It was a bit of surprise seeing a Google booth at the National Bike Summit.   They are here to announce biking directions on Google Maps. This is a nice complement to the driving, walking, and public transit directions.

The routing algorithm doesn’t shy away from routing cyclists on some main roads, like Woodward Avenue. Perhaps we can use this as another reason to make Metro Detroit’s streets more bike friendly.

One major issue: Google is showing sidepaths/wide sidewalks as legitimate bicycling facilities when they are not according to national design guidelines. This makes us think SEMCOG may have provided this data to Google. Despite our comments against doing so, SEMCOG included sidepaths/wide sidewalks as bicycle facilities maps. We’ll bring this issue up with Google.

Here’s part of the announcement from the League of American Bicyclists:

This new feature includes: step-by-step bicycling directions; bike trails outlined directly on the map; and a new “Bicycling” layer that indicates bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads. The directions feature provides step-by-step, bike-specific routing suggestions – similar to the directions provided by our driving, walking, or public transit modes. Simply enter a start point and destination and select “Bicycling” from the drop-down menu. You will receive a route that is optimized for cycling, taking advantage of bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly streets and avoiding hilly terrain whenever possible.

Visit http://maps.google.com/biking to try out this new feature. Biking directions for Google Maps is currently in Beta.

SEMCOG recently launched a new MiBikematch service and the Free Press has an article it.

MiBikematch, a service to match up bike riders who would be more comfortable taking the trip with another rider, has been launched, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments said Wednesday.

Users register there, entering their starting point, destination, days they ride and their work hours. That information is compared to other users for potential matches. Participants may contact potential riding companions through e-mail or the Web site. The service is free, SEMCOG spokeswoman Iris Steinberg said.

The program is part of an effort by state and local agencies to encourage folks to think beyond driving to ease congestion and improve air quality in a state among the tops in the nation in the percentage of drivers commuting alone by car.

Note that after signing up, you can select how you prefer to commute: by bike, car pool, van pool, or some combination of those.

It’s apparent that in order to make this service a success, we need a lot of bike commuters signing up.

$5 per gallon of gas would hurt the program either.

If you spend much time perusing the available safety publications for Michigan, it becomes fairly evident that not much serious effort is put into bicycle and pedestrian analysis.

SEMCOG

One example is SEMCOG’s Crash Facts report where more analysis and pages are devoted to vehicle-deer crashes than either pedestrian crashes or bicycle crashes. This is despite the fact that deer caused just one driver fatality in 2007. There were 65 pedestrian fatalities and 7 bicyclist fatalities in 2007.

For 2008, SEMCOG issued a cheery press release because overall fatalities and crashes were down.

“We are extremely happy to report this continuing decline in traffic crashes in Southeast Michigan,” notes SEMCOG Executive Director Paul Tait.

SEMCOG failed to note that both bicycle and pedestrian fatalities were up. In fact, 18% of all fatalities were pedestrians and bicyclists in 2007. In 2008 that pecentage jumped to 24%.

It seems the “analysis” is simply plugging this year’s numbers into the same old template.

A worthwhile analysis would look at trends within the region and where within the roadway these crashes are occuring.

Do we really need SEMCOG telling us that “bicycle crashes were more common in warmer months…likely due to the difficulties of bicycling in snowy or icy conditions?” They’ve been recycling this same text since 2002.

MDOT

To their credit, MDOT has supported some pedestrian safety studies within the city of Detroit. The city of Detroit’s Traffic Engineering department is has applied for safety funding to make improvements that should reduced pedestrian crashes.

GTSAC

Also, the Governor’s Traffic Safety Advisory Council includes some good analysis within the Michigan Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Action Plan.

OHSP

One interesting analysis from the Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) compares 2007 bicycle crash injury severity for helmeted and non-helmeted riders. We’ve rebuilt their data table as follows:

(Note that it is unreported whether helmets were worn in a little over half of the crashes.)

Among bicyclists wearing helmets in crashes, a significantly higher percentage suffered serious injury or death when compared those without helmets. One would expect the helmeted riders would have a reduced percentage of serious injury or death.

Can this be explained by risk compensation or demographics?

Nonetheless, the OSHP apparently didn’t do much analysis since they’ve cut-and-pasted a quote that’s unsupported by their own data: “Making the use of helmets the single most effective countermeasure available to reduce head injuries and fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes.”

And just to be sure that 2007 wasn’t simply a unique year, we looked at this data back to 2004. For every year, bicyclists wearing helmets in crashes suffered an equal or greater percentage of serious injury or death.

For what it’s worth, there is not a trend towards increased helmet use among those involved in reported bicyclist accidents within Michigan.

Cyclists often speculate about why Metro Detroit doesn’t offer safer biking options.

A common culprit is our motor city heritage.

I disagree. I think it’s because we just don’t ask.

In communities where residents have effectively asked for biking options, they got them. Ferndale is a prime example. Troy could be the next one. Both communities surveyed their residents and the number one response was for better biking and walkability.

So how do you ask? Here’s a great option that’s painless and probably somewhat fun.

The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) is hosting meetings where “the public is invited to express their opinions regarding the future of Southeast Michigan’s transportation system.”

The meetings are next week at three different locations:

• Monday, July 21, 2008, SEMCOG offices, 535 Griswold, Suite 300, Detroit; 4-7 p.m. (formal presentations begin at 4:10 p.m. and 5:40 p.m.);
• Tuesday, July 22, 2008, Southfield Public Library, 26300 Evergreen Rd, Southfield; 4-7 p.m. (formal presentations begin at 4:10 p.m. and 5:40 p.m.); and
• Wednesday, July 23, 2008, Washtenaw Community College, Morris Lawrence Building, Ann Arbor; 9 a.m.-12 noon (formal presentations begin at 9:10 a.m. and 10:40 a.m.)

Please attend one of these meeting and make your “ASK” for better bicycling facilities in Southeast Michigan.

If you’re unable to attend, you can email your comments to infocenter@semcog.org. You can also take their on-line survey.

Here are additional details from SEMCOG’s press release: (more…)

The 2007 bike and pedestrian crash results for the four counties in the MDOT Metro Region have just been added to our on-line database.

In summary, while pedestrian crashes have dropped, bicycle crashes increased by over 13%. As noted by SEMCOG, “traffic crashes involving bicycles are more severe than overall crashes.” In other words, they cause a much higher percentage of injuries. Bikes don’t have bumpers, crash cages, and air bags.

The only “good” news is there were 6 bicycle fatalities this year, down from 13 last year. Still, 23% of all traffic related fatalities in the Metro Region were pedestrians or cyclists.

These numbers only provide more justification for road agencies (like Wayne County and the Road Commission of Oakland County) to begin implementing best practices for safe biking. Agencies and municipalities need to create and implement non-motorized plans on how to reduce these crashes.  Road projects that increase bicyclist safety should be rewarded, not penalized as they can be today in Oakland County.

SEMCOG has released their 2007 Traffic Crash Report. The Michigan State Police should be releasing theirs sometime this month.