This is the first installment of #NorthBayNotes, Dispatches from Marin County by Bicycle.
The ongoing series will be things I notice, fun and frustrating, exciting and exasperating, while riding around the county I work in.
This is Nick. He rides an electric tricycle and told me he doesn't even need a car.
Many days he rides up to 20 miles, though the battery is good for 50+. He was generous enough to let me stop him and chat.
Work continues apace on the North-South Greenway Gap Closure project, a new bike/ped bridge over Corte Madera Creek that will replace the existing 4'(!) sidewalk.
Are there any arborists following me?
These trees planted in early 2020 don't look like they're doing great, but city staff assured me they're being cared for.
Another lesson in "If the Dutch don't do it, don't do it."
This bike traffic circle, installed in 2016 near Larkspur Ferry, is very difficult to navigate on a cargo bike, tandem, or even a bike with a trailer.
The center island is unnecessarily large, and only hinders users.
This is the Cal Park Hill Tunnel, opened in 2010 and connecting Larkspur and San Rafael. Expect a full post sometime in another forthcoming series called #TunnelTalk.
The tunnel's gates are open 5AM-midnight, unlike US-101 (which it parallels), which is open to traffic 24x7.
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This is almost *too obvious* to notice, but the reason that paint works to delineate lanes for cars is that drivers *carry their own physical protection.*
They don't need walls between them and other cars traveling in the same direction because their car has walls.
People on bikes carry no such armor, meaning paint and soft, plastic delineators do not...do anything.
If you don't feel safe in a paint-only bike lane, it's because you're not.
Because they don't carry it, bike users need their physical protection to be part of the built environment.
We need delineation that will *resist* incursion from cars.
This means k-rail, concrete, strong bollards, or putting the bike lane above the curb.
Driving works best when only a few people are doing it.
But we've designed a system where driving is pretty much the only viable option.
Raise your hand if you see the problem here.
This is why so much NIMBYism is traffic-based.
People see the traffic we have today and imagine that twice as many people will mean twice the traffic, so they feel they have no choice but to say "no."
Because our traffic engineers have failed to design a system in which people can do anything other than drive, they (perhaps correctly, perhaps not) assume that anyone else coming to their neighborhood will drive as much as they do.
On a zoom weminar hosted by @CalBike with renowned bike researchers John Pucher and @buehler_ralph on international international comparisons in biking!
🧵
Here is the share of trips made by bike across North America, Europe, and Japan. Huge variation across countries, with English speaking nations lagging behind.
But these differences are not because those countries are more dense! In the US, our share of bikes used for even short trips are tiny!
Whereas in the Netherlands, nearly half of all 1-2.5 mile trips are on a bike.
6,000+ miles of riding over my three years in the Bay.
All my bikers out there, what do you notice?
Super true! SPA is a huge block hole my map. 9th St and California sort of work, but have their own issues (and no fronting commercial for me to actually use!)
It's also so striking to see that we can get 2/3rds(!!) of the way there today. It's just not that far from Yerba Buena to Embarcadero, and yet it might as well be 1000 miles.