Author: APCSC

Former cycling world champion, who is cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester is avoiding riding on Britain’s roads because he feels they have become too dangerous.

Boardman said he found road riding in parts of the UK “exhausting” and unpleasant. “False modesty aside, I’m about as competent as it gets and I am constantly doing risk assessments. I’m looking at parked cars, seeing which way wheels are turning, everything that’s going on around me. It’s just exhausting. Whereas if I ride on a track or a trail I don’t have to do that and it’s just more pleasant these days,” he said.

“I’m not interested in cyclists … I’m interested in the people in the cars. Getting them to change, it’s got to be easy, appealing and safe, in that order,” he said, suggesting his success ought to be measured by some sort of “happiness index”. “You have to measure: is this a more pleasant place to be or not?”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/31/chris-boardman-riding-a-bike-on-uk-roads-feels-too-dangerous-for-me?CMP=share_btn_fb

Striped crosswalks will make every pedestrian safer by making intersections more visible!

https://www.pps.org/reference/8-principles-streets-as-places/

These eight principles focus on ways to attract people to a street and to tap into its community-building potential. These guidelines closely parallel PPS’s “What Makes a Great Place” diagram, which we have adapted to fit the context of streets.

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/08/31/transportation-safety-establishment-finally-starting-to-understand-bicycling/

“The Governors Highway Safety Association came out with a report last week about how states can reduce cycling fatalities [PDF]. It’s not a revolutionary document, but if you look closely you’ll see signs of progress at one of the big national organs of the transportation safety establishment.”

This is the beginning and it’s a good start.  It is unfortunate that NHTSA still focuses on advising kids (and adults too of course) about obeying traffic laws and wearing a helmet as the best measures against car-related injuries and fatalities.  Onward.

Count Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition among organizations supporting The Rally Against Hate on September 4th.  Join us at Springwood Park at 10am.

“Equitable use of public streets is a social justice issue; we are willing to stand up for other important social justice causes.”

Stand Against Hate Rally Planned For Labor Day

NJTV interviews business owners, community organizations (watch those terrific kids at the Boys and Girls Club!) and stakeholders in Asbury Park, including Lisa Lee of EZRide and Alliance for a Healthier Asbury Park.  She speaks at 32:15 about ways that the organization is helping residents healthier, which includes making streets safer.

Asbury Park has just launched a new Bike Share!  We cut the ribbon tonight and people are happy that AP is becoming a safe and welcoming city for people-particularly the most vulnerable road users-pedestrians and bike riders, whether visitors or residents.  But there is still a sense that people on bikes are a renegade bunch.

There are too many disturbing news stories recently about badly behaving bike riders, and even more stories about bike riders being hit and killed by drivers of motor vehicles with little or no consequences.  APCSC is making an effort to turn this around in Asbury Park, advocating for streets that are safe for everyone.

“Yes, a percentage of cyclists ride like idiots, and their actions can cause injury and, more often, intimidation or alarm.

But the same can be said for just about every form of transport. As I’ve written before, I strongly suspect cyclists who rush through red lights are likely to drive a car equally stupidly. It’s about idiots, not the mode of travel that happen to be using at the time.

And there is a lot of stupidity in cars. Speeding and phone use at the wheel is less visible than a cyclist sailing across a red, but (for reasons of physics rather than morals) is much, much more likely to kill or maim someone else.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/aug/29/is-the-uk-really-menaced-by-reckless-cyclists?CMP=share_btn_fb

National Park (ing) Day In Asbury Park!

Asbury Park is designating 2 parking spaces for people instead of cars on September 15.

http://parkingday.org/about-parking-day/

“The street seats grew out of a national movement that began in San Francisco in 2005 when members of an arts collective called Rebar transformed a parking spot with grass turf, a bench and potted tree, and invited passers-by to feed the meter. The experiment inspired a daylong celebration, known as Park(ing) Day, in which people took over parking spots. Later, a new generation of curbside micro parks, or “parklets,” was born.

“The miniboom in parklets nationwide underscores how cities are reinventing how they use their most abundant public space — their streets,” said Alex Engel, a spokesman for The National Association of City Transportation Officials, which has included parklets in its guide to urban street design.”

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/nyregion/parklets-parking-spaces.html?referer=https://t.co/NEpQkXOeoz?amp=1

Macon’s rich heritage sounds so much like that of Asbury Park.  This is a great story of how placemaking in Macon had been initiated and created by groups outside of government, and is now bringing those strategies in-house.

From native American history to the birthplace of great American music, Macon, Georgia, has a rich heritage. City leaders have witnessed the positive returns of a place-based approach to economic development, but those efforts have largely originated outside of government. Macon’s Amazing Place leadership team of mostly elected officials wants to learn more about bringing those same strategies in-house.

https://smartgrowthamerica.org/amazing-place-series-change-gonna-come-macon-georgia/