Some progressive cities have begun using sharrows, shared road markings, to remind motorists that bicycles have a right to the road and that we may well be riding farther in the lane than they would expect. Unfortunately, cities that have used sharrows needed to pass special legislation to permit their DOT to use the signage,… read more
Advocacy
Bike Lanes on Blackstone Boulevard? For real. Read on…
Years of work has led to the scheduling of a public meeting regarding striping bike lanes onto Blackstone Boulevard. It is imperative that as many bike lane boosters as possible be in attendance to show the City that the community is behind the project. The meeting will be at 7 pm on Monday, March 3,… read more
STC Meeting Update
A small contingent from Bike-To-Brown, Brown Cycling, and other concerned cyclists attended todays State Traffic Commission (STC) meeting. The agenda item we were most interested in was the RIDOT proposal restricting bicycles from the Henderson Bridge roadway during the upcoming construction project. I wrote up an extended post on the Bike-To-Brown website, so take a… read more
City of Providence bike plan map
The version of the city’s bike plan map currently posted on the planning dept. website is not the final version. This one, however, is.
RIDOT Asking to Ban Bikes on Henderson Roadways
I posted this over on the Bike-To-Brown site as well, but it’s important enough to repeat it here. RIDOT has a request listed on the agenda for the February 13th, 2008 meeting of the State Traffic Commission (STC) to: approve the restriction of bicycles to use the sidewalk area only on the Henderson Bridge. Naturally,… read more
Cyclist Told He Shouldn’t be on the Road – By Police
This morning’s Projo had a letter to the editor from a cyclist who was told he shouldn’t be on the streets, by a police officer. The cyclist was out for a ride on New Year’s day and returned through Providence. As he was heading Down North Main Street, I went up Smith Street, past the… read more
Bills Want RI Drivers to Hang up Cell Phones
From an article in yesterday’s projo, Amid growing reports nationwide of fatal car accidents tied to cell phone use, Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a pair of bills that would ban hand-held mobile telephones and prohibit text messaging while driving. As we reported earlier, there was a teen killed in Taunton not long ago, where… read more
Chaos or Utopia
A friend of mine recently sent a link to the following video of a time lapse video of a student rush hour in Cambridge, UK. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA_Crc67SAM It sparked a rather interesting discussion between the two of us. Does this video show complete chaos (bikes all over everywhere, cars being cut off, and cyclist taking unnecessary… read more
Man Kills Taunton Teen on Bicycle
The Boston Globe has a story of man who killed a teen when he lost control of his SUV while sending a text message on his cell phone. The man accused of killing a 13-year-old boy in a hit-and-run in Taunton told police he was behind the wheel typing a text message on his cellphone… read more
A National Fight for Saner Streets
I happened upon an interesting article about the Complete The Streets program in The Seattle Times. Complete streets “are about a right of way for everyone out there traveling, walking or biking,” says Barbara McCann, the movement coordinator. All users of all ages and abilities, she asserts, need to be able to move safely along… read more
AG: No Charges in Cycling Death
Another cyclist killed and no charges will be brought against the motorist. According to a Providence Journal article: A criminal charge against a Westerly woman who fatally struck a Warwick man riding his bicycle in Charlestown will be dropped next week, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said yesterday I have yet to figure… read more
Director of RIDOT Response
About a month ago, we posted a copy of our letter to Director Williams. We scanned a copy of his response letter, so everyone could take a read. Unfortunately, it seemed to be a pretty boiler plate response. A large portion of the letter focused on bike trails … we have nearly 50 miles of… read more