Archives For Bike Lanes

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News & Notes

Jef Nickerson —  November 26, 2012 — 1 Comment

→ The Atlantic Cities: Why Mayors Should Run the Department of Transportation

The transportation issues of the 21st century will be less about building new highways and more about building new transit, about offering more multi-modal options to bike and walk. Transportation policy going forward won’t just be about moving people as far and as fast as possible, but about leveraging transportation in service of economic opportunity and livable communities.

So here is one modest thought about who understands all of this as Obama searches for LaHood’s successor: mayors. There have been three former mayors at the helm of the DOT in the department’s 46-year history, most recently former San Jose Mayor Norman Mineta. As the agency further modernizes its mission, who better to take us there than someone who comes from a city?

I’m not sure I could even understand a world where L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was not our next Transportation Secretary.

→ The New York Times: America’s Mid-20th-Century Infrastructure

Europeans visiting the Northeastern United States – and many parts of the East Coast — can show their children what Europe’s infrastructure looked like during the 1960s.

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Providence Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Meeting – November 19, 2012

Jef Nickerson —  November 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

Regular Meeting • 4:00 PM, November 19, 2012
Doorley Building, 444 Westminster Street, 1st Floor • Providence, RI

Note: Location is different than last month.

  1. Snow Removal/Safety Issues and Regulations and Enforcement (Guest: Peter Gaynor, Providence Emergency Management Agency)
  2. Bike Providence Plan Update (Bill DeSantis, VHB)
  3. Announcement of/outreach for December 13, 2012 Bike Providence Public Workshop
  4. Local Bicycle Regulation Amendments
  5. Allens Avenue Update/BPAC Letter to DOT (Matthew Moritz)
  6. Businesses and Bike Lanes – Letter from BPAC (Jenn Steinfeld)
  7. Issue Updates/Public Comment

Full disclosure: I am a member of this Commission.

In Bicycles, Government, Pedestrians , , , , , , ,
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What Cheer/What Jeer 2011

gcpvd —  December 22, 2011 — 3 Comments

We’re taking a look back at 2011. What Cheering the good and What Jeering the bad.

whatcheer195 Demolition

You guys all know there are like a dozen cities all over the country that are insanely jealous that we tore down our downtown expressway, right?

Putting aside what happens with the 195 Commission (we’ll talk about that in a minute), it is so totally awesome that the highway is gone. Even without any development happening yet, the Jewelry District has been transformed. Suddenly, with the highway gone, people realize the Jewelry District is on the edge of Downcity. And while the sidewalks aren’t exactly jammed, it is certainly noticeable how many people now choose to walk between Downcity and the Jewelry District, who would not before.

Chestnut Street

Route 195 being torn down at Chestnut Street in the Jewelry District

whatcheerBroadway Bike Lanes / Gano Street Sharrows

Anticipated since at least 2008, bike lanes finally showed up on Broadway in 2011.

We also saw the city’s first sharrows show up on Gano and other streets, helping to connect the East Bay and Blackstone bike paths.

Let’s hope we see more bike infrastructure sprouting up on streets all over town in 2012.

whatcheer35 Weybosset Façade

It is going to mean a parking lot, but a parking lot was in the cards all along, we’ve saved the façade for future use and that is going to greatly blunt the impact of the parking lot.

Thanks to the Providence Preservation Society, the Providence Revolving Fund, and all others involved in saving the façade.

35 weybosset rendered

Image: © Chad Gowey 2010. All rights reserved.

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Broadway Bike Lanes (Finally (Almost))

Jef Nickerson —  October 28, 2011 — 16 Comments

Remember back in April when signs were posted that bike lanes were coming to Broadway? Remember back in 2008 when it was first announced that they were coming? Don’t worry, no one does.

They are here now”¦ almost. Just in time for a snow storm, we have the guides laid down on Broadway’s fresh pavement for bike lanes:

Broadway

Of course, as Car-Free in PVD points out, the bike lanes are in the dreaded door zone. If you ride to the right of the lane, which as Car Free points out, Rhode Island Law instructs cyclists to do, then you are gonna get doored. There is room to stay the the left side of the lane and avoid the door.

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Video: Mayor of Vilnius has had it with cars parked in the bike lane

gcpvd —  August 2, 2011 — 3 Comments

The Mayor of Vilnius, Lithuiania, Arturas Zuokas has a problem with luxury car owners parking their cars wherever they damn well please. He is especially tired of them parking their cars in bike lanes.

Via: The Guardian

In Bicycles, Video , , ,
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News & Notes

Jef Nickerson —  June 16, 2011 — 4 Comments

→ The Art and Science of Designing Good Cities for Walking [Streetsblog]

The article is a great read, but this photo is the best part to me:

Copenhagen sidewalk
Photo from Streetsblog

This Copenhagen sidewalk completely flips the script on the relationship between cars and pedestrians at intersections. Rather than there being a curb, the sidewalk ending, and pedestrians moved into the street via a crosswalk; the sidewalk continues across the road and it is the car that enters the pedestrians domain in order to move through the intersection. Why are we not making all minor side streets have this relation to the main?

→ Which part of Detroit really needs to be ‘right-sized’? [Grist]

Shrinking city? Really? What this tells me is that an even bigger problem for Detroit than the decline of the Rust Belt economy has been that the fringe of the region has been allowed, more than in most places, to expand, not shrink, and to suck the life and hope out of the inner city. So why aren’t the self-styled progressive responses to “the Detroit problem” addressing this critical aspect of the situation?

Maybe they are, but the only ones I hear and read are about “right-sizing” the inner city — demolishing vacant (and even some occupied) housing, letting vast areas revert to nature or farming, and so forth. Let sprawl, the cause of the problem, be someone else’s issue to address. But, in fact, the areas that are sprawling are where the “right-sizing” most needs to occur.

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Put a cone on the bike lane

gcpvd —  June 11, 2011 — 5 Comments

This video was all over the interwebs and the Twits and the Faceplace this week, and we got it emailed to us at least a half a dozen times, so it is obviously popular and we’re gonna get a million hits by posting here! Please to enjoy.

In Bicycles, Transportation, Video , , ,
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PPAC Square

Jef Nickerson —  April 14, 2011 — 23 Comments

PPAC Square

Click Image to enlarge

Today the Mayor’s Office held a press conference announcing the designation of the intersection of Weybosset and Mathewson Streets as “PPAC Square.” This is part of the larger Downtown Circulator Project.

Speakers included the Mayor, Director of Planning and Development Thom Deller, Joe Walsh the Chairman of the PPAC Board, and Laurie White of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.

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bwaybike

We can haz bike lanes

Jef Nickerson —  April 12, 2011 — 8 Comments

Via Flickr by way of Twitter:

It is about time! #pvd #broadway #bikelanes

Photo (cc) benshead

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News & Notes

Jef Nickerson —  March 22, 2011 — Leave a comment

→ Chafee takes first step toward casino study [Projo 7 to 7 News Blog]

The study would look, in part, at the impact on Rhode Island’s gambling revenue that from the potential of three privately run casinos in Massachusetts, a possible Wampanoag Indian casino in Southeastern Massachusetts, and the introduction of slots at the Bay State’s tracks.

The consultant would be asked to consider the impact, if any, on Rhode Island on a Shinnecock Indian casino at the eastern end of Long Island.

The study would also look at the potential impact on state revenue of allowing table games at both Twin River and Newport Grand — with and without competition from Massachusetts — and what might happen to state revenue if the Narragansetts were somehow able to buy Twin River.

→ ‘I Was A Teenage Cyclist,’ or How Anti-Bike-Lane Arguments Echo the Tea Party [The New York Times]

If you’re itching to write an anti-bike-lane argument (and, if so, line up, because it’s a burgeoning literary genre), you could do no better than to follow the template laid out yesterday by The New Yorker’s John Cassidy in his blog post, “Battle of the Bike Lanes.”

Cassidy’s post – which has already been called “a seminal document of New York City’s bike lane backlash era” – helpfully includes all the requisite rhetorical tactics, thus providing an excellent blueprint. (You might even say “boilerplate.”) These include:

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