ECSI: Ennis Crime Scene Investigator

This is Highway 287 in Ennis, Texas, also known as Ennis Avenue. This is approximately the spot that Reed Bates (aka ChipSeal) was ticketed for impeding traffic on October 1st of 2009 (the beginning of his ordeal by the Ennis Police Department). Because Mr. Bates got three other "impeding traffic" and "riding a bicycle on roadway" and "blocking a sidewalk" citations (all for the same type of offense, but the EPD has a coding problem), there is some confusion as to the road types.

Many have become fixated on the citation Mr. Bates got from the Ellis County Sheriff's Department for riding in a travel lane on a four-lane, full access, state highway with a posted speed limit of 65 mph. But Mr. Bates' troubles began on Ennis Ave (Hwy 287), which is a 4-lane with center turn lane thoroughfare through the city, with an intermittent striped shoulder. It's not a "bike lane". Mr. Bates was shadowed by the police along Ennis Avenue where there is no shoulder, who waited until he encountered the section of Ennis Avenue that has a shoulder and immediately proceeded to pull him over and issue a citation for impeding traffic.

Please note that the posted speed limit is 30 mph.

The rude awakening of sharrow placement

Dan Gutierrez of Dual Chase Productions has produced an interesting series of slides on door zones, bike lanes, and sharrows. Pretend you are in Australia.

The slide I have reproduced shows the relationship of a sharrow as placed according to the forthcoming Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (11' from curb face on street with parking). The reality is worse than shown. The SUV needs to be moved up to 10" away from the curb to better indicate typical parking placements, further intruding into the space the cyclist expects to occupy obstacle free.

These placements result in two bad results. 1) The door opens and the cyclist hits it, often suffering serious injury. 2) The door opens and the cyclist swerves to the left (right in the slide) into the path of an over-taking vehicle. This scenario often results in cyclist fatalities.

Again, as always, you are safer to control your lane than to rely upon marginalizing facilities that are designed to keep you out of the way of other traffic (for their convenience), and places you directly in harm's way.

In a nutshell

The Ennis Police and the Ellis County Sheriff have begun ticketing a commuting cyclist on Hwy 287 between Ennis and Waxahachie for “impeding traffic” by riding in the right lane (4-lane divided, not limited access, posted 55 mph… lots of intersections and entrance-ways). His first citation was for riding in the right-hand lane of Business 287 in Ennis, where the posted speed limit is only 30 mph.

I realize the cyclist is sometimes showing considerably more courage (and faith in motorists) than most would, but considering the lack of consistent shoulders, number of intersections/turning movements, and the fact that the cyclist does not own a car but travels everywhere by bicycle in a law-abiding way, I am concerned about the precedent that is being set. The argument is that if cars have to slow down to pass a cyclist in a 12’ lane (without any traffic queuing) then that constitutes “impeding traffic”.

Basically, that same argument could be made on any State Highway, FM Road, or even a local street in Texas. If a car has to pass you on any street in Ennis, Texas, you could be ticketed. Or even arrested.

If you want to help, contact me.

The Failed Illusions of Segregation

photo by Jefferson Siegel

From New York City's The Villager.

Drunk driver on Hudson Park bike path mows down cyclist

By Lincoln Anderson

The Hudson River Park bike path would seem to offer one of the safest places to cycle. Yet the death of bicyclist Eric Ng, a 22-year-old New York University graduate, on Friday night at Clarkson St., a block north of Houston St., after being struck head on by a drunken driver speeding down the Hudson River Park bike path, is the second death of a cyclist on the path in the last five months.

Full story.

Sadly, usually the former.

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."

-- George F. Will

ChipSeal

Balakov

ChipSeal was found guilty of three counts of riding a bike on the roadway slower than the speed limit.

$325 in fines plus court costs.

The World Turned Upside Down.

Here.

...and I approve.

Bike parking at Ennis library has a seat

Morally neutral.

Image: Arrow Bicycles

Bicycles are morally neutral devices, neither bestowing or possessing virtue nor containing or imparting vice. Deal with it.

For Ennis the Menace.

Mythbusting on Highway 535 from Keri Caffrey on Vimeo.

Keri Caffrey's Commute Orlando blog has an interesting look at the relationship between a bicyclist and traffic on a 4-lane, 55mph highway. Once again, the reality is very different from the fear-based perception.

P.S. The closest (and most dangerous) car/bike pass occurred when the cyclist was riding on the shoulder of the highway. The pattern holds: Stay out of other traffic's way and get buzzed... whether on the road shoulder, in the gutter-pan, or in a bike lane.

Further adventures in missing the point: bike parking edition.

See the problem? On the other hand, the bikes can't be ridden off, the effectiveness is similar to the headset locks on European urban bikes, and hopefully the couple who rides together likes to walk together as well.

Readers write their local paper.

From the Portland Oregonian.

Portland's bicycle master plan
Letters to the editor
February 02, 2010, 6:06AM

The bicycle soldiers of Portland are as giddy as a cabal of neo-cons plotting regime change in 2002, and with good reason. There is a good chance that this week the City Council will approve the 20-year bicycle master plan under the flag of the Portland Transportation Bureau. The plan adds more than 700 miles of bike routes to Portland at a projected cost of $558 million.

The high cost is largely because of the extensive construction required to build separated in-road bike lanes: 372 miles at more than a million dollars per mile. Countless miles of traffic lanes and on-street parking are to be eliminated in the process.

Justification for this project rests on the notion that Portlanders will switch to bicycles and save more greenhouse gasses than the lane losses cause. The master plan cites no studies to support this equation.

In lieu of science, the bike wonks love to cite the use of bicycles in Amsterdam, despite the huge cultural differences between the two cities. Like it or not, we have greater distances to cover, more stuff to carry and less time to do it all. Bicycles are not the answer for Portland.

Last, it is worth noting that very few Portlanders have even heard of the bicycle master plan. The under-the-radar maneuvering by the plan's advocates is understandable. The lack of coverage by The Oregonian is not.

CLIFF MASON
Northeast Portland

$558,000,000. Half a billion dollars. That's about what it would cost to replace the current Dallas system with a system like Portland's proposed one (as some are proposing). This is the end result of declaring bikes can't operate safely in the roadway... a "separate but equal" system. Some might find the cost a concern, others not so much.

Keep in mind that as the Velo-Revolution continues, the bicycle mode share in Portland has been declining, and that conflicts and hostility between motorists and cyclists have been escalating.

Meanwhile, in the same name of "cyclist safety" that fear-based bicycle advocates use to promote segregated facilities with increasing urgency, municipalities are banning bicyclists from "dangerous" roads (the Austin suburb of Manor), and jailing a law-abiding cyclist in Ennis... both for his own protection and for "impeding" traffic.

The recurring trouble with logic is that you can't have it both ways.

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Soylent Green is people!

Why does Austin hate cyclists?



To be fair, the design principle of criss-cross traffic flow does have a popular precedent.