-Andy Ruina, Dec 15, 2003
Below is a modification of an essay I sent in summer 2003 to the Cornell
Campus Planning Committee
about bikes on the Cornell campus. I also sent a version previously
to Tim Logue at the City of Ithaca. Most of this applies almost equally to
the City of Ithaca.
For simplicity of language, but for shod or barefoot people, I will
identify the person-vehicle system by the name of the vehicle; `bicycle',
`car', and `skateboard' refers to the vehicle and operator, person
is a person on foot. By scooter I mean small human or electric powered
scooters, not larger gas powered scooters (although these, up to
a 49.9 cc, are legally classified as bicycles in many places).
Executive Summary:
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I think room needs to be made for more bicycles (and the like) on
campus and the treatment of bicycles as more like pedestrians than
like cars.
First, my background.
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I am a pedestrian and bicycle advocate. I have
been on the City of Ithaca Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee for
many years and was chair. From 1991-96 spent about 20 hours per week
working to organize and manage a program downtown to distribute bicycles
to people who cannot afford them. I study both bicycling and walking
as a profession: this year a visitor from Holland came to my
lab to study bicycles and last week I submitted a proposal to NIH
to study walking. I have thought as I have watched pedestrians,
bicyclists and car drivers mix various ways in India, Europe,
Ithaca, and the Cornell campus. In my distant past as a deck cadet
in the merchant marine, I also studied, and I think this is relevant,
the Rules of the Road at Sea. I enjoy both walking and biking for
both pleasure and transport.
Basic concepts
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1. Walkers, runners, skateboards, small scooters (un-powered or
electric), rollerblades, and bicycles have more in common with
each other than with cars, buses and trucks.
a) The speed of travel. The difference
between the typical speeds
of any of the non-cars is bigger than the difference between any
one of them and a typical car speed.
For example, a typical walking speed of 2.5 mph is closer to
a short-distance non-racing bicycle speed of 10 mph than is
10 mph to a typical campus car speed of 25 mph. This categorization
by speed is made more stark by using the mechanically relevant
measure of speed in collisions, which is speed squared (v^2).
Using perhaps the most reasonable quantification of motion,
kinetic energy, the difference between a car and bike
is typically 10 to 100 times the difference between bike and
pedestrian.
b) Size. Cars, trucks and buses are all bigger than bikes, people,
skateboards, and scooters.
c) Noise. Cars, trucks and buses are all pollute more than bikes, people,
skateboards, and scooters.
d) Pollution. Cars, trucks and buses are all pollute more than bikes, people,
skateboards, and scooters.
e) Land use required when not used for transportation. Cars, bikes and
buses all use substantially more parking space than bikes, skateboards
and scooters.
f) How close they bring a person to a final destination. All of
the
motorized 4-wheel vehicles do not get as close to the person's
final destination because of shortage of parking places and inability
to go on sidewalks.
g) Probability of serious injury by one to another. In a
physical
interaction, a car is far more likely to cause serious injury
to a non-contained person than is, say, a bicycle rider to
a pedestrian.
h) Anxiety in sharing space. Both cars and bicycles generally
feel more uncomfortable sharing limited space, where free passage
is not easy, than do bicycles and pedestrians.
2. Interaction problems are primarily
behavior problems not problems
intrinsic to the vehicle.
Thinking of a walk made fearful by a near-passing zig-zagging
fast-moving bicycle inclines one to want to separate bicycles
from pedestrians. But what does a frail slow pedestrian feel
about two big athletic 20-year-olds practicing
pass-reception moves running by with a ball?
On the Indian
Institute of Science Campus (totally different from the city
streets outside the campus) cars and bikes share the walkways.
The well-mannered cars go 2.5 mph when trapped by pedestrians
in front, with only the purr of their engines asking for space
to pass.
Most of the waterways and airways of the world are available
to all manner of craft. Just two kilometers from where I sit
in the Baltic Sea in summers in Finland, row boats, kayaks,
large and tiny sailboats, pleasure motor boats of all sizes
share the same space with the 2000-passenger liners that pass
through 12 times a day. This is not to say that segregated
space is not desirable ---sailing yaghts generally stay out
of major shipping lanes--- but that shared space can be safe
and comfortable if all people know and respect the rules of
interaction.
3. Doing all possible to make easy and pleasant all low-polluting,
quiet, and relatively-slow transport on our large campus will
more entice motor-vehicle commuters to switch; in their cars
they can't park as close to their work place as they can with
bikes, scooters and the like.
History and commentary
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For a few decades many bicycle advocates lobby for legal treatment
of bicycles as cars (counting both as vehicles). I think this has
been largely spurred by the writings of bicycle-radical and
traffic engineer John Forrester promoting better treatment of
bicycles on the road. This bicycle-advocacy position
then gets mixed with the common fear that pedestrians on campus have
of the wild athletic bike rider on the sidewalk. Together we end up,
in the USA anyway, with the common mantra of "bikes on streets not
on sidewalks", spoken with an air of liberal political correctness
possibly mixed with disdain for young wild people.
I think this point of view is misguided.
While I believe bikes have a right to use streets with and
in the same way as cars, and I strongly support better bike facilities
as part of general traffic engineering, it is a violation of common
sense to insist that bikes be more segregated from pedestrians
than from cars. Some examples:
a) Route 13 (not relevant for Cornell campus
per se, but to point out
the fallacy of the overall line of thought). Were there
sidewalks on route to Buttermilk falls and were the roads as they
are, where would a sensible bicycler be? Say, my 10 year old
daughter. (Or, if you know the nitty-gritty of the sidewalk
laws, imagine I had a 12 year old daughter.)
b) When I took my daughter from
Collegetown to day care on Warren
road the best route was straight through campus via Ho Plaza.
My riding with her at 2.5 mph on the walkway
was less a hazard to the population as a whole than either
my riding on the narrow roads around campus or my dismounting
and walking my top-heavy bike (thus using more than twice the
width with no gain in maneuverability) on the walkway.
c) Going uphill, say
on Campus Road, by virtue of limited
power a bicycle goes at essentially a walking speed. The
community of interested parties has a net gain in comfort
and safety by having the bike on the sidewalk, despite
the `bikes are vehicles' Mantra. And in such a situation,
where a bike only wants to do the same as a pedestrian, it
is hardly a wise spending of money to make a segregated street
facility.
In Europe where many more people than in the USA
use shoes and spoked wheels to get around, most often bikeways
are, sensibly, linked to walkways. In crowded fast-moving
areas there is partitioned real estate with, in effect, there being
a pedestrian lane on the side of the bike lane. In slow-moving or sparse
areas the same ground is shared by pedestrians and bikes, (often also
shared with low-powered scooters up to 49.5 cc).
Vision
^^^^^^
I would love to see a 10-fold increase in the use of micro-vehicles
(bikes, scooters, etc) on campus. If people could get
between common destinations in 5 minutes instead of 15 they
might enjoy campus life more without a car than with.Where there
is not segregated
space for small quiet wheeled things,
they would follow the rules of the road on sidewalks.
The rules of the road on campus should be used by slow small
gentle bicycle riders and aggressive heavy runners alike:
*Stay right.
*Pass on left, with warning.
*Yield to the person/vehicle who is slower and/or less maneuverable.
*When near others go at a speed not much above theirs.
*Don't travel in a reckless or dangerous way or in a way
that is threatening to others.
These should be enforced. Of course one
can imagine grey areas
and arguments with enforcers. And so it is for most of the laws we live by
on campus and off. The lack of precise definition (as opposed to "no
bikes here" which is precise) does not negate the utility of the
rules.
Conclusion
^^^^^^^^^^
Campus planning, facilities and policies should reflect the
reality that bikes etc are more like pedestrians
than than cars. And the vision should be developed that there
be many more bikes etc going around the campus, at little cost to pedestrian
comfort, peace, and safety. Where segregation by speed is
possible it should be built in, where not, enforced and generally
known and respected rules of the road (like the rules of the road
at sea) will make for safe and comfortable harmony (at a slower
than desirable speed for some).
P.S. [Here is a red-herring, an irrelevant aside,
a needlessly-button-pushing
topic, but for clarity: I see no difference between a Segway and
a bicycle as far as any and all appropriate facilities and legal
treatment (its quiet, its got two wheels, it carries a person at
a speed closer to walking than driving, its a bicycle).]