Bikes Can Save The Planet. (Yes, And Scooters too.)

Copenhagen wasn’t always cycling heaven. It started with citizens making it clear in the 60s and 70s that they were not tolerating injuries and deaths by drivers, or the negative health and environmental impacts. It took decades. The city made it gradually harder and more costly to park, and more inconvenient to drive. Sound familiar? Drivers will push back, feeling like their entitlement to streets and roads are threatened. The auto industry is fighting back too.

We’re just at the beginning, but Asbury Park can do this! And it’s not just with bikes. Scooters and other forms of micro-mobility are taking over streets and displacing cars…

Could bicycles help save the planet and improve our cities?

In Copenhagen in the 70s after streets had become clogged with cars (just as in the US), and people were being struck and killed by drivers, the city “began by slowly but steadily increasing the costs of driving — mostly by raising automobile and gasoline taxes, but also by reducing parking availability — and using the revenue to create bike-friendly infrastructure, which includes miles of separate, uninterrupted cycling lanes, as well as dedicated bike tunnels, bridges and traffic lights. These “complete streets” and “cycling superhighways” evolved over time to reduce the space available for cars and the speeds at which they could travel. As driving became more frustrating and cycling became more efficient, the number of daily trips made by bike increased significantly.”

September 3, 2019September 2, 2019

A Lego Kid Becomes The Cycling Professor – Podcast

This Lego-maniac kid has become an authority in planning, and in particular in cycling. If you’re a podcast lover check it out.

Marco te Brömmelstroet is Associate Professor in Urban Planning at University of Amsterdam and founding academic director of the Urban Cycling Institute. His research focuses on transportation, urban cycling, and social mobility, with a particular focus on policy change and improving city planning.

TRANSCRIPT

MtB: I’ve always been fascinated with how cities evolve, as a young kid already and especially fascinated throughout my educational career in how cities evolve, regions evolve in relation to their mobility system. So, I studied urban planning and then I was very interested in how mobility played its part there.

I blame Lego for that. When I was I think seven or eight, I was already building my own cities out of Lego and playing with them in terms of my own narratives, my own fantasises but I always built Lego cities that were realistic as far as you can call it realistic. So, they were always real cities.

KR: As well as being a Dutch Lego Master, Marco te Brömmelstroet is a keen cyclist and known in certain circles as the Cycling Professor. It’s a title he wears with pride. His interest in urban planning and love of cycling led him to some interesting discoveries about how cycling can influence our behaviors while navigating transport infrastructure.

In this episode of How Researchers, we’re getting into the saddle, and travelling by bicycle, a vehicle of social, political and environmental change.

[How Researchers Changed the World introductory music]

Listen here…

https://www.howresearchers.com/episodes/episode-8/

August 28, 2019August 28, 2019

Asbury Pod #4: Diana Pittet Distilled Spirits Expert, Plus Scooters And Bikes

Asbury Pod #4: Diana Pittet

58 MINS JUL 22

Asbury Pod Episode July 22nd featuring Diana Pittet expert in distilled spirits and avid bike rider. Discussion this month about Asbury Park transportation issues including parking, scooters, valet parking and bikes…hear a shout out to Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition at around 23:40.

Listen here:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/asbury-pod/e/62721418

August 19, 2019

Don’t Fling Open The Driver Door – Learn The Dutch Reach

Bicyclist injuries and deaths occur when a driver opens the door into the path of person on a bike, either causing the person on the bike to hit the door, or forcing her into the traffic lane. Learn to do it here.

This simple change in the way you get out of your car can save lives — of cyclists, drivers and passengers. Here’s how to do it, and why it’s so effective.

By Tanya Mohn Oct. 5, 2018

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August 9, 2019August 9, 2019

NYC Bans Cars On 14th St – Safer Streets, More Space For People

Banning cars. This is BIG news. Cars banned on 14th St. NYC. In the wake of 18 bicyclist deaths and thousand of pedestrian deaths, the city is finally following lead of cities all over the world where cars are being marginalized in favor of people in pedestrian plazas and on walkable streets. Ever since the era of Robert Moses in the 1930’s we’ve been habituated to the belief that cars should own streets, roads, and highways. But the tide is turning. Asbury Park gets it. #streetsforpeople #toomanycars #VISIONZERO

By Winnie Hu Aug. 8, 2019

Major Traffic Experiment in N.Y.C.: Cars All but Banned on Major Street

The city takes its crackdown on cars to 14th Street, a crosstown route for 21,000 vehicles a day, which will be virtually off limits.

August 8, 2019August 8, 2019

The Auto Industry Has Co-Opted Our Language

The automotive industry has co-opted our language and we’re just becoming aware of the calculated plan. We’re people driving vehicles, and we’re also people riding bikes, and walking – and yes, riding scooters too. But guess who gets the benefit of language that absolves them of responsibility in injuries and fatalities? It’s NOT an accident.

We don’t say “plane accident.” We shouldn’t say “car accident” either.

AUTOMAKERS TRIED TO SHAPE NEWS COVERAGE OF CRASHES — BY CALLING THEM ACCIDENTS

In response to the emerging public backlash against cars (which were, at the time, largely owned and driven by the wealthy), automakers and other industry groups pushed for a new set of laws that kept pedestrians off the streets, except at crosswalks.

To get people to follow these laws, they tried to shape news coverage of crashes. The National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, an industry group, established a free wire service for newspapers: Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic collision, and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for crashes to pedestrians — and almost always used the word “accident.”

Read how we’ve been brainwashed:

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/20/8995151/crash-not-accident

August 7, 2019August 6, 2019

Pedestrian Deaths Are Soaring

We have to own cars, so the total of 6000 pedestrian deaths, and a total of 40,000 deaths by car last year is a built-in consequence. REALLY!?!! If this was drug related, or disease, or other epidemic we would be outraged! This rant is brought to you as a response to people complaining about the “dangers” of electric scooters recently introduced in Asbury Park. FOCUS on the REAL PROBLEM. #toomanycars #slowthecars Scooters and bikes in Asbury Park are alternatives to cars, and we need to keep open minds to save lives, and to protect health and the environment. Asbury Park is poised to be a city that truly gets it right.

Why Are U.S. Drivers Killing So Many Pedestrians?

July 2, 2019
by Joe Cortright

If anything else—a disease, terrorists, gun-wielding crazies—killed as many Americans as cars do, we’d regard it as a national emergency. Especially if the death rate had grown by 50 percent in less than a decade. But as new data from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (via Streetsblog) show, that’s exactly what’s happened with the pedestrian death toll in the U.S. In the nine years from 2009 to 2018, pedestrian deaths increased 51 percent from 4,109 to 6,227.

There are lots of reasons given for the increase: distracted driving due to smart phone use, a decline in gas prices that has prompted even more driving, poor road design, a culture that privileges car travel and denigrates walking, and the increasing prevalence of more lethal sport utility vehicles. Undoubtedly, all of these factors contribute.

August 4, 2019August 3, 2019

#FATALFACTS

We can’t ignore this anymore. Scooters and bikes ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. These numbers are unacceptable. We’re working on solutions in Asbury Park. #toomanycars #slowthecars

Vehicle Deaths Estimated at 40,000 for Third Straight Year

For the first time since the Great Recession, the U.S. has experienced three straight years of at least 40,000 roadway deaths, according to preliminary estimatesreleased Feb. 13 by the National Safety Council. In 2018, an estimated 40,000 people lost their lives to car crashes – a 1% decline from 2017 (40,231 deaths) and 2016 (40,327 deaths). About 4.5 million people were seriously injured in crashes last year – also a 1% decrease over 2017.

Discouragingly, last year’s estimated 40,000 deaths is 14% higher than four years ago. Driver behavior is likely contributing to the numbers staying stubbornly high. The Council’s estimates do not reveal causation; however, 2017 final data show spikes in deaths among pedestrians, while distraction continues to be involved in 8% of crashes, and drowsy driving in an additional 2%.

“Forty-thousand deaths is unacceptable,” said Nicholas Smith, interim president and CEO of NSC. “We cannot afford to tread water any more. We know what works, but we need to demonstrate the commitment to implementing the solutions. Roadway deaths are preventable by doubling down on what works, embracing technology advancements and creating a culture of safer driving.”

Who Are People Riding Bikes?

Asbury Park is experiencing a surge in people riding bikes, which we support as a means of transportation, improving health, taking care of the environment, and reducing car dependency. But who are the people who riding bikes every day as their main mode of getting around?

This article about “invisible bicyclists”, in Bicycling Magazine this week was originally published in 2006. Since then mobility issues for immigrants (documented or not), and other people who can’t afford cars hasn’t improved. (Read the news any day about bike delivery people in NYC). People with means in cities like NYC and Asbury Park complain that bicyclists ride irresponsibly, on the sidewalk, or ride against traffic. But who are the people on bikes on the sidewalk? Do we really see them – are they invisible, or are we blind? Asbury Park is working diligently on building safe streets for everyone on bikes, walking, and drivers too. It isn’t going to happen overnight and we need to take care of one another in the process.

How Low-Income Cyclists Go Unnoticed

SOME ATTENTION HAS RECENTLY FOCUSED ON THE LACK OF REPRESENTATION LOW-INCOME BIKE RIDERS HAVE WHEN IT COMES TO TRANSPORTATION PLANNING AND SAFE CYCLING. HERE’S AN ILLUMINATING PIECE WE WROTE ON THE SUBJECT BACK IN 2006.

BY DAN KOEPPEL

Nov 9, 2015

“The bicycle is the blood of this invisible body of labor, as it is all across the United States in a diverse swath of humanity. In southern and central Indiana, the Invisible Riders are largely from, or descended from, Appalachians. New England seems to spawn its own, generations-old breed of independent knockabouts. Hard-luck families of all racial backgrounds wash down from the northern U.S. into the warm southern states, where the dream is that life will somehow be easier without winter. You and I have seen the bikes everywhere—cheap, department-store rigs chained to fences and signposts outside car washes, lumberyards, budget chain restaurants. But we’ve never seen the riders, not really.”

August 1, 2019July 31, 2019

Scooters Coming To Asbury Park 8.1.2019!

The Zagster bike share company operating in Asbury Park has teamed up with Spin Scooters. Scooters are coming on Thursday, 8/1/2019! Sign up here.

Spin and Zagster Partner to Operate Electric Scooter Shares in Select Cities Across the Country

Spin, Recently Acquired by Ford Motor Company, Chooses Zagster’s Micro-Mobility Operations Platform to Accelerate Growth in Cities and Campuses Across the Country.

San Francisco, CA, March 19, 2019 — Spin, backed by Ford Motor Company, is announcing a partnership to bring Zagster’s micro-mobility operations platform to Spin’s e-scooter product offering. Zagster’s turnkey solution leverages a decade-long expertise in micro-mobility to ensure fleet availability, operational efficiency, safety measures, and uniform protocols—all with a community-driven approach. Spin plans to bring scooter-share programs to 100 cities and campuses by end of the year.