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A Cycling City Gets “Street Smart”

by Paul Bass | Mar 29, 2011 1:24 pm

(18) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Transportation

Paul Bass Photo Two days after cycling enthusiasts mourned the senseless murder of one of their own, they initiated a more hopeful plan to build safer streets.

“Safer” in terms of places to ride bikes in traffic.

The occasion was the unveiling of a new “Smart Cycling” handbook for New Haven bicyclists, the culmination of months of work between advocates and City Hall; and a new “Smart Cyclist” pledge for cyclists to sign, promising, for instance, not to talk on cell phones while on bikes. (OK. Promise.)

The unveiling took place at Devil’s Gear Bike Shop in Pitkin Plaza. Devil’s Gear, the hub of New Haven’s vibrant cycling community, is where popular bike enthusiast and vegan “straight edge” punk rocker Mitchell Dubey worked as service manager until a home intruder shot him to death in his Bassett Street home last Thursday night during an attempted robbery. It’s also where hundreds of people gathered Sunday night to memorialize him.

Tuesday’s upbeat event at the shop had been planned before the murder took place. But participants couldn’t help noting the connection—how Dubey was part of building a strong community that has strengthened New Haven and led to the city’s campaign to help cyclists and drivers share the road safely.

Before the unveiling, Mayor John DeStefano spoke of how the violence in Newhallville that led to Dubey’s death stems from people in New Haven detached from a sense of community. (Click on the play arrow to watch.)

“This cycling community did not exist in a meaningful way 20 years ago when I became mayor. It has become such an important part of the city. People see through cycling their connection to one another, finding joy in one another. It’s a really important and big thing in enriching our community. There are a lot of circles like that in New Haven,” DeStefano said. “In the end, a lot of the answers that we see in senseless violence are found frankly in the values reflected in this cycling community, this sense of connectedness to one another.”

Much of New Haven’s violence is caused by people who lack that sense of social connection and communal values, DeStefano said. He called on churches, government, and informal networks of “connected” people to “see their self-interest in reaching out to these folks who don’t get it at home.”

Take The Lane

Then officials and Devil’s Gear owner Matthew Feiner announced the completion of the 49-page “Smart Cycling: a handbook for New Haven bicyclists.”

The effort will help “make this a safer city to cycle in [and] make it a safer city in general,” Feiner said.

Then-City Hall intern Dana Barnes, a Yale public-health student (pictured with Feiner), started putting together the booklet last summer, based on input from cycling advocates and city officials.

It offers advice about where and how to ride, an admonition to “learn to embrace helmet hair,” since 91 percent of the more than 700 cyclists killed by drivers in 2008 weren’t wearing helmets; and a rundown of cyclists’ legal rights and responsibilities. For instance: Car drivers by law must give cyclists “three feet of space on all sides.” Drivers passing cyclists can’t turn right “until the cyclist is given ample space.” Cyclists (other than young children) shouldn’t ride on sidewalks. They must ride “in the rightmost lane,” along with traffic, and obey lights and traffic signs. Cyclists must keep at least one hand on handlebars and use hand signals for turns.

On the advice end, the booklet recommends that cyclists “take the whole lane” on narrow lanes, in roundabouts, and when “you think you might not be visible.” Other advice concerns preventing theft and dealing with the aftermath of crashes.

Click here to read the full booklet.

New Haven has the most active bicycling community in the state, according to city traffic chief Jim Travers; 15.5 percent of people who live and work here either walk or cycle to their jobs. The city has eight miles of bike lanes. Through the Elm City Cycling banner, cyclists are among the most organized and politically active groups in town.

Some of them have been critical of emerging plans to redesign for Downtown Crossing, the $140 million boulevard-style plan to fill in several exits of the Route 34 Connector and build a 10-story office tower. Advocates said some of the drawings shown so far include too many wide lanes for fast traffic and not enough room reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. Asked about that at Tuesday’s event, Travers responded that those drawings are “preliminary.” “Bike lanes have not been taken out” of the plan, he said. Planners are weighing whether to use raised bike lanes, or bike lanes separated from car traffic. He said the road would have three to four lanes in each direction, but would probably have parking in one of those lanes except at rush hour, in order to help slow traffic. The goal is to keep a 25 mile-per-hour speed limit, he said.

Another feature of Tuesday’s event was the unveiling of a “Smart Cyclists” pledge, similar to a “Street Smarts” pledge for drivers the city unveiled in October 2008. The cyclist handbook and pledge are the latest chapter in the Street Smarts campaign. In the pledge, cyclists agree to follow rules like avoiding sidewalks and cell phone use. They get reflectors for their bikes in return. Travers was also handing out logo-ed water bottles.

That caught the eye of city development chief Kelly Murphy.

“I’m taking some swag,” she announced. “I need a new water bottle for the gym.”

Comments

posted by: Ben Berkowitz on March 29, 2011 1:56pm

Great stuff but the Map is inaccurate.
There are no sharrows on humphrey btw east and State and their is a bike lane btw State and Orange on Humphrey in 1 direction.
Also, State street has sharrows on it South of Audubon partially. Why does it say “Other bike route”

Great first start.

posted by: Christian Stewart on March 29, 2011 1:57pm

It is so good to see the city working with the cyclists. Hopefully there will be a marked increase in the bicyclists cooperating with pedestrians and vehicles by obeying the traffic laws. I’ve see one bicycle stop for a traffic light in the past year, and no, slowing down doesn’t count! The only reason I haven’t been run over (recently) by a bicycle is that I always assume the rider will not stop.

posted by: robn on March 29, 2011 2:52pm

Great!

Except the booklet forgot tell you to use U-Locks with flat keys. The kind that use tubular keys are really easy to pick.

posted by: anon on March 29, 2011 3:56pm

Christian: The only way to increase compliance with laws by walkers and cyclists is to provide infrastructure that is appropriate and attractive. The current cycling system is miserable and many streets do not have usable crosswalks. ConnDOT’s latest projects only seem to be making the situation worse. For example, parts of Whalley are being expanded from 2 lanes to 4 lanes, but without any usable infrastructure for cycling or walking across the street. It really is a tragedy to see Connecticut shooting itself in the foot like this, in the only city in the state considered attractive to businesses, entrepreneurs and young professionals. A completely different mindset, that treats all people as equals whether or not they are wealthy/old/able bodied enough to own and operate a vehicle, is truly needed here and it’s nice to see the city taking a few steps in the right direction by publishing a map and guidebook. This is the civil rights movement of the 21st Century, and it sounds like you are on the wrong side of the wall.

posted by: Jen M. on March 29, 2011 4:04pm

It’s great to see that the city and the bicycle community coming together. The plans for incorporating bike lanes and walkers into the big Downtown Crossing project is a great thing too! Can’t wait to see how it turns out.

posted by: lance on March 29, 2011 4:14pm

The first two minutes of the mayor video was something I would expect to hear out of a community college sosiology undergrad at a grateful dead dead show after he/she did 7 bong tokes and a bag of mushrooms. It was rambling in nature and when the point finally came across it was factually incorrect. Most of the NH shootings are between individuals that can TOTALLY identify with each other. Young black males in competition with each other for turf, drug business, and girls.

And riding a bike is a lot like policing: if you need to read a book about how to do it safely and effectively, you’re in the wrong business.

posted by: Tommy the kid on March 29, 2011 5:21pm

@Lance;

Hmmm….I guess, based upon what you are saying then, the state drivers manual should be thrown out the window too? Wow, don’t let me get behind the wheel with you.

posted by: please on March 29, 2011 6:09pm

Tax cyclists via taxes ( such as a vehicle tax) and then they get a say in New Haven’s road planning. ...

posted by: William Kurtz on March 29, 2011 7:17pm

The book also doesn’t tell you that thoroughly cooking meat, fish, eggs, and poultry greatly reduces the risk of food-borne illness. What gives?

A lot of hard work went into this and it’s another sign of the city’s commitment to encouraging cycling as a viable transportation option for residents, commuters, and visitors. Thanks to Jim Travers, Dana Barnes and everyone else who made this happen. Nice job.

posted by: Steve on March 29, 2011 9:09pm

I don’t always agree with the mayor, but think that his comments at this event were genuine and showed good leadership as mayor. He was real in acknowledging the connection of people in community; and he gave credit to the bicycling community for being just that, a community. He should be credited for his words here. He does care about our youth, supports our youth workers, cares about Newhallville, and supports this event and their work.

posted by: streever on March 29, 2011 9:15pm

Lance:
Cut him some slack. He was speaking about something very tragic, very recent, with some of the people most directly affected by it present.

posted by: walksider on March 29, 2011 10:12pm

The ban on sidewalk riding, while codified in law, is by no means a settled question in bicycling culture, here or anywhere else. While cyclists should of course walk their bikes in areas where pedestrians actually use the sidewalk, there are many places in this city where no one or next to no one walks, e. g. Sargent Drive, upper Whitney Avenue. These same streets are often undivided four-lane roads which pose much more danger to cyclists than do sidewalks, assertions from the local advocacy group notwithstanding. Finally, many cyclists here come from countries where the only option is sidewalk riding.

It would be a shame if this new effort emboldens police officers, many if not most of whom care nothing about cyclists, to see sidewalk riders as a rich source of revenue through ticketing and satisfaction through harassment.

posted by: lance on March 30, 2011 2:39am

Streever I sympathize with and appreciate your frame of reference, but I was around for the Ben Delieto days and let me tell you Ben went to a wake seven nights a week. If the deceased had any connection at all to the city Ben showed up, sometimes attending what I would guess to be ten wakes a week. And his words were always poingnant, enlightening, and comforting, all at the same time. He was a leader.

If I can compare the two, in a time of crisis Destefano is like a crappy school guidance counselor whereas Delieto was a like a decorated general.

Imagine if there were black panther protests downtown now like there was in Delieto’s day? In all seriousness, Devil’s Gear and other businesses would be emptied of their contents (happened already) and set ablaze, and the “bike enthusiasts” stupid enough to come out to see what all the fuss was about would be minus a bike and some teeth. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but I’m telling you if a changing of the guardians of the city doesn’t occur soon ya’ll are going to be in for it.
...

New Haven needs a new mayor and a new chief that can give the streets back to the people. Your life and the lives of your friends may depend on it.

posted by: L on March 30, 2011 8:30am

This is great news, but I think it’s not just the serious cyclists that need the handbook, but even moreso the drivers of cars and also the teenagers and children on bikes. They are the ones driving or riding unsafely in New Haven, especially in the outskirts of the city limits, like the Heights. I overheard an applicant at Yale on the street the other day saying that it really seemed like a walkable, bike-able city. I laughed to myself inside, because it certainly looks that way, w/ all the sharrows painted out, until you get on a bike (or even in a car) and try to deal w/all the rude, aggressive drivers here, who speed, text, talk on cell phones, tailgate, pass you over the double yellow line and run red lights, not to mention intimidate or drive too close to cyclists. There needs to be a broader sort of re-education and culture change here, where it feels more like a small town where people care more about one another.
Bike lane all the way down Chapel to the Q River, please!

posted by: streever on March 30, 2011 9:37am

Lance:
I think there are any number of issues in which our Mayor has demonstrated that we should choose a new one, and that this is not one of those issues, nor is there any need to make it into one of those issues.

Editor: Party Bus VA is a new type of spam bot, which will post “related” stories while providing a link to the site which hired them. They are great at evading spam detection, and must be banned to prevent them from similar spam.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on March 30, 2011 10:40am

lance,
Any violence that was a result of Black Panthers back in the 60s is no comparison to the type of violence that occurs today. If the city had the crime rate of the late 1960s and early 1970s today, that’d be great progress. Unfortunately, the thugs in the street today make the most violent Black Panthers look like girl scouts. Besides the Black Panthers were mostly a political group reacting to the redlining and job outsourcing of urban neighborhoods that resulted in urban decay, disinvestment, segregation, and serious problems in their community.

walksider,
Excellent point.
Bike lanes only work on streets that have no more than 1.5 lanes of traffic in each direction (.5 of a lane means a shared turning lane). On streets that have more than one lane running in a single direction there should not be a bike lane because it can be deceivingly safe for inexperienced cyclists especially when the time comes to cross lanes of traffic to make a turn. In these situations the streets should either be turned into two way streets with bike lanes, or cycle tracks should be created on the sidewalks.
I would support an effort to turn all downtown streets into two way streets with bike lanes (except Center Street and Court Street, which are too narrow), and create a cycle track on the sidewalk on Whalley Avenue.

posted by: Fairhaven Dave on March 30, 2011 11:17am

New Haven is surrounded by a horseshoe of McMansion owning media-licking uber-liberals and saturated with advocate lawyers, NHPD might be inclined to take a few risks to catch some real criminals if they were not constantly under the “lets all be nice to each other” microscope.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure directing traffic at construction sites, breaking up domestic disputes, hassling bikes on the sidewalk, and ticketing tax payers is VERY important, but I think all these halfwit tough guys pretending to be killers (until they STOP pretending) are a far bigger problem.

posted by: cc in tx on March 30, 2011 7:54pm

Terrible news…
I did not know Mitchell, but would like to write how lucky New Haven’s bicycle community are with Matt Feiner around. He has helped create and nurture a thriving community of bicyclists in New Haven. Matt and I go way back, and although I found biking in New Haven a misery much of the time, Matt has the devotion and wherewithal to keep the faith, and continue to do the city a great service with his shop, bike events, etc.
Condolences to friends and family of Mitchell. Gratitude to all the folks at the Devil’s Gear. I look forward to seeing the city’s progress next time I visit, and take a long bike ride through my home town.

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