Pop quiz

Okay, motorists: what do you do when you get to a four-way stop and there is another car there?

Yup. You let the car that got there first do what it's going to do, and then you go on.

What happens if you get there at the exact same time?

Yup. Whoever's on the right does whatever she's going to do, and thus onward.

Now, I know that as a cyclist, I'm expected to obey all the same rules of the road as you motorists. I'm expected to stop for red lights and stop signs, signal my turns, pull over for emergency vehicles, all that stuff.

Where the problem lies is that I have no idea if you know that, or if you know that I know that, and then we have these awkward little standoffs at the intersection, where I stop for you, you hesitate, I wait, then decide you must be letting me go, kick the pedals into position and start up, only to brake again because you've decided that I was waiting for you and started through yourself, and then there's a herky-jerky little Keystone Cops moment, which usually only irritates both of us.

This is partly due to the fact that there are a lot of cyclists around who blow off whatever rules don't work for them, or who don't know that those rules apply to cyclists - either way, all they're doing is telling motorists that there is no way to know what to expect from someone on a bicycle - brazen alleycatism? Nervous jitters? A dash through that red light, or a sudden brake? Moving into the left lane to turn, or hopping onto the pedestrian crosswalk?  I will admit that when it comes to stop signs, if there are no cars anywhere near the stop sign, I do often just slow down, look both ways, and keep rolling. It's got to do with how much energy it takes to start up again once you've stopped. But if there are any cars involved, I try, really hard, to act just like one of them. And sometimes that confuses the hell out of them.

Not that I think there should be standard cycling tests before you're allowed to ride on the road or anything. (God, no.) I don't know how to fix this unpredictability issue. Education? Maybe. Maybe a PSA ad campaign, just to let people know about things like that four-way-stop thing. (Hey, there are drivers who don't know what you're supposed to do at a stop sign either: you're killing two birds with one stone that way.) 

Because that weird little dance you and I do, motorists, at the intersection? It annoys you too, right? Wouldn't you like to know that I know (that you know) what I'm doing?

Heard back from OC Transpo...

I got this email this afternoon:

LEDGER 691979

Thank you Ms. Hunt for your e-mail and bringing this concern to our attention.

In order that we may properly identify the operator in question and proceed with further actions, we require the direction of travel. Please contact the undersigned or forward this information which will allow us to initiate an investigation.

Rest assured that safety bulletins from managerial staff are issued regularly reminding operators of proper procedures when sharing the road.

Once again, we appreciate your valuable feedback and hope to soon hear from you.

Sincerely,

Linda
Customer Relations Officer
Transit Services, City of Ottawa
(613) 842-3600

Machismo - The Vital Winter Accessory

I wrote this piece, posted in Spacing Ottawa today, as a response to one of my readers: it's about learning to get braver as a survival mechanism. And the editor at Spacing managed to find this marvelous video, which he used to intro my article... and which I had to share. I, however, am not a bike messenger and so am NOT usually out there in this kind of weather doing what this admirably lunatic guy is doing.

The Ups and Downs

It's been an uneven cycling day, all told. Leave aside the damp, -20 windchill this morning, which made it a slightly unpleasant slog at times on the way to work. That's okay, I can deal with that. In fact... I think it's been established I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment.

But it was the ride home that was such a roller coaster.

Here's the note I just wrote to the "feedback" people at OC Transpo. (Mom: you might want to skip this bit.)

I don't know if this falls under "personnel," but there was no category provided for "safety." At pretty much exactly 5:00 this evening I was on my bike crossing the Montreal Road bridge over the Rideau River. There's a bike lane there (although it's half buried under ice at this time of year.)

An articulated bus, route #12, passed me. I'm used to biking in traffic, I've been doing it for two years now, and I'm used to being passed with little space to spare. But this bus had overlapped the bike lane. It did not slow down as it went by me, and even allowing for the under-estimation of clearance that happens when a cyclist is terrified, this bus had to have passed within a foot and a half of my handlebars. I instinctively slammed on my brakes. Good thing there was no ice under my tires. It was frightening, and one thing I've figured out in my time on the streets is that it's when cyclists get scared that accidents happen. I didn't catch the bus number. I was too busy trying to collect myself.

Don't get me wrong - for the most part I have had a great experience sharing the roads with OC Transpo buses. Usually, the drivers slow up around me, give me room, wait for me to pass before pulling out, even go above and beyond and get over into the other lane on four-lane streets, and generally behave very well. That's why I felt I had to report this one. It was frightening.

Thank you for the drivers that do understand how scary it is to share the road with something the size of a bus - and please, please, try to educate the ones that don't.

Thanks -

Kathryn Hunt
Bike commuter and OC Transpo rider.


I actually had to stop a pedestrian as I was waiting to cross at Charlotte to double check the bus number. "Was that bus a 12?" I asked him, and he nodded. "Okay," I said. "Cause he just nearly hit me back there and I'm calling it in." I'm a big proponent of calling this kind of thing in, too. Nothing gets done by generally bitching about it... but call and ask to speak to a supervisor and at least someone will sweat a little. I ticked "Response Requested" on that note, by the way. I'll post whatever I hear back from them.

But, I continued on my way. Past the spot on Laurier where I spotted someone's lost agenda notebook on the street on Friday (nice thing about biking, you go slower and notice things like that; I stopped, stuffed it in my bag, and called the guy when I got home. Returned it to him today, and that was cool.) And on down the street, meshing with the rest of the traffic. By this time "Stadium Love" was playing in my right ear and I was over the jitters from the bus encounter. Pulled up at a red light somewhere near King Edward and a guy sitting on a park bench, with a Labrador retriever, said, "Hey, good for you. Biking through the winter."

I grinned. "Thanks," I said. "It's not as hard to do as people think it is."

"Yeah. People say things like 'how do you do that?' ... I say," and he made little pedalling motions with his hands, "you pedal."

"Exactly," I said. "You put on some gloves, and a hat, and you go." And he laughed, and said, "well, good for you," again, and the light turned green and I took off toward the canal, smiling.

So the fact that I was skimmed by a sedan on Heron, or that just outside my building some idiot in a car decided that just because there was a bike in the middle of the intersection was no reason not to blow through a stop sign, gunning it into a right turn and nearly hitting me ... that was just more ups and downs on the run home.

Decisions, decisions...

Fenders... or panniers? A clean dry butt ... or cargo space? Crap.

I went out to MEC last week to get a new helmet. The old one was shedding bits of plastic shell all over the place, banged up and dented, and the chinstrap finally popped out of its moorings at the back, rendering it more or less pointless. So, I headed to the store for a new one (and was quite happy with the one I picked up - smaller profile, less... racer-looking, and at least on appearances more sturdily built. And since wearing it - admittedly over a hat for the moment - it also feels safer. More coverage of the back of my head. Slightly more of a skater design than those tall, top-of-the-head aerodynamic numbers from Bell that the Spandex crowd seem to favour.)

Anyway, that's not the point. I also picked up some fenders from Planet Bike (all my accessories seem to come from Planet Bike - they're inexpensive, and a percentage of the profits goes to bike advocacy) - wide plastic mudflaps, basically, that they said would install on any bike with 26" wheels.

Sadly, it looks as though the rack I already installed for my panniers... gets in the way of the fenders. Damn. Why oh why should I have to choose between the two? My panniers and rack are already salt- and grime-encrusted. . . and I'm not giving up cargo space. Sigh. Guess I'll have to head back to MEC and ask one of the staff there if they've got any ideas. I don't want, in the middle of winter, to have to hose down the whole frame of my bike in order to remove the rack, install the fenders, and then (maybe) get the rack back on again. At the very least, I want to wait until spring before taking a wrench to the nuts - they're so gritty right now I shudder at the prospect of trying to free them up until I can take a bucket of water to them first.

And this, along with the ergonomic grips I bought last summer that I found didn't fit on my handlebars (I think because of the placement of my gearshifts), ought to teach me that not all bike parts are created standard, and maybe I should ask the folks at the shop before buying them, getting them home, breaking out the toolkit, and running headlong into compatibility issues. Double sigh.

The NCC bubble

In connection, I suppose, with the uncomfortable 'failure to get it together' of the intersection I just posted about, I was surprised to discover today, via a blog post by the Citizen's David Reevely, that it was the NCC that originally decided to build roads along all the city's waterways, which cut them off to non-motorized traffic. And here I've been singing their praises for the path network that runs along those same waterways... until you need to get off and get back onto the streets. (According to the history I can find on the NCC website, though, that was all back in the fifties and sixties. When cars really did rule the earth.)

But this explains so much! The NCC has control of all the waterways (which is where the recreational paths are.) This makes the parkways - all 90 kilometres of them - kind of like the skin around the outside of the NCC bubble. Their network, in itself, is great. Contained and maintained. And if you're driving to one of the parking lots off the parkways, with your inline skates or bike or running shoes, to spend your time within the bubble, that's one thing. If you're ducking into the bubble for a bit on your way from one end of town to the other, that's another entirely.

But it was, after all, the sixties. When the automobile ruled the earth.

Whose bright idea was this?

... Or; why the NCC's paths, and the city's paths, are a little like starcrossed lovers kept horribly apart by circumstance and fate.

Witness: the intersection of (according to the street signs) Queen Elizabeth Drive and Queen Elizabeth Drive.

I've been using this intersection every day since I switched to the canal path this December. Coming down Bank Street from the south, I have to cross the Lansdowne Bridge, merge left into the middle of Bank Street to turn onto Wilton Crescent, and then swing round onto what the street signs assure me is Queen Elizabeth. It's posted: "Bike Route," with one of those eternally confusing green signs. (I don't object to the signs on principle, but I'm never sure what they are pointing me toward: the last time I used one as a guide without knowing where exactly it led, I wound up in the middle of an industrial park, thoroughly lost and trying to generally make my way northeast looking for familiar ground.)

At the T-intersection at the bottom of this short little slope is a green sign announcing "Bike Route Ends." Beyond that sign: Queen Elizabeth Drive. Which, for anyone not familiar with Ottawa, is a long parkway that runs beside the Rideau Canal from the heart of downtown southwest past Carleton University. It's scenic, two-lane, fairly well traveled (especially at rush hour), and doesn't have much in the way of stop signs, traffic lights, or intersections. To the right, you can pretty much spot oncoming traffic: to the left, the parkway curves beneath Lansdowne Bridge, making it hard to see what's coming. But clearly, as the sign says: Bike Route Ends, at an unmarked, unposted crossing. On the other side of Queen Elizabeth, the canal path has a helpfully suggestive paved bit showing you that you're meant to cross the street and turn onto the path there.

Every time I get to this intersection in the evening (usually between about 5:00 and 6:00) I stop at the turnoff from the canal path alongside a jogger or two, or another cyclist, or a pedestrian with skates slung over her shoulder. All appearances say, "cross here." But there is no indication to the motorists that there's a good chance someone will be trying to run across the street in front of them, in a relatively unlit area. Add to that the fact that from the canal side of the path, it's pretty much impossible to see cars coming from the right, and that there are cars trying to turn either off or on to the parkway, and that just there, Queen Elizabeth happens to be four-lane, and that this is where the Bank Street entrance to the Skateway is, so at this time of year you also have skaters trying to cross either Queen Elizabeth or its twin brother Colonel By, and, well ... suffice it to say I have asked the air and the joggers near me, more than once, whose bright idea this intersection was.

But the truth is it was no one's idea. The city's "suggested" bike route ends. The city isn't responsible for connection to the NCC path, nor is the NCC responsible for connecting to the city's path. And so, we scurry across Queen Elizabeth in the twilight to get from one to the other. It's like a portage.

No, it doesn't hold me up a whole lot. But yes, it is annoying. And it's a perfect example of the rocky, uneven, jury-rigged solutions that come up where the city routes and the NCC paths meet.

(Click the picture to take a look at the map. Which I screen-captured from the City of Ottawa Bike Path Map, which you can take a look at in full through the link to the left.)