A blog for better streets and public spaces in Portland, Maine.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Bike hit-and-run victim seeks witnesses

Via Craigslist:

My husband was riding his bicycle east on Park Ave on Wed at approximately 1:45pm when he was hit by a gold sedan that turned right from Park onto Deering Ave without using its blinker. He fell off of his bike and broke his back and the car never stopped. Any information at all is appreciated.

If you happened to be in the neighborhood, contact the poster by hitting the reply button on the Craigslist post.

And also: several vehicular cyclists have voiced their concern about the new bike lane at this location for directing bike traffic to the right of turning vehicles. The intersection design creates a right-turn lane to the left of a straight-traffic (bike) lane, which makes cyclists vulnerable to crashes like this one, especially when aggressive, negligent drivers are involved. A good rule of thumb is to treat every car as one that might turn right, and to ride in the center of the vehicle lane (where cars are certain to see you) through intersections like this one. Watch the video below from CyclingSavvy for more details.

Right Hook Prevention in Bike Lanes from Keri Caffrey on Vimeo.

Friday, January 3, 2014

A good read on Mother Jones: Pushing Poor People to the Suburbs Is Bad for the Environment.

An excerpt:

"For the urbanist movement to be worthy of its name, the end result has to be that a higher percentage of Americans are actually living in central cities, and that the residents of both cities and suburbs represent the full spectrum of American life."

Something to keep in mind as well-to-do West Enders try to sink a major housing proposal in Bayside.