Well here’s another nine!

Cycling for Health

Our friend and longtime Detroit cyclist Cassandra Spratling wrote this article in the Detroit Free Press. The Daley’s adoption of biking as transportation — and how they lost 210 pounds between them — is quite a story.

When Don and Darla Daley dine at restaurants near their Royal Oak home, they no longer drive their car.

It’s the same with quick trips to the store or nearby Royal Oak Farmers Market. They hop on the bicycles they bought two years ago — their favorite form of recreation and exercise.

“I never thought I’d love it as much as I do,” Darla Daley says. “Other bikers wave at you. It’s just fun.”

There are other health success stories included here as well.

Cycling for Green Jobs

The Free Press also ran this story on Vanita Mistry and her Detroit Greencycle company that provides curbside recycling.

Four days a week before heading out to her day job, Mistry straps an 8-foot trailer to her mountain bike and pedals for several hours through a number of Detroit neighborhoods, including Clark Park, the Eastern Market district and Corktown to pick up recyclables and compost from her regular customers.

She totes twelve 18-gallon bins on her trailer, with a capacity to carry up to 300 pounds. Mistry separates plastic, cardboard, paper, glass and aluminum. She also collects composting material.

“I find that I’m driven more by public service and giving back,” Mistry said. “What motivates me is knowing I’m making a difference in the work I’m doing, and I’ve found that Greencycle is one of many ways I strive to make a difference in my community.”

Next, the Huffington Post continues their series on Detroit biking with an interesting look at the city’s bike messenger history.

CBS Detroit also joined in with this article on Shane O’Keefe’s Hot Spokes food delivery company.

O’Keefe said it’s sometimes a challenge to balance several meals inside his thermal bike box and his hands, but he does it. O’Keefe said they’ll deliver in any weather — even deep snow.

The last time they could not make a delivery was more than two winters ago during a major snow storm.

O’Keefe said he does not own a car and he’s glad he doesn’t have to pay for gas while trying to run a delivery business.

Critical Mass

Again, the Huffington Post published this article, Detroit Critical Mass Helps Area Cyclists Find Common Ground On City Streets. It accurately paints a mixed view on how successful this ride is. Interestingly, the critics aren’t motorists, but other Detroit cyclists. We’ve heard from critics of this popular ride as well: it’s too fast, too long, too organized, and it caters too much to suburban cyclists who drive to the city for the ride.

Ironically enough, the Detroit Critical Mass ride was moved to this location in part because of its free car parking. The bike lanes being installed this year eliminate much of that free parking. Will Critical Mass move again because of the bike lanes?

A View from Below

The Lakewood Observer from the Cleveland-area published, The Detroit Comparison: Sam Willsey’s Recent Cycling Experience. It’s an interesting article that gives the impression that Detroit is ahead of Cleveland in terms of adding bike lanes and trails. We’re not sure how both cities compare, but it seems we have much lower traffic on our streets.

The article does get a couple things wrong. We do have a bike advocacy group — the Detroit Greenways Coalition. And, the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance is not proposing or significantly funding these projects. Non-profits and the City are the ones proposing, while funding comes from a variety of state, local, and philanthropic sources.

A Bicycle Lending Library

Stories about Fender Bender’s plan for a community-based bike share program were published in both Mode Shift and the Huffington Post.

From Mode Shift:

Like any bike sharing program, The Bicycle Lending Library will rent bikes out from one to four days with the single-day rental being the most “expensive” and adding days will make the rental cheaper. [Sarah] Sidelko says the program is going to be very affordable, but does not have the specific dollar amounts worked out yet.

In addition to renting a bicycle, the Library will also lend out a helmet, a bike light and lock and a map of Detroit, which will have an emphasis on bike lanes and greenways, and will have other prominent destinations peppered in.

Detroit Cycling History

The Huffington Post rounded out their bike series by touching on the city’s rich cycling history. The article is primarily an interview with the Hub‘s Jack Van Dyke.

And on a related note, the web site Roads were not Built for Cars ran this story on Henry Ford and his connection to cycling back in the day. The web site’s author Carlton Reid was recently in Detroit. We had the opportunity to give him a bike tour that connected our cycling history. During our ride he asked, “Are we downtown?”. Yes we were. It was midday on a Friday and the streets were ours. There was very little traffic. He was rather impressed and said, “This is the cycling city of the future.”

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They’re very popular questions. The truth is we don’t know. Nobody does.

And that same answer is true for most American cities – accurate bicycling data does not exist.

That hasn’t stopped some groups from pretending that it does.

If you read the recent Huffington Post article on Detroit, you may have seen this.

A 2012 report by the Alliance for Biking & Walking found the number of bicycle commuters in Detroit rose 258 percent over the last two decades.

Sounds good, right? The Alliance report says Detroit had 340 daily bicycle commuters in 1990 and 1,217 in 2009.

What the Alliance report fails to tell you are the margins of error, which really give you an idea how inaccurate these numbers are.

That 2009 number is 1,217 plus or minus 803. Yep, the Census says the actual 2009 number could be as low as 414, likely within the 1990 number’s margin of error.

Another thing to consider: The 2009 numbers are based on a Detroit population of over 900,000, which is off by couple hundred thousand people.

And while everyone acknowledges Detroit’s notable increase in cycling activity last year, the 2010 Census numbers show bicycle commuting dropped nearly in half to 651 plus or minus 424.

If this hasn’t convinced you these numbers are quite worthless, there’s more.

The Census numbers only includes those who are working and 16 years or older. The Census doesn’t count most people who combine modes (e.g. use the bus bike racks) or who bike only a couple times a week.

The Alliance for Biking and Walking were made aware of these Census discrepancies for Detroit, but for the most part they did not address them. That’s why Detroit chose not to participate in the most recent report.

Other cities

Other cities are making big strides in understanding bicycling trends and counts. They’re doing travel surveys and bicycle counts — both automatically and manually — at key bridges and intersections.

And in cities like New York, they’ve found their counts don’t match the Census numbers either.

Detroit’s done some bicycle counts around Woodward, in Southwest Detroit, and on the RiverWalk, but not enough to draw any major conclusions. It would great if some future bike lane projects (looking at you, E. Jefferson!) could get some automated counters.

Until then, there just aren’t any good answers.

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What is Map Maker? It’s a web-based tool that lets you modify and add to Google Maps.

However, unlike Wikipedia, there is a change review process. New users can expect all of their changes to require a review while more experienced users can get some changes published immediately.

What changes can made? The Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance has added missing pathways for the Detroit RiverWalk, Conner Creek Greenway, and Midtown Loop. All of the City’s bike lanes were added. There were also a number of trails shown for Detroit that simply don’t exist or are sidewalks. Those were removed.

The Google bicycling layer, which is selectable in Google Maps is now looking fairly accurate. We’re using it on this site with an overlay of bike parking locations.

Nonetheless, there are some improvements Google could make to improve their bicycle and trail data.

Here are some suggestions that were shared with their development team at the Montreal Conference.

• Show unpaved roads differently – This would make it easier for road bikers to determine their routes.
• Bicycle routing – Similarly, it would be useful if bicyclists could get biking directions using only paved surfaces if they prefer. This would be similar to the motorist directions which let you avoid expressways.
• Add more trail surface descriptions – The popular crushed limestone surface seen on trails like the Paint Creek isn’t an option when describing a trail surface.
• Add paved shoulders – Google Maps lets you describe bike lanes on a road, but not paved shoulders that make biking more desirable. For example, Edward Hines Drive should not be shown with bike lanes based on Google’s map policies.
• Add bike racks – Points of interest can be added to Google Maps, but there’s not a category for bike racks. We heard that it will be available in the future.
• Add abandoned rail corridors – There isn’t a way of properly showing abandoned rail corridors on the map. This is perhaps more useful for planners than riders, but it would be useful to add.
• Exporting data – If we put all the bike rack locations in Google Maps, we want to be able to pull it back out. That information is needed for Bicycle Friendly Community applications. It would also be useful if we Google Maps could tell us the miles of bike lanes or trail within a city.

The U.S. Bicycle Routes were discussed. Those can be added now. For example, we’ve added the Conner Creek Greenway name to its on-road segments, e.g. ?St. Jean.

There was also a question of bicycles using ferry service. At the time, it was unclear if that was integrated into Google’s bicycle routing software. A different Google development team is responsible for routing (as well as rendering.)

However, getting bike directions from Detroit to Windsor does take you to the ferry in Algonac. City hall to city hall is 127 miles by bike — or 2 by car.

Mapping delays

One word of warning. There is a delay from the time your change is published in Map Maker to the time it shows up on Google Maps. That delay is dependent on many factors, including the size of the change and where the change is made.

There’s also a delay before changes affect the routing. Google’s bike routing tries taking advantage of trails, bike lanes, and preferred bicycle routes. If you add these features in Map Maker, it can take up to a couple months before the routing routines know about them. The Google engineers said there were working on reducing this delay.

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Riding the Riverfront Trail in Windsor

From bike lanes to riverfront trails, Windsor has had a big head start on Detroit. While that gap has narrowed over the past few years, they’re arguably still ahead. In fact they just got their Bicycle Friendly Community designation last year which Detroit applied for this year.

This CBC News article gives a glimpse of what they have and what they need to make Windsor more bikeable.

According to Windsor’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, the city plans to eventually add approximately 46 kilometres of bikeways.

Every year since 2001, the city has annually spent $400,000 on cycling infrastructure and programs. That doesn’t count the lanes that are added during regular construction.

The goal of the master plan is to have bike lanes and pathways within a five minute radius of every Windsor neighbourhood. It will add up to 350 km of trails and bike routes when it’s done. The current tally is 177 km.

For a really interesting and dynamic look at their plans, check out this before-and-after map.

This is all the more reason why we need a cross-border connection for bicyclists.

Here is a video from the CBC article, Windsor focuses on commuter cycling, bike paths.

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Their job application is on their web site.

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy also has a few jobs posted.

• Communications Director
• Development Director
• Volunteer Manager

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Grist created this list and put a reference to the Detroit Bike City video at the top.

1. Biking is for elistists

Yeah, tell that to the good people of Detroit.

Metro Detroit has elitists. They’re just not in that video.

Detroit Complete Streets Coalition Makes City Streets Safer For Bikers, Pedestrians

The Huffington Post Detroit edition had this coverage of Detroit’s Complete Streets efforts.

It seems like a simple idea: Roadways should be safe for all users, whether they drive, ride public transit, bike or walk. But?Detroit is the 12th-most dangerous metro area for pedestrians in the country, and the region has a long way to go.

As the article mentions, the Complete Streets ordinance is in the Detroit law department prior to being introduced to City Council. Unlike many of the other communities making a buzz with Complete Street resolutions, Detroit’s should produce results.

Detroit, Michigan: The Non-Motorized City

Global Site Plans published this story which provides a very good overview of all that’s going in Detroit.

Do you ride for recreation, community organizing, or the daily commute? Within the Detroit community, public mobility has developed into two distinct exchanges: the first focused on physical redevelopment and the second, community development. On one hand, urban planners, environmental non-profits, and downtown developers are actively engaged in urban design and adaptive-reuse of existing infrastructure for the use of bicycles. While other Detroiter’s are focused primarily on the bicycle user: from recreation and community health to vocational skills and self-empowerment.

Compared to other transportation alternatives, bicycles do not require infrastructural changes. Indeed, Detroit has plenty of roads to share. However, road diets and greenway developments certainly make cities more inviting to cyclists.

The city’s Detroit Works Project reprinted this article as well.

Complete Streets isn’t anti-car

The article asks the question, “Will the Motor City ever relinquish its auto-centric ideals for the benefit of pedal power?”

Is that an accurate question? Perhaps in the suburbs, but not in the city of Detroit.

To improve biking, does Detroit need to get rid of expressways and convenient parking? It generally doesn’t have congestion. The city was mostly developed during its streetcar heyday and has a decent street grid, which means more intersections and non-expressway speed limits that are rarely above 35 MPH .

Is the road-dieted Michigan Avenue with bike lanes in Corktown any less ideal for driving? In many ways, adding bike lanes improves safety for everyone, including motorists and pedestrians.

Complete Streets isn’t anti-car. It’s about balancing needs among all transportation modes while considering how the road design affects the surrounding community.

Comlete Streets is anti-some-cars, specifically those motorists who ignore traffic laws, speed and imperil others. We’ve seen strong support for Complete Streets helping address that community issue — even in the Motor City.

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So, I thought it might be appropriate to provide some background on why this site exists.

There really were a couple early projects I started that prompted the creation of m-bike.

Woodward Bike Routes

Around 1998, I proposed some Woodward bike routes in Oakland County. I developed a mission statement and routes that used the existing side streets paralleling the Woodward.

The Woodward Avenue Action Association (WA3) was very supportive and hosted meetings with the various municipalities. But, since the routes weren’t directly on Woodward, WA3 couldn’t champion it. It wasn’t within their mission. None of the cities showed much interest and it died.

However, I’d like to think that this discussion had some influence on future non-motorized planning efforts on the Woodward corridor.

I-75 Non-motorized Mobility Plan

This next project started when MDOT was studying the widening of I-75 in South Oakland County. MDOT’s plan ignored how this expansion would affect bicyclists. It also ignored the opportunity to improve bicyclists’ ability to get across I-75, one of the area’s major barriers.

So, I created a fairly thorough 16 page, full-color plan on how to improve I-75 crossings for cyclists. It proposed some new crossings while improving some existing ones. I had met with MDOT’s project planning consultants ahead of time then submitted the report to them.

They ignored it.

When I asked them why this plan resulted in no changes to the project’s final environmental impact statement, the MDOT consultant said it was due to a editing mistake. Seriously.

The bottom line? It was real easy to ignore the lone wolf bike advocate.

m-bike begins

I thought that to be a more success advocate, I should create the appearance of an organization which was larger than one person. At the same time, I needed to spread the bike advocacy gospel to other cyclists and get them involved.

A web site seemed like the best way of achieving both.

In June of 2002 I registered m-bike.org, which was a play on M-DOT. The initial web site was up in August.

You may have noticed that I still write posts as if m-bike is a big advocacy organization, hence the “we” instead of “I”. Is that still necessary or just confusing?

The reality is its just me writing posts whenever I get a chance.

The future of m-bike

The web site design is really tired but any big updates are on hold as the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan develops a web site with overlapping interests. I’ve been working with them on it for a number of years now and it’s on the verge of launching. I am hopeful they can provide much of the functionality that is missing from this site.

I have had some discussions with others about making m-bike into a full-blown Metro Detroit bike advocacy, membership-based organization. Except for trails and what’s happening in Detroit, there are practically no organizations successfully advocating for better biking.

That said, I don’t see m-bike filling that void any time soon.

However, what is happening is the Detroit Greenways Coalition is becoming a non-profit organization, but their scope would limited to the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park. Perhaps the Coalition’s service area would eventually expand to include other suburbs.

We’ll likely know more by post #2000.

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This story was published in the Detroit Free Press on Christmas 1921:

The Christmas Bicycle By Dorr Wiltse, Age 10, Caro, Michigan.

The manager of a large factory was walking around the machines. He said to one man, “Make that well because it is a Christmas bicycle.”

At last the bicycle was finished, a fine one too. It came on the train to a nice little town. A truck brought it to a shop. When the shopkeeper saw it he said, “This is a fine bicycle. I will sell it for Christmas.”

But, alas, nobody bought it. So it had to stay in the shop. The time flew by till it was nearly Christmas. The shopkeeper said to himself, “I will go away for Christmas myself.”

It was Christmas eve and when the man came to lock up the shop he went in the back room to get something and he left the door opern.

The bicycle said, “Now is my chance.”

So out of the door he softly slipped and down the street he went a flying. When he came to the edge of the town he saw a little house. He looked in the window and saw a Christmas tree. The door was standing open. So the bicycle went in and leaned up against the tree.

When the children got up the next morning they cried, “Oh mother, Santa Claus has not forgotten us.”

The bicycle shook with joy.

They had many rides on him and the bicycle enjoyed every one of them.

Dorr became very involved in the local history of Caro. He helped found their historical society and wrote a few books. He died in 1989.

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The indicators are grouped into five main categories: infrastructure, Michigan, education, health and wellness, and talent.

There aren’t any indicators showing how we’re doing with respect to walking or biking, so we suggested two additions to the Mobility section of the Infrastructure dashboard.

For walking, we suggested a count of the number of Michigan cities given a “Very Walkable” rating or better from walkscore. com. Currently no Michigan cities have that rating but Hamtramck is very, very close. Given that no Michigan city is considered very walkable, it doesn’t seem likely they’ll appreciate this suggestion. We wouldn’t be overly disappointed if they lowered the bar so that some cities are counted. That would be better than nothing.

For biking, we suggesteded a count of the number of Bicycle Friendly Communities within the state. Currently that’s 7.

Why not use the number of Complete Street policies? While the Michigan Complete Streets Coalition lists a map with “Complete Street policies”, it really isn’t. It lists communities that have passed ordinances and resolutions, some of which we know have little to no intention of having a Complete Streets policy. And some are co-opting the Complete Streets definition.

Similarly, some communities have “non-motorized plans” which are merely sidewalk or trails plans. What is and what is not a proper non-motorized plan is subjective. And just having a plan doesn’t mean it’s being implemented any time soon.

For these reasons, we think using the third-party evaluations for walking and biking make much more sense.

One more benefit? These evaluations are consistent nationally. If Michigan is to compete with the rest of America, we need to measure ourselves accurately against the other 49.

We’ll let you know if we get any response from the state.

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It’s not known whether the author(s) were male or female, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

For those who get nostalgic for that 1890s golden era of cycling, it’s important to realize it wasn’t golden for everyone. Major Taylor can vouch for that.

Besides, did anyone really think that making a list of 41 “dont’s” would encourage more women to ride?

• Don’t be a fright.
• Don’t faint on the road.
• Don’t wear a man’s cap.
• Don’t wear tight garters.
• Don’t forget your toolbag
• Don’t attempt a “century.”
• Don’t coast. It is dangerous.
• Don’t boast of your long rides.
• Don’t criticize people’s “legs.”
• Don’t wear loud hued leggings.
• Don’t cultivate a “bicycle face.”
• Don’t refuse assistance up a hill.
• Don’t wear clothes that don’t fit.
• Don’t neglect a “light’s out” cry.
• Don’t wear jewelry while on a tour.
• Don’t race. Leave that to the scorchers.
• Don’t wear laced boots. They are tiresome.
• Don’t imagine everybody is looking at you.
• Don’t go to church in your bicycle costume.
• Don’t wear a garden party hat with bloomers.
• Don’t contest the right of way with cable cars.
• Don’t chew gum. Exercise your jaws in private.
• Don’t wear white kid gloves. Silk is the thing.
• Don’t ask, “What do you think of my bloomers?”
• Don’t use bicycle slang. Leave that to the boys.
• Don’t go out after dark without a male escort.
• Don’t without a needle, thread and thimble.
• Don’t try to have every article of your attire “match.”
• Don’t let your golden hair be hanging down your back.
• Don’t allow dear little Fido to accompany you
• Don’t scratch a match on the seat of your bloomers.
• Don’t discuss bloomers with every man you know.
• Don’t appear in public until you have learned to ride well.
• Don’t overdo things. Let cycling be a recreation, not a labor.
• Don’t ignore the laws of the road because you are a woman.
• Don’t try to ride in your brother’s clothes “to see how it feels.”
• Don’t scream if you meet a cow. If she sees you first, she will run.
• Don’t cultivate everything that is up to date because yon ride a wheel.
• Don’t emulate your brother’s attitude if he rides parallel with the ground.
• Don’t undertake a long ride if you are not confident of performing it easily.
• Don’t appear to be up on “records” and “record smashing.” That is sporty.

The suggestion to not coast is referring to one taking their feet off the pedals of a fixed gear bicycle on downhills.

Can you really light a match from the seat of your bloomers?

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