The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Repaving N.C. not right for Durham

by: Phillip Barron - April 5th, 2007   Filed under: columns 2007 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

David Hartgen’s plan to repave the state of North Carolina might be accepted in some towns, but not in Durham.

Hartgen, a professor at UNC-Charlotte, recently released a study of transportation planning that looks at urban areas around the state. His conclusions simply amount to statistically backed reasons why urban areas should reduce transit spending, divert saved funds to highway construction and road widening, and embrace the private automobile as the keystone species in the ecology of economic progress.

The 200+ page study is available for download from the John Locke Foundation‘s website, and I encourage you to read it for yourself. At the very least, read the 15 page section on Durham because it is rife with interesting tidbits that don’t sit well with his conclusions.

By his own admission, single-occupancy driving declined in Durham between 1990 and 2000, the time period at which his academic gaze is focused. The data show, and so he also admits, that carpooling and use of public transit increased. He notes further that “Durham is the only urbanized area in the state to report declining solo driving times and increased carpooling and transit shares between 1990 and 2000.” You might think, then, that the conclusions he reaches for Charlotte or Raleigh ought to differ from the conclusions he reaches for Durham’s future.

Across the state, however, it’s all the same. Eliminate transit. Widen roads. Pave early and often.

His consistency reveals his incorrigible proposition. Any good social scientist knows that an “incorrigible proposition” is a belief that answers to no one. It is a telling sign that you’ve fallen prey to an incorrigible proposition when your prejudices guide your research in such a way that you always conclude what you previously believed to be true.

“I think that Hartgen essentially approaches the issue with blinders,” says Durham resident Barry Ragin. “He assumes that ‘congestion’ is the problem which needs to be solved.” In the case of Durham, congestion is the problem that just hasn’t happened yet.

Hartgen guesses (but can’t cite any studies to back him up) that a slow economy explains why people ride the bus and carpool in Durham. So if his prognosis is that the personal automobile is the cure for what ails Durham’s economy, then, you might wonder what Hartgen recommends for combatting ozone pollution and bringing the city into compliance with federal standards. That’ll take care of itself, he says, “as vehicles get less emittting.”

But emissions aren’t the only concerns swirling around the monolithic transportation infrastructure Hartgen dreams of. “Hartgen calls for government to spend heavily on more roads without imposing any land-use restrictions — a combination doomed to fail,” says Kevin Davis, senior IT manager at Duke. “If we don’t introduce transit and bike/pedestrian services in combination with smarter growth, we’ll end up as gridlocked as poorly-planned, car-centric cities like Houston and Orlando.”

Instead of car-culture’s monolith, a thriving city is one with a truly multi-modal transit authority. That is, the more options people have for getting around town, the healthier the people of the town and the healthier the economy. Hartgen implies that congestion limits individuals’ freedom by restricting their use of the personal automobile. But a city without buses, without bike lanes, without trains is a city without options. Meaningful options are what people want, and those options don’t always look like more asphalt.

“This report suggests that the state should spend money here on traffic-signal optimization instead of public transit. That’s ridiculous,” says David Mills a Durham resident and Executive Director of the Common Sense Foundation. “Durham needs visionary leadership to make public transit viable, not backward studies such as this one.”

Durham’s residents have spoken loud and clear on this issue. In response to the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s current plan to widen Alston Avenue, which would turn it from a neighborhood street into a mini-freeway, citizens and government representatives expressed a united voice to say that Durham values its pedestrians being able to cross streets safely.

Whether DOT will side with the John Locke Foundation or Durham residents remains to be seen, but the question remains for each of us to consider.

Do roads exist to serve people or cars?

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Taking on toxins is worth it

by: Phillip Barron - March 1st, 2007   Filed under: columns 2007 Add Comment

Some winter mornings, while riding in Cornwallis Road’s new bike lanes, I can smell Counter Culture Coffee roasting those fairly traded coffee beans two or more miles to the south. The same still air that pools summertime ozone over the region’s largest employment hub wafts the unique smell of coffee beans expanding in heat, releasing their caffeinated oils. Whenever I ride through one of those invisible, aromatic clouds, I breathe deeply.

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by Martin Reis

Problem is, I can also smell the exhaust from the surrounding cars at every intersection.

No doubt, on-road cyclists are more vulnerable to their environments than drivers. It’s not just that we’re naked next to multi-ton hunks of steel hurtling past us (in either direction) at deadly speeds and proximities too close for comfort, but we’re also exposed to the gases of the landscape. Any winter bike commuter has observed that cold air appears to keep exhaust fumes closer to the ground. Which means that while waiting at each red light, we’re treated to a special dose of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, complete with that lovely smell (except for those biodiesel converts; then we’re tricked into thinking someone is cooking up French fries nearby).

Summertime cyclists know to check the ozone forecast just like the weather forecast. Summer ozone concentrations in NC can reach toxic levels, and athletes are sometimes advised not to engage in rigorous cardiovascular activity on those days.

So, I started wondering whether biking is actually an unhealthy thing to do. I mean, coasting up to each intersection, it sure feels like I’m breathing in more car exhaust than when I’m a passenger in a car. So who better to ask than public health specialists?

Doctoral students at UNC’s School of Public Health and scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences help tackle these questions — Do cyclists have any reason to worry about what we’re breathing in on our (supposedly healthy) ways to work? And if so, which is the greater health risk — the colorless, odorless ozone in the summer or the pungent, cloudy exhaust fumes in the winter?

Dave Love says that “cycling is a balance of risks.” Love, a PhD candidate in UNC’s School of Public Health, says that “the risk of getting into an accident is probably the most serious risk a cyclist faces. But lets say you are a careful biker, then another one to consider is your concern about taking deep breaths of exhaust during exercise. You are breathing more deeply and faster than drivers, so you are getting exposed to more exhaust and ozone. But, to look on the bright side, our urban air quality is probably better than 150 years ago!”

While a cyclist might be breathing in more noxious gases than automobile drivers, it’s worth pointing out that a car doesn’t protect drivers from those gases. Since a car’s air-conditioning and heating intake filters cannot filter out volatile organic compounds like benzene, drivers are exposed to the same gases as cyclists. At best, automobiles’ ventilation systems only disguise the smell of roadways by filtering the air through activated charcoal filters.

NIEHS scientist and avid cyclist Jerry Phelps says that, from his experience, the amount of air pollution from car exhaust probably doesn’t change from one season to the next. It’s more visible in the winter because the air is colder and drier. The water vapor mixed in with car exhaust is what we’re able to see leaking from the tailpipe. The same amount of exhaust hangs near the ground behind cars in the summer too, but since humidity levels are generally higher in the summer months, we just can’t see it.

Whether there’s more exhaust in the winter or not, there’s still the question of what those gases are doing to our lungs. “It’s likely that the health benefits of increased physical activity are greater than the risks incurred because of increased exposure to air pollution,” says Audrey de Nazelle, also a doctoral student in UNC’s School Of Public Health. “But, if you have respiratory problems to start out with, then it’s another story.”

People with asthma are much more sensitive to particulate matter and toxic gases, which is why asthma sufferers are warned about the ozone levels in the summer.

Stephanie J. London, M.D., a senior investigator in the epidemiology branch and laboratory of respiratory biology at NIEHS agrees with Nazelle. “It’s hard to say whether ozone or exhaust fumes are worse since both are basically bad. And even though you would probably breathe more ozone riding your bike than traveling in a car, the exercise will probably outweigh the negative effects.”

Reading Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, you learn two things. First, Armstrong is a lucky guy. The lottery of life granted him the abnormal lung capacity and the muscular distribution to become a world-class athlete. And second, the body’s ability to heal itself is the most powerful, restorative advantage we have when fighting disease. Armstrong couldn’t have beaten testicular cancer without chemotherapy, but neither could he have recovered from the brutalized depths of chemotherapy without a resilient, toned body. The medical community surrounding Armstrong agrees that he recovered from cancer as well as he did because he is an athlete.

Exercise enhances the body’s ability to repair itself. Cardiovascular activity strengthens the immune system, and since both drivers and cyclists are exposed to the same toxins, the cyclists may come out better in the long run. In short, people who exercise have bodies that are better able to process the toxins we all take in.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Ice puts focus on need for different kind of cities

by: Phillip Barron - February 8th, 2007   Filed under: columns 2007 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

DURHAM — Cafeteria conversation at work on January 31st revolved around the predicted ice storm. Bread, milk, and bottled water would be cleared off grocery store shelves by the time we left work that evening we all joked. We also guessed that the next day’s news would be littered with images of cars skidding off the road.

It’s not that Southerners can’t drive in wintery conditions. Neither can the local transplants from New England or the midwest. No one can drive on ice.

And since no one can drive on ice, the answer is not to drive at all.

What we can do to prepare for the next ice storm is break away from our dependence on the automobile. The problem with giving up the car is that our communities are designed so that driving is necessary. Walking to the store is often not an option.

Since the 1950s, residential development in this country has revolved around the personal automobile. Because cars enable us to drive farther, our communities have been spreading. Look at growth patterns for any major city in the US for the past forty years, and you’ll see a consistent pattern. Unless locked by geographic features (like Pittsburgh’s rivers) or municipal decisions (like Portland, Oregon’s growth belt), cities grow at the periphery. They expand. And Durham is no exception.

So, no one lives around the corner from the corner store anymore, and very few of us live around the corner from work.

The outskirts of town is where new neighborhoods go up. But while residential development sprawls, employment hubs like downtowns, universities, government buildings, and dense commercial districts remain the daily destinations for hundreds of thousands of drivers Triangle-wide. Research Triangle Park is the archetypal employment center — zoned for businesses only, every single one of the nearly 40,000 employees has to get into and out of RTP every week day. (Lest anyone thinks I’m pointing the finger at others, I’m one of those 40,000 traveling into RTP every day.)

The Triangle Transit Authority’s buses serve the park, and DOT recently striped bike lanes on the freshly repaved Cornwallis Rd. But in an ice storm, neither buses nor bikes handle the roads any better than cars.

This growth at the periphery mindset is what drives big-box retail. Giant grocery stores and retail chains anchor parking lots larger than football fields, just waiting for us to drive to them. In fact, in some parking lots you get the feeling that you’re out of place if you’re not in a car. Try walking or riding your bike to Southpoint Mall. It’s clear the expectation is that we drive to the store.

Not only do giant retail chains water down the flavor of business by making the suburbs of any town indistinguishable from any other (what Parisians are currently calling “banalization”), national chains drive locally owned hardware stores, fruit stands, and grocery co-ops out of business. And this means that our development patterns determine for us our transportation patterns — car dependent and subject to the weather.

Why can’t Durham lead the effort to offer up another development model?

Ice is not the only reason to think about creating different kinds of cities. Even OPEC, the cartel of the largest oil exporting countries, finally admits that “peak oil” — the term reserved for the economic aftermath of a world in which oil production reaches a peak and then rapidly declines — could happen in the next decade.

Crippling ice storms give us a glimpse at what life after peak oil may look like if we don’t start designing transportation around something other than the automobile. While many communities around the country are already making plans for the peak oil crisis, the Triangle is back to ground-zero designing a regional rail system.

Of course, anyone who’s seen the movie The Ice Storm knows that not even trains can move safely through the frozen glaze, so regional rail is not the answer. But as long as we look for the one thing to deliver us from auto-topia, our future planning will be as stalled as a Camaro on I-40 in an ice storm. Regional rail is part of the answer; so is a more efficient bus network. So is mixed-use, high-density residential development in our existing employment hubs. So is a sidewalk and crosswalk infrastructure that accommodates wheelchairs and strollers.

Each city and county has a development review board, which can be more than just a rubber stamp on developer-submitted plans. Durham County Commissioner Becky Heron knows that, and that’s why she’s one of Durham’s best advocates for smart development.

In addition to being ranked among the “Best Places to Live” and “Best Places to do Business,” Durham’s most recent honor is a spot among Forbes Magazine’s December 2006 list of the top ten “Smartest Cities”. If we’re so smart, then we can figure out how to make Durham a more walkable community.

Walkable communities are safer communities. Whether a community is safe isn’t always a measure of crime — a safe Durham is one where you can cross Roxboro Street without fearing for your life. A safe Durham is one where Duke Street and Gregson Street are no longer freeways running through the middle of neighborhoods.

A safe community is one in which getting to the store, running errands, caring for an elderly friend or parent, or getting to work isn’t made impossible by the weather.

A walkable community is one in which during Triangle-wide ice storms, we can get to the food, firewood, or friendship we need to endure it.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Take time to unplug, be outside and watch the sunset

by: Phillip Barron - January 4th, 2007   Filed under: columns 2007 Add Comment

DURHAM — There was a year when I watched the sunset almost every evening.

Across the street from the school I was attending at the time began a neighborhood of houses that had been built in the 1950s. These streets and dwellings brought unprecedented order to the post-war town, carving their grid-like stamp into Southern countryside. The streets parallel to the main road separating the campus from the neighborhood ran only four or five deep, and the last street had houses on only one side. The far side of the street faced an open pasture where a farmer kept cattle.

The thin drainage ditch and barbed-wire fence formed an artificial boundary between the built environment and the natural, but it felt like the edge of the world each evening I sat there. Facing the trees on the far side of the pasture, you are facing due west.

I rode my bike to the same spot on that road each evening. After eating in the dining hall and before buckling down with books for the night, I rode through the twilit streets. I made no secret of this cyclical ritual, so occasionally friends rode with me. Tommy once tried to dance with the cows that were dining alongside the fence. Jennifer sat with me one evening before leaving for Honduras. Kimberly shared the sunset with me a few times years before she served and died in Iraq. Leighton, Joey, Josh, and Cathy each joined me other evenings. But mostly I sat there on the eastern side of the drainage culvert, bike on its side next to me, alone. And I sat there to make a daily point of being outdoors.

In the process of describing the physics of sunset, Christopher Dewdney, in his meditation on all things nocturnal Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark, tells of a group of friends, nature lovers, peace seekers, poets, and fellow scholars who gathers to watch the sunset each evening in Toronto. And although he explains both the science and mystery of that planetary spectacle, he talks too about the healthy reasons he looks west with friends each night.

Durham is a green city. It’s flush with trees, both deciduous and evergreen alike. Trees that astound you with color, like the fall fashion show on Wrightwood Ave, or with grandeur, like that amazing hundreds of years old oak on old Erwin Rd between Dry Creek Rd. and Mt. Moriah. Even as we lose acres of forest each year to development, Durham is still a lush environment. All of which mean that Durham is a great city in which to be outdoors.

Bike commuters know that an outdoors activity after work brings a different perspective to daily life. So do the folks who walk the tracks at Shepard Middle School and Durham School of the Arts, as well as members of Duke’s employees’ Live for Life running and walking clubs who walk and run the gravel path around Duke’s east campus each week. The city’s open spaces and trails, from Whippoorwill Park to the New Hope Bottomlands Trail, are designed just for a morning or evening stroll, ride, or skate.

As we come out of the sickly-saturated consumerism of the holiday season, the empty promises of the cell phone and the plasma TV may catch up with you – especially around the time the first credit card bill comes in. These empty promises have to do with buying into the ideas that we need to surround ourselves with electronic stimuli and that everything we need is indoors. But the iPod generation needs to know there’s a life without electronic media.

A recent Scientific American reported that women who worked out regularly had about half the risk of colds as those who did not exercise. Public health officials agree that being outside in sunlight for 45 minutes a day contributes to your health. It strengthens your immune system and is the most efficient way for your body to generate the Vitamin D needed for health.

But absorbing healthy Vitamin D is not the only reason to step out of doors. Since most people spend most of their time indoors, the experience of outdoor environments is a refreshing transition. It does as much for your mental health as exercise does for your body.

How would our lives be different if we each found time each day to unplug and adopt a low-tech outdoors habit like walking around the neighborhood? Why not take an evening bike ride with a friend?

As for me, I’m still looking for a place in Durham to watch the sunset.

–
Durham sunset pictures found on Flickr: LaDeeDah Lu, tsmyther, bikinisleepshirt, and elander

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Durham roads may get even better for bicyclists

by: Phillip Barron - December 7th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

If a sport is defined by the rules that compose a game, then I don’t think of cycling as a sport. Sure, there are sporting events that are based on riding bicycles, from homegrown mountain bike races on the Cane Creek circuit to the NORBA Nationals and even the Olympics. Some people say that multi-stage road races like the Tour de France are the purest expression of cycling’s ethos. Those lean trained bodies, the glossy frames with glittering flawless componentry, the self-organization and strategy of the peloton for some add up to what cycling is all about.

Although dominant in advertising, racing bikes and the racing lifestyle represent one of the smallest of all subsets of the world’s cycling community. Not only are bicycles most commonly used for transportation, according to a recent report of the Worldwatch Institute, bicycles are also the most efficient vehicles. So I say that to find the essence of cycling you need only to look to the streets of any metropolitan area, mostly in the mornings and evenings, as the working class pedals to work.

Whether from looking to save the city some money on transportation planning or some carbon monoxide emissions, City Council and County Commissioners voted last month to give Durham’s bike commuters a boost.

Not very often does a city get to rethink its transportation planning through the eyes of a cyclist. But Brian Bergeler spent the better part of 2006 doing just that. He and the other experts at Greenways, Inc. were contracted by Durham to take a comprehensive look at Durham’s cycling infrastructure – from off-road greenways like the American Tobacco Trail to wide outer lanes and bike lanes – and to make recommendations on what Durham can do better.

Greenway, Inc’s results were packaged into the Durham Comprehensive Bicycle Transportation Plan, which both the City and County adopted last month.

The Bike Plan is both an audit of existing bike facilities as well as a compilation of recommendations for what Durham can do next, prioritized from the simplest to the most luxurious. Bergeler says that the “paint project” ideas are the most attractive to him. Without laying any new pavement, Durham could “double or even triple (with full implementation) its existing on-street bicycle network.” For example, by repainting sections of Cornwallis Rd., Fayetteville St., Roxboro Rd. and Broad St., Durham could quickly expand its bike-lane network without breaking the bank.

Dan Clever, a bike commuter and member of Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, echoes Bergeler’s enthusiasm. “Phase One,” says Clever, “identifies several roads in the city that can easily accommodate bike lanes or signed routes. Implementation of Phase One would link most of Durham’s key destinations.”

“The plan is an invaluable guide towards expanding the viable transportation options for residents and visitors deciding how to get around in the Bull City,” says Alan Dippy, also a member of the citizen board BPAC. “It’s an impressive document, in scope and detail, and I think what makes it so exciting is its potential to connect people on bicycles with each other and with all the great things Durham has to offer.”

Bergeler explains that the Bike Plan’s scope extends beyond paving and (re)striping roads “to encouraging companies to provide showers and lockers to bicycle commuters, to appropriately enforcing the rules of the road on [sic] motorists who endanger the lives of cyclists.”

Now that both the City Council and the County Commissioners have endorsed the plan, Durham transportation planning departments (both for the City and Metropolitan Planning Organization) have a map, which if followed, could lead to a more bike-friendly Durham.

Dippy adds “when one looks at all the positive changes and growth Durham is experiencing, the adoption of the Bike Plan is an important, timely and proactive step towards insuring safer roadways for those who opt to leave the car at home.” If you’d like to learn more about the Bike Plan, feel free to attend the next BPAC meeting.

BPAC meets on the third Thursday of every month at 7pm in City Hall.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Make some idle time to relearn lost art of exploring

by: Phillip Barron - November 2nd, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006 Add Comment

You see more from a bicycle than you do from a car. You see even more from a balloon-tire Schwinn than you do from a carbon fiber Pinarello.

That’s why author John Stilgoe, in Outside Lies Magic, says to choose the cruiser.

“Bicycle to the store,” he says, “then ride down the alley toward the railroad tracks, bump across the uneven bricks by the loading dock grown up in thistle and chicory, pedal harder uphill toward the Victorian houses converted into funeral homes, make a quick circuit of the school yard, coast downhill…, tail the city bus for a mile or two, swoop through a multilevel parking garage, glide past the firehouse back door, slow down and catch your reflection in the plate-glass windows.”

Where’s Stilgoe taking us? Nowhere in particular; and that’s the point of exploring.

You know, if only intuitively, what he’s talking about. There’s something nice about packing a lunch and riding off in no particular direction in search only of finding something new. It’s not destination riding, it’s not about exercise, it’s about wandering. Exploring by bike is a way of reevaluating our everyday environment, the setting we’re always in, and discovering mysterious and fascinating parts of our community we overlook.

With the right mindset, two lost arts can come together on a bicycle.

First is the lost art of appreciating something for its own sake. There’s not a whole lot of unstructured time in our daily lives. I think there’s not enough.

In response to the hurried lifestyle of 1920s Oxford, England, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote an essay extolling the virtues of idleness. He reminds us that work, or moving stuff around, is not the point of life. If it were the point, then we might think that anything that doesn’t help us make more money, improve our test scores, or get a nicer house is not worth doing.

Oh, wait. There are a lot of us who really believe that. If you’re one of them, then you’ve fallen victim to what Russell calls “the cult of efficiency.” Valuing only time spent productively can lead us to believe that our lifestyles dictate a maddening pace.

Don’t worry, there’s a way out. There’s a way to reclaim some of that time, a way to set your own pace.

Some things are worth doing just for the sake of doing them. One of those things worth doing all by itself is exploring. The art of exploring is the second lost art.

Exploring is just looking closely at the things you pass every day and pausing to consider their meaning. Exploring is simple, and it’s accessible to all of us.

Exploring, in this way, is not about being the first to climb a mountain or photograph a waterfall. Jill Homer, a cyclist and journalist in Juneau, Alaska, says “my opinion about exploration has always been that if I’ve never been there, it’s new to me.” And that’s the kind of exploring we all can do.

Back in Durham, neighbor John Schelp says he likes to explore the American Tobacco Trail.

“The ATT is a wonderful place to see the seasons change,” says Schelp. “The crisp fall air brings all sorts of new colors along the length of the trail, and it’s neat to see the changes in the little gardens. These quiet urban spots remind me of my time in Congo and China, where vegetable gardens stretch to the edges of public paths or little foot bridges reach over ditches.”

As Schelp hints, part of exploring is noticing what’s there. The other part is making a connection with what you find.

The joy of exploring is in not knowing what you’ll find. Have you ridden the alleyways of Durham’s downtown neighborhoods? Do you know Durham’s many murals? Most are painted on the sides of buildings downtown and along Fayetteville St. Have you found the Eno Quarry? To the few who know it, it’s a nice swimming hole. Do you know where there’s a good spot to watch the sunset? Do you know which marching band practices on the field behind CC Spaulding Elementary School?

There’s no map that will point you toward these Durham treasures. But, they’re examples of what you might find if you’re out exploring. You’re not likely to find them if you’re in a car, because most of the time they lie beyond where cars can go.

If you try exploring for yourself, leave the heart rate monitor and spandex at home. Don’t run any errands. Just ride. See where you end up. And if you find anything interesting, let me know.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Drivers must always be attentive and responsible

by: Phillip Barron - October 5th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

DURHAM — A Herald Sun article this past week described a hit-and-run by saying, “a recent Duke University graduate was critically injured when she was hit by a car late Friday on South LaSalle Street near McQueen Drive, according to police. The vehicle left the scene without stopping, police said.”

One from a few months ago, describing an altogether different incident, says that “two women walking next to Kingston Drive were injured when a teenage driver left the road and hit them Friday afternoon.” A later article concerning the same incident says that “a motorist ran off a road and struck two pedestrians Friday afternoon.”

There’s an important difference between saying that a pedestrian was hit by a car and saying that a driver ran off the road and struck pedestrians.

One way describes a world where accidents are the products of inanimate objects attacking innocent people. The other way makes it clear that those dangerous, inanimate objects are themselves driven by people too.

The language we use to describe accidents matters. If we go through life describing all accidents as incidents when inanimate objects unexplainably hurt people, then the world becomes a much scarier place. This careless use of language can contribute to the fear mongering of which the media is perpetually accused. The world described in this way is scarier, in part, because there is no responsibility and, therefore, no solution to the problems.

No one seriously defends the claim that we’re not responsible for anything we do unintentionally. And so it goes with driving. Just because there are circumstances beyond our control doesn’t mean we’re absolved from all responsibility.

But accidents happen, you say. Not every accident is someone’s fault, you’re thinking. And I agree. But as drivers, if we think that just because our vehicles weigh so much and extend so far beyond our reach that we aren’t responsible for what happens as a result of our driving, then we need to rethink what it means to drive a car.

Whether or not a driver involved in an accident is held legally responsible, it’s still the case that someone was driving the car when the accident happened. To tell the story without the driver is to dehumanize the incident.

Why take the human element out of the narrative? If no one is responsible, then who’s driving the cars?

If we take the human out of the vehicle, then we take responsibility away from the driver. And if we habitually describe these incidents with no one responsible, then we start thinking of accidents as inevitable.

We don’t usually choose to have accidents, but we all make bad choices that make accidents more likely. If we choose to speed, then we’re choosing to make our streets more dangerous for ourselves and for cyclists and pedestrians. Speeding, like driving drunk — or driving while on the cell phone, or while adjusting the radio, or while putting on makeup, or while changing clothes, or while eating — affects our ability to avoid accidents. And while drivers of Escalades, Expeditions, and Tahoes have at least an illusion of security, those of us on two wheels don’t have even that.

In order to ride bicycles safely in traffic, cyclists need to recognize that the laws of physics are immutable. Just because a 3-ton vehicle shouldn’t be passing through the crosswalk, much less at 45 mph, doesn’t mean it’s able to stop in a matter of feet. Just because a bus shouldn’t be driving in the bike lane doesn’t mean that it’s going to move out of your way.

Only if we’re all responsible for our vehicles is there a solution. More attentive driving, less electronic media distracting drivers, less alcohol intoxicating drivers, more driver (and cyclist and pedestrian) education are all changes that could make a difference in a world where drivers are responsible for their vehicles. These changes wouldn’t make any difference in a world where cars simply careen out of control and strike pedestrians and cyclists.

I challenge the media to describe incidents more accurately. I also challenge cyclists, pedestrians, and especially drivers to take more responsibility for our vehicles.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Doping scandals spoiling the spirit of sports

by: Phillip Barron - September 7th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

Allegations that cyclists are doping are so common that anyone accused is guilty until proven innocent. And that’s taking its toll on the sport. The cover of the October Bicycling, arguably the sport’s leading monthly, makes plain why it matters – whether Floyd Landis doped or didn’t, “either way, we lose.”

Did Landis pull off one of the greatest accomplishments in cycling’s history? The night before stage 17 of this year’s Tour de France, Floyd Landis told his wife he was going to “go out in the morning and do something big.” He attacked – broke away from his competitors, setting his own maniacal pace — so early in the day that most thought he had no chance of following through. When you attack like he did you ride on your own, without the wind-breaking assistance of the peloton or even your own team. He went on to win stage 17, setting himself up to win the Tour.

Or, did he pull off an incredible fraud? A few days after being crowned champion of the Tour, a blood sample tested positive for irregularities – an unnaturally high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone.

There are good reasons to doubt that he cheated. Testosterone is an anabolic steroid: a muscle-builder. It’s the choice of weight lifters or sprinters, not endurance athletes. Testosterone helps an athlete only cumulatively. Over time, it helps an athlete amass muscle – more quickly, yes, but it’s not an instant effect. If Landis was using synthetic testosterone for a performance boost, traces of it would have shown up prior to stage 17.

Besides, testosterone is produced naturally by the body and the human body is complex in ways that continue to baffle scientists. In addition to controlling muscle-growth, testosterone regulates bone density. A few days into the Tour, Landis announced he was suffering necrosis of the hip and was scheduled for hip surgery immediately following the Tour.

Human performance, at the level of a professional athlete, is a matter of refined efficiency. Do we know that the human body, especially one tuned as efficiently as Landis’ and suffering a degenerative bone disease, could not independently and naturally slow its production of epistestosterone and accelerate its production of testosterone as a matter of survival? Landis may be right; he may not be able to give a good explanation of his blood sample.

If he successfully defends himself, Landis may recover his place on a pro-team and maybe even his reputation. He may keep his title to the TdF, but the damage seems to be done. The culture of drug-use in sports is so pervasive (or at least apparently so) that we’re ready to believe the accused are guilty before all the evidence is in and without understanding the contested accuracy of the blood testing techniques.

About the only thing going for cycling’s continuing dope-scandal plague is that it’s not just cycling’s problem. The U.S. Congress held special hearings in 2005 to investigate alleged drug use in Major League Baseball and is currently holding similar hearings investigating steroid use in the National Football League. Earlier this summer, Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin, international level track athletes, each failed doping tests and subsequently lost their multi-million dollar contracts with Nike.

The real problem is that while the margin between winning and losing is usually small on the clock, it’s much bigger in the paycheck.

Athletes competing at the elite professional level live or die by the fractions of seconds between finishes. Taking any amount of drugs won’t make me ride as fast as Landis, but it might give someone who is already training as hard as Landis the boost he needs to edge out a competitor. And there’s his incentive.

The difference in lifestyle between a first place finisher and a fifth place finisher is more exaggerated than the differing times it takes them to cross the finish line. Corporate money in sports is corrupting sport itself. And it’s the willingness to be bought, that most capitalist of virtues, that infects the players and brings the gods of physical performance down to our very human level.

Don’t believe me? Tell me (and without Googling it) who finished second to Lance in each of his seven Tour de France wins. Or, this year, who stood in the third place spot on the podium while Landis stood on top? We don’t know because OLN, Nike, Campagnolo, Phonak, Gerolsteiner, and everyone else who has money in sports reward one spot: the top of the podium.

What’s the answer to doping in sports? I don’t know… I don’t have an answer, but I think a worthy pursuit in life is to ask questions the answers to which cannot be Googled. It’s often useful just to articulate the problem, and that may be all we can do.

The growing popularity of single-speed rallies (Happy Fun Racing hosts one locally each year) and alleycats (five in the Triangle area so far in 2006) speaks to the growing uneasiness with the one-winner-one-reward paradigm. Weekend alleycats have traditional race elements, as does the Single Speed World Championship, but their rewards range from tattoos to messenger bags and bike parts, which are often distributed more democratically. They’re often more anti-race, and more fun.

The monthly Tuesday night Cruiser Ride – Carrboro’s social ride praising the virtues of low-tech and slow pace – is no race at all. It’s a creative reminder that riding a bike is supposed to be fun.

Good news — Yesterday, Marion Jones was cleared of doping allegations when her “B” sample tested negative. Let’s see if Nike treats her a little more favorably.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Can mountain bikers be green?

by: Phillip Barron - July 27th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006 Add Comment

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

DURHAM — Many mountain bikers pick up the sport as another way to spend time in the woods. But not all trails let an environmentally conscious rider enjoy the ride.

Improperly built trails soon develop deep ruts in the ground and can damage sensitive vegetation, especially if those trails are carved through low-lying areas that stay wet. Perhaps worse are the poorly constructed stunt zones where deep holes are dug or wooden structures are built hastily. If built of untreated lumber, these structures quickly rot becoming both neighborhood blight and safety hazards.

Trails like these exist in the Triangle, though they are usually pirated trails with quasi-legal status. If you ride much in the area, you know which ones I’m talking about.

It doesn’t have to be this way; mountain biking and environmental protection go hand in hand. Since the so-called Park City Agreement in 1994 with the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA), the Sierra Club has recognized mountain biking as a positive, worthwhile outdoor activity. Raleigh resident Bill Camp sums it up best — “mountain biking is a good way for families to spend time together participating in a healthy activity together.”

Building environmentally sustainable mountain bike trails is not only possible; through organized education efforts, it’s quickly become preferable. Car-manufacturer Subaru and IMBA co-sponsor two Trail Care Crew teams who annually travel the country preaching the gospel of sustainable trails. Their Trailbuilding Schools have taught more than 150,000 people how to build trails right the first time so that they’ll last forever.

Jill Van Winkle and Chris Bernhardt, IMBA’s east coast Trail Care Crew visited the Triangle in March 2005. The class was packed with volunteers, land managers, and park officials all hungry to learn how to build trails that will withstand the impact of the growing sport. At the end of the weekend, Bernhardt said he was impressed by the local commitment to sustainable trail-building, specifically Durham’s Little River Regional Park’s singletrack.

Well-built trails draw people to them. The more fat tires turn out on trails, more people will be there to protect wooded areas from development. Unsustainable development, here in the Southeast, is the single largest earth-scarring activity. Our fetish for new strip-malls anchored by big-box retail chains has meant the demise of many favorite homegrown trail systems.

The leadership of the Triangle Off Road Cyclists (TORC) is keenly aware that sprawl threatens access to local trials. “That’s one of the reasons TORC was formed,” says Camp, who is president of the advocacy group. Through fun events like last month’s Fat Tire Festival, Camp hopes to “raise awareness of our trails advocacy and volunteer efforts to build and maintain legal singletrack in the Triangle area.”

TORC has its work cut out. Right now, sights are set on new trails – conceived through memoranda of understanding with the landowners and built by volunteers — from northern Wake County down to Chatham County. Thanks to TORC’s lobbying efforts, developers’ masterplans already include singletrack options at the city of Raleigh’s new Forest Ridge park as well as the new park to be developed after the North Wake Landfill closes.

The Briar Chapel subdivision in northern Chatham County is a model for developer/volunteer collaboration. By the time the first houses in the new subdivision go up for sale, the publicly accessible singletrack TORC is building also should be open for business.

In local and regional media outlets, TORC has received flattering media attention for its efforts to preserve established trail systems and grow new ones in a region of North Carolina where sprawl is the norm.

And mountain bikers are generally good stewards of the land. I know of no other sport (organized or otherwise) where the participants take on lobbying for, building, and maintaining their own recreational outlets with the same fervor and tenacity as mountain bikers. Since its inception in 1988, IMBA’s members have registered more than 1 million volunteer hours of trail work. Heck, every land manager I’ve ever met says that mountain bikers out-do all other volunteers when it comes to time spent with a McLeod rake or Pulaski in hand.

Park officials at Beaverdam State Park, Lake Crabtree County Park, and Harris Lake county Park say that on occasion mountain bikers have broken the rules and ridden closed trails but that it hasn’t become a problem. Cyclists respect the trails, says Drew Cade, Park Manager at Lake Crabtree.

Even when a vocal minority of environmentalists try to claim that mountain bikers are harmful to the trails, science is on the side of the cyclists. IMBA has gathered on its website an impressive array of independent scientific studies of the environmental effects of mountain biking, all of which reach the conclusion that mountain biking makes no more of an impact on the natural environment than hiking, horseback riding, or other recreational trail activities.

With the right priorities, including a TORC membership card in your pocket, you can ride local trails knowing that you’re doing it in the greenest way.

Now, if only we could grow our greenway and bike-lane infrastructure at the same pace, we could ride to trail-head and leave the car behind. But that’s another story.

 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Some athletes lose sight of sportsmanship of biking

by: Phillip Barron - July 13th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso lost their bids for the yellow jersey to Operation Puerta before this year’s Tour de France even began.

Operation Puerta isn’t a new contender for victory; it’s a six-month doping investigation and arguably the most significant doping scandal of bicycle racing. Thanks to OP, thirteen professional riders were kicked out of the race and more than forty others are involved in a continuing investigation.

Around the same time Operation Puerta’s news was breaking, Lance Armstrong was wrapping up his latest victory. He settled a libel suit with a British newspaper that had accused him of using banned drugs to speed his recovery from cancer and boost him to a Tour de France victory in 1999.

What’s at issue when cyclists are accused of doping is whether or not professional athletes have cheated. The Tour de France is a stage race, spanning nearly a month with riders covering up to 130 miles per day with brutal climbing stages in the Alps and Pyrenees. Since stage races in cycling are tests of endurance and aerobic strength, cheating methods revolve around ways to increase the rider’s aerobic efficiency.

Did Lance use EPO? Did Jan Ulrich freeze his own blood for a transfusion at a later time? What would it matter if they did? More plainly, what’s wrong with doping anyway?

The superficial answer is that doping is against the rules. Every professional sport has a governing body that establishes the rules of the sport and the conditions under which athletes may compete. Doping is breaking the rules of the game. In a sense, it’s like goaltending in basketball or slide-tackling in soccer.

But goaltending or slide-tackling can happen by accident, whereas doping is intentional. That’s why the penalty for doping is more serious than giving the other team a foul shot or a free kick.

Doping is rule-breaking that you try desperately and secretly to get away with. An athlete caught doping will usually have gone to elaborate lengths to hide it.

In other words, doping is cheating.

For a more meaningful answer to the question what’s wrong with doping, we have to see sport in a more meaningful context. And to do this, we turn to the arbiters of meaning – philosophers.

In The Philosophical Athlete, Heather Reid says that all sports have moments of challenge — “times when an athlete finds him- or herself alone, faced with a particular task and the very real possibilities of success or failure.”

It is these moments of challenge that make sport meaningful. Whether or not you can rise to the challenge – whether the challenge is to make the free throw, outrun a defender, or beat the current best time in a bicycle race — is a matter of discipline and skill. Whether you can do so while respecting your opponents is a matter of personal integrity.

An athlete who dopes disrespects him or herself as well as his/her competitors, officials, and fans.

Without opponents there wouldn’t be any competitive sports. Using drugs or blood transfusions to gain an advantage over your competitors is to disrespect your competitors by ignoring the rules of game. Without a competitor, there is no opportunity to win. Opponents are necessary to play the game or race the race. So, respect for your competitors is what fairness in sport is based on.

Cheating (or doping) enters the picture when the desire to win the game supplants the desire to be an athlete who is worthy of winning.

Pop culture’s values may be different. On reality TV or in a culture of on-demand instant gratification, cheating is more a strategy to get ahead of your competitor than the forbidden alternative. Indeed, in these nihilistic venues getting caught, rather than cheating, is the sign of weakness.

But the concepts of respect and fairness, archaic as they may sound to some, are still what sport is based on. Training is a performance enhancing activity done in earnest. Preparing for a race, there is no substitute (physically or morally) for practice. If sport is a measure of physical discipline, mental toughness, and moral determination, then cheating leaves us unworthy of playing the game (much less winning).

Without Jan Ulrich, David Zabriske, Ivan Basso, Floyd Landis, or George Hincapie racing against him, Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories would be meaningless. They also would have been meaningless if he hadn’t developed the muscle-tone or dexterous precision needed to rocket his body and bike across the French countryside.

 
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