Just when you think you've seen it all..

I was telling a rider this AM that I am "having to re-learn what problems I look for up here", referring to different challenges in traffic on rural Sonoma County roads vs. San Francisco or Peninsula riding.

Prophetic

On CA-128 heading towards Alexander Valley - a road with nominal traffic but not a ton of shoulder - sort of an annoying place to ride but it's the only connector from Calistoga/Knights Valley to Jimtown and on to Healdsburg, used most by cyclists coming to and from Chalk Hill Road.

A truck comes up behind us. We are riding single file but there are 13 of us, and with the winding nature of 128 and the oak trees blocking the sightlines, it's tough to pass a group. The driver waited patiently - not a huge lift as we were going 25 MPH - and when we got to a passing zone, including a dotted yellow, the driver went into the opposite travel lane and proceeded to pass.

The driver of a Jeep Cherokee following behind then tried to pass the truck on the right! The truck completed his pass of our paceline and started to merge back into his lane and was almost taken out by the Jeep that was zipping up along the inside!

The driver of the Cherokee slammed on the brakes, resettled himself, and then proceeded to accellerate and pass the truck on the double yellow.

I have a new helmet cam but it was not in operation, unfortunately.

Burlingame PD and cyclists

This has been sitting around in my inbox, and I have the need to post it for posterity. My friend Theo was right hooked by a car on Old Bayshore in Burlingame. Pretty lovely driving - Theo was at the front of a line of four cyclists, yet the driver either missed seeing 25+ feet of cyclists, or he was trying to whizz by them and failed. I sent the following letter to Burlingame PD and the Mayor

Mayor Nagel and Chief Wood -

I am writing in response to a traffic incident - a bicycle vs car collision - yesterday on Old Bayshore Road in Burlingame. While I was not involved in the incident, I am familiar with the details as the injured person - a Mr. Theo Cummings - is a good friend of mine and I often ride my bicycle on Old Bayshore with Mr. Cummings.

The facts are pretty straightforward, a VW Passat - license CA 5ULW165 made a right turn on Malcom Road off Old Bayshore without yielding the right of way to Mr. Cummings and the 3 cyclists following him who were going straight on Old Bayshore. This is commonly known as a "Right Hook" collision.

The response by Burlingame Forces was fine - perhaps over the top - one witness said "I counted 2 cop cars, 1 Fire Commanders car, 2 Fire Engines, and 1 Ambulance." Mr. Cummings was checked out by the Paramedics and will make a full recovery assuming the exam by the Urgent Care doctors was thorough and accurate. For this we can be thankful.

I was shocked however, to find that in an incident which could easily have cost Theo his life, that the Burlingame Police felt no need to cite the driver with even something as simple as "Failure to Yield". Personally, I would think reckless driving would be appropriate - he turned right in front of not one but four cyclists. Drivers with such little skill or care should be cited when they cause accidents - we have a "Points" system in California for a reason. In a time when red light cameras are being tuned to cite drivers who make a "California Stop" when turning right on red, a driver who causes a life threatening collision surely must be cited.

When I tell my friends about my commute route, I mention that I ride through the San Francisco Airport, and they express surprise. I tell them that the Airport is actually quite pleasant to ride through, and that the place I wish would disappear off the map entirely is Burlingame. While I do like visiting your downtown (accessed via the Caltrain), riding on Old Bayshore is quite annoying. Knowing that the Burlingame Police Force is unwilling to cite drivers who cause accidents inside your city, gives one even more pause.

The most insulting part of the entire experience, for my money, is this. A negligent driver had just run over Mr. Cummings, and a member of the Burlingame Police responded as such (I quote Mr. Cummings).

"The cop actually tried to suggest that we ride on back streets..."

Aside from the fact that this is blaming the victim, the accident happened on "Old Bayshore". Not on Highway 101. "Old Bayshore" is the back street. There was no excuse for this collision. It should have resulted in a citation.

Thank You

John Murphy San Francisco

Here is a response from Burlingame PD

Mr. Murphy,

Let me respond to this from the perspective of a cyclist and a police officer. Prior to moving the Coast, I regularly commuted from Fremont to Burlingame. I have continued to ride bikes, but I had to stop commuting as riding over Hwy 92 on a regular basis is too risky. I also understand the frustrations of having my right of way violated by cars and have had several close calls.

I am sorry for the frustration you are experiencing regarding your friend’s injury and the lack of a citation being issued to the other driver. Unfortunately, police officers are not permitted to cite drivers at the scene of an accident unless they have been to an advanced accident investigation course. However, this does not mean the driver who causes a collision gets off without a blemished driving record. When an officer takes an accident report, he or she is almost always able to determine fault. This report is filed with the CHP who in turn delivers the accident findings to the DMV. The DMV then assigns a “point” to the party at fault’s driver’s license.

In reality this practice, from an enforcement perspective, is more efficient than issuing citations. If a citation is issued, the findings of a collision report are not shared with the DMV. The citation becomes the method of delivery to a person’s driving record. Should this citation be contested in court, for a variety of reasons, the point may not be assigned to a person’s driving record. Accident report findings cannot be contested. The DMV relies on the officer’s “opinion” of who is at fault when assigning points.

In regards to the officer’s comment suggesting cyclists should ride their bikes on the back road, I had the opportunity to overhear the officer discuss this at the police station. The officer rides his bicycle to work as well. Due to the number of bicycle collisions he has responded to over the years, and his own personal experience with riding bicycles, he merely meant to pass on advice with safety being first priority. We all know that bicycles have the same rights as cars. Unfortunately, when a bicycle is involved in a collision, the cyclist is almost always injured. Often times these injuries are serious or, as you mentioned, fatal.

Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Don Shepley

Acting Patrol Captain

Caltrain to *remove* bike racks?

That title probably woke up a few of you!

It sure woke me up. On Monday I boarded Caltrain 332 at 22nd Street, along with roughly 25 other cyclists, in the Southern (or "second") bike car. I was the last to board, and watched helplessly as I stood in line for probably a minute after all the other doorways were finished boarding. The Norther ("first") bike car might have had some room in it, I toyed briefly with the idea of riding down the access road to board there, but if it was full I would have been left behind, so I waited impatiently to board where I was.

I stumbled on, with a helpful and antsy conductor holding my hot chocolate for me to get me on and into the vestibule so the doors could close and we could start headed South. I looked at the chaos inside the bike car and leaned back to wait for the dust to settle, and started a conversation with the conductor.

"You know", he said, "they are doing a 'trend analysis on bikes' - starting today. And if they decide that you guys are delaying the trains they are going to remove some of your racks". Racks that we spent a lot of hard work getting into place.

This would be a catastrophe

I've heard plenty from Conductors that was wildly inaccurate or simply telephone game innuendo, but if this were true, it needs to be cut off at the pass. We've hit an equilibrium lately where bumps have not been too bad, removal of racks would be a big problem however.

I do note the following tweet seen just now...

Stepped on Caltrain and there is a supervisor holding a clipboard ticking things off. Weird.

— Tina M Shakour (@tinashakour) August 7, 2012

A few things we can do in the meantime....

First - make sure you have a destination tag - if you don't have one you can make one yourself, even one that is official looking! There are some personalized ones that are very creative, even one someone made by carving a piece of wood.

Second - when you board the train, move as far back into the bike car as possible when looking for a place to rack your bike, and wait for people to get on before heading back into the vestibule/stairs to look for a seat. Train station delay is based not on when we get seated, but on when we all get onto the train. Blocking the entrance delays the train. If you check this video ...

The first rider slots her bike into the very first rack inside the door, then steps back into the entrance way to the bike car and blocks additonal riders from entering. In this case, the overall delay wasn't too bad because the following riders did move to the back. But if 3-4 riders jam up the entrance, we sit there, and sit there, and sit there, while the bean counters in San Carlos rub their hands and dream of removing bike racks. Don't be a n00b - move to the back!

How not to save time on your commute.

Today, riding along Central Expressway, at the Fair Oaks exit.

Driver in White Van cuts me off from proceeding straight on Central, careening into the exit at top speed, losing perhaps 1 second they would lose had they waited. Since I had to veer off from my path on Central at this point, I gave the driver a one finger salute and decided to follow the van onto the offramp. The ramp ends with a fork onto Arques Eastbound, where one can access Fair Oaks, or left to go onto Westbound Arques or Central Expressway the other direction.

The van was in the right lane of the fork but stuck behind traffic waiting for the red light at the end of the ramp. As I closed up to the van, it quickly accellerated to the left and onto the turn onto WB Arques and headed back onto WB Central. The driver looked at me through his open window and shouted an obscenity at me.

He didn't want to wait 1 second for me to get to a backed up traffic light, and he was so incensed he might have to discuss it that he took a 3-4 minute detour.

Caltrain - 4th and King Ticket Checks

Over the last few months Caltrain has started checking tickets at the entrance door at 4th and King prior to boarding. I had seen this in the past, but usually for off peak trains. Now, they are doing the checks throughout the peak of rush hour.

Personally, my Clipper card (Caltrain ticket) is buried in my wallet, which is buried in my backpack, somewhere. Since I have a reliable form of transportation (my bike) that has a variance in travel time from home to the station of roughly 2 minutes, I typically arrive shortly before departure, and if I have been lucky with the lights maybe I'll get a hot drink. So I head to the gates with my bike and my hot drink, and now I am fumbling into my backpack for my ticket, the same as the rest of the ridership heading towards the doors.

This leads to a long queue as people look for their tickets and are slowly processed by 2 conductors at the doorway, scanning Clipper cards with the slow hand held readers. The end result, lately has been that the trains have been departing 4th and King a few minutes late as passengers are processed and then scramble into the train.

There is an upside - this pretty much nips fare evasion in the bud. Which is a good thing, right? Thing is - fare evasion isn't a big problem for Caltrain - the ridership generally pays their fares. The riders *not* paying their fares are typically not Joe Commuter trying to save a few bucks, they are various n'eer do wells with much larger problems than paying a Caltrain fare and who, faced with the prospect of paying a fare would probably just not ride the train at all. And if we cite these folks (*if* they have a valid ID), they'll probably just bypass the court date, not pay the fine, and sort of slip into the ether. It's not like we're going to put anyone into San Quentin for a $5 Caltrain ticket.

I'm making an assertion on fare compliance - let's use the google machine to research this - here's an article regarding fare evasion on VTA that claims fare evasion on Caltrain is one tenth of one percent!

I have attended several JPB meetings over the years where the topic of service cuts has been discussed, usually this brings out someone whose station or train is up for elimination, and they propose that Caltrain do a better job of checking tickets in order to get more money to keep the trains running. The answer from CEO Mike Scanlon is always the same - fare evasion is very low.

Meanwhile, on-time performance in March of 2012 dipped to 92.6 percent. You tell me, what's a bigger problem - .1 percent fare evasion or 7.4% late trains?

And remember, the door checks are only at 4th and King. The conductors still need to perform on-board checks if they are to catch any fare evasion from passengers boarding at any of the stations down the line. While 4th and King may be the most popular station in the system, the other stations combined have substantially more boardings. I have had my ticket checked at the door, and then again on the train, probably 50% of the time.

I have heard anecdotes that conductors have claimed they have found that many customers had not tagged their card - but this is *always* on the first couple days of the month, when customers who have paid for Monthly passes have forgotten to activate their pass. Those customers don't have to tag on daily and they might forget on the first. In that instance, the door check is ensuring compliance with the technical parts of fare payment, but it isn't keeping people from evading fares - they have already paid. It would be simpler just to have one person on that day calling out to passengers to remember to tag on, without the time consuming scanning of cards of those who already have tagged on.

Caltrain needs to ditch the door check.

If you agree = send an email to Caltrain

Bumped off half empty caltrain...

Dear Caltrain

This morning I was bumped off of train 220 with my bicycle at 4th and King and lied to by the employees working the door. They claimed the train was full of bikes. I informed the door man that I believed he was not being truthful and I would find out - he curtly replied "not unless the train leaves the station 5 minutes late".

Of course, I then boarded 322 and talked to someone boarding 322 who had just missed train 220 at 4th and reported seeing several cyclists board 220 at 22nd, and twitter reported the train was 80% full.

Here is the underlying scenario. As I was walking to the door, another rider rode her bicycle through the 4th and King station at high speed. I looked at the doorman as he told her not to ride through the station and I said "Deny her boarding". The other door employee then informed her the train was full of bikes, resulting in myself and one other rider also being denied boarding. The employee persisted in his claim that the train was full, which I fully expected to be untrue as I had just witnessed 3 other cyclists board without incident while getting my coffee, and no indication of a count being done or any knowledge of capacity. My suspicions were proven correct.

While I agree with the conductors instinct to deny the passenger riding through the station boarding, his methodology was lazy and sloppy, was and ultimately costly to other passengers.

John Murphy

San Francisco

The case for the Fell/Oak bike lanes

There has been some angst over the bike lane additions/improvements to Fell and Oak Street

Here is why I think this project's implementation is very important

On various blogs when this topic would come up, some cyclist would inevitably chime in and say that they prefer to use Page and Hayes to Fell and Oak. Some debate would get stirred up as to the fact that Fell and Oak are flatter than Page/Hayes, Page and Hayes would be great if we could bollard them up and make them local traffic only, but that won't happen, etc...

An interesting artifact of this discussion is that some community members who are virulently anti-cyclist and have probably not ridden a bike in decades, have suddenly become experts in the field and would posit that Page/Hayes are a better route for cyclists and thus the Fell/Oak project should be scrapped. This isn't because they actually know that it's better, they've just translated some comment from someone who prefers Page/Hayes for some reason and decided that this person is clearly an expert. Not based on the merits, but because it fits their narrative of keeping Fell/Oak the way it is.

Here's the problem with that. Cyclists DO in fact take Fell/Oak, already. Killing the Fell/Oak project is not going to chase them away from Fell/Oak. Some comment on a blog is not going to move them to Page. Should we remove the bike lane on Fell completely, and widen the primary travel lanes? Cyclists would still use Fell but without a bike lane and amongst even faster traffic - at speeds that do not belong on what is still a residential street.

Consider this. Foothill Road is a road that runs from Pleasanton California to Sunol California, parallel to the 680 Freeway. It goes through a relatively undeveloped section of the foothills on the East side of the mountains between Contra Costa Valley and the Bay. I rode this road on my bike 12 years ago and found it to be a very peaceful road along horse farms and not much else.

At some point over the last decade, Dublin and Pleasanton had some nominal development at the North end of Foothill. Traffic on the 680 in that corridor gets backed up a commute hours. From those subdivisions there is a direct connector to 580/680 to get onto 680 South. But the residents of this area discovered that they could take Foothill south and then cut over to 680, bypassing a chunk of traffic.

Those cars are *supposed* to take the freeway, not the rural road parallel to the freeway. But they started using Foothill anyway. So what did Contra Costa County do? Did they start a campaign to stop people from driving on Foothill? Make the road narrower and put in speed bumps to slow traffic? No - they repaved and widened the road to make for wider, quicker travel lanes, put in guardrails, installed a bike lane that has sections that go away because they could not fit the bike lane *and* a wider travel lane.

Similarly on 680 North there is a sign that says "SACRAMENTO USE 680N" to discourage people from using 84E as a shortcut around traffic on 680 and cut directly through Livermore onto 580. This sign was summarily ignored by motorists who figured out that they could shave a few miles and bypass traffic jams on 680 by using 84E, a narrow winding road to Livermore. What did the county do? Improved 84E to deal with the traffic they think should not be going that way.

Why is it that it that we will upend a country road to carry volumes of traffic that we already installed a freeway to carry, but when cyclists vote with their pedals to take a specific road, it is considered a reasonable argument to try to get the cyclists to not use that route? This project must happen or we are setting a bad precedent that cyclists should be pushed around only to certain roads we deem they are worthy to ride upon.