Normally we
would kick right in
talking about the
program for this month's
meeting, but this
weekend we have
something more important
to talk about...
On Thursday, February 2,
we expect the House
Transportation Committee
to vote on the newly
proposed American Energy
and Infrastructure Jobs
Act, a bill that
eliminates crucial funds
for biking and walking.
As a Member of the
Committee,
Representative Rick
Crawford of Arkansas's
1st District is in a key
position to save
dedicated funding for
biking and walking.
Please contact him today
and ask him to vote to
preserve biking and
walking.
The American Energy and
Infrastructure Jobs Act,
the long awaited
multi-year
Transportation bill,
eliminates the two
largest programs that
fund biking and walking
infrastructure -
Transportation
Enhancements and Safe
Routes to School.
Without these programs,
communities all over the
country will lose
resources to build the
sidewalks, crosswalks,
and bikeways that make
biking and walking safe
and accessible in your
community.
We can't let that
happen.
That's why America Bikes
is working to introduce
an amendment that will
preserve funding for
biking and walking.
During Thursday's vote,
our representative, Rick
Crawford of the 1st
Congressional District
of Arkansas, could be
the key to making sure
that this amendment
passes in the
Transportation
Committee. Will you
contact him today to
ask that he vote to
preserve funding for
biking and walking in
the transportation bill?
Rep. Crawford is the key
contact because he's on
the T&I Subcommittee,
which writes that bill,
but it's also important
to contact
Representatives Griffin,
Womack, and Ross to let
them know that we
belieive this to be an
important vote as well.
Tell them:
Biking and
walking make up
12% of all
trips, but only
1.5 % of federal
transportation
funding.
Two out of
three pedestrian
deaths take
place on roads
built with
federal funding.
Ensuring funds
for sidewalks,
crosswalks, and
bikeways help
end preventable
deaths and make
roads safer for
everyone.
When town
centers are
biking and
walking
friendly,
business and
economic
development
improves.
Thank you for all that
you do to keep bicycling
and walking safe and
accessible!
BACA Meeting is on February
2nd...
With a new year firmly
underway, and active
committees on both sides of
the Arkansas River steadily
working away to make our
communities friendlier and
safer for biking, it's a
good time to stop and take a
look, as a group, at where
we are, what still needs to
be done, and what BACA can
do to make, or at least help
make those things happen.
2011 was a great year for
cycling in central Arkansas,
with the opening of the Two
Rivers Bridge, our gateway
to the West, in July, and
the completion of a much
friendlier eastern crossing
in September with the
opening of the Clinton
Library Bridge. North Little
Rock has been steadily
plugging away, and completed
acquisition of the Levy Spur
Trail, a biking artery that
will connect the northern
sections of NLR to the River
Trail system and the
downtown area. They made a
great leap forward in their
quest for a "gold" bike
friendly rating with the
award of ~$45,000 in
educational funding under
the federal Safe Routes to
School program, and their
first community-wide bike
education event. Conway was
successful in their quest,
and was awarded a "bronze"
bike-friendly rating by
the League of American
Bicyclists. Little Rock now
has an active committee
working to address the many
problems on the south side
of the River. Bike culture
is picking up in the
communities, not only do we
have our lycra-clad
recreational riders spinning
along the River Trail, but
we also have great
opportunities like bike
polo, outreach to the
homeless and underserved "invisible
riders", and we have
also seen the rise of
alleycat races and
something called the "Tweed
Ride" in addition to our
typical Sunday afternoon
hammerfest. Many BAAC
members had a chance over
the past month or so to take
a walk with Dan Burden
through Our Town, and hear
and appreciate the gospel of
livable, walkable, bikeable
communities, and how they
can greatly improve our
economy and our quality of
life. Things are in motion
in all directions here; so
how do we know we're doing
the right things, where
should we be putting our
available resources, and
what should we be doing to
keep the momentum going?
We still have problems. As
you (hopefully) read in our
headline article, we still
face a hostile,
Tea-Party-dominated
atmosphere in Congress and
our legislatures that oppose
spending tight
transportation funding on
anything more than more
lanes for more cars and
trucks. While Little Rock
should soon have access to
more funding for repairs and
maintenance, our streets are
sorely delapidated and it
will take substantial time
to simply fill in all the
cracks, potholes, and rough
places. We lost out on an
anticipated federal grant to
help us "complete the loop"
in the Little Rock side of
the River Trail. We have
limited resources in
volunteers and funding, as
the Gospel tells us, "the
harvest is ripe, and great,
but the workers to gather it
are derned few" (or
something like that...)
This month's meeting will be
sort of a "gut check"... we
invite all the members of
the Little Rock and North
Little Rock Bike-Friendly
Community committees to
gather and brainstorm on
where we stand, where we
want to be, and how we can
best work together to get
wherever it we want to be
going. It will be a good
chance to come put in a
pitch for your pet idea or
favorite project... and make
your voice heard. These are
hard times for bike
advocates, but also times of
great opportunity to get our
message across that we
really are pedaling a simple
solution, that more bikes,
and more riders of all
flavors make our towns a
better place to live and
work.
And as always, we promise
good times, good food, and
good company!!
Metroplan publishes
survey of local bike &
pedestrian crashes
On January 25, Central
Arkansas Metroplan published
a draft study which plotted
bike and pedestrian crashes
over the past ten years,
from 2001 to 2010. This
analysis shows that
1,401 pedestrians and 512
bicyclists were involved in
crashes with motor vehicles
over a 10-year period ending
in 2010 has identified more
than a dozen intersections
or corridors for safety
improvements.
Those crashes in Faulkner,
Lonoke, Pulaski and Saline
counties cost the lives of 104
people and $125 million in lost
productivity and expenses
incurred, according to the
analysis by Metroplan, the
region's long-range
transportation planning agency.
There are no real surprises
here: half of the 12 highest
pedestrian-crash intersections
identified in the analysis were
in downtown Little Rock.
These includedEast Markham
Street and LaHarpe Boulevard,
which had 9 crashes; West Sixth
Street and Broadway, which had 8
crashes; West Capitol Avenue and
Broadway, which had 6 crashes;
two other Broadway intersections
- West Markham and West Seventh
Street, both of which saw 4
crashes; and West 12th Street
and Washington Avenue.
Other high-crash
intersections in Little Rock
included South University
and Town and Country
avenues, and Base Line and
Geyer Springs roads.
High-crash intersections in
North Little Rock included
McCain and John F. Kennedy
boulevards, Magnolia Street
and Broadway, and Camp
Robinson Road and Allen
Street.
The
Metroplan study currently
analyses only the location of
crashes, as well as some simple
demographics based on who got
hit, and where. What's needed to
make a useful tool for
advocates, public officials, as
well as our police and judiciary
departments is a consideration
of what sorts of behavior,
traffic, or street conditions
caused the crashes. We now know
the "where," what we really need
now is the "Why," which can lead
us to deciding "what to do about
it" to end or at least mitigate
this useless slaughter or
maiming of our walkers, hikers,
and bikers.
That tells us a bit about Little
Rock, but whre do we stand as a
whole? Today. the
Alliance for Biking and Walking
released its 2012 survey,
Biking and Walking in the
United States: The 2012
Benchmarking Report,
which is chock-full of
statistics and examples from
every state in the Union, as
well as summary figures for each
state. This is a great resource
to see where we stand (sadly,
Little Rock/NLR is not one of
the 50 largest metropolitan
areas for which separate,
localized statistics are given,
but it's a great resource to
show our politicians and public
leaders where we stand, and the
efects that biking and hiking
can have to make a community a
better place to live.
BACA has received a
complimentary printed copy of
the 2012 Benchmarking Report,
and we'll have it available at
Thursday's meeting. You can have
your own copy by downloading it
(or ordering a printed copy)
here.
IMBA's Trail Care Crew to Visit
Two Arkansas State Parks
Interested in improving our
local trail system? Want to know
what really goes into turning
piney woods or overgrown woods
into fun, flowy, sustainable
singletrack bike trails? We've
got a deal for you!
The
Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew
will be making two stops in
Arkansas this month. Steve and
Morgan will be in West Fork
Feb 9-12, while
Jake and Jenny will be in Bluff
City Feb. 23-26.
You're invited to join the crews
and the folks at
Devil's Den State Parkfor the first weekend,
and at
White Oak Lake State Park
for the second.
Both visits will feature
Land Manager Training as
well as
Club Care discussions, plus
IMBA's Trail Building Schoolon Saturday. This is your
opportunity to rub shoulders
with the IMBA crew while
learning about building and
maintaining sweet, sustainable
singletrack.
Little Rock gets a
Lump of Coal in their Christmas Stocking...
As many have heard by now, Little Rock was not
successful in their bid for one of the TIGER III federal stimulus
grants to help fund the “River Bluffs” trail bypass around the
Cantrell/LaHarpe corridor on the southern leg of the Arkansas River
Trail. While this is a setback, it’s not the end of the story…
we just need to keep working with the community leaders to find a
different path around this obstacle.
While I am sorely disappointed that the grant
application wasn’t funded, in a way, I’m not surprised, either.
In BACA’s advocacy efforts leading up to and during the National
Bike Summit this past year, and in other campaigns since then, I
personally sat across the table or alongside every member of the
Arkansas congressional delegation, and with the sole exception of
Mike Ross, our 4th District representative (who’s
retiring next year), every single one of them told me straight up
that they were sent to Congress to control runaway costs, and that
recreational facilities should (and must) be funded by the local
communities that stood to benefit from them – they were not
priorities for funding at the national level. In conversations
with Boozman, Womack, Crawford, and Griffin, even the “Recreational
Trails Program” from the SAFETEA-LU authorization stood to be
eliminated if for no other reason that it was officially named a
“recreational” program.
I went back and carefully read through
Metroplan’s application, and while they were very careful not to use
the word “recreation,” in keeping with the past year’s lessons
dealing with the Republican delegates and their supporters, one
phrase that was consistently used was “bike trail.” And in the
design presented, River Bluffs was a straight pipe from Gill Street
to the end of the Medical Mile, with no exits (or destinations) in
between. All the illustrations tended to show recreational
riders, hikers, and runners, not commuters actually “going
somewhere.” That may have been enough to flag us as a
recreational project, below the cut-off for funding.
At Metroplan’s request, BACA member Bud Laumer
(who moonlights as the State’s bicycle & pedestrian coordinator for
the Arkansas Department of Cars & Trucks, looked closely at the
successful applications which included biking and walking
facilities, and found a common trend:
“I
was asked to take a look at what got funded to see if there was
anything that we could learn for future reference. The
following is from my notes:
In
general, DOT guidance over the last couple of years has been to
include cycling and walking as legitimate transportation modes and
that is the way successful applicants approached the Tiger III
process. Link:
http://www.dot.gov/tiger/docs/fy2011_tiger.pdf
The projects are there, but they are all integrated into larger
projects or included under a name other than bicycle or pedestrian.
Also, note the complete lack of any direct reference to recreation
in successful applications:
I
broke out the projects that included some reference to bicycle or
pedestrian accommodation and grouped them according to the
descriptions provided. The first two are really pedestrian and
bicycle projects by another name. The others that follow are
components of larger projects:
Pedestrian facilities—MN Northfield
Multimodal Integration—you have to read the project
description to know what Multimodal Integration is and
it turns out to be a pedestrian facility
Bike Share stations and bikes—IL included
as part of a transit project to rebuild a segment of the
Blue line—again, this bike-ped project is only referred
to as a component of an (unrelated) improvement to the
Elevated rail line between the Loop and O’Hare.
Component projects:
Corridor projects that connect origins
and destinations under a complete streets model and/or
Street reconstructions that include Ped and Bike
components— NY Syracuse Connective Corridor, PA Carrie
Furnace Flyover Bridge, SC Boundary Street
Redevelopment, San Juan Caparra Interchange, WA South
Link: Sea-Tac Airport to S 200th Street, Wind River
Indian Res 17 Mile Road Reconstruction, CA US 101 Smith
River Safety Corridor, NY Buffalo Main Street
Revitalization, VT St. Albans Main Street
Reconstruction, FL Snake Road Improvement, MO St Louis
Arch River Revitalization, IL 83 Reconstruction, ID City
of American Falls Complete Streets, AK St. Michael
Community Streets.
Bridge projects with bike lanes and ped
facilities—ME Kennebec Bridge Replacement, OR Sellwood
Bridge Replacement.
Traffic signal prioritization projects
with ADA improvements and HAWK and other signal
upgrades—PA Impact Philadelphia.
Multimodal Transit Projects that include
bike-ped facilities—TX VIA Westside Multimodal Transit
Center, IL Alton Regional Multimodal Station, Minn., MN
Transit Interchange.
When the announcements were made, Tom Ezell reminded
everyone that he had warned against using the R word (recreation)
since this Congress treats recreation as a waste of time.
Likewise, my ongoing suggestions to connect origins and destinations
in corridors are provided based upon my reading of interest within
DOT/FHWA.
My general observation is that the more communities
select and describe facilities in terms of:
their transportation potential,
and their ability to connect origins and
destinations,
the more likely they are going to be successful—at
least until the mood changes in DC—my two cents anyway.
David "Bud" Laumer, AICP, LCI
Bicycle-Pedestrian Coordinator: Arkansas
Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department
Planning & Research Division
10324 Interstate 30-P.O. Box 2261
Little Rock, AR 72203-2261
Another perspective on successful 2011 TIGER
awards can be found on
StreetsBlog.
At any rate, as Bud has astutely noted, we need
to re-look at the way we present our projects in terms of the
transportation advantages they provide, and like it or lump it, we
all need to be in the game: cyclists, motorists, pedestrians,
and public transit, in order to be effective.
Here's wishing you a very merry and blessed
Christmas and holiday season, and peace in the coming New Year...
The Friendly Folks at BACA...
Little Rock & Metroplan apply for TIGER III grant to Close the
Loop...
Little Rock and Central Arkansas Metroplan
recently submitted a TIGER III grant application for federal
assistance in constructing an engineered bike and pedestrian trail
along the south bank of the Arkansas River, behind the Dillards
complex, to "Close The Loop" on the Arkansas River Trail with what
will be a spectacular finish... provided the City is successful in
being awarded the grant!
A public hearing was held the week before last
to reveal the proposed design, seek public comments, and satisfy the
public participation component of the
grant
application. If you haven't gotten a chance to see
what's being planned, here's a look:
A copy of the grant application itself is here
(warning: huge honkin' 8+ Mb download); and makes good
reading on its own for the amount of research that Metroplan has put
behind this...
Some of the hardcore utility riders have
complained about the lack of exits or lateral connections for
commuters along the new path, because as shown in this design, it's
a simple funnel from Gill Street to the end of the Medical Mile and
back. But there's a bit of a reason for that: Dillards
has shown themselves for some time that they're not State Farm (not
that good a neighbor) and like their neighbors across the street,
they're not fond of the idea of having bicyclists anywhere around
their campus.
At any rate, they're planning a spectacular
addition to the River Trail which will definitely do the job of
Closing The Loop... We should hear from DoT about the success
of the grant process in late December, and we are definitely hoping
that DoT doesn't leave a lump of coal in the Mayor's stocking...
AHTD Proposes new Policy for placing Rumble Strips on State Highways
State DOTs and the Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA) love rumble strips; there’s an
entire community of practice within FHWA devoted to this
topic and they are seen as a real safety benefit. The Number
One killer of motorists and motorcyclists is the simple
run-off-the-road accident, where a combination of speed and
driver inattention causes the vehicle to depart the roadway
or cross the center line, hitting something solid or another
vehicle. There are some safety benefits and there are
undoubtedly places where rumble strips do work, and where
they are an appropriate device. So we cannot be “against
them” entirely.
Equally, state DOTs and
FHWA should not be entirely and indiscriminately “for them”.
There are lots of places where there is no point putting
them in – where there is no recovery area, no history of
crashes, no roadside obstacles (after clear-cutting by same
DOT to create clear-zones!) – and there are lots of places
where they shouldn’t put them in because of the impact on
cyclists. And make no mistake, there are no rideable rumble
strips; if you can ride over them with any level of comfort,
they aren’t going to wake a driver up…
There are legitimate
questions about the recovery time and space needed, the
impact of over-correcting and other issues – but again, more
in the realm of appropriate application of the things rather
than whether they work or not.
There is a very real issue
around centerline rumble strips: while they have some appeal
for cyclists as they may get the rumbles out of the
shoulder…they also make it much less likely that drivers
will cross a centerline to pass a cyclist in the travel
lane.
There is clear
guidance from FHWA and the American
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)
as to where and when rumble strips should be used in
consideration of bicyclists – basically there should be four
feet of rideable shoulder remaining on routes used by
cyclists (arguably anywhere, of course).
Comments are due to
AHTD by October 17, 2011. BACA
formally commented on the proposed policy. If you
want to add your ideas, you can be even more effective by
writing directly to the point of contact at AHTD.
We're a bicycling advocacy
organization serving the central Arkansas metropolitan area,
consisting of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Pulaski County, and
the surrounding communities. BACA seeks to provide a unified
voice of advocacy for changes in attitude and public policy that
will improve the safety, convenience, and acceptance of bicycling
within the Little Rock/North Little Rock metropolitan area and
surrounding communities in central Arkansas. We envision a
future where Arkansans embrace bicycling as an integral part of our
way of life; where bicycling is accepted as a safe, practical, and
equitable means of travel; and where Arkansans recognize that
bicycling creates cleaner, healthier, economically stronger, and
more livable communities.
Advocacy is defined as the
act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause,
idea, or policy; active support. Our goal is to do so on behalf of
bicycling in Central Arkansas. We exist to advocate the many
benefits of bicycling to our community.
In support of our
vision, BACA strives to:
Work with public and private
agencies to improve access to and use of existing transportation
and recreational facilities by cyclists; and to support and
assist in the planning, development and implementation of
additional bicycle facilities to connect all parts of the
communities served by BACA;
Advocate and support the needs
of cyclists and other users of bicycle-compatible means of
transportation and recreation during the preparation,
development, and construction of transportation-related plans
and projects;
Promote and support the safe
and equitable use of the public and private roadways by all
users – including motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians;
Provide a resource for bicycle
education and safety information, activities, and training, to
include the healthful benefits of bicycling;
Encourage and support central
Arkansas communities and local businesses in seeking, attaining,
and improving designation as “Bicycle-Friendly Communities” and
“Bicycle-Friendly Businesses” under the criteria of the League
of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle-Friendly America program;
Increase public awareness of
the benefits of bicycling and other forms of active
transportation; and
Act in cooperation with other
community, regional, and statewide organizations sharing common
interests to achieve the above-stated vision.
BACA Meetings
BACA membership meetings are held on the first Thursday of the Month
(with the exception of July and August) at 7:00 p.m. at the Oyster
Bar, 3003 W. Markham, in Little Rock. The Board of Directors
typically holds its meeting at the same location, same day, at 5:30
p.m. Everyone is welcome - you do not have to be a member.
But, if you're interested in becoming a member, membership is free.
Just e-mail your name, address, phone number & e-mail address to
info@bacar.org.
In
January 2010, BACA instituted membership dues of $15 per year, or
$50 per year at the Advocate level. While Associate membership
is free, contributions are always accepted and appreciated. BACA is
a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; and contributions are
deductible to the extent provided by law.
