Road Trip!

Citizens elected a council of bicyclists, said the mobility coordinator in the video below. Let's take a virtual road trip to a neighboring city to see what a bike friendly approach to circulation looks like.

Speaking of bicyclist on the council, I would have loved to have seen our Mayor Stocks' face when Teresa Barth wheeled into the electric car charging event on her trusty bike - so often photographed around town and at city hall.  Councilwoman Barth is pictured here with Dave Roberts (another bike rider running for County Supervisor seat being vacated by Pam Slater-Price). Encinitas having an electric car charging station is a boon for a few (most self-promoted being Stocks), a 21st century version of car travel and a wonderful headline.

This week the subject turns more low tech and with wider implications. Wednesday council meeting is a chance to make a bigger impact at a fraction of the cost per capita with "sharrows".  The spacial ramifications of increased bike ridership dramatically reducing road congestion, parking congestion is a concept not yet grasped by the car-centric who merely feel threatened.  It is as though they fear (and some of the most vocal do) that their cars will be taken from them.  Maybe this insight can assuage some fears.



Compare and contrast Jerome Stocks' perspective on parking lots, traffic, commerce, pot holes, walkable streets, safe routes, etc. at last April's state of the city speech. This speech was directed at a car-centric approach to city planning. Wrong decade, false assumptions and giant omissions . . .

 

At the Wednesday, July 18 council meeting members are being asked to consider shared lane markings "sharrows" and "Bicycles May Use Full Lane" signs on portions of Coast Highway 101. The volunteer group, Encinitas Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee was consulted on biking issues by the city staff. This is an infinitesimally small step, but huge for our community.  For the full agenda with agenda packets.

Let's suggest a real road trip to our engineers and council members too.

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Pay Attention Rob Blough! and all the Encinitas Engineering Department.  This is also dedicated to the council majority and the people who refuse to question the status quo for any reason . . . just because.

This reprint from Strong Towns blog by Charles Marohn (in its entirety) is for you.

It is also in vindication of the hundreds of citizens who have attempted to be heard by engineers at city hall.

After graduating from college with a civil engineering degree, I found myself working in my home town for a local engineering firm doing mostly municipal engineering (roads, sewer pipe, water pipe, stormwater). A fair percentage of my time was spent convincing people that, when it came to their road, I knew more than they did. 

And of course I should know more. First, I had a technical degree from a top university. Second, I was in a path towards getting a state license (at the time I was an Engineer in Training, the four-year "apprenticeship" required to become a fully licensed Professional Engineer), which required me to pass a pretty tough test just to get started and another, more difficult, exam to conclude. Third, I was in a profession that is one of the oldest and most respected in human history, responsible for some of the greatest achievements of mankind. Fourth - and most important - I had books and books of standards to follow. 

A book of standards to an engineer is better than a bible to a priest. All you have to do is to rely on the standards. Back in college I was told a story about how, in WW II, some Jewish engineers in hiding had run thousands of tedious tests on asphalt, just to produce these graphs that we still use today. Some of our craft descends from Roman engineers who did all of this a couple of millennia ago. How could I be wrong with literally thousands of years of professional practice on my side? 

And, more to the point, what business would I -- let alone a property owner on a project I was working on - have in questioning the way things were done? Of course the people who wrote the standards knew better than we did. That is why they wrote the standard. 

When people would tell me that they did not want a wider street, I would tell them that they had to have it for safety reasons. 

When they answered that a wider street would make people drive faster and that would be seem to be less safe, especially in front of their house where their kids were playing, I would confidently tell them that the wider road was more safe, especially when combined with the other safety enhancements the standards called for. 

When people objected to those other "enhancements", like removing all of the trees near the road, I told them that for safety reasons we needed to improve the sight distances and ensure that the recovery zone was free of obstacles.
When they pointed out that the "recovery zone" was also their "yard" and that their kids played kickball and hopscotch there, I recommended that they put up a fence, so long as the fence was outside of the right-of-way. 

When they objected to the cost of the wider, faster, treeless road that would turn their peaceful, front yard into the viewing area for a drag strip unless they built a concrete barricade along their front property line, I informed them that progress was sometimes expensive, but these standards have been shown to work across the state, the country and the world and I could not compromise with their safety. 

In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a fourteen foot lane for a city block, yet we do it continuously. Why? 

The answer is utterly shameful: Because that is the standard. 

In the engineering profession's version of defensive medicine, we can't recommend standards that are not in the manual. We can't use logic to vary from a standard that gives us 60 mph design speeds on roads with intersections every 200 feet. We can't question why two cars would need to travel at high speed in opposite directions on a city block, let alone why we would want them to. We can yield to public pressure and post a speed limit -- itself a hazard -- but we can't recommend a road section that is not in the highway manual.  

When the public and politicians tell engineers that their top priorities are safety and then cost, the engineer's brain hears something completely different. The engineer hears, "Once you set a design speed and handle the projected volume of traffic, safety is the top priority. Do what it takes to make the road safe, but do it as cheaply as you can." This is why engineers return projects with asinine "safety" features, like pedestrian bridges and tunnels that nobody will ever use, and costs that are astronomical.  

An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed:

• Traffic speed
• Traffic volume
• Safety
• Cost

The rest of the world generally would prioritize things differently, as follows:
Safety

• Cost
• Traffic volume
• Traffic speed

In other words, the engineer first assumes that all traffic must travel at speed. Given that speed, all roads and streets are then designed to handle a projected volume. Once those parameters are set, only then does an engineer look at mitigating for safety and, finally, how to reduce the overall cost (which at that point is nearly always ridiculously expensive). 

In America, it is this thinking that has designed most of our built environment, and it is nonsensical. In many ways, it is professional malpractice. If we delivered what society asked us for, we would build our local roads and streets to be safe above all else. Only then would we consider what could be done, given our budget, to handle a higher volume of cars at greater speeds. 

We go to enormous expense to save ourselves small increments of driving time. This would be delusional in and of itself if it were not also making our roads and streets much less safe. I'll again reference a 2005 article from the APA Journal showing how narrower, slower streets dramatically reduce accidents, especially fatalities. 

And it is that simple observation that all of those supposedly "ignorant" property owners were trying to explain to me, the engineer with all the standards, so many years ago. When you can't let your kids play in the yard, let alone ride their bike to the store, because you know the street is dangerous, then the engineering profession is not providing society any real value. It's time to stand up and demand a change. 

It's time we demand that engineers build us Strong Towns.

 Strong Towns blog and website have dozens of good posts and resources. And BTW, engineers, you can console yourselves that you don't suck as bad as the economists.

Myths Encinitas

Encinitas traffic engineers, traffic consultants like Austin-Foust, traffic commissioners, Mayor Stocks (especially in his role as SANDAG chairman), Jim Bond, crony friends and many in the community of Encinitas keep perpetuating the myths about automobile-centric supremacy as the only transportation approach for a robust economy.

This is a myth.  Today's post will feature a  Streetfilms video sharing information from over 100's of studies done around the world about livable cities.

Despite the automobile's 100 year reign and all the great things each and every one of us may have enjoyed with our drivers licensed entree into the US auto-centric 20th century, it will ultimately be viewed by history as a mistake for two reasons (discussed within this film):

1. Traffic undermines the livability of the city. 
2. The auto does a poor job of moving people in a dense urban environment.

This isn't to say there is no place, no function for the automobile.  That would be silly.  It is simply not the sacred gift to humanity that it is touted to be, especially in the Western US in the decades that lie ahead of us.  The time of rethinking has begun and decades overdue.

But, someone who has studied this in depth will take over here in a  Streetfilms video. Even though Encinitas is a tiny dot compared to New York City.  This living laboratory of all that traffic can be is worthy of our attention.

"For more than 100 years New York City government policy has prioritized the needs of the automobile over the needs of any other mode of transport. Working under the faulty assumption that more car traffic would improve business, planners and engineers have systematically made our streets more dangerous and less livable. As a result, even the idea that a street could truly be a “place” – a shared space for human interaction and play – has been almost completely destroyed."

This website is on our Encinitas traffic engineers should be forced to use as a tutorial until they lose the 1950's traffic myths.   Streetfilms has . . .

"done over 450 Streetfilms in nearly 6 years!  We've been a lot of places. We've explored a lot of ideas. We've interviewed the top world experts in the transportation & livable streets realm."

Update: 3:20 pm The correct video has been embedded.  Apologies for the oversight.

Bike Sightings

May as National Bike Month means we'll keep up the ongoing coverage of our changing ways and increased biking. All of these various sightings show Councilwoman Teresa Barth's consistently biking, as evidence of this unique red bike showing up all around town.

Here is the bike rack at the Encinitas Public Libarary.  Walking Biking the talk.

This shot above shows the Shaffer sign on Teresa Barth's bike.  Lisa Shaffer is also a bike advocate and bike rider.  The following photo was on her website.

Seen at City Hall Monday

Councilwoman Barth's Bike at City Hall on Monday shows she's been good at her word to try and bike to work each day. Congratulations.

Myths Encinitas

Being a young woman, a mother, nurturing, married to a health professional means a woman plays a role as a public-friendly, health conscious community servant.  Mythical gender fantasies and stereotypical roles are assumptions born out of a media/ad culture. Don't you believe it.  Encinitas' very own poster girl for Myths Encinitas is Kristin Gaspar.

When it comes to family health and quality of life and community common good issues, follow the money. With the possible exception of her own personal home (unknown), if there is no way to subsidize funding or there is no direct benefit to the crony club of financial backers, political players Ms. Gaspar will find a way reject a proposal, idea, ordinance or code recommendation. Bike lanes, walking routes connecting the whole community, public health or farmer's markets all are scrutinized even when there is no direct cost to the city.

Gaspar and her mentor (who is said to live in Oceanside, not Encinitas) are making arguments outside of reality and measurable facts. Myths Encinitas is a growing phenomenon amongst the council majority and, by extension, the planning staff. Compare the things said by Gaspar and her friend claim alongside that of Carlsbad, beloved of the Council Majority in their example of big rich growth.  Even this city has the political will to recognize a healthy, happy citizen (visitor & tourist) community is worth planning and paying to achieve. They understand that even for businesses 'sustainable' means thriving, prospering, staying alive, not dying - not alien takeover - or commercial threat. Seriously, what is the opposite of sustainablility but death and ruin? It makes no sense to demonize quality, health, prosperity and community or say it costs too much unless one is directed to do so.  The cost is far too high to refuse to address and budget for a sustainable future.

On a really serious note directly related to dangerous gender politics, Myths Encinitas Gaspar is doing a serious disservice to the women of all ages in Encinitas. Women across this country are under attack and losing choices, health care, support and safety in their own homes.  Shockingly the House just passed a version of the Violence Against Women Act  that would let domestic abusers know their victims called for help. The politically driven war on women is a time when those women who hold offices from those in the highest seats of power down to the local level could choose to speak and act on behalf of half the population in a crucially supportive way or choose to support a few powerful men with money.

We're Not Blocking Traffic, We Are Traffic

In a car-centric viewpoint bicycles are considered obstacles rather than a legal means of transportation considered part of vehicular traffic.  For those of us who enjoy factoids those that follow are a treat. We know Councilwoman Barth is fact friendly as she is purported to be a record breaker on the dais for giving the most concise deliberations of any council person. Not only a master of concision (word for the day meaning an economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in a few words), she is an avowed bike rider for pleasure and function. Today's picture at the Cardiff Library. Barth is a longtime Friend of the Cardiff Library.

In honor of May as bike month, a bunch of facts. Even though so many public gatherings, news stories can be relatively fact-free, there are large numbers of people who still base decisions and life choices on facts, rational thought and critical analysis. This post is for you. And for those of us not biking in any regular way yet, the education is part of the process.

Cars are involved in 250,000 deaths and..

                ..10,000,000 injuries a year

Bicycles exceed ownership of autos worldwide 2:1

approximately 800,000,000 to 400,000,000

Bike production beats car production 3:1

Number of bicycles that fit in one car parking space: 14

Number of bicycles that fit into one car road space: 8

Average bicycle speed on urban streets: 10-15 mph

Average bus speed for urban mass transit: 13 mph

Average car speed in downtown urban areas: 20 mph

In a major city area, you would move 8 times the number of

people on an urban road with bicycles than with cars, and they

would arrive at their destination at about the same time as if

they were driving

1 mile of highway consumes 25 acres of land

It costs $ 10,000 to construct a mile of urban railway

It costs $100,000 to construct a mile of urban highway

40-50% of US land is devoted to roads and parking for autos,

accounting for nearly 600,000 square miles of earth, now under

asphalt

Autos use approximately half of all the oil consumed in the US

20% of the world's citizens have the means to buy a car,

85% of the world's citizens have the means to buy a bicycle

American motorists spends 1 Billion hours/year stuck in traffic,

wasting 2 Billion gallons of gasoline,

(costing 10-30 Billion US Dollars)

Motorists make about 1,000 round trips under 5 miles a year

The most dangerous time to ride a bike in the city is between

3:00 and 6:00 pm

5 miles is an easy ride on a bicycle, even with baskets and

bags attached

40% of cyclists are commuters

Motor transportation is the single largest contributor to air

pollution in the US, accounting for:

   49% of total hydro-carbon emissions

   85% of carbon-monoxide emissions

   47% of nitrogen oxide emissions and

    9% of particulate emissions (rust, rubber, and dust)

In cities motor vehicles are the primary source of air pollution,

emitting carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide particulates including lead,

asbestos from brake linings, and tire particles and hydrocarbons

Once Learned, Never Forgotten

The familiar expression goes, "it's like riding a bike, you never forget." May is national bike month. So, everybody on board and remember how it works, when you are the engine of your own vehicle and felt the joy of it. Hard sell in a car-centric culture, despite a remarkably bike-friendly population like Encinitas.

If the sheer joy of self-propulsion doesn't do it, maybe the simple logic of math and spatial context will inspire you. In the shrieks of outrage and doom over traffic increases on I-5 highway or El Camino Real or our other community roadways in the next 40 years, imagine the gradual easement that might happen with the several alternatives to the status quo of individuals in big metal machines. Choices other than our big metal (fossil fuel or hybrid or electrical) machines may gradually seem like a  a far better way to go.  We can't really know what we might feel 20, 30 or 40 years from now.

It easier to picture less crowded roadways with images of less crowded roadways. Nobody has to take anyone's vehicles away. Time will show favored means of travel will include public transit where one can read, work, talk, or doze while someone else drives; one can hop on a bike and save hundreds of thousands of dollars over time or just walk someplace because we'll have this fantastically walkable city full of trails all connected to places where we want to go. And we may find these the high point of our day, being out on our bike on our way to or from work, school, errands or whatever.  Millions worldwide happen to have found this to be true. Go figure.

Right now, this very year, there would be thousand more individuals on public transit, bikes and walking if these were available options.  They are not readily available options.  Public transit is remarkably inconvenient and unreliable right now and roadways continue to be built for cars rather than circulation for all forms of travel.


Stands to reason that things may slow down in the next decade or two, because there is a growing desire for this, the Encinitas population (the largest portion) is aging and there are fewer and fewer reasons to race without incentive. Pure conjecture, but as reliable as SANDAG's population forecast for 2050.  amirite?

Teresa Barth (Our Mayor in Exile) is already a bike-riding city official.  She's shown here all dressed up for the 4th of July parade for Cardiff's 100th anniversary parade last year.  She'll be riding her trusty red beach cruiser bike as usual this May, national bike month.