Putting Your Foot Down

Here’s a weird thing that happens to me all the time: I ride up to an intersection where I have a stop sign, a car is approaching from the crossing street.  I stop, balanced on my pedals, and wait for the car to cross my path.  But it doesn’t, the driver just sits there.  If have the stop sign I am not comfortable being waved across an intersection; if it’s insanely busy I sure appreciate a hand, but if one car is the only thing between me and the other side of an intersection, the safest and most helpful thing for the driver to do is to get the car out of your way as fast as they can.   Just go. 

Only I’m not being waved across.  The car is just sitting there, or maybe rolling very slowly as it approaches the intersection.  Finally, because after decades of riding I have yet to master the track stand, I have to put a foot down.  Then(!), the car resumes speed and pulls through the intersection.

Sounds almost like I’m being messed with, doesn’t it?  That’s the paranoid, indignant answer; it’s an easy thing to think.  Or – and this is more common – one thinks, ‘why don’t you just drive your car like a normal person and I’ll ride like an adult?’  You take it personally that someone thinks you’re dumb enough or a big enough jerk just to zoom out into the intersection without warning.  You do your job, I’ll do mine.  Just go.

Then I had an idea.  I decided to experiment, and at every intersection where I had to stop, I made a point of putting my foot down.

Magic.  Cars started behaving normally.  No longer did they crawl forward, no more stopping and waving me across.  Intersections cleared in no time and I moved ahead.

There are very few signs of what a bicyclist is doing on the road.  There are no brake lights on bicycles, no electronic turn signals.  Also, it is impossible to signal a turn and brake for the turn at the same time; if you haven’t signaled by the time you get to the intersection, it’s too late to do anything but turn (unless you know the international hand signal for ‘about to kiss the ground,’ because that’s what any hand signal would mean in that situation). 

Riding a bicycle at night with adequate lighting is a sign; it says ‘I’m trying not to get hit; please assist me.’  But most of the time, drivers sort of have to sniff out the intention of the cyclist based on general behavior.  Did you just notice that cyclist blowing a stop sign at full speed?  Generally, that’s a good clue the cyclist is worth being wary of. 

Seeing a cyclist pull up to an intersection and give no outward sign of intention makes drivers as nervous as cyclists are in the same scenario.  Cars that pull up to turn out into the street – but then don’t stop but continue to roll slowly forward, waiting (presumably) for you to pass … those drivers make me crazy because I can’t tell what they’re going to do, how long they’re going to wait.  Also, the ones ahead of you that are moving really slow, clearly not sure where they’re going: are they even aware I’m coming up behind them?  You can almost bet they’ll turn without using a signal at some point, totally wrapped up in trying to find whatever it is they’re looking for.

For a cyclist, putting a foot down clearly announces, ‘I’m stopping.  I’m not going to continue.  I’m waiting.’  Drivers know what to do now; they continue on their way, which is exactly what you want them to do.  I timed the difference and found that, on average, when I didn’t put a foot down it took me longer to get through intersections.  While staying on my pedals would have meant hypothetically that I could get going faster, that’s only true if the intersection clears fast enough.  And really, the difference is insubstantial most of the time.  Balancing on pedals is probably more just a habit,  or a hope that one doesn’t have to stop.  Fair enough, but at the first sign of traffic, putting a foot down, I assert, gets you through an intersection faster, or at least no slower. 

There’s also a ‘doing my part’ aspect that I like.  This is Portland, after all, the city of ‘going out of one’s way for people you don’t know.’  One is hardly a citizen here if you’re not helping out a stranger.  And in the interest of bridging the gap between users of different modes of transportation, such a small thing to ask – that actually helps speed up cycling in the process – is a little too good to pass up. 

The Strangest Role Models

” There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power you didn't need guns, or money or even numbers.  You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't.” – Verbal Kent in The Usual Suspects

I love that line. 

America is the Can-Do country.  Forget political leanings or anything else, a good rags-to-riches, do-it-yourself, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps story appeals to everyone.  We all the love independent action and the determination to see things through to our own ends.  Even in people we’re not supposed to love – like, say, criminals – doing it ‘their way’ is something we admire.  I think this is one reason why America seems so fascinated with the classic Mob story: the guy who goes out and cheats, steals and murders to live the life he wants, for himself and his family.  It’s all about hard work, loyalty, faithfulness (at least to an ideal), freedom, and the dream of economic independence.  If only what they did all day wasn’t so illegal and so lethal, we could admire them without reservation.

And if it’s a not a Mob figure it’s the sports superstar that wills his team or himself to victory (the ‘dagger’ shot that won the game), the brilliant investor who timed the market or some product launch just right and made millions, that genius composer (Mozart) whose scores had no corrections in them, a movie star (Chuck Norris) who takes on all comers.  In a large part, they succeed because they believe in themselves unfailingly enough that they can’t fail.  These are the stories we tell ourselves, the American Dream all right, we feel like we’re born to it: the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t.  Go for it!*

* I won’t belabor the point that except in extremely rare cases, the big-risk-taking, do-it-yourselfer is just a myth.  Read Malcolm Gladwell’s piece, ‘The Sure Thing’ in the January 18, 2010 New Yorker.  Ted Turner, Sam Walton (founder of Walmart) – two daring geniuses?  Nope.  Had it all handed to them. 

You see it on the streets, to.  Pedestrian, auto, bicycle … when you game the traffic and get somewhere faster than the other guy, you let yourself feel a little bit like Keyser Soze, Mozart, Ted Turner and Michael Jordan all rolled into one.  You know, how many of us are really geniuses, so good at whatever we do that we stand out all that much?  So we take a few chances here and there, buy a lottery ticket, make a lucky call to a friend and land a great job, come up with a great zinger and then fantasize about selling it to Dave Letterman.  A couple things fall into place and we feel a little less mundane. 

I wrote about what a relief it can be to let go of that need for action, but there’s a cost to chasing after it as well.  The more often you raise yourself above the level of the mundane (at least in your eyes), the more you want to do it, the bigger the risks you’re willing to take to pull it off, and the more likely that a time will come the risks will catch up to you and you will crash.  You will.

I read a business article once that talked about the general rule of ‘If’ for investing.  The more ‘ifs’ a person included in the logic for choosing a given investment, the greater the danger was.  ‘If’ the economy is really on the upswing, and ‘if’ banks begin to loosen credit rules and allow first-time homeowners to buy more easily, and ‘if’ home prices have no other reason to stay flat or continue to fall, and ‘if’ you can stay liquid long enough to attract buyers … why, now would be the PERFECT time to dump your life’s savings into a whole bunch of empty houses!  In other words, do NOT do this!.  But what if someone does do it and becomes a zillionaire?  Now they’re our hero.

The same is true for your commute: ‘if’ you can get over this busy road quickly, and ‘if’ that one neighborhood intersection with the Stop sign is empty, and ‘if’ … why, you’ll get to work in no time and look very cool to yourself for beating the average.  Or you’ll be laying on the ground underneath someone’s bumper or along with the other cyclist you hit. 

It’s tempting to want to be a winner all the time.  We’re force-fed that myth until it makes us sick, until we’re no longer satisfied with a normal, happy life.  It takes a greater will, in a way, not to run your life as a Can-Do, Go-For-It person than it does to take the risk.  And if you have that greater will, no one will notice you for it.  You’ll feel like you’ve disappeared.  

Not Quite Amsterdam

When listening to those in the know speak of bicycle route networks and pedestrian safety, of harmonious traffic spaces and the like, the example of Amsterdam almost invariably comes up, touted as the highest example, the holy grail of How To Do It, a nirvana for cyclists and pedestrians.   

This is both true and not true.  On the one hand, there are really as many ways to get around by bike or foot as can be imagined, and rights of way of cyclists and pedestrians are respected near-universally.  Cycling has been ingrained as part of an Amsterdam way of life for so long it would be impossible to conceive of that life otherwise.  Riding through the city, you feel safe and accepted.  One sees men in suits and women in dresses pedaling along in wingtips and heels, holding an umbrella with one hand and steering with the other.  One sees parents with three, four, even five children in tow on child seats, trailers, or special bikes that carry up to four riders.  If you’re a cycling parent and you visit Amsterdam, bring several thousand dollars or be prepared to cry over all the equipment that would be perfect for Portland family commuting but is unavailable here.  

On the other, it would hard to imagine a more difficult city to design such a network in, except that it’s so flat.  The weather is awful for a huge chunk of the year, and all the canals make route planning very difficult.  The streets are ridiculously narrow,* it can be difficult for the visitor to understand where that cycling path is going, and slipping through roundabouts and intersections where six or seven streets converge is not exactly easy.  In Portland, we straighten these kinds of problems out: we tear down, repave, redirect.  Witness the intersection where Sandy Boulevard, Twelfth Avenue and Burnside Street used to meet on the East side.  It was one of the most dangerous intersections in the city until they redirected westbound traffic onto Couch and eliminated the feed from East Sandy altogether.  Now it’s just another busy intersection (although heading south from Twelfth, down Sandy and left on Eleventh remains terrifying on a bike).  That can’t happen in downtown Amsterdam because every building and intersection is worth keeping just the way it is.  Heck, the royal palace is smack in the middle of downtown; what are you going to do, ask the Royal Family to move so you can straighten a bike path?  How un-Dutch-like of you!

* However, narrow, twisting streets do have the benefit of slowing traffic way down in the core area.  No need for speed bumps or other calming devices; no one can get up the speed to make them useful.

In any case, I think it’s safe to say that among the cycling population in Portland, there’s a lot of Amsterdam-envy.  If only we could be more like them (although this may have as much to do with affordable health care, extremely low violent crime, all kinds of social support – in short, a sustainable life in general). 

In order for Portland to become the Amsterdam of the West (the ‘West-west,’ it would be fair to say – Amsterdam is already in the West),  three things have to change:

1. Traffic speeds have to drop precipitously.  Up until only recently, the goal of any traffic planner was to move automobiles through a given space as quickly as possible, which meant clearing out bikes and pedestrians as much as one could.  This philosophy has changed dramatically, especially in the last fifteen years.  Traffic calming has made streets like NE Alberta and SE Hawthorne far more conducive to riding and walking.  Even Sandy Boulevard through the Hollywood district is getting into the act.

However, I think the mindset of auto speed remains.  While there are more non-car amenities, the speed limits in those areas haven’t changed.  Recent studies about how fast a car should be allowed to drive past schools led to a lowering of the speed limit in school zones to 20mph.  Yet on Sandy and Hawthorne, and East Burnside (another neighborhood in flower), the speed for auto traffic is still 35mph.  Who says grownups pay more attention to traffic than kids?  Portland wants fast arterials that are also safe for bikes and foot traffic: that’s asking to have one’s cake and eat it too. 

2. Bicycle routes becoming more prominent, even on the busiest streets.  Years ago I had a long debate with a cycling traffic planner from the city.  I contended that there should be some streets on which bicycles were discouraged; i.e., no bike paths, no amenities.  There were plenty of routes nearby, I argued, that would get cyclists to the same places.  Why not, I reasoned, let cars go where cars go and me go where I go?  He disagreed and said it was precisely the busiest roads with the least number of cycling amenities that needed them most.

I realize now that he was right.  It has to do with that having-one’s-cake-and-eating-it-too mentality.  The problem is that the idea still encourages drivers to go too fast on city streets, and it gives the impression that there are places that cyclists don’t belong.  This was reinforced to me one day when riding along SE 92^nd avenue, in a bike lane for goodness’ sake, when a driver rolled down his window to tell me to get on the bike path (a few blocks away) where I ‘belonged.’  Bikes everywhere, I say now.  Any time a person can act more aggressively in one part of society than another, it’s often the aggressive behavior that bleeds into that part that is supposed to be cooperative, not the other way around.*

* Personal rant: this to me is a real problem with Capitalism: where a competitive market exists, the competitive mindset and rules can bleed into other parts of society.  Infamously, an economist from a conservative school once suggested solving the problem of there being too few babies available for adoption by creating a sort of futures market for newborns, where the price for a baby could be quoted like the price of wheat.  Rant over: back to our program.

3. A much stronger social compact.  This is the toughest hurdle of all.  In Amsterdam, there is agreement among car, pedestrian and cyclist not to pursue their position in traffic too aggressively.  They get around in different ways, but the understanding is strong that they’re all part of the same world, the same society.  To be sure, they jump across an intersection against the light, or at the tail end of a yellow light.  Or they’ll make that illegal left-hand turn or zip around blocked traffic in not-exactly legal ways.  Everyone’s in a hurry, everyone does it, everyone is trying to get where they’re going.

But the competition is low-key and isn’t carried out to the point where the social compact is damaged.  There is pursuit of self-interest, and there is pursuit of self-interest at the grave expense of another.  Not once in the week-plus that I was there did I hear a horn honk in anger, did I see the middle finger fly, or angry words exchanged.  They’ll push the system, but only so far. 

This is not the case here, where so much social interaction is defined by differences and voiced through vitriol.  We seem to push our system as far as it will go.  There are cyclists that blow lights until they’re stopped somehow (sadly, often by getting hit).  There are cars that hurtle around with impunity until some confrontation or epiphany finally gets them to slow down.  When we get to the level of confrontation, it’s already too late to make something positive come out of the encounter.

A stronger social compact is part of the reason I started this blog.  Dialogue is the only alternative before confrontation escalates the circumstances beyond reason and understanding.  It may sound trite to say that each individual’s actions impact the overall picture, but in this situation, it couldn’t be more true.  No party in traffic space can act independently and expect a harmonious (and safer) outcome.

The biggest difference between Amsterdam and Portland has nothing at all to do with bike lanes.

Suffering the Newbies

Today is June 1^st, and it rained, which is surprising only because it is so unsurprising.  If you’re a commuter in Portland, you know what I mean: this has been the coldest, rainiest Spring on record, and frankly it has been miserable to ride through.  Nearly every day has borne at least the threat of rain, it feels like Portland has a new sister city in Belfast, Ireland.*  Sun block has been pointless; my skin has nearly the ghostly glow of those sea creatures who live so far below the surface of the ocean that their bodies become luminescent so they can generate their own light to see where they’re going.  If this keeps up for another year or two I won’t need bike lights at night.  Bike shop sales – so a friend in the biz tells me – are off 15%-18%, which leads me to the question: what are those fools who make up the other 85%-88% buying!?  Rain gear and inner tubes, that’s what.

* There is an old saying about Belfast: if you can see clouds coming over the hills it is going to rain; if you can’t see clouds, it is already raining.

It’s been hard to find a silver lining through all this rain, but a colleague I met changing out of our rain gear had this to offer: “At least the rain is keeping the amateurs off the streets,” he declared.  By amateurs he meant all the cyclists who swarm out of their garages when the sun comes out.  He was completely serious. 

He is not alone.  Having to put up with new cyclists is a constant complaint of the experienced cyclist: the tentative new rider whose is not sure where they’re going; the plodders who take up way too much room on the bike paths or lanes; the ones who are not prepared to handle the tribulations of cycle-commuting – who, say, don’t have a spare tube and don’t know how to fix a flat to begin with, but do know how to look helpless and pathetic as a way to induce you to pull over and change it for them. 

But the reason why Portland built a complex and highly effective cycling route network was to make it easy for a lot of people to ride bikes to where they’re going.  The system works really, really well; the number of cyclists has at least doubled in the past ten years.  The cycling route network is why. 

In a way it’s not fair to the old hand cyclists, the people who gritted their teeth for decades through crazy-dangerous intersections and got squeezed beside parked cars and curbs on unstriped streets.  A camaraderie developed among them, they shared the risks it took to do what they loved and valued.  I can understand an old hand being a little indignant about people who won’t ride without the network; why should the faint of heart enjoy the same benefits as the long-time warriors?  Do they even appreciate how hard cycling used to be in this town?

No, they don’t, and that doesn’t matter.  No one will be buying us a beer or a cup of tea for sticking out the tough years.  We will not be lauded for blazing the trails, except maybe in museums or in photos on the walls of bike commuter shops.  As more people discover the good thing we’ve known about all along, it’s kind of like having to share your favorite band after they become popular; you can’t stop the new fans from buying tickets to the shows.  But why would you want to?  Wouldn’t you want to see your favorite band finally get the money and recognition you’ve always known they deserve?

And isn’t it crazy for one cycling element to alienate another for such a reason; doubling or not?  There simply aren’t so many of us that we can afford to split into factions.  The high road would be for the old hands to welcome new recruits with enthusiasm, knowing they’ll get the hang of things and knowing that in less time than they imagine, there will be more dedicated souls riding and giving our city even more reasons to improve the network. 

If that doesn’t work, it may be time for the old hands to grit their teeth a little more, if that’s what they need to do.  The uniqueness of how they get around may be gone, but there is still that special feeling of riding; it’s still the coolest way to get around that there is.  For some, that will have to be enough.

Where You are Going to Get Hit

As a six-time veteran of getting struck by a car on my bike, this topic interests me greatly.  I did some sniffing around and came up with some interesting statistics.  These are a result of a Google Scholar search, among other resources, but I’m not going to list all the citations.  I’ve spent seventeen years in public health research; you’ll just have to trust me when I say I know a sketchy source when I see one.

* You are going to get hit on an arterial – that is, on a through street with relatively higher speeds.  Think Sandy Boulevard, NE 33^rd Avenue, SE 52^nd Avenue.  Eighty percent of all bike-car accidents occur on arterials.

* You are going to get hit at an intersection – half to two-thirds of all accidents occur at intersections.  However, certain features of an intersection make a difference, and car traffic volume is not one of them.  Visibility, size of the intersection and traffic patterns matter more.  Also, typically, you’ll be hit by a driver making a right turn in front of you.  Whenever I approach an intersection with a car in a position to turn right in front of me, I watch the right front wheel; that’s the first thing that has to move for the car to make a right turn.  Also, if the car is braking quickly to try to turn before I get to the intersection, the front end of the car will dip down from the braking action – another sure-fire clue.  Same deal, but opposite wheel, for a car trying to turn left in front of you.

Combine just these two figures, using the high end of the intersection figure, and you are eight times more likely to get hit traveling through an intersection of an arterial than you are in the middle of a block on a side street. 

* Males are nine times more likely to get hit than females.  Anecdotally, I frequently see bicycle marauder couples barreling through traffic with the male in the lead and the female behind, looking very nervous.  The city of Portland judges the safety of a cycling route network by the percent of riders using it who are female.  In the core region of the city, which has a very mature cycling network, about half the cyclists are female.  In the east outskirts of Portland, which has a much poorer network, about ninety percent of riders are male.  So which comes first, the nerve to ride where there is no network or a cycling style that invites accidents?  Answer: what’s the difference?  When you’re hit, you’re hit.  If you’re a guy, you wait one second before you try whatever you’re going to try.

* You’re going to get hit in a roundabout – one study found that bicycle accidents increased 41%(!) in an intersection when a roundabout was installed.  The purpose of a roundabout is to slow car traffic down.  Hah!  Any cyclist knows roundabouts are insanely dangerous.  They cause the cyclist to weave into the lane of parked cars, disappearing temporarily from the line of vision of the driver who is trying to get around us, then popping up suddenly at the roundabout exit.  The rule of riding is always to hold a straight line if you can.  And I think car drivers imagine that the width of the road remains the same through roundabouts, which it doesn’t.

* You’re going to get hit by a car going fast.  Although traffic volume didn’t affect the accident rate in intersections, speed did.  When auto speed exceeds 30mph, the rate of bicycle-car accidents jumps way up.  The problems here are the reaction time of the driver and their belief that if they’re doing thirty or so miles per hour, there is no way a cyclist could keep up, so the mere act of passing said cyclist means they’re no longer in the picture.  Give me a mild downhill on a smooth road and I can hit thirty pretty easily.  I constantly check my speed in traffic not because the speed at which I’m travelling is inherently unsafe; car drivers simply don’t imagine I can go that fast, that’s what makes it the speed unsafe.

* You’re going to get hit in poor visibility.  Night and deeply overcast skies come to mind, but think also of those first Spring days in Portland when the sun pops out and everyone forgets their sunglasses at home.  If you’re having trouble seeing, so is everyone else.

* You’re going to get hit around a bus stop.  Buses are huge vehicles, and the visibility of the driver – whose main worry is for the pedestrians waiting for the bus – can be quite poor.  A bus is also one of the few vehicles that routinely pull over to the curb, sometimes quickly, as in when a rider pulls the stop signal cord at the last minute.

So then, your perfect nightmare?  Being a guy riding through a high-speed roundabout in poor visibility right where a bus stop is located.  They might as well measure you for hospital traction now.