Deal Done! We have a Rail to Trail property in NE TN

City officials signed off on the contract for a rail to trail contract linking Johnson City and Elizabethton, TN. Elected officials and city's staff comment on the positive impact here:

Linking communities, sch00ls, parks, historic sites, and providing transportation choices is what we should all be advocating in today's world.

Jeff Roth Cycling Foundation - Share the Road License Plates

The Jeff Roth Cycling Foundation deadline for obtaining at least 1000 specialty license plate pre-orders has been extended by a year. The current number of orders is displayed above. Pre-orders are being accepted online. Only when 1000 pre-orders have been obtained can the plates go into production.

The license plates are a great way to support the Jeff Roth Cycling Foundation, as well as promote awareness of the 3 ft passing law and cycling in general. Families with multiple cars can sign up for multiple plates, up to the number of cars owned. The plates also make a wonderful gift for anyone who's a cyclist. If everyone who's already signed up signs up one more person or plate, this plate will finally become reality!

Bike Trains - another potential way to promote cycling?

This article at the Guardian's (a British newspaper) bike blog describes bike trains. Bike trains are groups of riders who assertively ride busy urban streets in order to remind people that cyclists may be found on every street, and to reclaim road space. By moving in larger numbers (the average British bike train consists of eight riders), safety or at least visibility is improved relative to a single rider.

Do bike trains exist within the state? They could potentially also be organized to facilitate bike commutes on busier streets.

“Sorry I Didn’t See You” is no longer a legal excuse

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (June 20, 2011)  With four grandchildren and eight great children, Jerry Norman, 74, wanted to keep fit and active to enjoy their company. So, on the advice of his doctor, Norman took up walking. But, on his regular early morning walk on June 29, 2010, a driver fell asleep at the wheel and killed Norman while he walked on a Nashville sidewalk. His family suffered the loss of a loved one — and a travesty of justice when, under current Tennessee law, the motorist could not be prosecuted for any crime.

USBR on Fast lane

At the last Board meeting it was reported that Adventure Cycling had exceeded its goal of $30,000 for the USBR System. Not mentioned was that in addition to this the prestigious AASHTO contributed and additional $5,000 to show the support of state highway professionals for this system. Guess we'd better stop calling them the Association of Cars and Trucks, though the appellation may still fit some individual state DOT's.
More good news is that on my recent mini tour of South Central KY (Thanks Guy Coggin and Mark Crutcher) even the rumble strip manic Kentucky shows signs of progress. The section of US 31 E between Scottsville and Barren River State park has a newly installed 3 foot shoulder with no rumble at all! Anyone having done any cycling in KY knows how amazing this is.
Even in a tight economy great tings are happening.
Link to Adventure Cycling Report.

Bike Snob Philosophizes on Commuting

Many cyclists who spend too much time on the internet are familiar with the cycling blogger Bike Snob NYC. He has a unique satirical style that led to a book and a gig in Bicycling magazine. Several of his past blogs have been on the police crackdown on (allegedly) scofflaw cyclists in New York. He generally skewers both law enforcement and cyclists. His June 8 blog post has a fascinating and enlightening sky view video about bicycle, auto and pedestrian traffic in New York. He juxtaposes a video of a joint police and bike club effort in Chicago to suggest legal and safer riding habits in the Windy City. I'm pretty sure he intends to contrast police efforts in NYC to those in Chicago. It's well done as usual.

Universal Bike Lanes: A Way to Mass Cycling?

This study clearly shows that a multi-faceted approach to bicycle and pedestrian improvements is the Complete way to go in changing a county's auto center culture.

"Despite the fact that some parts of the country are still cycling deserts, the good news in recent years is that cycle use in Britain overall has at last started going up – albeit from a very low base compared to many of our continental neighbours. London has led the way, with its hire-bikes, super-highways, cycle maps and excellent marketing initiatives, which have more than doubled cycle use in less than 10 years. But places like Portsmouth and Leicester have also achieved a great deal with a lot less cash. They have been investing in 20mph speed limits and closing off city centre streets to all but cyclists and pedestrians. They have been running 'smarter choices' programmes like cycle training or carefully targeted social marketing programmes to promote cycling for women, children, employees, health patients and so on. All these measures are proving very effective at boosting cycle use, thereby gradually building up the political will to do the things that will really transform our car-dominated congested roads into cycle-friendly, neighbourhood-friendly streets for people and the surrounding communities." Read the Sustrans article HERE.

Road Repairs

Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense have just released a report entitled Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads. The report basically makes the point that many of the existing roads are not in good shape, and that it would be most cost-effective to repair the existing roads before they deteriorate further. However, states have a tendency to build and expand new roads before caring for existing ones. New construction means more road to maintain later on, adding to the financial burden. According to the report, Tennessee has 30% of roads that are in less than good condition. Between 2004 and 2008 though, it spent $487 million on new construction and $116 million on maintainence.

Walking and cycling facilities are frequently included in new construction, and are less likely to be added to a maintainence project. Retrofitting existing streets to make them more pedestrian and cyclist friendly is sometimes difficult to impossible, depending on traffic volumes and speeds. However, where retrofitting is possible is often where significant progress can be made at minimal cost. Road diets that take one underused lane and convert it into bidirectional bike lanes are one example; if there is substantial turning traffic, simply restriping the road to have dedicated left/right turn lanes and pockets frequently means that a three lane road can handle as much traffic as a four lane, and be safer even for cars. Narrowing existing lanes to widths of 10-11 ft (termed a lane diet) sometimes would permit the striping of bike lanes. Even if bike lanes cannot be accomodated, a cycling-friendly wide outside lane of 14-15 ft may be possible. The key point is that with maintainence that needs to be done anyway, simple reconfigurations require nearly zero construction cost. With today's tight transportation budget, such savings are crucial. Portland, OR was able to take advantage of such "low-hanging fruit" in order to obtain their network for a grand total of around $60 million.

Getting and staying fit with help

(Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia: picture may be reproduced and modified provided that this copyright notice is included.) This tip from Realage.com points to the benefits of walking with a dog. Currently, 61% of dog owners walk their dogs regularly. When one has a dog that has to be walked, one gets one's exercise as the dog gets its exercise. Walking the dog is also a great treat for it, and people with dogs tend to become more physically active than those who don't.

Speaking of which, dogs can be walked in a variety of environments. Anywhere from an urban sidewalk to a suburban low-traffic neighborhood make good places to walk for exercise. Greenways are another popular option, although care needs to be taken to ensure that a leash is not too long or too thin. A leash that is too long can make the dog's path of travel unpredictable to passersby, and a leash that is too thin can be hard for other walkers and cyclists to see.

Haslam Comments on Bronze Award

NASHVILLE (May 27, 2011)- The League of American Bicyclists has named Tennessee a Bronze Level Bicycle Friendly State in its fourth annual BFS rankings. The award recognizes the state for its collaboration with local agencies and bicycle advocates, efforts to provide safe routes to school for children who bicycle or walk, and commitment to safety and accommodation of all users.
.

"I want to congratulate TDOT, members of the General Assembly, and the dozens of local stakeholders who have worked together to achieve this designation," Haslam said. "As a bicyclist myself, I realize the importance of safety in offering this healthy option as we encourage Tennesseans to take responsibility for their personal health."

Knoxsplat.com - Knoxville Area Commuting Challenge

I just received an email from Chuck Morris detailing some of the dismal facts surrounding the commute situation in the 7 county area surrounding Knoxville. A green commuting event is scheduled for Friday, May 27 at Market Square in downtown Knoxville at noon to highlight the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization's SmartTrips program.

The dismal facts of the current situation are quoted below.
About 1/2 pound of CO2 emissions would fill up a beach ball that is 24 inches around when inflated. The average U.S. commuter generates 57 pounds of CO2 each day. That's about 100 beach balls per day for each person!

The average commute time for the 7-county Knoxville region is just over 26 miles one way. 84.5% of commuters in our region drive alone to work daily.

If just half of the region’s drive alone commuters took an alternative to driving alone for one day, at 20 miles to the gallon average, they would save nearly half a million gallons of fuel. At $4 per gallon that would represent a savings of around $2 million dollars.

Walking infrastructure - Transportation for America

A report by Transportation for America points to how there were 47,700 pedestrian fatalities during the decade 2000-2009. Such translates to around 13 deaths a day, 91 a week, or about 390 a month. As they put it, we would certainly not tolerate a jumbo jet crashing with no survivors each and every month of the year.

While it's true that many local streets are built with local money, the busier streets usually have a federal funding component, and they are the streets that tend to be busiest and most dangerous, as well as most often traveled. Currently, pedestrian funding composes a mere 1.5% of the federal transportation budget. But such is being targeted for elimination nevertheless. Eliminating that funding would only make matters worse for pedestrians, which would increase car dependency and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. It would de facto make streets only for cars, rather than complete ones that are for all users.

Bicycling and miminum wage - an interesting point

After writing the Knoxville News Sentinel about how one can spend significantly less money by replacing a fraction of trips by bike or foot, there was a very interesting reply by an astute reader. This reader points out two facts: first, that even with high gas prices, saving $2000 a year in gas means riding a whopping 13,700 miles, which is unrealistic. Second, that one would make more money working minimum wage ($7.25/hr) with the time one spends cycling, if we factor in the differences in travel time.

FHWA Issues New Rumble Guidance

Last week FHWA sent out new guidance to the states regarding rumble strips (see attached).  These guidelines replace the Roadway Shoulder Rumble Strips from December 2001.  Essentially it talks about the effectiveness of rumbles and then advises states on a number of issues, with one issue being that states should use mitigation strategies for rumbles in instances where a shoulder is less than 4'.  It practically mirrors the standards that TDOT adopted last year.

Jessica L. Wilson, Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator

2011 League of American Bicyclist Award to Tennessee

Tennessee is the Bronze Award winner in this year’s survey by the League of American Bicyclist’s for Bicycle Friendly States.  In a conversation with Jessica Wilson, Bike and Pedestrian Coordinator for Tennessee Department of Transportation, Andy Clark, President of LAB said, “We were all really impressed and excited with what you’re getting done in Tennessee; reading the application was a real bright spot, and Jeff [Peel] is a fan!.”

In 2010 Tennessee jumped from 43’rd to 24’th in the League’s ranking of the States.  Competition was a lot tougher this year. Andy said, “More states have done a better job of getting improved policies on the books.” However, last year’s jump for Tennessee was no fluke.  Even with most states doing a better job in 2011, it held with a 27’th position.

The League was disappointed this year with performance of all States in Infrastructure.  Andy commented, “On infrastructure, states generally do a poor job (in our view) of obligating funds, especially non TE and Safe Routes funds, for bike/ped projects. Last year, many states compounded this by sending huge amounts back to Washington as part of the rescissions process. So yes, the vast majority of states got an F. You will also note that no states got an A overall and there are no awards higher than Silver for individual states.”

Last year, 95% of Tennessee’s rescission came from Transportation Enhancement and Congestion Mitigation:  Two areas where a large portion of funding goes to support Bike and Pedestrian improvement projects. 

PLEASE SHARE YOUR BIKING EXPERIENCE

This survey is open to all residents of Middle TN. Among other data, the survey asks questions about bicycle accidents. We are trying to find out how many accidents or close calls are occurring between bicyclists and motorists, for example, and how many of these crashes are under reported.

So far we have over 350 responses and over half have indicated a bicycle crash within the last five years. We will use these responses to increase bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and to work with law enforcement and other groups on understanding and enforcing laws pertaining to all motorists who share the road.

Thank you,
Leslie Meehan

AASHTO approves first new bicycle routes this century

AASHTO has approved several new bicycle routes,the first since the 1980's. Michigan has been especially active in promoting the route network and it is their model we hope to emulate in Tennessee. The link below lists the routes as well as some recent economic impact studies demonstrating major economic benefit from cycling facilities.
AASHTO approves new routes.

Also, please show Tennessee's support by donating to the US Bicycle Route system at our website.
Donate
Thanks,
Bruce

Ride of Silence - May 18 7:00 PM

The Ride of Silence is a short, slow, commemorative bike ride in memory of all the cyclists who have been killed or injured on the streets. It takes place the third Wednesday in May. Locations within the state that are hosting this ride are as follows (taken from the Ride of Silence Website):

Chattanooga,
Clarksville,
Cookeville,
Maryville,
Murfreesboro,
and Nashville.

If your town/city doesn't have a ride and there isn't one in a town or city close to you, you might want to consider starting one next year. Current ride organizers are probably more than willing to help.

Bicycling Terminology - The Right Hook

The right hook refers to a type of car/bicycle conflict that takes place at intersections. As illustrated in the figure above, a right-turning car can turn in front of a bicycle traveling straight. If the cyclist cannot avoid running into the turning vehicle on time, a crash results.

New York Bike Lanes

Want more info? Click here

Share the Road Bicycle Rodeo

Hi, I wanted to pass along the flyer for the Bicycle Rodeo at the Share the Road Festival on May 21st.  Here are the details:

The Tennessee Share the Road Festival is FREE and features music, games, food, prizes and a motorcycle show.  

The Bicycle Rodeo for children of all ages being held from 2:30-3:30.  The rodeo will teach children basic bicycle safety skills including:

§         Proper bicycle and helmet fit

§         Balance

§         Turning and stopping

§         Games to improve coordination

We would appreciate your assistance in sharing this information.  I realize this is the same day as the Tour de Nash and Tour de Cure, but this event is in the late afternoon which may work for some folks.  If you need additional copies or more information, feel free to contact me at 615-862-7211 or meehan@nashvillempo.org.  For more information about the festival, visit www.sharetheroadtennessee.com.  

Leslie A. Meehan, AICP | Senior Transportation Planner

Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

Doris West - RIP

I just learned yesterday about the passing of Doris West up in Ann Arbor, MI at the age of 92 from the Washtenaw Biking and Walking Coalition. The Doris West Cycling Spirit Award has been set up in her honor for car-free locals up there (link not provided since people in TN aren't eligible.)

I had a chance to ride with her once or twice at their annual fourth of July rides, although I didn't know she had been car-free and rode or walked anywhere and everywhere since 1956 until her death in 2010. More information on her is available here.

US Bicycle Route System Fundraiser

Dear Fellow Cyclists,

May is national bike month and the second annual US Bicycle Route system fundraiser.  Adventure Cycling is spearheading the development of a national route system to link major cities and other desirable destinations. Jessica Wilson, Tennessee Bike/Ped Coordinator, and TDOT have signed on to be part of the system. Bike Walk Tennessee is helping develop the route.   In this time of austerity at all governmental levels any development done by us will go a long way toward making the system a reality.  We will need your time, talent, and money to this project.  Right now it's money. To donate, click here or the image below.  The Razoo donation service is supplying their service for free so all the money will go to Adventure Cycling. Twenty percent of the money donated through the Bike Walk Tennessee page will be returned to Bike Walk Tennessee for local expenses.  If you would like to set up your own team page, click here.

Just imagine someday planning a cross country bicycle trip as easily as planning an automobile trip. Make it happen!

Thank you for your support,
Bruce Day
Regional Director
Bike Walk Tennessee
BikeWalkTN.org

Donate

Bike Walk Tennessee Makes the Sunday Paper

In the good old days making the Sunday newspaper was a big deal since it had the largest circulation of the week. The daily paper is dying but Facebook hasn't killed it yet. The Bike Walk Tennessee legislative effort to enhance penalties for distracted driving made the Memphis Commercial Appeal today. It's a first rate article and also made the Tennessean (and maybe some other statewide papers).