Why Seattle is safer than Phoenix

An op-ed written by one of the wsj editorial board staffers illustrates a certain strain of belief in have-your-cake-and-eat-too-sism. Kaminski, in decrying how the mayor Mike McGinn (whom he gleefully points out is referred to as mayor McSchwinn by his political foes. Get it? it rhymes with McGinn) of Seattle worked to block the building of some car-based project; later claims that “Seattleites say they want to save the planet from global warming, but in their personal lives they want safe streets…”.

The disconnect Kaminski, and others of his ideological ilk, is this; that somehow streets can be made safer by ever-expanding the number and speed of privately operated motor vehicles. But this is simply not possible. Faster and more always equals more dead; mostly more motorists, but also more dead peds, and more dead bicyclists. The numbers are stark; comparing e.g. Phoenix with Seattle (metro areas), the Dangerous by Design survey estimates Phoenix to be FOUR TIMES more deadly to pedestrians than Seattle. The number spills over not just in pedestrian deaths, but also cyclists deaths, and also to MOTORISTS deaths; see e.g. Beyond Safety in Numbers: why bike friendly cities are safer (for everybody).

Thus Kaminski rejects car-user-fees as hair-brained; yet motorists are the source of enormous externalities — economic impacts that aren’t paid for by their users — from air pollution (never mind ‘global warming’), to mayhem, to free parking.

By the way, McGinn has only been mayor for the past two years; I’m not suggesting that McGinn has made it safer. It was already safe, relatively speaking — due in no small part to its general overall “anti-car” culture.

2010 FARS and PBcat

Commencing with the recently-released 2010 data FARS (The USDOT’s Fatality Analysis and Reporting System) will have far more specialized detail on Pedestrian and Bicyclists crashes.

618 cyclists (person type 6 bicyclist, and 7 other pedalcyclist) were killed in 2010 in traffic collisions — and as noted at the link above, only collisions with motor vehicles in-transport are tracked by FARS. So for example, a bicyclist who lost control and died as a result of crashing into a tree would not be tracked here, nor would a bicyclist who strikes a parked motor vehicle.

The added information becomes a new “table” (in the parlance of databases), if you download the raw data files, it will be all found in the file PBtype.dbf

The information follows more-or-less exactly the PBcat, probably no coincidence. PBcat is the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crash Analysis Tool, and contains among other things the bicyclists direction, and a detailed crash type (or for the complete reference, see PBcat’s manual, appendix C)

So, say you were interested in bicyclists running stop signs; you would do a query and then a univariate split and take a look at Types 142, 144, and 147; all subtypes of “Bicyclist Failed to yield — Sign-Controlled Intersection”. There were 17+41+1 = 59 such fatalities recorded.

Since this is the first and only year where these national stats are available, they are of limited usefulness — that will change over time as the dataset grows and wil become a very useful comprehensive source of understanding bicyclist (and pedestrian) traffic fatalities.

PBcat in the wild

It’s not clear to me why, but the state of North Carolina had PBcatted all their ped and bike crashes statewide for many years; leading to a very rich database of statistical information. E.g. 12,000 bike crashes covering the period 1997-2008!

In Arizona, ADOT as part of the BSAP has PBcatted 746 bike crashes in the “concentration” areas but it only covers the state-highway system. See e.g. Table 1 in working paper 3 for the full breakout of crash types.

48th Street; Piedmont to Guadalupe gets SLMs (sharrows)

I have a lot of thoughts about this stretch of roadway in Phoenix: 48th Street (turns into Guadalupe Rd), north of Piedmont.
It involves the odd geographic position of the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix; and the the almost complete lack of connectivity for Ahwatukee residents to anywhere else, (Tempe, Chandler, and indeed the main portion of Phoenix) except by car-choked umteen lane roads.

Ahwatukee is called — sometimes derisively, sometimes happily — the world’s largest cul-de-sac. Setting aside 48th street for a moment; Ahwatukee’s ONLY ingress/egress is Pecos Rd (which is loop 202, a limited-access highway), Chandler Blvd (10 lanes?), Ray Road (10 lanes), Warner Road (only 6 lanes?), Elliot Road (10 lanes?). So these are all either a limited-access freeway, or humongous monstrosities that have interchanges with I-10.

In short, these are all car-choked, car-sewers. They are not particularly bad for cyclists; two (Ray, and Chandler) have wide-curb lanes; Warner has nice narrow lanes;  I find Elliot road to be most annoying as it is (or was?) “critical width“; that is to say not wide yet not narrow enough to be perceived as too narrow to share by many motorists. Yet many cyclists, understandably, don’t want to do it. It is a thoroughly obnoxious experience for pedestrians, too.

48th Street/Guadalupe is the ONLY bridge over I-10 that is a reasonable human scale, it is 2-lanes (only 1 in each direction!), and has no interchange with the freeway, it’s just a bridge. Thus this makes a vital connection for anyone wishing to bike between Ahwatukee and, say, Tempe/ASU. And it also forms the ONLY connection for Ahawatukee bicyclists wishing to get to the rest of Phoenix  (through The Pointe at South Mountain, now called ???. Using what are actually private streets but there’s some sort of public easement). Read the rest of this entry »

Camelback Road Diet and Buffered Bike Lane

Here are some city documents:

• Detailed UPDATED drawing.
• Detailed original drawings.
• Presentation discussing the Diet.

The Diet

The diet part of the plan seems like a slam dunk… Normally any road diet is opposed becasue of fears that the lane removal will increase automobile congestion. In this particular case, that isn’t possible because of the unusual circumatance that this 1-mile stretch of 3 through lanes in each direction, is bounded on both ends by 2 through lanes. I.e. both north of Bethany Home Road, and south of Camelback Road is already only two lanes.

The Buffered Bike Lane

The “problem” then became what to do with “extra” space? A generously wide bike lane, including gutter is only 6′ wide, and the diet meant that 12′ of space had to be filled (in both directions). The answer came in the form of placing a 6′ buffer between the bike lane and the rightmost traffic lane. A.k.a a Buffered Bike Lane, see e.g. nacto.org.

I am somewhat skeptical of placing space between cyclists and overtaking vehicles. While this is presented as an un-alloyed good thing by many facilities advocates, it clearly has safety drawbacks which usually go unmentioned. here is a more balanced view, as presented in the Feb 2010 (the latest) Draft AASHTO Guide, p.78 (my emphasis):

Striped buffers may be used to provide increased separation between a bike lane and another adjacent lane that may present conflicts, such as a parking lane with high‐turnover or a higher speed travel lane. The benefits of additional lateral separation should be weighed against the disadvantages; a buffer between the bike lane and the adjacent motor vehicle travel lanes places cyclists further from the normal sight lines of motorists, who are primarily looking for vehicles in the normal travel lanes, and buffers between the travel lane and bike lane reduce the natural “sweeping” effect of passing motor vehicles, potentially requiring more frequent maintenance.

 That all being said, I objected to the original design which called for the outer buffer stripe to gradually arc into the intersection. This seemed to me to be a recipe for extra right-hooks. City staff readily agreed to my and Gene’s suggestion to end the buffer ahead of each intersection, and then a bit of dashed line; which is incidentally, as shown in the NACTO guide as recommended. (so thanks to Kerry Wilcoxon, and Joe Perez).

This should make the buffer “not bad” at intersections, yet doesn’t do anything for the many driveways. In other words, it should be no worse than a standard bike lane at intersections, but I fear it will raise risks at driveways relative to bike lane. So anyway, I’m reserving my judgement on the whole buffered bike lane thing. The hope is that it will encourage/entice cyclists off the sidewalks, where most collisions occur. However that doesn’t help the legally

The re-striping

The striping project apparently happened on schedule 4AM Saturday morning 1/7/2012, there are some pics on P4′s Facebook page (f.b. login required to view). TBAG has listed a ride to visit the new work on 1/8/2010.

Is Bicycling Dangerous?

Short answer: yes, as with all modes of transportation, it entails some danger.

Longer answer: yes, similar to the risk of motoring — perhaps twice as risky. but how to measure? (per mile, per trip?). Bike-MV collisions are currently running 2% of all in AZ. Bicycling represents perhaps 1%, i.e. twice the risk.

For the moment, this is going to be a catch-all for links and related info on the topic.

Links:

• http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/facts/crash-facts.cfm
• http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
• Mighk Wilson’s essay freedom from fear .
• My posts about the books How Risky is it Really? and Free Range Kids.

Read the rest of this entry »

DZBLs and Bicycle Facility Advocacy

For those who might not be aware of the problems created when a cyclist rides too closely to parked cars; this video is a powerful graphic illustration of what happens when a cyclist collides with an opened door of a parked car.

Not only are the injuries from striking the door potentially serious, the physics of the situation immutably means that the cyclist ends up being thrown into traffic. This last part is something that I had not been aware of…. so please watch the video….

Experienced cyclists know to avoid this danger by simply riding further to the left, unfortunately the timid or untrained gravitate too far to the right because they misunderstand the sources of danger.

So, then there’s a “door zone” near any parked vehicle which can lead to a collision, otherwise referred to as a “dooring”. The risk is heightened when a bike lake is placed too-near parking, thus the term DZBL, a Door Zone Bike Lane. Cyclists, quite naturally, expect to be able to safely ride down the middle of any bike lane.

Dan Gutierrez has an extensive set of photos and slides showing dimensions and examples in facebook photo album: Door Zone Bike Lane and Sharrow Clearance .(which apparently now must be logged into facebook to view, even though it’s public — damn facebook).

There are loads of other references on the internet, just search for DZBL or ‘dooring’ see e.g. commuteorlando.com , John Allen on dooring  . Read the rest of this entry »

Loop wall down, loop wall down!

12/29/2011: A wrapped (i couldn’t quite read what it said?) pickup pulling a trailer apparently lost control and (of course) drove over the sidewalk and knocked down a wall on the Warner-Elliot loop near Nambe Street. Here is the ahwatukee.com story; following their pattern, police didn’t identify the driver saying only he was a man in this 60s.

This is less than a mile away from the site where a driver lost control and iced a jogger, Rene Karlin, on the sidewalk back in August. Whatever happened to that investigation of the un-named driver? Why is the driver un-named? Nobody bothers to report. Nor did police bother to release the name of the elderly driver who drove into Lakewood’s fountain last year.

For some more wall knockings down see here, very popular pass-time.

In other news, I usually consider residential streets pretty calm and serene, and they usually are — then there was this parked car that got whacked on Desert Broom Way just two-door away from my house on (i guess the early morning hours of) 12/28/2011… It got hit really hard, though it’s not apparent from this pic, besides the obvious side-swipe damage, the rear wheel was pushed way ahead and the tire flattened; this car is going to need a LOT of work to get it right.

And while I’m on the subject, here’s a pic of a car I discovered abandoned a couple of weeks ago that had run off of Ray Road, crossed the sidewalk, and landed in the bushes. It must have been going pretty fast becasue jumping the curb flattened all of its tires. Sheesh. I imagine it was stolen.

NTSB calls for complete cell ban: LaHood backpedals

The NTSB has called for a complete ban on personal electronic communications device usage by drivers on the grounds that any non-emergency usage is unacceptable risky. Here is Deborah A. P. Hersman, NTSB chairman writing in USA Today on 12/15/2011:

Distraction, whether it’s hands-free or handheld, whether it’s texting or talking, is deadly. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) said distraction-affected crashes killed 3,092 people last year

Handheld-only bans, such as that proposed in the city of Tucson, are at best not likely to improve safety much; and in fact may have perverse effects. If handsfree become explictly permitted, it may well change behavior of those who formerly chose to abstain entirely, thus increasing risky behavior rather than reducing it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, in late December “U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he won’t back a proposal to prohibit drivers from talking on cellphones, even hands-free devices, giving a boost to car makers and mobile-phone companies that stand to lose if regulators impose a ban” [wsj]. So there you have it, distracted-driver warrior LaHood won’t back a ban; along with an explanation of presumed pressure from business interests.

At this point, you might be wondering and confused about who-is-who in this Federal alphabet soup: What is the NTSB? This is a both interesting and intricate. One might think that NTSB resides under the DOT, however it turns out that is incorrect: “In 1974, Congress reestablished the NTSB as a completely separate entity, outside the DOT”.  The NTSB is run by a five member board; each nominated by the president for five year terms. Read that as far less politically sensitive, as compared to the Secretary of Transportation.

So Ray LaHood is Obama’s Secretary of Transportation; who runs the U.S. DOT, the United State’s Department of Transportation. And the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is the group, under DOT, tasked with highway safety.

…

There is an enjoyably-cycnical view of the subject at LaHood says hands free calls are A-okay; throws NTSB under the bus.

Story in the Scottsdale Times about 3-foot law

This is a freebie paper published under various names: The Scottsdale Times, The Ahwatukee Times, etc…

I was generally not terribly unhappy (see my general complaints about media bias ) with how it turned out. I was pleased that the reporter, Christina Fuoco-Karasinski, was willing to spend some time researching information I sent her prior to a phone interview, which itself lasted perhaps 15 minutes. The parts I spoke with the reporter about came out pretty well:

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, there were 1,914 accidents in Arizona last year involving automobiles and bicycles. A total of 25 bicyclists were killed by motorists in 2009, and 19 were killed in 2010. For comparison, a total of 762 motorists were killed [*] on Arizona roads during 2010, a fact Ed Beighe, of azbikelaw.org, a bicyclist activist website, says should be noted. “So while we’d all like to see bicycling be safer, bicycling represents a small part of an overall large problem,” Beighe says.

The number of injuries to bicyclists number in the thousands, however. There were 1,648 reported injuries to bicyclists in 2009 and another 1,583 in 2010.

“Most bicyclist-motor vehicle collisions occur when one or the other is making a turn movement [this probably would have been better stated as "turning and crossing" movements] — and not overtaking,” says Beighe, who stresses that he is not a lawyer. “But the relatively few overtaking collisions (bicycle struck from behind by a passing motorist) that do occur tend to be more serious than average.”

He says the 3-foot passing law is helpful in raising awareness among motorists. It shows drivers what to expect when overtaking and what they should see. However, Beighe says, the law itself is difficult to enforce and, in fact, “very, very few” citations have been issued outside of a collision, where it is often irrefutable that the motorist encroached upon the 3-foot right-of-way.

In many cases, when a bicyclist is struck and either injured or killed, no citation is issued for not allowing for three feet of clearance, says Sterling Baer, co-founder of Not One More Cyclist and himself an avid cyclist. The reason is that the cause of the accident often becomes a criminal act rendering the 3-foot citation irrelevant, as it takes a backseat to more serious felony charges.

“It actually hides or sort of skews the real statistics that show many of these kinds of events are happening,” Baer says.

berth rights: State law affords bicyclists a 3-foot right of way. Just try telling them it’s unsafe.

* The 762 figure is mis-stated. There were a total of 762 persons killed in fatal traffic collisions. Since 19 pedalcyclists and 155 pedestrians were included within that total, that leaves 588 motorists killed. See adot-2010-crash-facts for references.

How Risky is it, Really?

There’s a wonderful book written by author and former journalist David Ropeik that explains risk perception (and MIS-perception) in elemental terms; How Risky is it, Really?.

His explanations go all the way down to the biological and evolutionary level — think adrenalin, amygdala, and the fight/flight response — and it’s all very fascinating. Everyone should read it.

More to the point here, his “confessions” as a former journalist i think go a long way to explain the persistent problems with media stories regarding risk (p. 165):

Before I go on, mea culpa. I was a daily television reporter for 25 years, and most of the things that journalist do that make the world sound like a riskier place than it is, I did…. I regularly played up the dramatic aspects of my stories, emphasizing the negative or the frightening or the controversial, and deemphasizing (or omitting altogether) the aspects that would balance things out of put them in perspective… I never lied… But I did what most journalists do: I made choice that would make my stories more newsworthy, more dramatic , and more likely to attract attention. And that left my views with a distorted and more alarmning view of the world than was actually the case.

Framing

In chapter 2, Bounded Rationality, he explains several shortcuts we (everyone) use to determine whether something is safe vs. risky. Among them is how any particular issue is “framed”; this is critical in any sort of news story. Consider the following two statements:

Which sounds scarier to bicyclists? Which reinforces notions of danger? Is 1,500 injuries (or 19 fatalities) a lot, or a little?

The thirteen Risk Perception Factors

1. Trust
2. Risk vs. Benefit
3. Control
4. Choice
5. Is the risk natural or human-made
6. Pain and suffering
7. Uncertainty
8. Catastropihc or chronic
9. Can it happen to me?
10. Is the risk new or familiar?
11. Risks to children
12. Personification
13. Fairness

These factors fuel what Ropeik terms the Risk-perception Gap; which leads to poor decisions being made both by individuals and by society.

Free Range Kids

Along the same idea, is so-and-so’s book Free Range Kids, which I am now reading (Jan 2012)