Road diets do create a safer environments for the most vulnerable road users. However, speed limits are merely suggestions, so bus or no bus, it would be nice to have seen a 10ft car travel lane instead of 11ft, and a nice roomy bike lane with a hashed door buffer zone.   So, in the defeatist tone of a lot of folks that I’ve seen commenting on local bike blogs – “It’s good enough for now”.

The main motivation for this article is the overall tone of the LACBC support letter in favor of the road diet, which I ran across a day after the deal was sealed.

Now on to…

The Gripes

Outright ignoring the dooring hazard is irresponsible, especially for a Bike Advocacy group. Also, it seems that LACBC continues to make excuses for LADOT’s inability to come up with a first-rate bike facility while deriding cyclists’ for their lack of “education”. The Main St corridor through Venice is a key connector between two very active commercial, relatively walkable areas. It is heavily used by cyclists and deserves the best bikeway possible. LADOT instead offers the MUTCD minimum bike lane design, which pales in comparison to what Long Beach is doing for its residents.

I am aware of the usual excuse: protected bike lanes are not an accepted standard, therefore LADOT is not eligible for funding, yadda yadda. Make it happen, in Venice. Go that extra yard and get that grant money, call it a temporary pilot project if you have to.

A cornucopia of caveats and assumptions...

Getting doored hurts and can cause very serious injuries.

What’s most offensive about the statement above is the shift of blame from city planner to the cyclist. “You should have seen that door opening from a mile away, newbie cyclist!” Are we designing a bike lane for the 8-80 age group, or for those with heightened spider-senses? I was unable to attend LACBC’s recent ThinkBike workshop, but I’m fairly certain the Dutch would set the bar higher.

Cyclists in cities with amazing bike facilities don’t have to be educated about the perils of the door zone. Why? They have amazing bike facilities, which minimizes dangerous situations from the start.

Another gripe:  ”Build it now, improve it later” mentality.  Built it well the first time around, instead opting for mediocre and hoping for improvements decades down the road!  Smaller cities like Santa Monica are more nimble, and  actually do react to cyclists’ concerns in a reasonable amount of time.  Maybe it has something to do with accountability – there are less departments to infinitely shift blame and responsibility onto when your project is lagging.

But honestly, when’s the last time you’ve seen the Venice Bike lane being “improved”? There’s fresh, smooth pavement in the travel lane adjacent to the Venice bike lane, but the bike lane itself is untouched.  It’s just as gritty and dishoveled as it was 5-10 years ago.

The Numbers

The paragraph below is what mainly sparked my outrage, and caused me two nights of lost sleep while I mapped and double checked the collision data repeatedly. A bold statement butressed by a breeze of thin air:

Excerpt from LACBC Main St Road Diet support letter - a brief review indeed

I will assume that the erroneous statement meant a two-year time span, from 2008 to 2010. According to my calculations, there were 28 total traffic incidents involving cyclists on Main St in Santa Monica between Jan 1st 2008 and Dec . About a third of those incidents were Sideswipes (10 incidents), another third were Broadsides (9), with the rest being Uncategorized (5), Head-on crashes (3), or Rear-end collisions (1). I have absolutely no idea how anyone can clearly draw a conclusion about how many of these incidents were doorings or caused by the door zone, after all, there is no specific label for a dooring in SWITRS.

CORRECTION: During the same LADOT time span, there were 17 traffic collisions reported, not 28.  A lesser discrepancy than originally reported.

Jan 2008 - Dec 2009 Main St Collision Types (2 yr time span)

2008-2010 Main St Collision Types (3 yr time span)

Primary Collision Factors for those same 28 incidents, same two year three year time span – unfortunately not very useful without a mention of which party was at fault.

Note:  The dataset I used is mostly comprised of street intersections.  This PDF contains traffic collision data involving cyclists from February 2006 to February 2011.  I have not been able to acquire a more accurate list of street addresses from the Santa Monica Police Department. Also, my dataset does not state which party was at fault. Regardless of that, keep in mind that’s a subjective call made by the responding officer.  If LACBC has more detailed data like actual street addresses and party-at-fault, I would still like to see how it supports their conclusions.

Now, let’s not be naive, we all know a large portion of incidents go unreported – the estimate is around two thirds. The former SMPD Deputy Chief was allegedly doored on Main St, and even he chose not to file a report. And in at least one case, a cyclist in Santa Monica has been convinced by a police officer that he should not file a police report if the paramedics do not respond to the scene. He was doored in the Broadway bike lane.

Think about that scenario for a moment.  It often takes paramedics arriving on the scene AND a willing police officer to take a report in order for these incidents to even be recorded. Most of the time, cyclists are so shook up, they allow the motorist to leave without exchanging contact info.

So when you see a red H&R Felony or orange H&R misdeameanor on that map, you best believe someone was seriously hurt.  Imagine that map with the other 2/3 of the unreported collisions.

Another takeaway is that Main St isn’t as rosy of a picture as it’s painted.  Clearly, there is unresolved conflict between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians.  And we’re duplicating the same lane layout just south of Rose, and somehow hoping for better results.

Conclusion

In retrospect, the aforementioned LACBC support letter was rushed, and the project backed mainly by a culture of fear. It’s a covert way of saying “this offer of a bike lane on Main St may disappear off the table if we don’t accept it as is“. The Main St road diet is a win, but the attitude that we should accept the first bike project LADOT offers without any scrutiny is a losing mindset. This paints cyclists as hungry dogs fighting for scraps. And as we gain political power in this city, we need to leave that mindset behind.

It would be nice to see bike advocates looking past the bare minimum design standards. We deserve better, the momentum is on our side.   Also, a bicycle advocacy organization should stray away from deriding the very people it claims to represent.

I understand that LACBC is considering this a win, and rightfully so, but why not set the bar higher? Extending the bike lane on Main St the last 0.7 miles is a no brainer.  Once it’s clear that there’s enough public support for the project as it stands, why not ask for more?

Don’t be afraid to criticize something that doesn’t feel right. Don’t be afraid to expect more from your city planners.

I used to think Alex Thompson was a conspiracy theorist, but now I truly wonder if that extra half a foot would have been eked out if Bikeside had not pushed the envelope on this issue.

Before the exciting news about our own BikeMap, let’s see what others have released recently.  Berkeley’s Safe Trec has put together a demo that allows you to query traffic collision data for counties in Northern California (you must first request a login).  You can scroll through a list of the results or view them on a map.  The layout is rudimentary, but SafeTrec offers some solid statistics:  collision severity, collision type (head-on, sideswipe, etc), parties involved, factor that caused the collision.  These are all fields that have to be filled out when the law enforcement agent arrives on the scene of a traffic collision, and it all ends up in a centralized, statewide database known as SWITRS.

The Bay Citizen has its own sharp-looking map of bike collisions in San Francisco also based on SWITRS data.  Also impressive – the charts, which rank the most dangerous neighborhoods, streets and intersections, examine which party is most often at-fault, and list the most common crash causes.  They have drawn up some conclusions, which were contested by San Francycle.

I am glad to see others taking a shot at visually organizing heaps of publicly-available collsion data that otherwise would end up in a boring Powerpoint presentation.

We have also picked up steam on LA Bike Map with the help of Jason Leung, who has done wonders for our existing interface.   For now, we are focusing on using this new tool to create custom maps for a pedestrian safety study in Santa Monica.  Once it’s ready for prime-time, we’ll move these changes to the LA BikeMap, making it easier to comb through user-contributed incidents as well as the “official” traffic reports taken by various police agencies in LA County.

Bikemap v2.0 displaying traffic incidents involving bikes within Santa Monica city limits

New features

• larger map area
• snappy time slider
• login-based system for quicker incident reporting
• ability to save a search and share it as a link
• better clustering of incidents to show most dangerous stretches of road

Incident Heat Map

An Alpha release v2.0 will be available for public testing in April.  We’d like some input in order to make it more practical and easy to use, so when the time comes, you will catch the invite on BikeSide.

This two hour session attracted many folks from Caltrans, SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments), California Highway Patrol, LAPD, Burbank PD as well as Metro. Unfortunately there was no sight of LADOT, who would have really benefited from this presentation.

Cyclists on the street know the roads and the issues better than bureaucrats sitting in an office.

The LA Bike Map, created with data from the LAPD, has more impact when presented by a cyclist, who has experienced those incidents that he is addressing and that he is researching. Alex Thompson did a wonderful job and his presentation drew a lot of comments and questions resulting in some nice brainstorming going on in the room.

Hit & Run incidents are always more shocking when one knows the victim. Having had Louis Bianco at the Bikeside SPEAKS! presentation on Saturday left people upset and at the same time fired up to change our streets.

It was no different today, when Sara presented her data about the various incidents that occurred in the past few years. Sara talked about Roadblock, Ed Magos, Jen Diamond and Jesus Castillo among the many other victims of hit and runs and Sara brought her vulnerability to the table, because she knows the people she talked about.

After our presentation, Sgt. Krumer showed the LAPD officers training video and CHP’s Officer Vince Ramirez and Burbank PD Motor Officer Justin Meadows made themselves available in a panel discussion about law enforcement and how each entity deals with cyclists on the streets.

Questions were raised and discusses about how we can educate the motoring public, about law enforcement around Freeway ramps and about jurisdictions. Metro vs. Cyclist incidents were again brought up and Sgt. Krumer repeated that LAPD will handle those incidents because the crime occurred on the street and they are responsible to cover those incidents. Krumer said that just like with any collision on the street, there needs to be the same informational exchange between cyclists and Metro driver and LAPD will help us handle those situations.

It was a great meeting with robust discussions, great crowd and great energy. Bikeside had 6 people representing, including Stephen Box, Jeremy Grant, Max Berson and DJ Wheels.

Check out our photos on facebook and don’t forget to follow us on twitter for up-to-the-minute updates.

Bike collisions around USC

A million times a cyclist has said “wouldn’t it be great if we could track where bike collisions happen?”  Now we can.

The LA Bike Map lets cyclists submit incidents, see them displayed instantly, and study the overall pattern, dynamically, in one place.

What is LA Bike Map?

Bikeside’s LA Bike Map allows you to submit bike incidents in LA County. You can then view the incident on the maps, and see what other incidents have occurred nearby. You can submit collisions, bike theft, harassment, and near misses.  You can also examine collision data from LA from 2008.  All the 2008 data for collisions is integrated and displayed, and you can choose the time frame for the data you want to display.  Soon we’ll have data for 2007 and 2006.

Remember that driver who cut you off in slow motion, you tapped the breaks and missed their bumper by inches, and then rode off into the sunset?  The only difference in the world was that you knew you nearly bought it, and your heart leapt out of your chest for an instant.

2008 Cyclist Fatalities for Los Angeles. There were 9.

Instead you can now put a marker on LA Bike Map describing what happened.  It seems like a small thing, but it gives us all the power to identify where near misses happen, and figure out how to stop near misses from being full on collisions.  Maybe it gives you some peace of mind too – now we can all learn from each others close calls.

Same with bike theft.  By submitting instances of bike theft, whether it’s a junk bike, Cervelo, or your lights got jacked, we can start to get a grip on a city wide problem.  Now we’ll be able to see the pattern, if there is any.  And best, it’s a public, community tool, so that if agencies aren’t responsive to our needs, we can use data from the map to argue for change.

How do I use the LA Bike Map?

Right now there are two primary ways to use the LA Bike Map.  You can report an incident or you can examine the mapping data.

Submit an incident button

To report an incident, just click the “submit an incident” button.  You’ll be redirected to a from, where you can choose what kind of incident it is, map the location, and provide some contact information.  Do all that – it’s pretty self explanatory – and then click “Submit.”  Your submission should appear on the map instantly.  If not (things are a little buggy), adjust the slider below the map to include the month for the incident you submitted, and your incident should appear.  As well, look in the List View, and you should see your incident listed.

To examine the data, just go to the main page and play with the maps.  Adjust the slider or use the drop menus above it to choose the range of months you’d like to display data for.  You can view the data by category – so try clicking different categories.  Categories can have sub-categories, but for right now only collisions has a sub-categories.  Try clicking the collisions category to get a list of sub-categories for display.

Sub-categories for display on the LA Bike Map

Fool around – there’s some cool stuff and there are endless data mashups we might do in the future.

A Work In Progress

LA Bike Map is very much a work in progress.  Just in the last few weeks, Paul Bringetto and Mihai Peteu have streamlined the code immensely.

There are imperfections.  There are prettier websites out there, for example.  The site is a bit clunky too, if you’re running an old PC, LA Bike Map will cripple your browser.  If you’re running something faster, you’ll probably be ok, but it does take a little while for the markers to display at times.  Browser wise, for right now, Firefox is your best bet.

Especially important, except for user submitted data, which y’all are no doubt generating right this minute, we’ve only added data for the City of LA.  So, surrounding cities are currently blank.

The 2008 LA bike involved collision data needs to be cleaned up a bit too.  The coding of the points on the map isn’t perfect; 100 or so of the 1581 incidents that will need remapping.  As of this writing, five incidents are mapping to points in Michigan.  Somehow I don’t think LAPD is really taking collision reports in Michigan winters.  More glaring, 56 incidents appear to have happened at City Hall, more than any other intersection by a factor of 10; when the Google Maps API can’t find a listed intersection in LA, it automatically maps it to 1st & Main, at the corner of City Hall.  There aren’t actually that many collisions outside City Hall.  And the Mandeville Canyon road rage attack, the most famous of 2008, is missing or not mapping correctly.

56 accidents outside City Hall? Geo-coding error!

You might also notice that the 2008 LA data shows all the collisions taking place at intersections.  That’s because we haven’t dug into the guts of the code to figure out how to code mid block incidents en masse.

So bugs, problems, they’re going to happen.  They ARE happening!  I’m convinced that imperfect data is better than not at all.  If you notice a bug, write me at alexcthompson@gmail.com.

The Future

For the immediate future Bikeside is looking to add new data sets to LA Bike Map.  We hope to add other years of data for the City of LA, and to gradually fill in the holes for other cities – West Hollywood, Compton, Inglewood, Culver City, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica etc etc.  We also hope to collect data for bike theft from local police departments, though we expect that data to be more difficult to work with, since it is likely to be less standard.  Over time, week by week, we will enrich the maps.

For the long term future . . . well, I don’t know.  But there’s a lot of great ideas on the table.

Help Us Out

We can use all the help we can get.  If you’re a coder, we can probably find a way to plug you in.  If you’re an expert in GIS, lets pump out some cool data displays!

We also want to follow up with as many reported incidents as possible.  Bikeside could really use volunteer help in calling and writing people who report incidents, especially serious ones, to find out more about the incident.

If you want to volunteer, write me at alexcthompson@gmail.com.

Thanks!

A very special thanks is owed to Mihai Peteu, Paul Bringetto, Dr. Lyke Thompson, Tait McCarthy, LAPD Sergeant David Krumer, and LAPD Deputy Chief David Doan for making this project happen.  Mihai and Paul refined, revised and recoded the site; without them this project wouldn’t exist.  Lyke (my dad) discovered the application and pushed me to do this project.  Tait provided some key technical support.  Sgt Krumer and Sgt Doan helped with understanding and acquiring the LAPD data.

Most of all, mad props to the coders at Ushahidi who built the platform on which LA Bike Map runs.

Cyclist involved collisions in and around the Bike Kitchen in 2008

Have you wished you knew how safe each street is for cycling?  Thanks to Deputy Chief David Doan, Mihai Peteu, Sergeant David Krumer, Paul Bringetto, Tait McCarthy, and Lyke Thompson, Bikeside is proud to bring the community one step closer to that goal.  Above we have displayed all the collision data from 2008 recorded by LAPD (involving cyclists.)  A single red dot represents a collision, and a larger red dot with a 2 or a 3 or a 4 in it represents 2 or 3 or 4 collisions.  As you can see, East Hollywood, the defacto center of bike culture in LA, has plenty of accidents.

As always, the problem is we don’t know how many cyclists ride these streets, so the data does not give relative risk.  Regardless, if you check out the maps for San Fernando Valley, Van Nuys Blvd stands out like a fresh bloodstain.

Collisions in the central Valley in 2008 involving cyclists (click to embiggen)

Where are we getting these maps and how can you view and play with them?  Check back next week!