltline.

With the rise of the suburbs, people fled the urban street-scape to find their own piece of land away from it all. To avoid traffic on the street in front of their house, they avoided through streets and thus became dependent on arterial streets to get anywhere. This image shows most trips being made on high-speed and high-capacity roads and thus most likely in a car.

 

What is proposed is a return to the streets of older cities. This image shows a network of smaller streets that allow multiple paths and encourage lower speeds. These streets are more conducive to both pedestrian and bicycle travel.

 

Although there are more people -- and probably because there are more people -- the cars are not as threatening because they are forced to travel closer to people speed.

Another factor is the number of cars in a small area motivates drivers to leave their cars behind. Proximity to work, shopping, schools and restaurants -- in short, density -- makes it possible to ditch the car.

Atlanta Courteous Mass Oct 2008

 

Nick and Catherine are decorating their bike trailer while Tom and Carli await the start of the ride at Woodruff Park. Carli had a little more time to decorate than others, but many riders took pieces of the fluorescent flagging tape to dress up their bikes.

We got mixed up in lots of events that were going on in Downtown Atlanta.

As we passed between Centennial Park and Phillips Arena, we got re-directed by an officer working the traffic coming into the Atlanta Thrashers season opener.

In Atlantic Station, they were setting up for an outdoor food festival called Taste of Atlanta and were BARRED from cruising through. Actually, we were being courteous since this was Courteous Mass and decided to go around the restricted streets.

Then, we realized what a cruising zone Peachtree Street turns into on a Friday. There were cars everywhere and a big group of bikes stuck in the middle of it all. There was some event at the Fox Theater, but we couldn't tell what because by the time we got down to 5th Street, we decided to ride one block east on Courtland.

 

Courtland at Ralph McGill during Courteous Mass. Blue-domed hotel was tallest in Atlanta when I visited in 1969.

Good route and good company!

Counting Cyclists in Downtown Atlanta

 

I spent rush hour guessing the age of cyclists as they whizzed by amongst cars, pedestrians, buses and each other.

The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign has been following a national program of counting cyclists and this is the second count this year. Volunteers stand at a street corner and gather data on cyclists passing through the intersection. The cyclist in the photo was recorded as a female between 19 and 39 years of age, turning from east to north through the intersection, wearing a helmet and riding in the street along with the flow of traffic. The timing suggested she had just finished classes at nearby Georgia State, but this wasn't part of the official tally.

The official tally did not specifically ask about police officers riding on the sidewalk, but I did make note of that. If we expect our officers to enforce this law, it would appear we would need to make them aware of this law.

Alicia, Crystal (in the photo below) and I counted 82 intersection crossings over the two hour period. We'd like to add more street corners next time. If you'd like to volunteer, sign up to receive ABC's newsletter. Or even better, you can become a member.

Sept. 19 is a good day for Cyclists - Two years running

It was one year ago today that I posted a record number of cyclists during my daily commute. I spotted 38 cyclists that day. Today was 39, 31 over the 9.1 miles I rode home this evening.

For those that enjoy numbers, the evening commute saw 3.4 cyclists per mile and nearly a cyclist per minute.

I knew it was going to be a good day when I had spotted the first six at Peachtree and 5th. Most were commuters but one young lady looked like she was headed out for a night on the town. In my earlier years, I would have followed. I need to start wearing my camera on top of my helmet.

Peachtree was one place the cyclists bunched up, but there was also a cluster coming through the intersection of the PATH trail and North Highland, and then as usual, a group around the Emory campus.

September 19 falls on a Saturday next year so I'm not sure what to do. Do I go to work that day?

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 39 - new record for a day's commute, breaking record set one year ago today.
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH trail
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Maybe it is the weather. Delicious day: sunny with low breeze around 72 degrees and air you wanted to gulp.

Atlanta version of Courteous Mass

I understand Atlanta's Courteous Mass has felt like the baby sister to the older and more established Critical Mass, but when we joined the ride this evening at Woodruff Park, it appeared this sister was growing up. The ride was well-represented by the usual variety of bikes and ages of riders. Although my photos disproportionately represent the families, this does make a good family ride and it does nothing to undermine the respect of motorists.

As with most rides around town, it was a pleasure to run into both familiar faces and new faces. These rides are always a good chance to meet new people and to catch up with those you've ridden with on other rides.

Now that I've ridden both Critical Mass and Courteous Mass, I can make a fair comparison. Both are nice in that you're surrounded by cyclists and riding along with traffic. Both feel very safe and I would argue both are safe. It's a great way to introduce new cyclists to group riding in an urban setting, although Courteous Mass sets a much better example.

Both feel like a rolling celebration, but certainly more so for Critical Mass. Yes, there's the whooping and hollering, bell-ringing and horn-tooting, but Critical Mass does have more energy and a lot more "Happy Fridays!" being shouted out, perhaps because of its size. Both masses get attention, but taking over an intersection does get more attention. It's just not quite the attention we should be getting ;-).

The trend might be away from Critical Mass and more toward the alternative rides. That is probably a good thing if we can increase and multiply the energy of Critical Mass.

 

Cyclists can benefit from Urban Sprawl

Whether you've never visited Atlanta or lived here for 30 years, you can't help but notice how spread out it is. There are no natural boundaries, so new sub-divisions keep springing up further and further out from the city's center.

The average commute by car exceeds 30 miles -- for years I traveled close to this distance daily -- which was further than a trip to our family's summer home from the house where I grew up.

The spread is bad for air quality and also the quality of the commute, but it also means lots of roads to explore on bike.

We rode southeast of town this morning along some familiar roads, but also several roads I've never been on. There's a 50-mile loop that takes us through 4 counties that we like. It only takes about 30 minutes to get out of the city and onto low-traffic roads with lots of shade. Coming back, there is a substantial amount of climbing along River Road and Bouldercrest, so we tried finding a different route back into town. This brought us down a whole set of roads I've never traveled down, lakes I've never seen, High Schools I've only heard of, and neighborhoods with different personalities.

What I find impressive is I've lived here 30 years, we ride almost every week, and we're going down new roads all the time. SO many roads, so little time.

Even though so many people have to drive so far to get to work, it is a delight to discover new places to go and new roads to ride.

Oh, we did have to make up that elevation eventually, so we only managed to substitute one set of hills for another. White Oak needs to go on our Dirty Dozen list of hills.

Visiting Cyclists give Intown Atlanta the Thumbs Up

At the end of Sunday morning services (our 8AM Aurora Coffee Ride), we returned to find a group of cyclists who had come from Columbia, SC to participate in Broken Hearts and Bicycle Parts. Broken Hearts is part benefit show and part Alley Cat. Riders came from all over the US to participate this weekend. (I got a kick out of the SUV Pinata. I'm going to have to learn how to make these.)

So, we struck up a conversation, and we find that this group of six was part of about 20 from South Carolina who came to participate in the Alley Cat. Three of the racers are professional bike messengers. They didn't know the city, but still one of them placed 14th -- using the "brute force approach" as he put it.

I was imagining these riders -- confidently assertive as cab drivers -- were going to tell us story after story about the bike/car conflicts. Instead, they praised the politeness of Atlanta's motorists. Now, I've ridden in Atlanta for nearly 30 years, and yes, things have gotten much better, but we were still surprised at this independent, unsolicited, and even encouraging appraisal of Atlanta's cycling conditions.

We were quick to point out that it's different outside the perimeter, but they interpreted this as modesty. They gushed about how "the motorists give you so much room here".

Atlanta, GA vs. Columbia, SC. Perhaps the glowing remarks reflect a "progressiveness gap" between Intown Atlanta and Columbia, but it's still good to hear that cyclists come from all over the country. I could chalk this up to climate, but I'd prefer to believe that we're starting to get a reputation as a decent place to ride a bike.

Riding with the Kids (Rhonda's Ride?)

I think we've got a name for the Kids Fun Ride we rode today.

Because our 14-mile route exceeded what some riders have ridden recently, I told everyone we'd be stopping frequently. Stopping for flats wasn't what I meant.

We have Rhonda to thank for suggesting we do a kid's ride. We also have Rhonda to thank for picking up both of the flats! I move that we name this "Rhonda's Ride" in her honor.



Temps started out cool, but warmed up quickly. Lots of people were out so we got lots of chances to ring our bicycle bells in greeting.

After the ride, I asked a few of the girls their favorite parts of the ride. They said they liked the "mess-ups". Since I didn't capture any of these on camera, they were kind enough to provide a drive-way re-enactment of one of the "mess-ups". Carli's enthusiastic announcement of her intention to stop caused her to fall off her seat and trigger a domino effect.

No actual daughters were harmed during this re-enactment.



People asked when we could do this again, so we'll try to schedule another Rhonda Ride. Hope you'll be able to join us.

Wikipedia's Vehicular Cycling

The first time I stumbled upon Wikipedia, the sun was coming up before I realized I had missed going to bed. I couldn't stop digging into every little nook and cranny of this endless stream of interesting knowledge.

When I stumbled across the Vehicular Cycling article, I managed to get to bed, but not until I had compared it to other articles hoping to find something more concise. This is the best I found.

The Best Practices section contains my new single-page cheat-sheet of "what to do" and "what not to do" for cyclists. Do respect traffic controls. Don't ride on sidewalks. Stay out of the door zone. Don't jump across lanes. It's like a recipe for being safe and earning respect.

Of course, Vehicular Cycling isn't fully appreciated by simply listing a bunch of rules to follow. We've all heard about "Taking the Lane", but exactly what is that?

On our Sunday ride a couple of weeks ago, we found a median under construction down a stretch of one of our favorite roads. This prevented traffic from being able to get around us so we took the lane. Once the traffic was able to pass, they were hollering at us to "Share the Road". I wanted to throw this URL at them. (Would that be hURLing?)

The section "Common Misconceptions about Vehicular Cycling" makes its points by contrast. For example, the misconception that "VC means not riding in the Bike Lane" is an opportunity to distinguish between following a stripe versus positioning yourself where conditions dictate.

Wikipedia's article quality varies greatly and this one is not quite "Featured" status yet, but it is still a fine piece of work. I encourage you to share it with others for its fair and accessible treatment of good cycling techniques.

A Fun, Social, Recreational Christmas Tree Ride

There was nothing utility about this ride. Pure recreation.


When I was growing up, I calculated the speed at which a single Santa would have to fly and deduced that there must be a whole army of Santa's. We had two assigned to leading our ride.

In keeping with Christmas Tree Bicycle tradition, we also had reindeer and elves.



Cycling Santa was good about leading us to houses with lots of lights, to friends with lights and refreshments, and to bars where he could get us free shots of Jaegermeister. We must have been good cyclists this past year.

More photos here.

Interactive Bike Trip Planner

Select your start and end points from a Google map and a street-legal map with cue sheet and detailed elevation profile is prepared for you. By adjusting a couple of "knobs", you can avoid higher-traffic streets or take less hilly routes. I've only played with it for a few minutes and can see myself getting absorbed by the possibilities.

The site trip.atltransit.com is put together by the Citizens for Progressive Transit, an Atlanta-based advocacy group.

Kissing the Pretty Girls

Virginia-Highland scores well on the Walkability scale. Folks visiting from the 'burbs often remark they wish they lived here so they could walk more.

It is interesting however, that many of my neighbors do not take greater advantage of the many destinations that are within walking or cycling distance. People pay dearly for sidewalks, yet jump in the car for a 2-mile round trip. Bringing the car is taken for granted and walking becomes talk.

The poets talk of romance, but who is kissing the pretty girls?

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 17.9
Number of Cyclists seen: 16 others kissing pretty girls and cute guys
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Big rain storm came through right before quitting time. Wet roads. Got soggy. Kissed the pretty girls anyway.

Party Bike

We were in Boston on a family vacation (and to check out colleges for my daughter and her friend), and while waiting to meet some friends in the North End, we ran across the Party Bike. We had to hop on.



While riding around, our friend spotted the bike and wondered who the fools were pedaling up and down Hanover Street -- until she recognized us. Within moments she was pedaling along.

Cycling Friendly Cities

This 16 minute video gets beneath the surface of cycling in a city and finds what I believe to be the soul of cycling: the sense of community fostered by getting people outdoors, face-to-face, and engaging one another politely.

City centers are about gathering places where people can meet, discuss, play, or simply watch. Cities that get people out of their cars do a better job of providing those spaces.

Watch and listen to an Urban Design Architect in Copenhagen, an Urban Planning Consultant in Amsterdam, and a past mayor of Bogota talk about why cycling-friendly means people-friendly.



Some points made:

• Even though the average wealth of a resident of the Netherlands is higher than that of the US citizen, a large number of those residents choose not to own a car. (Perhaps cars are not a good way to build wealth?)
  
• There isn't a "cyclist" type in the Netherlands. All people, young/old, rich/poor, janitor/executive ride bikes.
  
• A government's investment in cycling and pedestrian facilities strongly supports the equality of all citizens by avoiding automobile favoritism.
  
• Try to find an overweight person.
  

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 22.9
Number of Cyclists seen: 20
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH
Out-bound Route: Grant Park and then Emory via Clifton
Weather: Humid and cloudy but warm

Great Streets

This post falls under the "help lights shine brighter" category.

On the blog Bike Year, I ran across an architect's view of streets. What caught my attention was the term "pedestrian nostalgia", loosely defined as that good feeling we remember about being able to walk everywhere. What kept my attention (besides the 47 comments) was getting into the head of someone who designs these spaces for a living.

The author describes a meeting held to discuss the importance of green spaces and how bureaucracies can be worked to make the green space a reality. It turned into a disappointing meeting, but several good points were brought out:

• Are streets for people or for cars?
  
• College campuses as the ultimate human-scaled living spaces.
  
• What makes a great street, and especially, how is community fostered?
  

The article takes a pedestrian's perspective, but the discussion is completely appropriate for cyclists as well. The comments move the discussion forward into other interesting nooks and crannies.

This is my photo offering for the day. This is the entrance to the Lullwater Conservation Park. It makes a good example of a space with human scale.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 15.0
Number of Cyclists seen: 13
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH
Out-bound Route: Highland Automotive to pick up the car
Weather: Sunny, dry, warm

I got a kick out of showing up at the automotive shop on a bike. The car needed some work and my wife was busy so I picked up the car on my way home. Reminds me of the days when I kept a bike in the back of the car in case the car broke down.

This morning before I left the house, I kept getting calls that kept me near the home computer. It was getting close to lunch time and I was considering just working from home, but I really wanted to get outside on my bike. I should probably post this separately: a guy who could have been working from home, but decided to go into the office because he enjoys his commute so much.

Building Communities Less Dependent on the Car

Much industrial land in Intown Atlanta is currently being converted to multi-unit residential. Although Atlantic Station has grabbed Atlanta's spotlight for being a converted steel mill property, there are several smaller tracts that are turning residential. The pictured construction is along the planned Beltline. You can see the vine-covered abandoned rail running from bottom center upward to the right which is planned to become an alternative transportation corridor.

I don't know if this property is billed as less car-intensive, but it's close to downtown, and close to the PATH Foundation's Freedom Park Trail (I'm standing on the trail to take these photos). Restaurants are a short stroll away and you're within a couple of miles of most things you would shop for.

Many residents of single-family housing fear the number of cars higher-density might bring, but our mass transit needs this density to work efficiently. We're moving over the hump with this new development.

I was also standing on the trail to take this photo alongside Candler Park Golf Course's 9th tee box.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 17.9
Number of Cyclists seen: 19
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Beautiful Morning, Warm and Hazy afternoon