Vehicular Bullies and a Failure of Decency: Pittsburgh's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week

Pittsburgh is a nice place to live and a good place to be a bicyclist; in fact, Pittsburgh has received a Bronze Award as a Bike Friendly Community (BFC). This last week was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week of death and crime (but no punishment). For those unfamiliar:

• Monday 7/30, Pittsburgh held a memorial ride and a ghost bike ceremony for James Price, a diabetic bicyclist run over by a driver and left to die alone on the 7500 block of Penn Avenue (fatal hit-and-run).
  
• Tuesday 7/31 the driver of an SUV ran over bicyclist Anthony Green, on the 7700 block of Penn Avenue, and stopped after hitting a phone pole. Mr. Green died of his injuries. (fatal collision)
  
• Wednesday 8/01 the mayor's office urged people to be careful and said an alternate bike route would be developed to get bikes off Penn Avenue.
  
• Wednesday at Church Street and South Braddock in Swissvale, the driver of a truck hit a bicyclist and drove away from the scene. (non-fatal hit-and-run) Update: Intoxicated bicyclist ran a red light and ran into back of a truck. Driver didn't know, continued driving, returned when another motorist alerted him.
  
• Thursday 8/02, a motorcycle police officer was riding Penn Ave. in response to the accidents. He was hit by the driver of an SUV. Uniformed policemen, official vehicle, blinking lights.
  
• Friday 8/03, Driver flees scene after striking 6-year-old child on a bicycle in the 200 block of Alter Street, East Carnegie. (non-fatal hit-and-run)
  
• Saturday 8/04, another cyclist hit by a driver in a hit-and-run, in the 2200 block of Perrysville Avenue in Perry North. (non-fatal hit-and-run)

Bicycle Apartheid and Vehicular Bullies

In the immediate response to the first two deaths on the same road, there was discussion of moving bikes off that street and of establishing alternate bike routes. Two widely different perspectives were communicated:

• Here's the key quote from coverage of the Mayor's statement:

  After two bicyclists died after being struck by cars in recent days, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's office urged bicyclists to consider avoiding a section of Penn Avenue that runs through Point Breeze and Wilkinsburg.
  The mayor's office said bicyclists should consider exiting Penn at at Braddock Avenue and continuing to Meade Street. Pittsburgh has no legal authority to restrict bicycle traffic on Penn, a state-owned roadway.

• An alternate view was expressed by PennDOT:

  "Motorists need to remember that bicyclists are extremely vulnerable," Steve Cowan, safety press officer for PennDOT District 11, said. "They have as much right to the road as you do in your car or in your truck or on your motorcycle."

Bicycle apartheid or removing bicycles "for their own good", is illegal, repressive, and rewards bullying behavior. Smells like "separate but equal".

Policy FAIL: Appeasing Bullies with Segregation for the Victim's Own Good

At a meta-level, this is an issue of responding to bullying. Will appeasing bad actors by segregating their victims help?

In Atlantic Cities, Sarah Goodyear writes about the objectification and diminishment of women, and attempts to protect women for their own good by establishing women-only train cars in India, Mexico, and Japan.

A woman writes that when she boarded a mixed-gender car, a man started crowding her suggestively. When she asked him to step back, he replied, "Why are you here? You should be in the women’s coach." She asserted her right to travel on the mixed coach, and things escalated.

Another man stepped in and got into a fistfight with the first one. The other passengers started yelling at the woman, blaming her for the problem. It was her fault for being there. Simply by being female in a public place, she had caused violence. She needed to go away.

The shaken woman ended her account this way: I’m AGAINST the separate coach for women. It is the most ridiculous solution the government came up with to ensure women travelers’ safety. Segregating men and women will never help anyone develop tolerance and respect for others’ PERSONAL SPACE.

Neither, I would add, will segregating cars and bikes.

Economic Patterns of Bike Friendliness: It's My Fault

I ride in Pittsburgh a few times a week: on the trails, on the streets, wherever. I am in the target demographic. All the new bike infrastructure and the associated bike friendliness have been deployed in places most likely to attract Me: the riverfront trails, the sharrows to gentrified neighborhoods with hipster cachet, coffee shops and cupcake boutiques — it's all about me. It's my fault.

The distribution of bike friendliness has followed the existing patterns of economic success and power, and that (unintentionally but nevertheless) mirrors patterns of race and class.

So our bike friendliness isn't evenly distributed. None of these accidents happened in the white-bread areas that have benefited from the attention of the last decade; they've occurred in the shabbier places that don't make the brochures.

It's a matter of essential decency

This last week shows that as a region (the incidents fall in several municipalities, but all are in the same County) we've lost the sense that there's a human being on that bike/motorcycle/walker, and being in a rush isn't worth killing somebody. There's a philosophical/moral problem at the root of it.

Certainly, there's a need for education, law enforcement, road calming etc - but there's a failure of decency.

Bicycle Dreams: Race Across America (RAAM)

This Wednesday, 7 pm, Southside Works Cinema: Bicycle Dreams, a documentary about the Race Across America (RAAM).

I am really looking forward to this movie, although it has nothing at all to do with any kind of bicycling I've ever been involved with, or will ever be involved with.

Me going to this movie is sort of like a limo chauffeur watching a Nascar race Demolition Derby. These people do incredible things, against all understanding, and it involves bicycles.

Here's my favorite RAAM story (so far): Alberto Blanco is in third place when he experiences Shermer's Neck, which happens when your neck muscles are exhausted from holding your head and helmet at a peculiar angle for a very long time.

His support team used a backpack frame, some straps and coat-hangars, and a lot of Duct Tape to fashion a rig to keep him riding.


More? From Bike-Pgh.org:

Bicycle Dreams, the award-winning feature-length documentary about the Race Across America (RAAM), will premiere in Pittsburgh at the Southside Works Cinema on Wednesday, January 25 at 7 p.m. as part of the film's ongoing nationwide winter tour. The screening is co-sponsored by BikePGH and the OTB Bicycle Café.

The film, which has won numerous awards at film festivals all over the world, "is an up-close look at what RAAM riders go through," says Stephen Auerbach, the director and producer of Bicycle Dreams. "They deal with searing desert heat, agonizing mountain climbs, and endless stretches of open road. And they do it all while battling extreme exhaustion and sleep deprivation. It's a great subject for a film."

Before and after the movie, the OTB Bicycle Café on East Carson Street and will be offering discounts to moviegoers before and after the event. Movie goers can enjoy $3 Snow Melts, $1 Sloppy Joe's and $2 off Great Lakes.

“An astonishing documentary,” declares Pez Cycling. “This film is a ride of many stark contrasts; when it ended I felt both shattered and triumphant. I realized I was experiencing its genius. A central theme of Bicycle Dreams is the profoundly inspiring strength of the human in facing monumental challenge and tragedy. Bicycle Dreams is a race of truth.”

“This film isn’t for those who want to shy away from the tragic side of the human experience, unwilling to risk the cracking of their shell of denial, not willing to risk their coping mechanism,” writes Cycling-Review.com. “Bicycle Dreams captures the human condition like few other films. Bicycle Dreams moves us to break through the barrier of the fear of death. I have seldom found a film that captures this ‘life drama’ as powerfully as does Bicycle Dreams.”

Adds Podium Café, “Bicycle Dreams is the ultimate inner journey. If you thought the life of a cyclist was an internal struggle, wait until you see what Auerbach unearths in this film. Bicycle Dreams is an unprecedented exploration of the subject of the suffering on the bike.”

About.com writes, “As we fall deeper and deeper into Bicycle Dreams, what we witness grows more terrifying, yet more compelling. Auerbach’s masterful direction exposes the raw lessons that drive people to push beyond the limits of human endurance. Revealing what lies at the heart of every impossible human endeavor is what Bicycle Dreams is all about.”

Tickets will be $11 in advance and $15 at the door the night of the show.

2012 Burgh Bike Wish List

There's a great discussion on the Bike-Pgh web forum soliciting 2012 WishLists, here's the link and here's my Wish List:

My demands as such fall completely in the context of WOW it's great here, there's a lot of wonderful things, great people working on the future, my glass is 98% full.

The weakness in my requests, and probably part of the reason that several of these things aren't accomplished, is that they involve regional vision and Pittsburgh is a Balkanized parochial mishmash. (but a very nice one to live in)

I must also recognize that my list consists of things I want OtherPeople to do and pay for. I think that some of these requests fall into the category of paint-and-signs, and some of these requests will bring "network" higher-added-values (I can't bring myself to say synergy). And with that:

• Complete some path from SouthSideWorks to Waterfront. Doesn't have to be the permanent path but damn, open the SC gate for now, etc. If I could only have one thing, this would be it.


• Develop simple, foolproof signage that helps a stranger riding from Ohiopyle to navigate the Boston-McKeesport-Duquesne-Waterfront-SouthSide- AND THEN WHAT? Station Square - Ft.Pitt Bridge OR Hot Metal Bridge - Jail Trail - Dahtahn Streets? The presentation that visitors see in the last 20 miles of riding into Pgh is confusing, non-intuitive, and not visitor-friendly.
  
  • Riding 300 miles from DC to Boston PA? Simple.
  • The last 20 miles to the Point? Impenetrable for a non-Yinzer.
  • Classic old-school Pittsburgh, you have to already know how to get there to be able to get there.


• Opening the trail segment at SouthSideWorks - which looks quite ready.



• Signage/Marking telling cyclists how to get from SouthSide - StationSquare to PointStatePark to NorthSide. There's several ways to do it, but there's no way for an non-Burgher to easily know.


• Complete a signed/marked route from Station Square to Coraopolis and the Montour Trail. Could be: Put sharrows and share-the-road signs on 51 and Neville Island (and done!)


• The southern connection from GAP to Montour Trail needs attention, especially now that the Airport Connector is open. Which I love.


• The Panhandle Trail from Burgettstown to the WV State Line needs to be upgraded.

And in the 3-year timeframe (hey, we all have our fantasies, right?)

• Route/road/trail that extends the PanHandle to the City.


• Trail from Coraopolis to Monaca


• Trailside hostel in Pittsburgh


• Changing stations at a few trailheads like they have in Rockwood


• Bike lockers at a few key locations

Pittsburgh Bicycle du Jour

From Bike Pittsburgh:



"Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."
—H.G. Wells

One of these things is not like the others

One of these things is different from the rest:

• May 29th: Four Cyclists Dead in Eight Weeks
  
• June 3rd: Councilman Dowd holds forum on East Liberty attacks on bicyclists
  
• Friday:No charges for teen driver untangling flip-flops when he killed cyclist
  
• Tuesday: 8 attack bicyclist in North Point Breeze
  
• Wednesday: Mayor celebrates Pittsburgh's Bronze Bike-Friendly award

It's great that politicians are getting positive feedback and press opportunities for improving bicycling in Pittsburgh. It's terrible that the area still equates killing a cyclist with killing a deer.