reminder, Critical Mass tonight

By way of reminder that Durham’s Critical Mass is tonight, check out (and vote for) this photo of the week. It’s from a recent Critical Mass in Budapest, Hungary.

budapest_cm.jpg

hat tip to Dale for the link

As usual, meet at Major, the bronze bull statue downtown, at 5:35pm for the Durham ride.

Group bike ride part of Duke’s Focus the Nation festivities

Focus the Nation is a national effort calling for greater action, education, and awareness of global warming. From their website…

Focus the Nation will culminate January 31st, 2008 in simultaneous educational symposia held across the country. Our intent is to move America beyond fatalism to a determination to face up to this civilizational challenge, the challenge of our generation.

As part of campus-wide FTN activities, Duke University students are organizing a group bike ride. According to organizer Rob Fox, “the bike ride is tied in as a public awareness move for alternative transportation such as bikes.”

The bike ride is just part of a day-long schedule of events — click here for more.

If you want to take part in the ride, meet at Duke’s chapel, which is on West Campus. The ride starts at 10:30AM; it’s a fairly relaxed three mile route:

1. Start at Duke Chapel bus stop on West Campus
2. Go down Chapel Drive until the roundabout
3. Go down Campus Drive until Anderson St., take a right.
4. Continue down Anderson St. until Duke University Rd., take a right
5. Continue down Duke University Rd. until Cameron Blvd., take a right
6. Continue down Cameron Blvd. until Science Drive, take a right
7. Continue down Science Drive until Towerview Rd., take a right
8. Take the sidewalk leading from Wilson Gym towards the Chapel, turn left to get onto B.C. Plaza

holiday cheer in the window display

Courtesy of Dave Wofford, Bull City Arts Collaborative. His Horse and Buggy Press is selling City of Midnight Skies, a collection of poems and drawings by Stephen Gibson. From the HBP website,

Stephen is the co-founder and editor of Mobile City, the literary magazine recently featured on NPR’s Morning Edition. His poems have appeared in publications like Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, the Boston Review, and Gargoyle. Born in Washington DC, where he currently resides, Stephen has also lived in Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco working in a bookstore, at a winery, at a council for higher education, and as a bicycle messenger.

img_1783.jpg

img_1790.jpg

December Critical Mass update

To the 25 or so riders who turned out tonight for Durham’s first Critical Mass post-daylight savings, you’re beautiful. Frank, Mike, Steve, Alison, Dave W., Dave Z., Emily, Brian, Catherine, Dan, Francis, Brian B., Jason, all the new faces, and all the folks I didn’t get to meet — it was awesome to ride with you all in the cold, in the dark. Thanks to Dale who made sure we were well equipped with blinkie lights, compliments of the Durham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission.

See you next month — January 3rd.

For the rest of you; no pictures. Forgot the camera.

Critical Mass in the dark

By way of reminding you that Critical Mass Durham’s December ride will take place next Thursday (5:35pm, meet at Major), I’ll share some artwork I received this week. But before I do, I want to remind everyone that this will be the first CM since daylight savings ended. So, darkness will fall on our ride. But that’s OK; bring lights! Bring more lights than you need. Light up your ride any way you can. I hear there are battery-powered strings of holiday lights you can pick up at local hardware/retail stores… hint, hint.

Onwards…

Mona Caron, an artist in San Francisco, has been riding in Critical Mass for years. Some of her artwork is inspired by the events, and like any strong cycle, her art work circles back and inspires others to ride. I had seen her art before she contacted me this week, sending along what may be her most famous CM-inspired piece.

Critical Mass, Mona Caron

You can dig more of her illustrations and murals on her website, MonaCaron.com. And if you’re looking, hey Mona. Have fun in São Paulo.

The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Cyclists don’t like concrete islands

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

Willetha Barnette, of Durham, rode her bike in traffic for the first time on October 4th. Encouraged by her friend Cynthia Ferebee to join the Critical Mass ride, a monthly group bike ride through the streets of Durham, Barnette said that she enjoyed the freedom to ride on the streets in safe numbers, but that she would not feel comfortable riding alone.

As the group made its way down Anderson St, Barnette said, “it’s uncomfortable. Drivers don’t seem to be used to sharing the road. They seem annoyed, frustrated that we (cyclists) aren’t going as fast as they are. That’s the way it feels to me.” Afterwards, she said it felt “dangerous” to ride down Anderson St., even with new traffic calming measures in place.

Barnette is referring to a series of concrete islands that the City of Durham installed along the hills and curves of Anderson St this summer. The islands were installed in an effort to slow speedy traffic. Anderson St is a wide street, but is lined with houses and parks. It connects Duke University’s west campus with the Lakewood community and Chapel Hill St and is a major traffic artery for daily commuters.

However, since the concrete islands, or “neckdowns” as they are often called, were installed they have raised the ire of many cyclists.

The sentiment of a string of emails to the durhambikeandped listserv in July is, “why did the City put concrete barriers in the bike lane?” While Anderson St doesn’t have designated bike lanes, there are stripes marking the outer limit of the lane which are several feet from the curb and narrow the lanes of traffic significantly. Many cyclists interpret the wide space of pavement between that white line and the curb as a bike lane, feeling that riding in that space and out of the flow of automobile traffic is the safest place to ride.

But mix in artificially placed concrete islands every few hundred feet, and Anderson St. now feels like an obstacle course. When approaching one of the islands, cyclists have the choice of either entering the lane of traffic or navigating a 2 ft wide gap between the island and the curb.

Lawrence Trost, in a letter to the Herald Sun editor dated July 25th, said “the problem with the neck-downs is that because of overhanging tree branches, uneven pavement and debris between the barrier and the curb, a cyclist can’t safely ride on the inside of the barrier. Instead, they force a cyclist to weave unpredictably from the shoulder to the center of the lane each time they pass a barrier.”

Riding predictably and in the lane of traffic is the safest way for cyclists to ride on city streets, but Anderson Street’s “steep hills will prevent most cyclists from taking the lane the entire length of Anderson for fear of being rear-ended,” says Trost.

From a driver’s perspective, the islands are equally confusing. Alexis Richardson, a teacher at Hillside High School, encountered the islands for the first time at night.

“I was taken completely by surprise when I turned on to Anderson Street and I saw some obstruction in the road to my right,” Richardson said. “I squinted and it registered that there was something there, but I had no idea what it was.” When she later learned they were designed to be traffic calming devices, Richardson “was appalled because they seem downright dangerous. I have perfect vision, and I could hardly tell what they were.”

Dale McKeel, Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator, says that “a contractor will be planting landscaping in the neckdown islands this fall” to improve their visibility. He also noted that a consultant will be evaluating the neckdowns, after which the City will decide whether the remove them or how to improve their compatibility with bicyclists.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the concrete islands or other cyclist-unfriendly traffic calming measures with Dale McKeel in the City’s Transportation office at dale.mckeel@durhamnc.gov or 560-4366.

What is Critical Mass?

Durham cyclists give several answers to a simple question…

October Critical Mass — 5:35 on the 4th

One week from today, Critical Mass Durham continues. Just to get you warmed up…

Thanks to Tino for originally spotting the video.

Meet at Major, the bronze bull in the CCB plaza (can we come up with a better name for the CCB plaza since CCB isn’t any longer the owner of the tall building?) at 5:35pm.

Critical success!

Thanks to the 80+ beautiful people who turned out tonight, Durham’s first Critical Mass in years was a success. I don’t know how it was throughout the pack, but in the back, it was calm, courteous, and yet powerful. Thanks to all of you for making it happen.

If any of you have photos or video you would like to see posted here, send it to me. I’m happy to collect the imagery.

Camera-phone video from Jack Warman.


Jack Warman’s flickr photos.

Seth’s inconvenient flat.

Photos by menshi mihas
Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Durham Critical Mass, September 2007

Photo by Eleni Binge
criticalmass_eleni.jpg

The success of our Durham Critical Mass is being noticed as far away as Brazil — see apocalipse motorizado.

–
Critical Mass is a monthly event — we’ll start at Major, the bronze bull sculpture downtown, at 5:35pm on the first Thursday of each month.

HS: Critical Mass planned in Durham

By Monica Chen : The Herald-Sun
mchen@heraldsun.com
Sep 2, 2007 : 8:39 pm ET

DURHAM — Area bicycling enthusiasts are trying to bring Critical Mass, a mass gathering that occurs monthly in other cities, to Durham this week.

The ride will begin at 5:35 p.m. Thursday at the bronze bull downtown at Corcoran and Parrish streets.

Phillip Barron, an organizer of Critical Mass in Durham, said that, unlike events attracting only dedicated Lycra-clad, helmet-wearing cyclists, this event is for the people.

“Our design is for anyone who wants to show up. Tricycles, unicycles, Rollerbladers … We’re happy to have anybody,” Barron said. “The idea behind critical mass is a celebration of human-powered transportation.”

Barron is a columnist for The Herald-Sun and is also the semi-anonymous cycling blogger on Nicomachus.net. He and other cyclists tried to bring the event to Durham in 2001 and 2002, but it never gained traction.

The first Critical Mass was started in San Francisco in 1992, and was intended to draw large numbers of cyclists to celebrate cycling and assert cyclists’ right to the road. The event has resulted in several violent clashes between cyclists and motorists in recent years.

In April, a Critical Mass in San Francisco resulted in $5,300 in damage to a minivan, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. The driver said cyclists surrounded her van and smashed her rear window.

The hostility of some Critical Mass events is well-known among cyclists themselves, some of whom reject the idea of having one in the Triangle at all.

But Barron and participants say Critical Mass will be a peaceful ride in the Bull City.

“I believe Durham CM will be non-confrontational, and the positive will outweigh the negative. I trust we will be car-friendly and not piss off any drivers,” wrote Frank Ferrell, owner of Ninth Street Bakery, on Barron’s blog.

“The stereotype is a bunch of black ski mask anarchist who want to overturn every car they see and set it on fire,” said Barron. “We don’t have that kind of subculture [in Durham].”

Barron hopes that about 50 cyclists will come out to the event on Thursday.

—————-

Never knew I was semi-anonymous…

Next Page →