January is already over, and it’s time for another First Friday ride!  As always, we roll out from Loch Haven Park at 6:00 p.m. for a casual, family-friendly, law-abiding, hour-long ride around Orlando. All bikes and all bicyclists are welcome!  Front and rear lights are required; helmets are required for kids under 16, and are...
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I’m compiling and mapping crashes involving cyclists in bike lanes in Orange, Seminole and Osceola Counties. If you’ve been involved in such a crash I’d like to hear from you. Some key information I’d need: Date and Time: if you don’t have the exact date, just the year will do. Location: what street were...
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I’ve spent the past two decades trying to figure out how make bicycling work better for people. Perhaps instead I should have been trying to figure out how to make our communities work better. As John Wooden implied, when it comes to cycling, I’m a know-it-all, but when it comes to what really counts... I’ve...
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I experienced a superb example this morning of how bike lanes can make cyclists irrelevant. Rosalind Avenue through downtown Orlando has a designated bike lane.  While it’s next to on-street parking, it is wide enough for a cyclist to stay out of the door zone, and in the morning there are very few cars...
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If there was ever a time for you to attend a public hearing, this is it. At the request of the Governor’s office, FDOT Secretary Ananth Prasad will be conducting a series of public meetings on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 regarding the SunRail project.  These are to ensure that all partners understand their respective...
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Bicycling in the United States suffers from a failure of imagination. Failures of imagination usually grow out of a sense that the current situation is unchangeable. Cultures often create such a sense of inevitability inadvertently, but in some cases it’s due to an intentional effort by some to maintain the status quo.
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From CBS News: “John Hofmeister, an ex-president of Shell Oil, says we’re looking at $5 a gallon gas in 2012.” From my observations, industry insiders tend to low-ball their price predictions.  On the other hand, he’s calling for more drilling, so he may be inflating the number in order to scare people into supporting...
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A compelling video is making the rounds of Facebook and cycling blogs on how helmet promotion feeds the fear of cycling.  Mikael Colville-Anderson makes some very powerful arguments against the insistence that all cyclists wear helmets, and shows the real absurdity of that message.  He blames a culture of fear – bolstered by marketing...
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“‘I’ll see it when I believe it’ is more accurate than ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’” – Social psychologist Karl Weick Regular readers of this blog know we recommend an assertive lane position when the lane is too narrow to share.  Our rationale was initially that when a cyclist is in the...
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A challenge to think in an entirely different way: Let’s suppose, as a thought experiment, that tomorrow morning every adult American woke up and decided to ride his or her bicycle instead of getting in the car.  (And if they didn’t have a bike, went out and bought one.)  What’s more, they all decided...
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