CT Green Scene

Low Carbon Fun - Discover Hartford CT Parks Bike/Walk Tour 2011

Hartford, Connecticut – Saturday, October 22^nd, 2011 – Live Hartford’s bicycling and parks legacies.  Road, mountain, commuter, comfort, hybrid, racing, touring, single speed, hardtail, 3- speed, banana, cargo, whatever you pedal.  This is a fun loving urban parks tour - not a race. 10, 15, 25, and 40 mile bike tours will remind some of the routes of the 1990’s Hartford Parks Bike Tour but also feature miles new of riverfront trails and bike lanes.  Both guided and self-guided walks feature Hartford’s historic, architectural, and natural attractions, some free and some for free.  All routes depart and return to beautiful Bushnell Park in downtown Hartford.

Discounted online pre-registration is now open for the bike tour.  Walk tour registration is day of event only.  Remembering New York City ten years after September 11^th, and recognizing Connecticut First Responders’ service every day saving and protecting life on our roadways - complimentary day of event registration for Police, Fire, and EMT/Ambulance personnel in work shirt.

Proceeds benefit Bike Walk CT and the City of Hartford, Hartford Parks Trust Fund. “The stronger the roots, the sweeter the fruits.”

“I invite residents and visitors alike to explore and rediscover Hartford.  By touring our treasured and historic parks system, it’s easy to be in awe of the visionaries who founded our great city.  It also inspires us today to continue implementing our One City, One Plan for conservation and development as Hartford becomes a greener, grander, and choice destination,” said Mayor Pedro E. Segarra.

Bike Walk Connecticut's mission is to change the culture of transportation in Connecticut through advocacy and education by making bicycling and walking safe, feasible and attractive for a healthier and cleaner Connecticut.

Discover Hartford Tour Website – www.hartfordbiketour.org

Discover Hartford Tour Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=159052354171214

Bike Walk Connecticut – www.bikewalkct.org

City of Hartford – http://www.hartford.gov/

Hartford Parks – http://www.hartford.gov/healthyhartford/OpenSpace/OSParks.htm

Bike Share comes to NYC

Looks like the summer of 2012 will have more in store than just hot weather. Mayor Bloomberg has approved a bike share program with a company based in Portland, Ore. Now, it's just a matter of working out the details. Once implemented, it will become the largest bike share program in the country. Will it work, or will this just be one more opportunity to loot the merchandise and ruin the good green vibes?

See the excerpt from The New York Times below:

New York Chooses Company to Run Bike-Share Program
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: September 14, 2011

"The Bloomberg administration announced Wednesday it had selected a Portland, Ore., company to run an ambitious bike-share program in New York City, but don’t break out the spandex cycling shorts just yet.

Amid unease about exactly how the city will integrate 600 rental stations and 10,000 bicycles into the crowded streets and sidewalks of New York, the official rollout date of the program has been pushed back until the summer of 2012.

Climate Summer

by Eileen Weber

A little over a week ago, five college-aged bikers whisked through New Haven. Why, you ask? They’ve been on a more than 900-mile journey as a statement of solidarity against the burning of fossil fuels, of course.

In a day and age in which the tangible signs of environmental damage—from climate change to air pollution and everything in between—the danger of fossil fuels is all too real. And these students are trying to make that point on two wheels instead of four with an exhaust pipe.

Some of the riders are from the Northeast region; some are from as far away as Singapore. But like any self-respecting environmentalist, they are all united on the concept that we must change the way we live in order to preserve our planet for future generations.

“Instead of being dependent on fossil fuels, we should be dependent on each other and rely on renewable resources,” said team member Tara Escudero in a recent press release.

East Coast Greenway in Connecticut

Check out this clip courtesy of Steve Mitchell from the East Coast Greenway via YouTube. Biking from Maine to Florida just got a whole lot easier.

Fairfield Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Interactive Public Forum

Thursday, April 14th
6:30 p.m.
Informal Reception
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Presentations and Break-out Sessions
 
Osborn Hill School
760 Stillson Road, Fairfield
 
Featured Speakers
Ken Flatto, First Selectman
Kirstin Etela, Fairfield Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee
Chris Lyddy, Deputy Chief of Police
Joe Devonshuk, Director of Planning & Zoning
Bill Hurley, Town Engineer
Sarah Levy, Public Health Educator
Mark Nielsen, Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning Agency
 
Learn about:
The 2010 Fairfield Bicycle/Pedestrian Survey
Fairfield’s sidewalk inventory and accident data
Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure
 
Help the Advisory Committee identify:
Streets and areas of special concern
Possible bike routes, bike lanes and sidewalks
Bike racks and other bicycle/pedestrian facilities in town
 
 
For more information, contact:
Lauren Lanham, Assistant to the First Selectman
203-256-3030
llanham@town.fairfield.ct.us
 
Brian Bidolli, Executive Director, GBRPA
203-366-5405 X25
bbidolli@gbrpa.org

Bike Friendly in Fairfield?

There are currently NO bike friendly communities in the state of Connecticut. While other states out west and even within New England beat us out by a long shot, we still can't manage to be green when it comes to transportation. Back in January, this site posted an article about a group of people in Fairfield who were attempting to get the town government on their side to pave the way for bike friendliness. They're still trying. If they succeed, your town could be next. It just takes one to be a catalyst for change. If you live near Fairfield or visit with any frequency, visit the web site below and state your case. The traffic in your town may depend on it.

http://www.fairfieldct.org/bikewalksurvey.htm

Image courtesy of Treehugger.com.

Bike your heart out

With the Tour de France well underway, a new study shows there are more benefits than detriments to urban cycling. True, cyclists breathe in more air pollutants and you run a much greater risk of dying in a traffic accident. But the health benefits of cardio-vascular exercise on a regular basis helps you live longer. Not to mention the fact that biking around town is better for the planet.

See an excerpt below from the news story reported in HealthDay via Yahoo News:

City Cycling Seems to Have More Upsides Than Down
Sun Jul 4, 11:47 pm ET

"The study found that cycling even for a short period of time in traffic can lead to significant exposure to components of car exhaust, such as tiny particles and soot, that may contribute to respiratory and heart problems. Because cyclists tend to breathe about twice as deeply as car drivers, they inhale larger amounts of air pollutants.

The researchers also calculated the risk of dying in a traffic accident as about four times greater per half-mile traveled for cyclists than for car drivers.But they determined that the health benefits for cyclists in The Netherlands were at least nine times greater than the hazards. By switching from driving to cycling, people would, on average, live three to 14 months longer because of increased physical activity. The risks they would face would be potentially losing 0.8 to 40 days of life because of increased exposure to air pollution and an average of five to nine days from a fatal traffic accident."

Click here to read more.

Image courtesy of Examiner.com.

Bicycle Friendly

by Eileen Weber

Here’s an interesting fact for you, courtesy of the League of American Bicyclists: There are currently no bicycle friendly communities in Connecticut. Despite the fact that the state’s carbon reduction plan includes bicycles as a mode of transportation, the state doesn’t support it with funding or education. And even if they did, the state would still be lacking in bicycle friendliness. We need more bike paths, bike racks, and pedestrian crosswalks.

Even worse, Connecticut’s bicycle ranking is 44 out of the 50 states. We’re even lowest in New England. For Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs), Maine ranks in the top five of all the states coming in at number three. New Hampshire comes in at number eight while Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island are ranked at 19, 21, and 35, respectively.

Two towns are trying to change that statistic: Simsbury and Fairfield. In Simsbury, they have already applied to the League of American Bicyclists to be registered as a BFC. Representatives from the league visited the area last week to assess the community’s ability to become more bicycle friendly.

“It makes sense for Simsbury as we also have ‘Rails to Trails’ here and the East Coast Greenway,” said Paul Mikkelson, an avid cyclist and committee head for Simsbury, as quoted in a December 24, 2009 article in The Simsbury News.

If Traffic Is The Problem, Is Bike-Sharing The Answer?

by Eileen Weber

Could a bike-sharing program be in the works for the Hartford area? If you’re John Zito from The Green Vibration, then the answer may be yes. Zito and his wife, among other green business ventures, are hoping to start a bike-sharing program in the city’s center. There’s one teeny-weeny problem: there aren’t enough bike racks.

“This has been a little more of an investment than we thought,” said Zito of the program. With only a handful of bikes all in varying levels of repair, “We’re on a shoe-string budget.”

While Zito has an idea and a dream, there are few other details that need to be worked out before his program gets up and running. For one, he will need the full support of the City of Hartford.

According to Tim Ericson, Co-Founder of CityRyde, a bike sharing consultant firm in Philadelphia, Zito’s task will be a lot easier said than done. “Things like this can move quickly if you have the full support of the city,” he said. “It’s possible to have it up and running in six months. But more likely, it takes at least a year.”

But that hasn’t stopped other cities around the country from starting their own programs. Washington, D.C. and Seattle are two cities in particular whose programs are thriving. “I’ve used the ones in Seattle,” said Brian LaVoie, Manager of the Streets and Traffic for the City of West Hartford. “I think bike-sharing is great. If I could bike to work, I would. But, I live about 25 miles away.”

Momentum Builds for Bike-Friendly Union Station

Via Design New Haven

The New Haven Register reports today that the city has received a $10,000 grant to improve bicycle access at Union Station, and also has submitted a federal funding request for $145,000 for on-street dedicated and shared bike lanes connecting Union Station to Downtown New Haven and neighborhoods to the south and north of the city, which themselves have bike routes planned to connect with other sections of New Haven. The funding requests and grants also contain provisions for improved bike storage (with something like the photo at left, from a small Swedish train station, as the eventual goal in terms of encouraging use). More specifics on a proposed route can be found in the article:

"The bike lane, signage and striping would take place along Orange and Humphrey streets, Whitney Avenue, Temple, George, Church and Crown streets and Union, Howard and Columbus avenues with $15,900 for bike racks and covered parking at the rail station."

Improved bicycle routes and parking at Union Station would not only provide improved efficiency for commuters, but would also potentially have a major impact on the city's economic development, public health and traffic safety, as bicycle lanes also tend to calm traffic, promote walkability, raise real estate values, increase bicycling use, help citizens save millions of dollars per year in commuting costs, and promote local retail districts. They could also have an impact on suburban areas, by making the land near train stations on Metro North, Shoreline East and the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line more valuable.

Of course, to be truly effective and enable the majority of city residents to feel comfortable commuting via bicycle, designated bike routes must also be combined with traffic calming treatments that reduce vehicle speeds and create safer intersections. As the number of cyclists in Downtown New Haven continues to grow, transit ridership increases, and the potential citywide economic benefits of improved traffic safety are more widely understood, the political will for implementing these types of strategies -- which have been in use for decades in many other cities and countries -- will hopefully increase.

WTNH-8 also ran a video news segment on this story, with great images of overflowing bike racks at the train station and footage of Elm City Cycling's recent "Bike to Work Day/BTW Breakfast." Also see separate WTNH news coverage here. The $10,000 grant application was made possible based on the city's recent application to LAB for designation as a bicycle-friendly community. Click here for a thread summarizing previous DNH coverage of bicycle access on trains and at Union Station.

Cycling Activity vs. National Gas Prices

Thanks to Design New Haven  and Mark Abraham for this post!

Looks like the number of posts per day on the ElmCityCycling listserv, a forum for making New Haven more accommodating to bicyclists and pedestrians, is highly correlated with the national price of unleaded gasoline (click on chart to enlarge). Who would have thought?

With gasoline predicted to hit $6-10 per gallon as soon as a few months from now, the number of nonmotorized trips to work in New Haven is only likely to continue to increase. As a relatively flat and compact city, Downtown New Haven is already perfect for bicycling and walking, as evidenced by the fact that the city has one of the highest percentages of bicycle commuters in the United States (1.8%, versus 1.2% in Boston, 0.9% in Providence, 0.6% in New York City, 0.4% in Hartford, 0.1% in Bridgeport and 0.0% in Waterbury, according to the Census Bureau's 2006 ACS). During rush hour, there are already occasional bicycle "traffic jams" on the popular Orange Street bicycle lane. New Haven was also recently named one of the 20 most walkable cities in the United States.

However, improvements to the city's bicycle-friendliness are needed before the average area resident will choose to ride to work, or even use his or her bicycle for short trips (e.g., a 4-block run to the corner store). Considering that bicycles are already widely-owned (and very inexpensive), the most frequently given reasons why Connecticut residents don't bicycle more often - infrastructure and safety - are fairly easy to solve. According to numerous studies, infrastructure such as bicycle parking, bike-friendly street design, multi-use greenways like the Farmington Canal Trail and accessibility at train stations raise land values by an amount much greater than the investment put into them (in part because they tend to calm traffic). Reckless and high-speed driving and driver education can be addressed through community-wide efforts and traffic enforcement, and through measures such as anti-dooring ordinances like those found in Chicago.