First, San Francisco. I was somewhat proactive and ordered the bike map published by the SF Bicycle Coalition. It’s a great map that shows all of the routes and what kind they are (off road, bike-lane, shared lanes, in handy color coding). The routes are also numerous enough to actually be numbered on the map and on the street signs so you can follow a route as it changes roads. They even use designations like highway numbers, where even routes go east-west while odd ones go north-south. There are ridiculous hills in SF, so the map shows grades as shading on the map. There’s even the famous “wiggle” which is a zig-zag route (#30-47) that is the only way to get from the Mission to the Haight without climbing any steep hills, of which there are many in SF. It’s so obvious when you’re on it, you don’t have to look for signs any more since all you have to do is follow the bikes, they’re all doing it. It also includes the only bike box I found in the city, which conveniently directs you to a dedicated green-shaded left turn lane on the other side of the intersection. This left lane is needed since the turn is on to a street with multiple lanes of traffic. So nice to be guided along a road where so much thought has been put into what cyclists need. Found only one cycletrack, on a short stretch of Market as it approached the Mission. Prior to that bikes shared a bus lane that had a small barrier to the rest of traffic.

I was impressed by the ability of these things to make me feel welcome, to feel encouraged to explore on a bike. I don’t think these lanes were inherently any safer than those in any other city. There were still largely next to parked cars, and the drivers weren’t necessarily more accommodating. The other riders were following the lanes, and stopping at lights, although they did run the red once it was safe to do so.

Can we do the same thing here? That was on my mind the whole trip. Almost all of SF is on a grid, and the streets are generally wider than ours. Not by a huge amount. Both of these do make it easier to support bike lanes and to put them parallel but not on the main driving routes. The weather is better there, so bikes are out all year. SF is also a fantastic urban city, with tons of urban vitality and neighborhoods that are not too far apart. There are very few highways and since it’s surrounded by water on three sides, it’s not surrounded by suburbs. Boston feels like a compressed suburb with pockets of urban areas.

This is not to say there aren’t cars, there are tons of them. But it is very slow to drive around. We had my 7 year old nephew with us for two days and he does better being driven around. Me, not so much.

I had heard bad things about Sacramento from a few people, and from the locals as well. It’s too bad in a way. It’s very flat, not very big, very much a grid, and has good bike lanes all over. The American River has a smooth bike path on both sides that goes for miles and miles and is quite scenic. The city fails in two ways. First, there are elevated highways that seem to be everywhere. Since it’s so flat, you can see and hear these highways from everywhere. I couldn’t get used to this and can understand why people would move as far away from these as possible, which is difficult. Second, it hasn’t attracted or retained the type of young people to generate some kind of urban vitality. We were there for “second Saturday”, which is supposed to be an arts festival but was really more of a block party for teenagers. It being the seat of government in the state, there aren’t many jobs other than in politics, and California has a budget crisis right now so lots of people are out of work in Sacramento.

Davis won platinum status from the League of American Bicyclists, and as expected, there are lanes, paths, and cyclists everywhere. However, I was left feeling that it’s not a good example of what could be done in other cities. First, the cycling infrastructure was built from the ground up by the University. While they deserve praise for doing this, their “citizenship” are largely students who are already predisposed to cycle more than any other population. Plus, they don’t have much of a say in any of the planning as do the tax paying long-term citizens of a city. And finally, the city is not very big and not very dense, and has plenty of room on the streets for bike lanes. A friend of a friend said that Davis was a bit of an isolated bike-utopia since its bike accommodations stop very abruptly and it turns very car-dominated like much of California.

A bike rotary in Davis. Those little houses are for visiting faculty. They front the bike path and I think they don't have a road frontage. So that's kinda cool.

It took me a little while to realize what I really liked about Davis. At first I was somewhat surprised that so many of the bikes were of low quality and/or badly maintained. To some extent the same was true in San Francisco. But what I gradually realized was that this was just a sign of a larger ideal – when cycling becomes ubiquitous it becomes totally utilitarian and thus loses any sense of status. In Holland it’s the same way – all of their bikes are black, have 1-3 speeds, and their owners think nothing of them. Regrettably, if an when we reach the ideal of lots of people using bikes for all the utilitarian short trips that they currently use their cars for, I’ll be tortured by the sounds of crunchy chains and clicking drivetrains!

Overall, I highly recommend a trip to any city where cycling is a widely accepted means of getting around, and the city has installed the resources to create and maintain that culture.

Please use Doodle to sign up for a time: http://www.doodle.com/w55itegazb9pia69.

Bring printouts (see below) and clipboards and pens and meet at JP Licks to start.

If none of these times work for you, feel free to just get out there whenever!

Petition blanks for people to sign
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2q5lzMZ-FkHZTRmYmZjMjQtNzE1OS00NTUyLTgwZjctNjJhNzhkY2RlZTEw&hl=en
Please ask people to write their name and email clearly. This isn’t a legal document so we aren’t looking for their signature. We will use their email to ask them to attend one or two important meetings with city officials to show lots of support for bike lanes.

Petition Letter
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcZMmCRDur3hZGhzcHRqNXBfMTJndGhudnRndA&hl=en
This is what people are signing their names in support of!

Back of clipboard, large sign to flag down bikers
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2q5lzMZ-FkHZTFlNzIyOWMtNjQwZS00NmY3LWFjOWUtYzg0MDc4N2E5MDk4&hl=en
You can use this sign on the back of your clipboard (or whatever you’re using) and hold it up to flag down passing bikers.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcZMmCRDur3hZGhzcHRqNXBfN2M2ZGduczc4&hl=en

The planners and consultants for the Centre/South CAC have said that it is
highly likely that bike lanes can be striped over a significant portion of
this corridor. However, without a strong message of support by the
community, they can not proceed with the detailed design of bicycle
accommodations that encourage safe cycling. Thursday’s meeting will be
focused on getting that public support in advance of the next CAC meeting,
which will be within the next few weeks. The current cycle-friendly
atmosphere in the city government may not last, so the time is now for
getting this done!

Meeting details:
What: JPBikes Meeting to plan efforts to get support for bike lanes on
Centre/South
Where: Aggasiz School, 20 Child St., Jamaica Plain
When: Thursday, Feb. 11, 7 pm

Lauren Ockene, a JPBikes member, posted a message to our group about a week ago (see next post below) summarizing the most recent meeting of the Citizen’s Advisory Group for the Centre/South Street Transportation and Streetscape Action Plan. Lauren has been advocating tirelessly for improved bicycle accommodations in the streetscape plan, and as a result the consultants have been working bike-specific improvements (e.g. bike lanes on Centre and South, various traffic calming measures) into their proposals. As exciting as some of these proposals may be, only public support can ensure that they become reality.

JPBikes will host a meeting next Thursday the 11th to discuss a plan for gaining that public support and to train those interested in volunteering towards this effort (time and place TBA). The next Centre/South meeting is expected to within the next few weeks, so time is short.

Expect another email soon with the specific time and place (either Agassiz School or Curtis Hall probably).

The process of redesigning Centre and South Streets in JP is becoming more interesting, and we need more and more bicyclists to show up! The next meeting date is not yet set, but should be in the end of February or beginning of March. I will post it on the JP Bikes Google group when I know. If you are interested in attending and/or helping with gathering support for bike lanes (maybe in the form of a petition and/or letters), please email me at lockene@mac.com.

At last night’s meeting the main questions were where and how (and if) bike lanes can exist between Forest Hills and Jackson Square, and which “nodes” along the Centre/ South corridor will get major redesigns.

The consultant group (MacMahon) and Vineet Gupta, chief planner for the BTD, are ready to put in bike lanes from Monument Square all the way to South Huntington, on both sides of the road. This is the stretch of Centre Street, fortunately long and central, where the road width is enough to accommodate the minimum standard of 10.5 feet for cars driving, 5 feet for bike lanes, and 7 feet for cars parked. There was some discussion of actually taking out one lane of parking so that we could have bike lanes as well as wider sidewalks. The question of taking out parking will be a big one for the ends of the corridor (the Monument to Forest Hills, and South Huntington to Jackson Square), where the road width is generally not enough for bike lanes given the current parking. The planners are going to show us proposals for these possibilities at the next meeting.

In general  bicyclists who have come to the meetings have supported bike lanes. Last night there was one bicyclist voicing dissent.

The question of giving up car parking in order to have bike lanes in these two areas, and possibly to have bike lanes and wider sidewalks in JP Center, is going to become heated. Many merchants are very concerned that less parking will mean less business (though there are studies showing otherwise in some areas), and they are concerned for their livelihoods. Similarly, many consumers and residents will come out to the meetings when they feel that their convenient parking is threatened. Therefore we will need as many advocates of non-automobile transit as possible to show up at the meetings this winter and spring!

The designers also laid out several possible plans for the two “nodes” that we approved last time, Hyde Square (the rotary) and Monument Square. In both cases they laid out drawings that shrink the asphalt acreage considerably, giving far more public space and trees, and shorter pedestrian crossings. The BRA will soon post the designs for comment at http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/Planning/PlanningInits.asp  (go to number 38).

The other two “nodes” they proposed were the Jackson Square Stop and Shop area up to Mozart Park, and JP Center. Several people suggested that instead of JP Center they should look at the vast asphalt space of Canary Square (by 7 – Eleven/South Huntington) and there was also discussion of South Street as a node to focus on for redesign. It sounds like they will show us plans for at least one of those areas, or possibly both, next time.

Expect to see article on this meeting in the JP Gazette and the Boston Bulletin, in their next editions.

Lauren Ockene

We had a big crew ride out to Sherborn on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We loaded up on McIntosh apples and were a bit heavier on the way back. The Dairy Queen in Natick gave us the energy to pull those apples home. There were riders on road bikes, hybrids, fixed gears, and even a family of four with kids in a trailer! Check out the pictures in the “Pictures” section, and I posted a link to the route in the “Maps and routes section”. Stay tuned for our fall foliage ride in October.

Olympians. National champions. We’re talking the country’s BEST pro cyclists pedaling by you so fast, you’ll feel the breeze! It’s the first annual TD Bank Mayor’s Cup Pro Race on Saturday, September 26th at Boston City Hall Plaza. It’s all FREE to spectators. The “Boloco Block Party” kicks off at 2pm. Then catch the pro races, a kids race, and a mascot race. It all wraps up with a free concert featuring Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra on The Plaza.

And if you’re adrenaline is still pumping on Sunday, come on out for the fifth annual Hub On Wheels citywide bike ride. All proceeds go to support Boston school kids. When you’re done, The Boloco Block Party will still be there waiting for you.

Check it out today and enter to win a free bicycle. www.tdbankcyclingweekend.com