Okay so I was wrong about gas
(From today’s Yehuda Moon comic strip)
A few months ago I posted a nasty, cynical post about how gas would have to go up to around $50.00 a gallon before it would make a dent in people’s driving habits. This hypothesis involved math, albeit a simple, primitive kind of math, reflective of my abilities.
I was all wrong. Tang, owner of Ordinary Bikes, tells me business usually dips dramatically during the summer, but the shop is busier than ever and selling more bikes than ever. Like most people in Tucson, I could swear I am seeing more people on bikes. My banker tells me that several of her lawyer customers are showing up on bikes.
And now Clever Cycles in Portland is closing for two weeks because they have sold out their inventory!
–Erik Ryberg
Woman who doored and killed cyclist fined $110.00–Canadian!
A Toronto woman who doored a cyclist, knocking him into and then–fatally–under a van, has been fined $110.00.
The $110.00 fee is the same amount local cyclists face for not having a bell on their bike.
–Erik Ryberg
Los Angeles made me proud . . .
. . . to live in Tucson.
I was in L.A. the last few days in federal court and I kept a keen eye out for bicyclists while out and about.
I saw very few.
I am sure that L.A. has lots and lots of neighborhoods where the bicycle is featured more prominently than downtown, where I was, but I have to say: the automobiles dominate that place in a way that makes Tucson look like a bicycling paradise.
Let’s hope Tucson’s recent, weird, thoughtless plan to build more highways right through downtown is a brief phase that it will get over soon. Because L.A. is not a model that will survive the long, slow death of the automobile.
–Erik Ryberg
Varo’s tall bike
Here are two pictures my friend Sarah H. from BICAS sent me of Varo on his tall bike last night. As you might imagine, he’s always a big hit with the spectators.
Varo has lots of cool bikes that he makes himself, including a side-by-side two-seater. I’ll try to get a picture of that one next week.
–Erik Ryberg
Tuesday Night Community Bike Ride visits two ghost bikes
Last night’s Tuesday Night Bike Ride visited two ghost bikes. The first was for Andria Ligas, a 19 year-old Flinn scholar at the U of A who was killed when she was struck from behind by a driver who then fled the scene. Her ghost bike can be found on Euclid just north of Lee. The driver turned himself in after his vehicle was located and seized by the police. He plead guilty to “leaving the scene of an accident” (his only charge) and received one year in the Pima County jail. Lauren has been obtaining police documents and researching Ligas’s case and we have found many troubling things about it that I will probably discuss in a future post.
Francisco Sanchez’s ghost bike is at 22nd and 2nd Avenue. This is another troubling one because when you investigate the scene, the police report doesn’t make much sense. For example, the police report says Mr. Sanchez was riding westbound on 22nd on the sidewalk. But there is no sidewalk there. It also says he was struck by the front of a turning utility truck. This kind of makes sense until you get to the actual scene, because the truck’s visibility is extremely limited and unless he was driving recklessly he would have had to have had his nose pretty far out into traffic. Of course anything can happen, but it is hard to believe Mr. Sanchez would have chosen to swerve out in front of the vehicle under those circumstances.
The driver was not cited in Mr. Sanchez’s death.
Despite its somewhat morbid theme, the bike ride was very large and fun. Varo rode his triple-decker tall bike with a giant flag on it celebrating the one-year anniversary of the ride. I hope someone got a picture of that to send me.
Lauren was there too in her three-wheeler cargo bike, “taking up the very, very rear” she told me.
Thanks to Janet Miller for leading the ride to the two ghost bikes.
–Erik Ryberg
One-year anniversary of the Tuesday Night Community Bike Ride tonight!
Depending how you look at it. It might have been last weekend, too.
If you’ve never been on this ride you really need to do it. Hundreds of people show up and as my friend Deana puts it, it is “like a cocktail party on wheels, except you have to drink the cocktails afterwards.” The ride takes a very slow (sometimes excruciatingly so, when there are lots of people) pace around town, between three and seven miles usually.
It’s caught the attention of lots of underground media folks because it is so cool, but the so-called mainstream media haven’t even seemed to notice us yet.
Flag me down if you see me there. I’m usually on my X-tracycle but it’s got a flat and I’ve been too lazy to patch it. Might be riding the 29′er today.
–Erik Ryberg
Oxycontin-impaired Hummer driver likely to get house arrest for killing cyclist
A woman who lost control of her Hummer and drove it into a cyclist who was waiting for the light to change in a bike lane has been recommended a sentence of 365 days of house arrest, along with ten years of probation and, thank goodness, a life-long driver’s license suspension.
The cyclist, Sarah Howard, was killed. She was 48. From her obituary:
Sarah Howard, 48, of Meridian, passed away on Friday, Oct. 19, 2007 while riding her bicycle. Sarah was born on Sept. 30, 1959 in New Orleans, La., daughter of Bruce and June (Mequet) Treybig. Sarah attended High School at College Station, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M in 1980 with a degree in Bio Medical Science. She also received a degree in Nursing from New Mexico Jr. College in 1990. She married Mike Howard on May 12, 1979 at College Station, Texas. She worked as a nurse at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute in Nampa and Meridian. Sarah enjoyed working with cancer patients, and developed a bond with many of them and cared deeply about them. Sarah had a small Dachshund that she had trained as a therapy dog. She enjoyed taking it to area nursing homes and visiting with the residents. She was devoted to her family and to God. Sarah enjoyed gardening and riding her bicycle. She was a member of the Oncology Nurses of Treasure Valley and the Ten Mile Christian Church in Meridian. She is survived by her husband of 28 years, Mike Howard; two sons, Matthew and Joshua Howard; two sisters, Rachael and Jarrett Tucker of Bonham, Texas, and Mary and Daniel DuBuission of College Station Texas; her parents, Bruce and June Treybig of College Station, Texas.
–Erik Ryberg
“Underrun” truck guards installed on Portland tanker trucks
Bikeportland.org is reporting that “underrun” truck guards like the one above have been installed on certain city vehicles there. Two cyclists were killed last year in “right-hook” accidents, and the Portland city officials have apparently taken notice.
What a long way they are from Tucson! Here the Sun Tran buses regularly graze cyclists (getting hit by a Sun Tran bus was one thing that inspired me to begin this blog) and when confronted about it they regularly show only disdain for the terrified cyclists. And don’t get me started on the total failure of the Tucson Police Department to cite drivers for violations of the “three-foot” rule, despite the large numbers of Tucson cyclists who have been killed by drivers who strike them from behind.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take more fatalities here to get Tucson’s authorities to begin protecting us.
–Erik Ryberg
Peter Visconti III ghostbike at Grant and Columbus
Peter Visconti III was killed on October 17, 2004 when riding across Grant Avenue at Columbus. A driver going west on Grant ran the red light and struck him directly at high speed. The driver later turned himself in but insisted he wasn’t the person who hit Visconti, despite numerous witnesses who said otherwise.
The top picture shows the ghostbike being sunk into the ground by P. at the corner of Columbus and Grant. The bike was donated by BICAS and prepared and installed by volunteers who never met Peter. Nevertheless, they send their best wishes to his family and loved ones, and hope this installation will remind drivers to be more careful.
–Erik Ryberg
How they roll in Quebec
Now that’s what I call a bicycle. Quintocycle. Whatever.
–Erik Ryberg