Streetsblog New York City

OK, everybody, pack your bags. We’re all moving to Massachusetts.

The Bay State’s transportation secretary, Richard Davey, has launched a “mode shift” campaign, saying in no uncertain terms that it’s time for people to get out of their cars and onto trains, buses, bikes, and their own two feet. His goal is to triple the share of trips taken by those modes, as opposed to single-occupancy vehicles, by improving transit service and active transportation amenities like lighting, sidewalks, curb cuts and rail-trails.

Here’s the part that gives me the shivers: “I have news for you,” Davey said at a news conference yesterday. “We will build no more superhighways in this state. There is no room.”

Massachusetts has 76,200 lane-miles of roadway, in a state that’s just 190 miles long. That’s a lot more asphalt than any other state in New England.

Eric Sundquist works with innovative state DOTs for a living, as director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative. What Massachusetts is doing is “leading edge but not bleeding edge,” Sundquist told Streetsblog. “There are other states that, even if they haven’t packaged a campaign around mode shift explicitly, are doing a lot of things to encourage mode shift.”

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Despite the number of two-wheeled cop patrols around some cities, police aren’t always the most bike-minded bunch. When there’s a conflict between motorists and cyclists, they’re often inclined to take the motorist’s side. As Streetsblog has reported, police in New York City care more about drunk pedestrians than unsafe drivers, despite the fact that most fatalities are caused by motorists violating traffic laws. And then there’s the bizarre example of Los Altos, California, where police say cyclists are the ones causing crashes by speeding or even failing to yield automobile right-of-way. Huh?

Well, maybe you have to be within spitting distance of a platinum bike-friendly community to get police to care about cyclists’ safety. Last week, police in Longmont, Colorado, near Boulder, raised the bar for police work by actually pursuing charges against a driver who harassed cyclists.

Cyclist Dirk Friel took this harrowing video of the harassment he and a teammate faced last Sunday when they were out for a ride. Seventy-five-year-old James Ernst allegedly followed them for several minutes in his Ford SUV, honking constantly. He had plenty of room to pass, as they were riding to the right of the white line.

Also troubling is that a resident, quoted in Longmont Times-Call write-up of the incident, said the solution was to widen the road to four lanes. Granted, it was a Sunday, but the video hardly shows any other cars on the road. The only thing holding up traffic was Ernst’s massive SUV. Maybe we can hold off on the road expansion for now?

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Legislators in Pennsylvania this year did what Albany lawmakers could not: addressed a loophole in state law that gives hit-and-run drivers an incentive to leave the scene of a serious crash. But the arduous task of getting a bill to the desk of Governor Tom Corbett exemplifies the difficulty in holding reckless motorists accountable, even when they take lives.

House Bill 208 elevates the crime of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run in Pennsylvania to a second degree felony, placing it on the same level as a fatal DUI. However, a compromise weakened the legislation, ensuring that the minimum sentence for a fatal hit-and-run will still not match that of a fatal DUI crash, which in Pennsylvania carries a prison term of three to 10 years. Though the new law gives judges latitude to add to the mandatory minimum one-year hit-and-run sentence, advocates are understandably measured in their praise.

“Drivers who are responsible for killing cyclists or pedestrians shouldn’t feel that it is in their best interest to flee the scene because the penalty for doing so is less than being caught DUI,” wrote Sarah Clark Stuart, campaign director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, in an e-mail to Streetsblog. “The incentive to do so has now been reduced because each offense has the same penalty, but unfortunately, the loophole is not completely closed because the difference in mandatory sentences remains.”

“We wish that the Legislature had made each offense have the same three year mandatory sentence. Nevertheless, HB 208 is significant because now, in Pennsylvania, a hit-and-run driver faces stiffer consequences than before, which is good news for pedestrians and cyclists.”

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Ft. Lee police chief Thomas Ripoli has had it with people getting hit by cars. So he’s taken the logical step: ordering a crackdown on pedestrians.

“Pedestrians are now the new threat to street safety,” warns CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson, before segment reporter Derricke Dennis runs down the list of common misadventures the chronically distracted get into while walking — the kind of thing we’ve all seen at one time or another: people stumbling into fountains, falling into sinkholes, getting chased by bears.

This is not a parody.

Ripoli says he knows of 23 pedestrian-involved crashes in Ft. Lee in 2012, including three fatalities. From the chief’s point of view — if we’re to believe CBS 2′s take, at least — those people have no one to blame but themselves.

“They’re not alert and they’re not watching what they’re doing,” says Ripoli. “As of now, they are to give summonses to pedestrians who do not adhere to crosswalks and the lights.”

It appears Ripoli has also invented the offense of careless walking. Says a stern-faced Dennis: “Unlike careless driving, there’s no specific charge for being a careless pedestrian, but Chief Ripoli said his officers are watching — they’ll know it when they see it.”

Naturally, Dennis can’t leave well enough alone. Cut to Manhattan: “Imagine if New York did this,” he says. “Just about every pedestrian in Times Square would get a ticket.”

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Car-free New Yorkers have plenty to worry about these days, what with their crazy notions of personal safety under attack from seemingly all sides. But police in Woodbridge, Virginia are upping the ante by ticketing pedestrians hit by drivers. Via Grist and TBD, photographer Jay Mallin tells the tale: two men, hit on the same day on the same road, both airlifted to the hospital, both cited for “careless interference with traffic.”

This story should be shocking, but it stands to reason that in an environment designed almost exclusively for driving, those outside the main will at best be disrespected or, more likely, treated with contempt. Former Streetsblog Network editor Sarah Goodyear, who wrote about the Mallin video for Grist, recently summed up Tom Vanderbilt’s theories on the topic of cyclists as the hated “other.” The same prejudices, of course, are directed at those on foot. “You can’t cross the street anywhere you want,” said Officer Jonathan L. Perok, spokesman for Prince William County Police. Regardless of whether the nearest crosswalk is anywhere in sight, or if the walk signal button works, or if you are elderly or physically disabled or can’t afford a car.

Mallin also quotes Vanderbilt, who says that to the average traffic engineer, pedestrians are like “little bits of irritating sand gumming up the works.” With this mindset as a given among figures of authority, to be ticketed for “jaywalking” while laid up in a hospital bed is not nearly as surprising as it is unjust.

In fact, the cynical among us might rightly point out that if the two men in Woodbridge had died from their injuries, it would have saved the cops the trouble of issuing any tickets at all.

Traffic cameras have spotted hundreds of thousands of drivers speeding on Arizona highways since the 2008 launch of an automated enforcement program. Yet the AP reports that what should be a highly successful safety measure is in danger of disappearing. The reason: Law-breaking motorists are staging what amounts to an insurrection against the state, and they might be getting the upper hand.  

Though more than 700,000 tickets were issued to drivers going 11 miles per hour or more over the speed limit from September 2008 to September 2009, many drivers are refusing to pay their fines -- and officials appear to be siding with the law breakers. Even Governor Jan Brewer believes the program, initiated by her predecessor Janet Napolitano, was "created more as a revenue source," according to a spokesperson.

Lt. Jeff King, photo enforcement district commander for the state's Department of Public Safety, which includes the Arizona Highway Patrol, says his agency "just wanted drivers to go the speed limit and did not understand all the backlash."

"Instead of spending so much time focusing on getting rid of cameras, why don’t they focus on the real problem, the root problem, which is getting people to drive the speed limit?" Lieutenant King said. "If everyone was to drive the speed limit, the cameras would never flash."

Logic of this sort doesn't stand a chance in the face of anti-enforcement hysterics, including camera defacement and drivers donning disguises to conceal their identities. No matter that a camera operator was murdered last year; the culture of scofflaw motorist entitlement has taken on the air of a populist crusade.

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Charles Alexander Diez, the former North Carolina firefighter who shot cyclist Alan Simons in the head, has been sentenced to four months in jail.

In an Asheville courtroom last week, Diez pled guilty to shooting Simons during a July 26 roadside confrontation. Said to be upset that Simons was riding his bike with his 3-year-old child, Diez fired his .38 caliber pistol as Simons walked away after the two exchanged words. The bullet struck Simons' bike helmet, narrowly missing his skull. 

In August, a grand jury reduced charges against Diez from attempted first degree murder to felony assault. While assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill certainly sounds like an offense worthy of a lengthy prison term, the presiding judge apparently agreed that this was a case of a stand-up guy having a bad day. Mountain Xpress reports:

Convictions on such a charge result in an average 20-39 months in prison for the defendant. But in the sentencing, Superior Court Judge James Downs found that Diez’s military service, along with testimony from former colleagues about his good character, were mitigating factors, and chose to sentence him to 15-27 months instead. Downs suspended all but four months of that sentence unless Diez breaks the law again in the next 30 months.

Diez must also undergo anger management counseling and pay Simons $1,200 "for damage to his eardrum."

The slap on the wrist issued to Diez has some worried that authorities have pretty much declared open season on area cyclists. Asked Brian Jones, who along with his wife is a regular victim of harassment and worse at the hands of local motorists: "If a cyclist shot a fireman, judge or prosecuting attorney in his head, in front of his family, what sentence do you think he/she would receive."

The travesty in Asheville comes amid continuing reports of driver-on-cyclist violence, with, as Sarah noted this morning, recent incidents in Austin and Miami.

The inspiring and, in a way, infuriating story of Elli Giammona popped up on the Streetsblog Network over the weekend.

Elli is a 9-year-old in Missoula, Montana who a couple of years ago began to question why she couldn't bike to school. When her mother explained that it wasn't safe because the road leading from their home to Hellgate Elementary -- a typical suburban arterial, from the looks of it -- didn't have a sidewalk, Elli took action.

With encouragement from her mom and the help of her younger sister and older brother, she petitioned Missoula County, gathering signatures and composing a letter explaining the benefits of a walkable Mullan Road. The Missoulian reports:

The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2009, around the time [county public works director Greg] Robertson was looking for a project eligible for American Reinvestment and Recovery Act dollars. Criteria? A quick turnaround, a project in the urban area, and one uncomplicated by problems like right-of-way negotiations and extra environmental reviews.

"Honestly, I didn't have any other projects for consideration at the time that would have met the criteria," he said.

Long story short: A new trail is expected to be finished in time for Elli to ride it to school next fall.

Not only has Elli made it safer for herself and her neighbors to ride a bike or take a walk, she's also made plain how completely the stars must align for something as simple as a car-free ribbon of asphalt to become reality. (Even now, the planned Missoula trail won't connect with the school because of right-of-way costs.) Just a few decades ago a kid riding or walking to school would be considered the epitome of American wholesomeness. Now it's a symptom of child neglect, in part because of infrastructure so obviously inhospitable that even a 7-year-old gets it.

Maybe, above all, Elli Giammona and her family have given us hope for a future in which full-grown adults get it too. One where it won't take an act of Congress to get a child to school safely.

Here's another installment in what could ideally become a series on how police departments are doing right by pedestrians and cyclists. We posted the Chicago bike video a couple of weeks back. We now present the Sacramento crosswalk sting. (Warning: Insufferable Geico commercial may precede video.)

Back in April, TV station KCRA filmed a plainclothes Sacramento officer busting motorists who couldn't be bothered to yield the right of way. Notice how, though they cite the potential amount of the fine, neither the anchor nor the reporter ever intimate that the operation is a money-making scheme? Instead of sticking a mic in a driver's face for a quick-and-dirty accusation of extortion -- a near-must in most any mainstream media story about traffic enforcement -- the reporter is completely sympathetic to the pedestrians in harm's way, and rightly credits the officer for putting his life on the line.

Ben wrote earlier this year how similar measures could be effective here in New York. Wouldn't it be great if we could all point to a law-breaking vehicle and have NYPD swoop in?

Small islands are often natural fits for car-free or car-reduced environments. Some take advantage, some don't. Based on my dozen or so visits over the last 13 years, most recently in July, I'd say Key West, Florida, falls mostly into the former camp.

In many ways, Key West is a prototypical American beach town. There are plenty of novelty t-shirt shops, the requisite seafood shacks, and a plethora of bars for sun-baked tourists to imbibe to the sounds of bad cover bands. But in addition to its noted architecture, the southernmost city in the contiguous U.S. is also home to a significant number of historic sites, two of the most famous probably being the Ernest Hemingway House and Truman's Little White House. With these and other attractions dotting "old town," and with little space for wide streets or sprawl development among its six square miles of land area, Key West has maintained much of its original residential and commercial density, along with a highly walkable and bikeable street grid [PDF].

And unlike other tourism-dependent east coast towns that are inexplicably hostile to non-motorized modes of travel -- we're looking at you, Savannah -- Key West is that rare U.S. small city where pedestrians, cyclists and motorists commingle with relatively minimal conflict.

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