Get yourself ready for the weekend with a good MTB video. [twitterer]

Take a tip

Bicycle-Safety Tips. Read ‘em and dweeb.

Foldin’ fender

The Quickfix and Foldnfix Foldable Bike Fenders are mudguards that slip over your back wheel, keeping you from getting that damp grey stripe up your arse. More protection than a seat posted mounted mudguard but not as much coverage as full-length guards, they’re a clever design. They look a bit rough-and-ready to me but then I reckon that’ll make them pretty rugged when it really counts. [twitterer]

Turning pedals, turning pages

Kent Peterson recommends:

• 50 Good Bicycle Books
• 50 More Good Bicycle Books

Seven things

Seven things you should give up to be a happy cyclist.

Baillieu ♥ bikes…umm, not

The Victorian Government remains fixated on the costly east-west link , with little relief for public transport commuters and funding for bike works turned down to zero. I don’t often use the term but to me this all seems nothing short of retarded.

[twitterer]

See also: the state of Melbourne’s public transport…yeah, it’s crap. Oh, and no one likes Myki. [twitterer]

Economies of bike

Why bicyclists are better customers than drivers for local business

the economic benefit of bicycling for communities doesn’t end with cyclists’ expensive cappuccinos and impulse buys. Properties near bike paths increase in value 11 percent…access and proximity to walking and biking facilities, especially greenways, makes homes easier to sell.

And on The Conversation Brad Pettitt argues that bike lanes’ economic benefits go beyond jobs:

the economic benefits of bike paths are not simply limited to jobs created during path construction. Long after the bike path concrete has dried the economic benefits can keep rolling, so long as the bike path is well planned and integrated into a broader cycle network.

[twitterer]

Shared paths: not safe?

A study reported in the Canberra Times which “examined the characteristics of bicycle crashes in different cycling environments” with the aim of finding “strategies to reduce bicycle crashes” has concluded in part that:

The number of crashes involving pedestrians and the relatively high speeds of some of the cyclists on shared paths and footpaths suggests that the regulation of cycling in shared areas should be reviewed, formally recognized as a part of the road reserve and appropriate speed limits applied. Such measures would be in the interests of cyclists and pedestrians, as cyclists who crashed on shared paths sustained higher average injury severity scores than those injured in any other road environment.

While I don’t see how shared path speed limits could be enforced, I actually find this report fairly convincing. I found alternative routes for my daily commuting years ago when the daily tangle with bike path racers started getting just a bit too scary.

See the press release from The George Institute for Global Health and the full report is available from NRMA – ACT Road Safety Trust.

[twitterer]

Downright scary

This video of a crazy mobile phone driver ramming a police officer is downright scary. But it’s important to remember that homicidal nutters like this are rare, fortunately. [twitterer]

Driving Mr Hitler

Observes Ian Walker: “So car sharing ads were perfected in the 40s?” Case in point: When You Ride Alone You Ride With Hitler!

Envy

National Geographic has some seriously cool travel biking photos. [twitterer]

And Live Free or Drive is a blog full of lush bike touring photos. [twitterer]

See also Bike tour + Twitter = Map.

How to steal a bike redux

Remember this? How to steal a bike.

Well after seven years, still nobody cares if Casey Neistat’s bike gets stolen.

Of course, there may be very good reasons for that…

[twitterer]

Sting like a butterfly

Having trouble with free-roaming pedestrians cutting you up on your daily commute? Slightly gullible? Well, help is at hand. Maybe. One frustrated London commuter got so tired with SMIDSY peds that he came up with a novel approach to the problem: the Bike Butterfly.

OK, this is getting just a bit ridiculous…

World’s brightest bike light at 100,000 lumens apparently (whatever that means) it sounds awfully bright. [twitterer]

For your own sake, don’t

Nine Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Ride to Work. [twitterer]

Spring classics

Paris–Roubaix: better in black and white. [twitterer]

Hit and run

The fact the people can do hit-and-run makes my stomach churn. So it was good to see this video showing a driver attempting to flee after hitting a bicyclist being blocked by a quick-thinking bus driver. Check it out: Salute to a Heroic Bus Operator. [twitterer]

Then there’s this one caught on camera, which looks deliberate or at least wildly negligent. Unsurprisingly, the car was later reported stolen.

As a follow-up, Cyclelicious summarised recently reported hit and runs. This one particularly caught my eye: “Hit & run with injury. Small child on bike hit by gray pickup truck. Driver of the vehicle gave juvenile $20 and left the scene.” Lovely.

“Need any help, buddy?”

We’ve all stopped to offer help to another cyclist but not all of us have had our good deeds recorded on Google Streetview. [twitterer]

Will make you cry

Take a private 10 minutes to watch this beautiful film Boy, featuring the wonderful Timothy Spall.

For the kids

On Momentum Mag, Tiny Helmets, Big Bike:

Since I’ve started biking for transportation, I feel like a better mother. I am more excited about each day, and less rushed because the journey becomes as fun as the destination. I am healthier and happier and able to watch the world go by at a child’s pace. We still have days where it is difficult to get out of the house and even days where we can’t avoid taking the car. However, knowing that with each pedal stroke I am creating a better future for my children gives me that extra push.

On the other hand, watch out for undesirable self-fulfilling prophecies. [twitterer]

Apropos, could urban planning reduce childhood obesity?

And Northern Ireland’s Health Minister says ‘Cycling can help us tackle obesity epidemic’ [twitterer]

But Grow-up, Australia! – we’re pathetic (link to article in the Hun). Seriously, there are more important things to get outraged about. [twitterer]

What was I thinking?

A selection of rants on one of my favourite ranting topics:

• No play please, we’re American
• Fat-arsed schoolkids
• Unwrap the cotton wool and get real
• What precisely is wrong with playing on the road?

Costly

Create your own cost of driving infographic thanks to Karl’s spreadsheet.

While we’re on the subject, what’s wrong with a car-centric system? [twitterer]

Why do you ride like that?

“Biking in the middle of the lane like that sure looks dangerous.”

No tribes please

Interesting discussion sparked by a cartoon in the New Yorker.

My key point: don’t try to tell me that any flavour of cyclist is more pure at heart—we all love our bikes, we all love cycling—we just do it differently.

Some good follow-up added to the original post later.

For what it’s worth, I thought the New Yorker cartoon was amusing.

History

The Queensland Police Serivce on bicycles, then and now. Cool. [twitterer]

See also these stunning vintage photos of early 1900s Australian bike culture [twitterer]

Holding up traffic

Melbourne’s peak hour myth: it’s more like three. [twitterer]

Suggestion: ride a bike. [twitterer]

Contest this

Elly Blue has opened The Bad Streets for Bicycling Photo Contest.

Design it, print it

Print your own bike parts. I really want a 3D-printer…

Get my drift?

Trike Drifting. Yeah, you’ve probably seen this sort of thing before…doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy watching it again!

The near elimination of private and commercial motor vehicles from Swanston St will make it a more pleasant space for pedestrians and cyclists, but the tram stops themselves will do nothing for cyclist–passenger interaction. By design, foot traffic and bikes are on conflicting paths—just like every at other tram stop that doesn’t have a safety zone.

Visual cues: misread or faulty?

The super stops lack the usual visual cues that help passengers be aware of other through traffic. At a normal tram stop, the overwhelming visual cue is “road”. Passengers can step down in (relative) safety and most people generally cross quickly and directly to the kerb. But at the super stops, the dominant visual cue is something like “train station”, and you don’t think about through-traffic on a train station platform. This means people wander in all directions and at all different paces, helpful line markings and signage notwithstanding. And (as I have noted previously) the pedestrian-friendly design practically encourages people to walk along rather than across.

Looks more like a train station platform than a road

More misread cues

It wasn’t until today that I realised that the super stops are also signalling the wrong thing to cyclists as well—and as a result some riders believe they have absolute right of way here.

Here’s what happened. I was a tram passenger today and at the State Library I noticed a cyclist riding through the stop and past the tram that I was boarding. Normally I’d just shake my head and sigh at such selfishness.

But then the rider shouted at someone for crossing his path to board the tram—a perfectly legal and reasonable thing for a passenger to do. The (usually dormant) angry cyclist in me emerged, leaping to my fellow passenger’s defence. A brief heated exchange followed, including these gems:

"Keep Clear"—doesn't hand over right of way

As you can see, it was a dazzling display of repartee and wit. But the point is that this guy clearly felt that the “Keep Clear” stencils grant riders priority. They don’t: Swanston Street is and always will be street. Road safety rules still apply to everyone. This includes the one about stopping behind a tram with its doors open.

But I’m sure my Selfish Cyclist is not the only cyclist who thinks there’s something special about the super stops.

“It’ll never work…”

We need to adjust our expectations about the new Swanston St tram stops. Stop thinking that this work is being done for “us”—because it’s not—then we’re much less likely to be disappointed when the new super stops “don’t work”.

Of course, they aren’t going to “work”—at least, not for cyclists. And they were never intended to.

Undeniably an attractive design (before the line painters got there)

Well, entirely unsurprisingly, it hasn’t magically made the inherent conflict between tram passengers and cyclists go away.

There is no magical solution for the fact that pedestrians and cyclist still cross paths.

But has it improved the situation or made it worse?

I’ve traversed the area as both cyclist and pedestrian, and these are my initial impressions.

Cyclist approach

Well, it’s wide and smooth to ride on, but despite Robert Doyle’s protestations, it isn’t immediately obvious where one is supposed to ride and where the waiting passengers are supposed to stand and walk.

I was a bit concerned that the fancy bluestone surface might be a bit slick in the wet but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Stepping on

Part of the design is to separate the road level for each mode—foot, bike and tram—the act of stepping down from the pedestrian area to the shared space should cue-in pedestrians that they are moving into a different space. This effect is diluted as for much of the length of the curb there are wide, gently sloping ramps (presumably for mobility aid access—a major reason for installing a raised-platform tram stop), which means there is no sense of stepping down (at least, I didn’t notice it). But elsewhere there is a noticeable step down at the edge of the footpath.

Like water

People, like water, follow the path of least resistance. In the afternoon large numbers of people get off trams on the southbound side, then queue to cross at the lights, heading for the train station. And in order to get to the crossing, they take the shortest route—down the bike lane:

People, like water, follow the path of least resistance

As a tram passenger, I found this was the natural thing to do. Bear in mind that this doesn’t feel like stepping down onto a road or even a safety zone—it feels like stepping down into a safe pedestrian-friendly space. Inevitably, people are going to walk with a bit less caution than they otherwise would when leaving a tram.

The cyclist’s experience of this is to ride through a narrow tunnel of people wandering aimlessly along the bike lane. This is sure to lead to verbal, and possibly physcial, clashes between cyclists and pedestrians.

Inviting criticism

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle invited criticism by making much of the top-notch bluestone that’s been used in the upgrade, saying it’s like paving the streets in gold—the sort of thing every rate-payer loves to hear. I don’t see it myself—it appears to be largely indistinguishable from concrete. I guess it’s attractive. But in an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell, Doyle states that this installation is effectively a prototype: “We always said we would open this one first, we would see how it operates knowing there would be difficulty and confusion. And that means when we do Bourke St and Collins St then the onus is on us to get it right”. Why then would you use the most expensive materials when the design may need later modification as we learn more?

Counter-intuitive

But one of the main criticisms of the new setup is that it’s confusing. But is this really a problem? Let me run a half-baked idea past you: maybe a lack of signage and markings (and the consequent ambiguity) is a good thing.

David Engwicht talks about intrigue and uncertainty as mechanisms to bring about calmer traffic—and this is a place that needs calm traffic flow (even after the removal of most motorised vehicles).

Engwicht’s first proposition is “It is a myth that the only way to improve safety is to increase predictability”. It’s counter-intuitive, but it makes sense when you think about it: increase predictability and vehicles (in this case, bikes) can move faster, which increases the risk of collisions with pedestrians. But decrease predictability and increase the need for ‘negotiation’ and vehicles will move slower.

Hang on, I’m a commuting cyclist—why am I advocating slowing down cyclists? Because everything about the design of this new tram stop screams “shared space”. No amount of yellow lines and bike stencils on the ground is going to stop people sauntering along in the ‘wrong’ place, in the ‘wrong’ direction, without paying enough attention.

But it seems that the City wants to increase predictability on the new tram stop with lines and stencils being laid down, and no doubt all sorts of warning signage is also being prepared. Interestingly, if I hadn’t been specifically looking out for them I’d scarcely have noticed the new road surface markings. Like some others, I’m a bit disappointed that we weren’t prepared to give a fair trial to a true shared space before giving up and daubing paint all over the place and putting up ‘thou shalt not’ signs.

Conclusion

Overall, it doesn’t seem significantly different from the previous arrangement. From a traffic movement perspective, the same effect could have been had much more cheaply by making the same stretch of road car-free (e.g. by putting up some barriers to motor vehicles) and leaving the passengers, riders and tram drivers to sort it out on the unmodified roadway. But it does look great (or at least it did before the line-painters got to it)…I’ll leave others to decide whether looking fabulous is worth the price tag.

Imagine you’re approaching this stretch of road at about 40kph—actually quite easy to do, as you’ve just come off a steeper downhill section, so it’s not unusual for anyone to be coasting along at a fair clip here. Notice any particular hazards at this point?

Could you spot the hazard here at 40kph?

Let’s go in a bit closer:

If you hit this, where will you land?

Yep, that’s a base of one of those flexi-poles that I didn’t much like when they were installed last year. A number of these poles have been bent and a couple have snapped off, leaving the near-invisible base as a collision hazard for cyclists. And if a cyclist gets tipped off after crashing with that, where are they going to land…?

That this has been broken for weeks (and possibly months) without repair reflects poorly on the City of Melbourne’s willingness and/or ability to maintain dedicated cycling facilities. Not good when these lanes carry 17% of total vehicles in the morning peak on Albert St.

Upgrated

In fairness, it’s not all downside. Both of you might remember this dangerous drain cover:

An unforgiving grate

Astonishingly, that wheel-jamming hazard was simply left there unmodified as part of the initial installation. Well, over a year later, it’s had an upgrade:

A grate upgraded

That’s an improvement, but really that should have been fixed in the first place.

Any good at all?

Having sworn off Albert St in favour of Victoria St, I have found myself back there a bit more often, in spite of my ongoing concerns including:

• increased likelihood of clashes with entering traffic on the eastbound/downhill lane,
• turning lane conflicts—being dumped into a turning lane is still dangerous by design,
• the increased difficulty in merging into the main traffic flow to make a right-hand turn, and
• those damn poles are still a collision hazard (even when they aren’t broken).

I’ve also noticed a tendency for cars to stop in (and block) the bike lane during clearway times, something that drivers wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before the bike lanes were there.

But if I’m back on Albert St, does that mean I’m a convert? No way: I remain a committed bike lane agnostic. Maybe Albert St is better with curbside lanes than without, but for me it is just the least worst option on that part of my commute route.

On Tuesday, just on a whim, I rode to work on the Gardiners Creek Trail rather than my usual on-road route. And I must say, there was some impressive destruction. Kudos to Boroondara and Stonnington councils, workers from both sides of the creek were out in force clearing up, repairing damaged paths and top-dressing the playing fields.

Anyway, here’s a sample of what I saw.

High water line

In the background, the creek has receded but is still well above normal levels. The debris and high water line shows that the water nearly reached road level at this point.

The high water mark, as shown by the debris stuck in the fence at shoulder height, indicates that the water really was up. You can't see the creek from this point because it's behind the trees in the background.

Dominoes

This high fence in the Malvern Valley Golf Links, which is two fairways away from the creek, toppled like a row of dominoes.

Under the freeway, all the scaffolding for the M1 Project had got a little tilted too.

Judging by the debris left on railings in this area, the water level under Glenferrie Road would have been well above head height.

Deposits

Sand, silt, mud and debris were deposited all along the creek.

This children's sandpit is actually a 2.5m wide sealed path.

The underpass at Toorak Road was closed and workers were already clearing away the sediment. Note the pile of silt already removed from the path.

Not strictly Gardiners Creek Trail, here Stonnington Council workers clear up the path through Kooyong Park. Note the small tree stump to the left of the path…

…this tree was attachd to that stump the day before. It took a bit of getting past.

Water, water, everywhere

Patterson Reserve had acquired a new ornamental lake—which was already starting to stink a bit.

I don’t have a photo of the grounds at St Kevin’s College but it too was turned into a lake (and later a stinky swamp) by the surge of water. Interestingly, the grounds of both St Kev’s and Scotch College are protected by levees. Scotch’s slightly high levee appears to have held, maybe St Kev’s lower one didn’t and/or there was a major drainage failure.

Gone

But, of course, I’ve left the best until last:

This tangled mess is the Solway Street Bridge…

…or what's left of it.

(Much more impressive photos on Melbourne Cyclist.)

Yes, this is the same Solway Street Bridge that was closed for about 18 months awaiting replacement before the two local councils decided that a patch-up job would be adequate. (At this point, I’d like to highlight what I said in May 2007. Aren’t I the smug one?)

What now?

According to a small note in a presentation made last year:

Solway Street Bridge
A new bridge will be constructed in 2011/12 FY to improve the width and alignment of the existing bridge. This is part of the larger project to build the missing link in the Gardiners Creek Trail between Solway Street and Warrigal Road.

I think we can safely assume that this work will be brought forward to the 2010/11 FY—surely local residents couldn’t be kept waiting another 18 months to have access returned here? I certainly support Zed’s recommendation to contact the council (I’d say both councils and Melbourne Water) requesting the immediate replacement of this bridge.

Incidentally, I wonder if pitt&sherry will be invited to tender on the new bridge?

In any case the new bridge had better be pretty flood tolerant, it looks like Melbourne suburbs are likely to flood more often…