Tag / safety

by Adron

I Can’t Seem to Stay Away From These Topics!?

Road paving in Portland. There are only a few situations when a road should get paved (or the more likely situation of “re-paved”). Here’s the criteria:

  • It can be (re-)paved with appropriate sidewalks on at least one side of the street minimum.
  • It can be (re-)paved with at least basic bicycle lane amenities and if at all possible, buffered bicycle lane and car parking.
  • It can be (re-)paved with appropriate spaced parking from the corners, with corner protection and drainage to clean the water built in.
  • It can be (re-)paved with appropriate parking for cars, based on short term and long term parking striping.
  • It can be (re-)paved with permission from the community immediately surrounding the street. Do not repave a street like 23rd without the communities permission. There is no need for it to be repaved and the roughness of the road encourages safety through slower speed and decreasing “through” traffic from using a neighborhood street unsafely.
  • It can be (re-)paved if there are amenities for crossing safety added so we don’t have more children die. Already, the cost is too high with just one loss of life attributed to inappropriate road build out in the city. How many have to die to make it a priority for safety amenities? It should be zero, but it’s obviously already higher than that.

Right now Portland is rapidly gaining frustration with the Mayor. The Mayor isn’t informing the public why, how or if it should be paving streets. Instead the city office is just forcing ahead the agenda to pave “100 miles of streets” in spite of and in many cases without any of the above. A pot hole is one thing, a dead child is absolutely something else. A pot hole should not rate above human life. A pot hole shouldn’t even rate above a sidewalk. But alas, these days it seems that the city Government’s priority is around filling the pothole, and pushing people back into cars.

Not sure if anybody else has noticed, but if you have half a brain, Portland has stood out and seen growth over the last 30 years because it DID NOT follow these types of policies. How about we straighten back up and get our heads screwed on right? That’s the spirit!

by Adron

No More Winter Biking for Me

I’m standing at the bus stop tonight, a cyclist goes by. I think I ought to smile so I’m not one of those disgruntled looking folks that sits in their car or stands waiting unhappily. I’m actually a pretty freaking happy guy! But I quickly toss that notion aside, it is cold, I can refrain from smiling at this point in the evening.

I turn and look down the street to see the bus that just slowly overtook the cyclist coming over into the cyclist’s lane. However the bus has come very close to the cyclist, and some lady in a BMW SUV attempting to turn the WRONG way on 3rd Avenue. She has her SUV protruding out into the street. Since the driver has just stuck her vehicle’s nose out into the road, the cyclist has to swerve around her. However the bus is coming over into his lane at this point.

This moment he just barely makes it by her illegal action, the bicylist slips and falls! I note in my mind, that the back wheels of the bus haven’t passed where he’s fallen and he’s been pushed up against the back of the bus! I feel my chest and stomach tighten as I mumble “oh shit” and start to run across the street to help. His hand and back leg are within inches of the back wheel. (For those that don’t realize this implication, a bus will crush any part of a human, you do NOT recover from this. If it rolls over any part of the body, that part of the body is effectively dead weight, if a person’s torso is run over they are dead. There is no surviving this, the wheels of a bus are almost always fatal).

My mind is racing, I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to ever see another person be killed by a bullet, a vehicle. I don’t want to see the blood, the horror on others faces. I don’t want the thought in my own mind.

The cyclist I see moves just a bit, but is it enough? I fear for the cyclist’s fate. Maybe because I relate so closely to anyone riding a bike. Trying to not fall prey to the rat race of the auto world’s noose. An individual staying healthy and doing more than their part for society, for their community, just by riding. I hate this feeling in my gut. The lady, in her obliviousness, starts to illegally turn right onto 3rd Avenue. She’s going morbidly slow now, I can’t see the rider. I start to cross Seneca as I walk toward where the cyclist went down.

The world, even though I know there is noise all around, is silent. I am focused solely on hearing the cyclist. I’ve heard no scream, no sound whatsoever. This must be a good sign, I hope. Finally the cyclist stands up quickly, just as the bus is pulling well past him. He is unharmed except for the fall. The lady, a bit of humanity coming out, rolls the window down and pulls slowly behind him. Albeit illegally, she now slows to block traffic while he gets out of the roadway.

I am relieved, but considering the riding infrastructure for these winter conditions, I’m somewhat disgruntled. Seattle has oriented its streets toward longevity from high capacity, high weight vehicles. The roads are not oriented toward ride quality, smoothness, or I would argue safety except for large vehicles (i.e. trucks).

I’ve wrecked once this year, and I blame three things; myself, my bike, and the city’s streets. With that, I’ve decided I’m not riding anymore until things improve, which it doesn’t appear they will considering the recent vote. Seattle would rather have the dead than safer streets. I give up, I’ll be back on the two wheels when it warms up and the road conditions aren’t so perilous, at least in downtown Seattle.