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Caution (Do Not Slip on Tracks)

Bicycle Safety and the El Paso Streetcar Project
by Cat Cort

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As many El Pasoans are aware, the $97 million El Paso Streetcar
Project is coming to fruition in 2018. The route is slated to run nearly five
miles, in two loops running downtown and uptown with 27 stops along the way.
From a bike rider’s perspective, maintaining cycling safety around the tracks
can at times, literally be a slippery slope. Many experienced urban riders have
already sustained injuries due to crashes in and around the tracks, as most of
the usual bike routes through the city and around the UTEP campus now run
parallel to the streetcar project. In even just a short trip downtown, cyclists
are forced to cross or ride parallel to the tracks due placement and other
obstacles (e.g. traffic, buses and parked cars).

Of particular concern are instances in which bicycle tires
become stuck in the track’s “flangeways” (gaps
in the road surface alongside rails) or when conditions are wet
and tires slide in or simply lose traction on the track surface. This is
especially dangerous when traveling downhill at high speeds and when turning to
cross the tracks – at any angle. There are several downtown intersections that have
no warning of the tracks a rider will encounter (see below photos) which adds
to the difficulty and danger inherent to navigating El Paso by bicycle. Hazardous
routes and unsafe conditions created by the addition of the streetcar tracks
serves to demotivate and intimidate bicycle users, especially beginner riders,
families with children, or visitors that may be interested in renting SunCycle
bikes to explore downtown.

A 2016 study of streetcar track-related bicycle crashes in Toronto
reported that crashes were more
common on major city streets with parked cars and no bike infrastructure, which
describes nearly all of the downtown avenues in El Paso. As per the
design of the City, the El Paso Streetcar runs on shared roadways rather than
having a dedicated rail right of way, which means cyclists on these streets
will be forced into making quick decisions and sudden safety maneuvers around
the tracks to avoid other accidents. Since the City has no apparent plans to make
these routes safer (e.g. creating physically separated bike lanes, protected
intersections, installing proper signage etc.) or to create connected,
alternate safe routes for cyclists around El Paso, the responsibility once
again falls to us, the commuters and recreational cyclists of El Paso, to watch
out for our own safety, especially in the downtown area.

Ways to be a smart cyclist around tracks include knowing and
planning your routes, riding a bike with thicker tires (though anything less
than a fat bike is still prone to getting caught), using lights at night and of
course, wearing safety gear such as helmets and gloves. Crossing tracks at a
perpendicular angle (optimally between 45-90°) and performing two-step left
turns are other ways to avoid crashes, but far from error-proof and can go
wrong in seconds during an unexpected maneuver or in inclement weather
conditions when road surfaces are slick.

Furthermore, why should 100% of the responsibility fall to
the non-vehicular road user? Although there are no formal design guidelines,
there are numerous infrastructure examples and studies from cities around the
world that include multi-use safety measures – basic research that could have
been integrated into the City of El Paso’s design from the start. Even if our current
infrastructure does not allow for creation of protected bike routes, the City
could look into rubber flangeway fillers that provide a level surface for
bicyclists but which the streetcar can safely pass over. At the very least, an
awareness campaign including proper signage or route designation (see video)
would certainly help alert unfamiliar riders how to safely interact with
streetcar tracks, but again this method isn’t foolproof and still doesn’t remove
the inherent danger that shared roadway designs pose to bicyclists.

While we welcome an alternative to driving between
attractions in El Paso and look forward to lightening the traffic load during
downtown events, we can’t help but feel as though the lack of proper
consideration for cyclists and non-vehicular users is an egregious infrastructure
planning error on behalf of the City of El Paso and the Camino
Real Regional Mobility Authority.

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Have you experienced a crash and/or sustained an injury due to the
El Paso Streetcar Project? Let us know by emailing info@velopaso.org or submit
a comment under “Contact Us” page. Remember, the single best investment you can make to improve conditions
for people who walk and bike El Paso’s border region is to become a member of
Velo Paso Bicycle-Pedestrian Coalition today at http://www.velopaso.org/membership.
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Video: How to Properly Cross Rail
Tracks on Your Bike

References

Alter, Lloyd. 2016. Cyclists and streetcar tracks don’t mix.
Treehugger.com

El Paso Streetcar Project at Sunmetro.net

Maus, Jonathan. 2011. A few ideas on how to improve streetcar track safety. BikePortland.org 
Teschke, et al. 2016. Bicycling crashes on streetcar (tram)
or train tracks: mixed methods to identify prevention measures. BMC Public
Health 16:617. Biomedcentral.com

Vance, Steve. 2010. Bikes and Streetcar Tracks. Stevencanplan.com

The Big Hole

You want me to go Where?

“Staff reported that they are aware of the concern and are reviewing the pedestrian pathways to make any adjustments, as necessary.”

Urban Land Institute Advises City of El Paso on Strategies for Developing a Sustainable Active Transportation Network

Photo courtesy of elpasotexas.gov

The ATS, an initiative from the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), looks to connect existing paths around El Paso County and the region. Through the proposal, the MPO aims to promote healthy living and carless transportation options such as biking and walking.

The panelists, convened through ULI’s advisory services program, will be visiting El Paso next week to explore how the city can best design an accessible, well-connected, and inviting active transportation network that accounts for potential climate risks such as extreme heat and flash flooding. The panel will focus on the stretch of the ATS identified as the International Beltway running between El Paso’s downtown, currently experiencing revitalization through the Chamizal, an under-invested and largely residential neighborhood up to the area known as the Medical Center of the Americas. Specifically, the panel will focus its study on two key sites along the ATS – the area surrounding the Salazar and Tays public housing developments.

The advisory panel’s recommendations will be framed in response to the newly developed City Resilience Strategy, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program. Panelist are tasked with addressing which primary and secondary ATS routes offer the best connectivity, access, and experience for users; what key components such as bike lanes, trees, plantings, storm water infrastructure, and pedestrian infrastructure are needed; how the resilient redevelopment of key sites can leverage open space and linkages to carless transportation options; and what private and public sector funding sources can be used for resilience investments.

The assignment for El Paso is part of a series of advisory panels being supported by a generous grant from The Kresge Foundation to advance the institute’s pursuit of urban design and development practices that are more resilient and adaptable to the impacts of climate change. With Kresge’s support, ULI is leveraging the substantial expertise of its members to provide guidance on community building in a way that responds to inevitable climate change while helping to preserve the environment, boost economic prosperity, and foster a high quality of life.

The communities chosen for advisory panel assistance through ULI’s community resilience work are being selected on the basis of 1) the community’s long-range resilience challenges and vulnerabilities to severe weather-related events, and 2) the opportunity for the results to be applied to other communities with similar vulnerabilities. The assistance is part of Institute’s overall efforts to help communities prepare for increased climate risk in ways that foster a quicker, safer return to normalcy after an event and an ability to thrive going forward. ULI has advised several communities across the United States on resilience strategies, including Miami-Dade County, Florida; Norfolk, Virginia; Portland, Maine, Duluth, Minnesota; St Tammany Parish, Louisiana and Seattle.

During the visit, panelists will tour the ATS route and meet with stakeholders within the study area. After carefully analyzing the area and completing the interviews, the panel will then spend two days framing their recommendations and drafting a presentation that will be made to the public at the conclusion of the visit.

NOTE TO REPORTERS AND EDITORS: The ULI panel’s recommendations will be presented at 10 a.m. on Friday, November 18, at the El Paso Community Foundation, 123 W Mills Avenue in El Paso, Texas. The event is open to the public. 
                                                                                                                       About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has nearly 40,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines. For more information, please visit uli.org  or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. 

The Guardian- On the Verge of Carmageddon

Our Roads are Choked On the Verge of Carmageddon by George Monbiot Car use takes a huge toll on our health and on the planet. We need to kick our addiction to driving.

Traffic at a standstill in both directions on the M25 motorway. ‘Cars for everyone was one of the most stupid promises that politicians ever made.’ Photograph: robertharding/Rex Shutterstock

How to reduce the risks of carmageddon

Letters: Those who want to use bikes simply as transport are largely still forced on to the highway – nearly always shared with heavy traffic

Step back from this mess and ask yourself this. If you controlled the billions that are spent every year – privately and publicly – on the transport system, and your aim was to smooth the passage of those who use it, is this what you would do? Only if your imagination had been surgically excised.

Three-quarters of people living in cities want clean air zones, poll finds

Even in a small, economically mature, densely populated nation like the UK, where change is easy, we’re still driving in the wrong direction. The government boasts that car use is rising again, after being knocked back by the recession. It is spending £9bn of our scarce money on roads every year, 70% of which is on new capacity. Thanks to the cuts, bus services supported by local authorities reduced their mileage by 10% last year.Over half the car journeys people make in this country are less than five miles: this is what policy failure looks like. Why don’t people cycle instead? Perhaps because, though the number of motorists killed or seriously injured has fallen sharply, the number of cyclists killed or hurt on the roads has climbed since 2003. This now accounts for 14% of all casualties, though cycling amounts to only 1% of the distance we travel.The simplest, cheapest and healthiest solution to congestion is blocked by the failure to provide safe transit. Last year the transport department crowed that it could cut £23m from its budget as a result of an “underspend on the Cycle Cities Ambition budget”. Instead of handing this money back to the Treasury, it should have discovered why it wasn’t spent, and ensured that it doesn’t happen again.The undercapacity of the roads arises from the overcapacity of the vehicles that use them. Average occupancy of cars in the UK is 1.6; and it seems to me that the bigger the car, the fewer people it tends to contain. With a few exceptions (such as Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans for London), almost nothing is done to change or challenge this.When a major feeder road was resurfaced in my home city, I heard people complaining that it took them an hour and a half to travel two miles to work. They could have walked in half the time, or cycled in one-tenth. The council had a perfect opportunity to intervene, with notices beside the road urging people to switch to two wheels or two feet. But it sat and watched, as trapped in its mindset as people were in their cars.Our problems are dwarfed by what is happening elsewhere. Global car production has almost doubled in 10 years. The number of cars on the planet is expected to rise from 1.2bn to 2bn by 2035. Carmageddon beckons: a disaster for the climate, public health and our quality of life. Yet it is still treated as an indicator of economic success.We are told that this is about choice. But surely there should be a hierarchy of choice: the choice of whether or not to suffer a premature death should take precedence over our choice of transport mode.Our brains are filled with metal particles, our children’s lungs and mental development are stunted, and an epidemic of heart and lung disease is catalysed – all to grant people the choice of stewing in a traffic jam rather than getting there by other means.In a recent YouGov poll in Britain, 76% of respondents opted for clean air zones in their cities, enforced by taxes and charges. Sorry, wrong kind of choice.

So here’s a novel idea: how about a 21st-century transport system for the 21st century? Helsinki is making public transport as convenient and flexible as private transport. For example, by aggregating people’s requests via a smartphone app, minibus services can collect people from their homes and deliver them close to their destinations while minimising their routes. Hamburg is building a networkof cycling and walking paths so safe, pleasant and convenient that no one with the ability to do otherwise would want to take a car.Let’s set a date by which no new car is manufactured unless it’s electric. Let’s set up household charging points, allowing people to plug in without having to take their car off the road. Let’s introduce a scrappage payment, not to replace old cars with new ones but to replace old cars with no car at all. It would take the form of public transport tokens.

How about facilitating “walking buses” to school, with parents taking turns to lead a crocodile of children? How about local drop-off points, so that parcel companies don’t clog our streets and we never miss deliveries? How about providing bikes for hire at stations, and – yes, I believe in miracles – synchronising bus and train timetables?Let’s reopen old rail lines closed in the mistaken belief that train travel was on the way out (it has grown 74% since 1995) and build new lines to bridge the gaps. Let’s bring train services under public control and use the money now spent on road-building to make tickets affordable for everyone.Let’s implement the brilliant plan proposed by Dr Alan Storkey for an intercity bus network faster and more convenient than car travel, using dedicated lanes on the motorways and interchanges at the motorway junctions. Let’s build new settlements around public transport hubs – light rail, tram and electric bus systems – rather than around the car.What is difficult about any of this? What technological barriers stand in the way? None. Transport is among the simplest of our problems to solve. Yet our governments are stuck in a 20th-century gridlock, still committed to their great mistake.

Published by the Guardian Tuesday 20 September 2016 14.18 EDT Last modified on Friday 23 September 2016 13.48 EDT

Reasons I ride

Reasons I ride a bicycle By Gabriel Slape The inevitable was coming and there was nothing either of us could do about it. No matter how we tried we would not be able to resist. We would have to let go of our 30s. Not too long ago both my wife and I were faced with the prospect of turning 40. Milestone birthdays can make you stop and think. The more I thought, the more I knew that I needed to get out and get more exercise. We already had some decent bikes hanging around in the garage, nothing fancy. They were still in good shape despite the fact that they had not seen much use in the last few years. We had always enjoyed riding and decided that this might be a way for us to get more active. That’s when the doubts start: Am in good enough shape to ride? Where can I ride a bike? Is it even safe to ride on the streets of El Paso, TX? They say that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. We have easily racked up more than a thousand miles since taking the small step of loading the bikes in the car and riding a few loops around Ascarate Park for the first time in December 2014. At first, just a few laps around the park at a very leisurely pace was challenging enough for us. Eventually we decided to expand to some longer rides on a “few” local bike paths that serve mainly as recreation. As time went by we gained the stamina and confidence to extend our rides. We found a weekly ride hosted by Chuck’s Bicycle Repair, a local bike shop and considered giving it a try. Then the doubts started up again: Are we good enough to ride with a group? Are these guys way more serious about biking than us? We once again ignored the doubts and joined the group ride where we found riders of all types and abilities. We had a great time and still make sure that we join the ride every week. This group ride helped us to gain the confidence and skills to go out and ride the streets and even after dark. Since last December we have progressed to riding 3-4 or more times a week. Aside from the obvious health benefits, we have realized many other perks from riding our bikes. We have met so many wonderful people while riding. We have also been able to explore our city and see it from a different perspective. The bicycle is the perfect speed to see the world. You can see so much more from a bicycle than you can from a car and you can cover more ground than can by walking. Riding together, my wife and I spend more quality time and work together as a team as we navigate our way through this great city. We enjoy riding so much that we have started using our car less, thus reducing congestion and air pollution and try using our bikes to take care of errands and shopping trips. The best thing about biking is that it does not require a lot of expensive accessories or complicated equipment. If you have the desire, a bike that is in good condition, properly fitting helmet, repair kit and pump for flat tires, and water bottle or camel back, you have nearly everything you need to enjoy endless miles bike riding fun. It doesn’t take any special skills and we learned to ride a bike when we were young children. All it takes is a minimal but conscious amount of preparation to have a fun and easy cross-town bicycle adventure. Riding is something that you can do solo, with your loved ones, or join one of the many weekly group rides. Biking can be more than just a hobby and there many people in El Paso that choose the bike as their main mode of transportation. If you a looking for a way to get active, explore the city, or simply want an alternative to driving, get on a bike and ride. Maybe you will take a weekly ride around your neighborhood or maybe, like us, you will keep finding new reasons to ride more often. I work in an office but do a small amount of physical work during the day. Biking is my primary form of exercise. Before biking I did very little exercise at all and now, aside from riding we try to walk more often instead of driving in instances where it’s more convenient to walk than bike. On a progressive 1-10 scale of activity, 10 being the highest, I was at level 0 activity before biking and at level 7 activity now.

Invest tax dollars in neighborhoods

Wouldn’t it be nice if our City Council thought about giving back to the taxpayers some of our tax dollars by paving and striping our residential streets and adding a few street lights? Maybe people would go for neighborhood walks in the evening if they could see what was going on in the neighborhood? (neighborhood rides)

Instead, all we see is worrying about Downtown, the trolley, ballpark and plaza, which benefit the few, while our streets are a disaster not only on residents but also for mail delivery, fire trucks, emergency vehicles, school buses and local drivers trying to go somewhere.

Think about it. It’s the homeowners’ tax money too.

Sandra Hesch
Northeast El Paso via Letters- elpasotimes.com

Will you and your children be walking or biking to school on May 4th? Why not talk to your school about being a part of the National ‪#‎BikeToSchoolDay‬

PS – streets should be safe for EVERYONE — not just cars

Bike Valet Service

Velo Paso is excited to provide Bike Valet service at major events! Simply put you can park a dozen bikes in the space occupied by one car.

“The most common question Velo Paso hears from passers of the Bike Valet is: “When will this be done again?”

Our rates typically start at $95/hour, depending on event specifics.

For Bike Valet service at your next event, Please submit the Bike Valet Request Form to provide us with an understanding of your needs. Send to info@velopaso.org. Once submitted, we will contact you to confirm operational details, availability, and a price quote. We ask for a month’s notice before the event so that we can adequately recruit the volunteers to support our staff and help keep our costs down. Please note that requests submitted less than two weeks in advance will be subject to an additional fee to account for staff time.

We serve a varied clientele and our service is flexible to accommodate a variety of needs and situations. Please complete as much information as possible so that we can better serve you. We look forward to working with you!

Step it Up! Help Make Our Communities Walkable

Walkable communities are important not only to the health of pedestrians but also to the health of local business.