Here is one open-air model, in Iowa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XumrSMqOBVw&feature=related
Many more examples are available on youtube.com — just search for velomobile.

—Steve Runge

I am embarrassed to say that I just saw this, and too late to attend. Thank you for posting this and I will try to better stay on top of great events like this. Nathan Phillips

Also, on the day of the event, we'll need volunteers to help lug boxes, put up awnings, man tables for registering riders, etc… Please let us know if you can help, and please also let us know if there's something else you can do.

The rides might be linear (start at point A, go to point B, and return to A) or convergent (several groups start at A, B, and C, meet at D, and all ride to E) or something else I haven't imagined. Where should we go?

Would the proposed rail trail improve connectivity for you? One of the possibilities is that it would go to Riverside. That route has some vocal opposition, though, from residents who abut the old rail right of way (DCR land). Other proposed routes by Amy Sangiolo follow the Charles, and don't provide a direct link to Riverside.

Cheers,

Greg Tutunjian

You are invited to the final presentations of the Class of 2009 senior design projects in transportation engineering, to be held Wednesday April 22, 6:30 pm, in 108 Snell Engineering Center. The students will present designs for four outstanding bikeways:

- a cycle track (separated bike path) along Boylston Street from Fenway to the Public Garden, and all the way around the Public Garden

- a cycle track parallel to the Harbor Commercial Street in the North End to Kneeland Street in Chinatown

- a cycle track from Melnea Cass Blvd. to UMass, via Southampton, Preble, Old Colony, and Morrissey Blvd (right past the Globe)

- a greenway along Lee / Clyde Streets in Brookline for walking and bicycling

Each design demonstrates the feasibility of "road diets" that make it possible to make roadways narrower, providing the space needed for traffic-separated bike paths — exactly what Boston most needs to promote bicycling and bicycle safety.

Peter Furth and Dan Dulaski
Faculty advisers

Thanks for replying.

I think much of the auto anger directed at cyclists is due to our ability to keep moving while they're stopped (either at a light, in traffic or both.) They see us "getting ahead" and they're frustrated. Add to that the frustration of them driving to or from work, picking up or dropping off the kids, errands, economic woes, etc. and it's not pretty. They resent the cyclist just because we're moving and they aren't.

A good friend and long time cycling commuter alerted me to the sanity of obeying the rules of the road years back. I rode with him and we stopped at all the red lights, stop signs, etc. He also taught be the verbal alerts cyclists use. I've been hooked ever since. Maybe that's what it takes: 1-on-1 work. (I've seen rules of the road ignored on so many charity rides that I stopped doing them. I signed up as a volunteer road safety rider one year in a multi-day ride only to see all of the "officials" blow through lights, ride 3-4 abreast on narrow roads, etc.)

I cringe every time I read about cycling injuries and deaths on the road. I had a close call Friday riding in the afternoon and it convinced me yet again that slower, safer riding is better for long term health than jumping ahead to beat a car or truck.

Cheers,

Greg Tutunjian

One good place to start with the Comprehensive Plan would be to request that the City of Newton post the plan in a more prominent place than in a list on the planning department's page of reports. Given that it's a document that is supposed to shape all policy in Newton, it's a mighty hard document for residents to find. Bike Newton is doing what it can to make sure the sections pertaining to bikes, pedestrians, and public transportation stay in the foreground.

If you're going to change a cultural norm, though (and it's a cultural norm among bikers not to stop for lights), it might take more than laws and fines… though that's certainly part of the puzzle. MassBike recently helped push through legislation that should make enforcement a little easier. It also makes some bad car driving habits (not waiting for a safe chance to pass a bicyclist with sufficient room, for instance) subject to fines as well. We'll see, though. The passage of the bill heralded a lot of fanfare, but I haven't seen any tickets, yet. And I was cut off the other evening by a Newton police cruiser, so we're not reaping the fruits yet of the bike safety education for cops part of the bill.

Maybe some of the bike organizations need to get more vocal about the problem. What the redlightrunners don't seem to understand is that their behavior aggravates drivers, and makes them less likely to be accommodating for bikers. Biker A runs a red light, and bikers B, C & D reap the reward: a driver who'd like to run all bikers off the road.

That said, biker misbehaviors can't be held entirely responsible for poor driving behavior. (And running red lights, though quite risky, isn't among the top 10 safety problems.) There seems to be a lot of aggression directed at bikers, which I've wondered about for years. A bike can't really hurt anyone but its rider. (Lots of pedestrians get angry about bikers as well, and there wasn't a single pedestrian death attributable to a bike last year, while there were thousands of deaths attributable to cars. Why are pedestrians quick to anger about bikes?) If we take as an assumption that anger derives much of its fuel from a sense of threat, driver anger at bikes is an even greater mystery: if I slam full-speed into an Austin Mini, I might put a small dent in it. But driver anger is palpable. Do a google-search of "bicycle" + "accident," and not only will you retrieve a chilling number of news articles, but those news articles will be accompanied by a startling number of angry comments directed at bicyclists, even if the article is about cyclist who died when the driver was at fault.

I was on route 9 today and thinking about the stores etc that force ppl to drive there. I just got a gift certficate to Capital Grill. I would love to take pub transpo to it. But I won't ( nor would the husband) bike to the one off route 9. Not sure if my card is good for the one in town.

It makes me a bit sad. I lived until I was 30 to learn to drive. Then continued to be mostly carfree then moved to Newton and find trying to be carfree pretty impossible.

Today I saw a teen riding West on Washington Street to Walnut Street and pause at the light before crossing Walnut. She was on the sidewalk and dodging pedestrians. I counted 11 adult cyclists blowing through red lights this past Sunday morning between 9:30 and 11:00 am riding West from Newton to Natick Center and back. Several of these riders were together and all were riding high end bikes.

I'm all for traffic calming and bike lanes, but what about basic traffic laws? How do the improvements we're planning impact cycling safety and common sense (let alone citations?) You can bet motorists see you blow through those lights and fume. I think the police could issue tickets (not warnings) starting at $100 to start changing behavior. I'd support that. Nothing short of some stiff fines or carnage on the road will change this behavior.

Sometimes its a matter of convenience or time: I only have a few minutes to do something, so a car is the only option. Or I've got to lug lots of heavy groceries that won't fit on my bike and that I can't carry if I walk.

But a lot of times it's just the thought of the physical effort (I'm lazy) or the frequent hair-raising threats from cars. I really just don't like biking under the Winchester Street Route 9 overpass. It's dark, the road surface is terrible (potholes, patches, sand, gravel), and the roads are unmarked, making it difficult even to drive, so I know how little attention drivers are paying to bikes when there are other cars making sudden lefts to watch out for. Why does Route 9 have to be so impassable? I could cross at Woodland, where there's a pedestrian signal, but that's way out of the way. I could cross the pedestrian bridge at Eliot, but as they say in Maine, "you can't get there from here." The bridge at Parker is untenable, too.

For pedestrians and cyclists, Route 9 might as well be rolls of razor-wire. And while I'm at it, so is Needham Street.

Basically, it's all been designed with only cars in mind. Human beings getting themselves around on foot or on bikes are an afterthought. Re-thinking transportation means keeping humans-powered transport part of the road-use mix.

Let alone biking. We were quite a site biking to the library last week. I had to carry their bikes over snow mounds. Not fun.

I like this husband wife blogging team. They ride Xtracycles and the Wife rides a Jorg & Olif when on her own. It's fun to see how they commute as a family by bike. Inspiration for sure.

This is the original blog on "chic Cycling".

The pics are lovely and it makes me want to live in Copenhagen like nobodies business. However the blogger will make comments against gear and lycra and racing bike culture. so beware of that. But he def tells a story of how getting around by bike *should* be.

First up is my favorite b/c it's based in boston. She mainly writes about Old bikes, biking with "style" and will snap photos of other commuters in the city while on her bike. I even snapped a picture of a Newton man on a bike by Shaws in newtonville. He was wearing a long camel coat on a freezing sunday afternoon. Very dapper.

Here she is: Chic Cyclist

Done. Link us up!

—Steve R.

Lois Levin

email me: steve dot runge at gmail dot com
—Steve R.

—Steve R.

I know there is another Xtra in newton b/c I saw it outside of Whole Foods at four corners the day before mine arrived. I thought we could connect, start some visability and perhaps provide test riding for anyone else interested. I'm rather short and my seat height is locked due to the baby seat, but I would welcome connecting with someone who wanted to see it or take it for a quick spin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYQs3Mb8oJI

I guess there's one in Newton in front of the Brown middle school, but it only really services flow in two directions, so it's not as interesting.

Any traffic calming device that slows traffic to 20 mph should be good for cyclists. Perhaps it helps to think of bump-outs as parked cars which you can see through and won't open a door on you. ;-) I'd be very interested in design-tweaks to these devices to accomodate bicycles. I think I once saw one that allowed bicycles to ride over the device.

MAYOR MENINO'S BIKE FRIENDLY BUSINESSES PROGRAM

Mayor Menino and the City of Boston invite businesses and
organizations to apply to become part of the Boston Bike Friendly
Business program.

The Bicycle Friendly Business Program recognizes Boston businesses
and organizations that encourage bicycling among their employees by
engaging in bicycle friendly practices. We provide a checklist of
simple practices that make it easy for you to encourage cycling. You
check off your current practices and those that you can commit to for
this year.

Click here for applications or visit Boston Bikes. For more information, contact Nicole Freedman, 617-918-4456, vog.notsobfoytic|arb.namdeerf.elociN#vog.notsobfoytic|arb.namdeerf.elociN.

Very little overhead or administration for bike newton: just a database, which would be pretty close to running itself, and some kind of labeling system. I think we could avoid liability by generating some kind of legal waiver, and by not owning the bikes: we'd just be a system for distributing them. Perhaps we could even work in some basic maintenance from time to time (e.g., oiling chains, patching tubes). Maybe at Newton Serves?

- One trail-a-bike
- Two "co-pilot" kids seats and one rear rack that goes with the co-pilot
- A 2-kid burley trailer

contact me by posting a reply to this posting, or at ude.ub|nahtan#ude.ub|nahtan

- Nathan Phillips

- Bike work stand
- 36 piece bike tool set (includes chain degreaser and other basic cleaning equipment)
- One Ortleib pannier that will fit most rear racks.

Contact me by posting to this web site or email me at ude.ub|nahtan#ude.ub|nahtan

- Nathan Phillips