Fwd: Save federal bike funding now

[Erica]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PeopleForBikes <in...@peopleforbikes.org>
Date: Tue, May 23, 2017 at 6:13 PM
Subject: Save federal bike funding now
To: Erica Briggs <briggsw...@gmail.com>

Send a letter today!

Dear PeopleForBikes supporter, The Trump Administration just released the budget for fiscal year 2018 and it’s not good for bicycling. The budget proposes to cut overall funding for the Department of the Interior by 5.3 percent and the Department of Transportation by 16 percent. If approved, this budget will cut funding for bike trails and paths in our National Parks and National Recreation Areas. It will reduce support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has helped create some of the best places to ride in the U.S. The budget also guts the TIGER grant program, which is instrumental in helping communities fund multimodal transportation projects that often improve bicycling. Use our easy letter-writing tool to send a letter to your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives. Ask them to restore level funding for these critical programs in 2018. Stand up for bikes! —The PeopleForBikes team                    PeopleForBikes P.O. Box 2359 Boulder, CO 80306 Unsubscribe © 2017 PeopleForBikes. All rights reserved.

[Bruce Geffen]

Done!

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[Ken Clark]

Hello all,

I've been thinking about this for a while, and now I've done some more observations.  I think I'm seeing a real effect, and I can explain how it works.

So, for many years I've noticed that I get a lot more red lights while biking than I do while driving.  I've gone weeks at a time checking this, and finding I get between 50% and 75% red lights while biking, but only about 33% to 50% red lights while driving.  I recently broke my foot, and spent a good deal more time driving for the first two weeks, and found that percentage for driving on the same routes was about right.

Recently, as in the past few months, the percentage for biking seems like it might be going up.  I suspect it is, because we passed an ordinance requiring a 5' passing distance.  I don't think that itself is the problem, but it's contributing.  So, now how it works.

We have two kinds of progressive (changing in sequence, not all together) signal systems in Ann Arbor.  In the downtown, particularly on 5th and Division, we have signal progression that just assumes traffic is traveling at a certain speed, and causes the signals to change based on those speeds.  That's just a constant problem for a cyclist - since the speed those signals expect seems to be set to around 30mph (in a 25 zone - yes, they encourage people to speed!), and I'm not going to pull off those speeds downtown while biking, I routinely get stopped at least twice at red lights there, when I can pretty reliably get through with zero or one red light traveling by motor vehicle.  It's discrimination, but it's blatant and hasn't changed in decades.

The other kind is more subtle.  On a lot of our major roads, we have an expensive, state-of-the-art (mostly) signal control system, which I've seen called SCOOT and ADAPT in the past.  (Not sure what it's called now.)  That system works by monitoring the flow of traffic (as usual, only motor vehicle traffic) and changing the signal timing to give green lights to platoons of traffic when possible.  That system discriminates against cyclists two ways (and now a third): the signal loops generally don't detect cyclists (I'd be a little surprised if any of them do) and the system assumes traffic is moving at the speed of motor vehicle traffic.  So the system doesn't even know you're there, and if it does, it assumes you're traveling much faster than you're likely to be.  This isn't as obvious.

But now here comes the interesting part.  I think, and all the places I've seen it's the case, that the detector loops the city uses are in the right lane.  That is, even when the road is five lanes plus bike lanes, the detectors seem to be in the right lanes only.  I can most easily see this on Plymouth, where I bike regularly, and where the bike lanes were added much later, by shifting the lanes over.  That 'moved' the loops, which are often still visible, partly into the bike lane, where they don't do anything, and only partly in the right-most lane.

But a lot more people are doing the right thing, and getting over to pass at a safe distance when there's room for them to do it.  That means that the platoons get broken up a bit, and many more of them are in the left lane.  I suspect that this gets seen by the signal system as a break in traffic, so an end in a platoon, and it decides it's a good time to change to a red light.  Since I'm the reason they were moving more into the left lane, that means I get a fresh red light, often just before I get to the intersection.

I don't see that as a negative consequence of the new ordinance, but rather another vestige of our past discrimination against cyclists.  We've known since at least the 90s that we should be making loops that detect cyclists (it's called for in the 1992 Bike Master Plan, and every one since), but I'm almost positive we've never done it.  If we had, you should see the MUTCD symbol for where a cyclist should stop to trigger it:

That should appear pretty much in the middle of a lane, probably a turn lane.  Anyone seen one? 

I'm bringing this up now because the Transportation Commission is thinking about such things, but also, we're spending millions to reconstruct West Stadium.  It shouldn't be too late to require the city to do what it's said it's going to do, and make all the loops detect cyclists, and put these symbols in the right place to make it work.  Are they planning to do that?  Has anyone had a chance to ask?

Ken

[Kevin McGuinness]

The only sensible thing to do is to adopt the measurably safer Idaho Stop Law. Cars and bikes are NOT the same despite the silly same road same rules saying.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

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Regards,

Kevin 734-761-9894

[Ken Clark]

Actually, I'm bordering on agreeing.  I don't agree that they're that different, but given that it's going to take decades to put in the infrastructure that the city has been promising for decades and not delivering on, I wonder if it wouldn't be more reasonable to adopt the Idaho example, with the exception that where the MUTCD symbol is in place, cyclists have to wait for the light.

Technically speaking, it's supposed to be legal for cyclists to do something like the Idaho laws already - if a traffic light is defective - and if it doesn't detect your vehicle, it's defective - you're supposed to do a full stop and then go when it would be safe. 

Maybe something like "Where pavement markings indicate a functioning bicycle-detecting system is in place, a cyclist shall obey a traffic signal as specified in MCL 257.612. Where no such pavement markings are in place, a cyclist shall come to a stop at any non-green traffic signal, and proceed only possible to do so safely."

Notice that that *does not* deviate from state law.  Believe it or not.  MCL 257.612 applies to "vehicular traffic", and in the state of Michigan, bicycles are not vehicles.  Also, MCL 257.606 specifically allows for local jurisdictions to have ordinances different from state law for cyclists:

"(i) Regulating the operation of bicycles and requiring the registration and licensing of bicycles, including the requirement of a registration fee."

Really interestingly, due to a clerical error, in January 2018, local jurisdictions won't have to post signs about differing ordinances for bicycle ordinances.  Currently, you're supposed to put up signs at the entrance of town for significantly different ordinances WRT bike operation.  The amended version going into effect in January 2018 accidentally (I think) drops that.

By far the *best* solution would be for the city to stop encouraging speeding with the signal system, and reprogram things to detect and give proper treatment for cyclists.  Notice that writing the ordinance that way would cover that eventuality.  But in the meantime, it's hard to see a way to redress that discrimination other than to use the Idaho example.

Ken

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From: Kevin McGuinness <kmcg...@comcast.net>
To: wb...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: [WBWC] How Arbor's Adaptive Traffic Signal System Discriminates Against Cyclists - Stadium?

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[Bruce Geffen]

Good morning, Ken.  

I am finally able to read through your observations and find them interesting.  Thank you for posting.  This may be a really simple and stupid question, but a number of years ago, I thought I was told that the traffic light motion detector, or whatever it is called, sends out its signal in a figure eight pattern, and that is why it is difficult for it to recognize cyclists, and get tripped by them.  I think it can be reconfigured.  Is this true?

Bruce Geffen

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Please note that WBWC google groups is an unmoderated forum. It was developed by the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition as a tool for bikers and walkers to discuss key issues and share information. However, all views expressed in this group are not the views or values of WBWC. For more information about WBWC, meetings, and projects, please visit www.wbwc.org
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[Dana Elliott]

Ken,

Your observations are interesting and I agree that it seems problematic. But I think that your proposed solution is also problematic. As a relatively recent entrant into this whole urban bicycling thing, I think that your idea to act differently depending on whether there's a bicycle detector pavement marking is confusing. If the bicyclists are confused and don't know what to do, they are ultimately going to be less predictable to motorists.

For what it's worth, I don't necessarily think that bicycles and cars are the same and should therefore follow the same rules. I think that the Idaho Stop Law makes a lot of sense. But having different rules from one intersection to another is bound to be confusing. 

Dana

[Ken Clark]

Bruce,

Don't know about a figure eight.  I think the problem with single pole loops is just that they're not very sensitive, and there's no particularly sensitive spot.  The field just wraps around the wire, and you have to have a large chunk of metal to create a big enough change in current for the detector to trigger.  Quadrapole loops are better just because the center, double wrapped section, is more sensitive to smaller metal objects. 

Making Vehicle Detectors Work

Making Vehicle Detectors Work How to make a vehicle detector detect your bicycle

Here's a bit of a description, though lining up on the sides of our single-pole loops doesn't work well if at all.

Ken

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From: Bruce Geffen <gef...@gmail.com>
To: wb...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 9:01 AM

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[Ken Clark]

Dana,

Of course, that's one of those things in life, like roundabouts, that's confusing the first time you're there, if you're not paying that much attention, but after that becomes pretty straightforward (pun partially intended!)  Further, also like roundabouts, once you've figured out one, you've pretty much figured out all of them. 

I think of that as the least change necessary to deal with the problem.  If/when the city gets around to living up to its word, we should probably agree to use the system as designed.  The traffic system works best when everyone has the same rules, follows them, and gets treated equally.  But in this case, the city has - through negligence, mostly - set up a system that discriminates for no good reason against one class of legitimate traffic.  It's not like it benefits anyone to have cyclists get extra red lights. 

And would you rather not get so many red lights and/or have them change for you automatically, or have to stop, wait for traffic to clear, then go against the light?  Personally, I'd much rather have the system work right.  Intersections are the most dangerous places to be on a bike (or in or out of any vehicle).

Ken

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From: Dana Elliott <dana.e...@gmail.com>
To: wb...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 10:08 AM

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