I made a video

Ok, so I bungied a tripod to the back of my bike, made a video of my ride, and then went a little nuts with iMovie. Lets just say that this set-up is non-ideal, and I'm not exactly an auteur. But here's my video. Look, ma! A video!

On sidewalk riding

The other day the Press Citizen published a letter to the editor from a visually impaired woman who is annoyed by bicyclists who ride on Iowa City sidewalks. Like all PC articles, it'll be taken down in a day or two, so I'll reproduce a bit here:

I am visually impaired. I am now afraid to walk alone on the sidewalks of Iowa City for fear of being hit by bicyclists who feel they have the right to ride their bicycles anywhere they want.

I have been side-swiped and knocked down by a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk in front of the Old Capitol Mall. It is noisy downtown and difficult to hear at times. I did not hear the bicyclist barreling down the sidewalk that day. I was too traumatized, at the time, to discuss whose right was violated that day. Today I am taking my stand and telling bicyclists that pedestrians have rights, as well as they do.

She has a really good point. Lots of cyclists in Iowa City ride on the sidewalks. It's not fair to pedestrians. It's not safe. It's bad.

But here's the problem. Iowa City has a system of mixed-use paths, which are supposed to be used by cyclists as well as pedestrians. These paths are marked on the bike maps that the city distributes. The MUPs are designed to be safe for cyclists, partly because they rarely intersect with roads. There's discrete signage for cyclists, reminding us to stop or yield at intersections and telling us to walk our bikes across some bridges and tunnels. But otherwise, the mixed-use paths are indistinguishable from sidewalks. I don't think that most pedestrians are clear about whether they're on a sidewalk or mixed-use path. I'm also not sure that most cyclists are aware where the MUPs stop and the sidewalks begin.

This creates two problems. The first is that pedestrians get annoyed at cyclists who are legitimately, safely using mixed-use paths. I'll admit that cyclists don't always behave appropriately on paths: I've seen cyclists riding three abreast, taking up the entire path, forcing pedestrians to step off the path to let them pass. I've seen cyclists overtake pedestrians without slowing down or giving warning. I try really hard to share the path with pedestrians, who have just as much right to be there as I do. But I've also seen a lot of rude and unsafe behavior on the part of pedestrians, many of whom meander rather than staying to the right, play their iPods too loud to hear approaching bike riders even when we slow down and signal that we're passing, or allow their leashed dogs to cross the path, creating a giant trip wire for approaching bicyclists. And then they glare at me when I startle them by riding past them when they haven't heard me call out "bike on your left" over the din of their iPods. I think that pedestrians think of the paths as sidewalks, and they might change some of their behavior if they were more aware that bike riders were entitled to be on the paths.

And the second problem is that I'm not sure that bike riders are aware that they shouldn't be riding on ordinary sidewalks. Because the mixed-use paths aren't really marked as such, I think some cyclists might be under the impression that in Iowa City, the done thing is to ride on sidewalks. They don't realize that it's totally cool to ride your bike on the MUP on north Dubuque street and totally uncool to ride your bike on the sidewalk in front of the Old Capitol Mall.

I think this could be resolved if there were better, more visable signage on the mixed-use paths. And it's probably also worth pointing out that cyclists would be a lot less likely to ride their bikes on the sidewalk in front of the Old Capitol Mall if riding your bike on the street there weren't quite so scary.

Brief Chic Interlude

So I know I'm not supposed to be blogging about fashion, but I am going to take a brief break from being unchic so that I can link to the Etsy shop of CJH Jewelry. Cara Hamann makes jewelry out of recycled bike parts, and she lives in Iowa City! If you happen to be a fellow IC resident, you can apparently buy her jewelry at Geoff's Bike and Ski.

Another nifty Iowa bike-related company that I just discovered is MK Fenders. Seriously: aren't these beautiful? I am not currently in the market for gorgeous wood fenders that cost $200, but if I were, I would definitely be looking at MK Fenders.