Geofencing Cars (survey test)

 E-scooters can now be geofenced (forced to go slow in specified community areas like schools and hospitals) to make them more attractive to cities. This suggests we do the same for cars.

Sample polls:

1. Reddit
2. Crowdsignal   -- this kind of link is not allowing comments

Occupy West Van

Let's start a movement to take back the public space in our community.  My title may seem ironic; after all West Vancouver is where many of B.C.'s fat cats live. But even West Van has its social hierarchy and walking my scruffy dog while picking up trash in the morning apparently puts us at the lower end. Moreover, West Van has tons of public space; way more that our other neighbourhood in West L.A. Indeed, I live across from beautiful Memorial Park and a few houses from the creekside Village Walk, all recently open to dogs (on leash). So why am I complaining, and, worse, organizing?

It all started this morning when a big white SUV blocked the cross-walk at 21st and Inglewood in the midst of school drop off rush hour. This forced Lucy and I into Inglewood, where we were narrowly avoided by a fast moving German car. I was shaken up, and informed the driver (of the SUV) that she should be back at the stop line. She apologized, and explained that she was sticking out because of "the sight lines in West Van". But I didn't accept her apology.  I agree about the sight lines, but that's her (the driver's) problem. We peds and puppies shouldn't pay the price (in risk of harm) of driving in this overgrown suburb. I submit that she should have moved back (initially, when I tried to enter the cross-walk).

Was I right and she wrong. No, we were both wrong, because I didn't calmly point out my solution: just back up and worry about the other cars once Lucy and I are safe. Instead, I regrettably restated the preferences I took her excuse to entail: 'So "fuck the pedestrian?"' For this lapse I apologize (I know, too late, but at least publicly). I also comment the driver for her cool "I didn't say those words. Nice dog." (One lesson: a cute puppy soothes social interaction.)

Can we generalize the lessons learned?

Attitude Follows Altitude 

Like many suburbs, West Van gets less civil with altitude. Around the Sea Wall, joggers and walkers, largely new Canadians, fill Argyle and discipline cars to near northern European norms. But higher up, and worst in the British Properties, speeds go up and attention to, and numbers of peds go way down. 


Thanks to Randy Cohen, whose excellent If Kant Were a New York Cyclist inspired this post and approach.

Traffic Etiquette

As Indian Summer gives us a few extra weeks of biking before the rains set in, I've collected some incidents for my work in progress on the ethics of traffic.

Apologizing too quickly

A fast right turn on red (I spend a lot of time in California) caught a driver by surprise; she was planning on driving into the parking lot at full speed, I guess. In any case, she sought me out, quite distressed, to tell me I could get killed doing things like that. I tried to apologize. She wouldn't let me -- she wanted me to really understand that I could get killed. Rarely have I seen the performative aspect of apology taken so seriously.

Harley down; Community up

Background: I live in West Vancouver, close enough to Marine Drive to suffer the local Harley crowds burping, farting exhaust and noisy acceleration all summer long. So I wasn't excessively sympathetic when a Hogger fell over (I guess Harleys are pretty heavy and awkward in bumper to bumper bridge traffic) blocking the Lion's Gate Bridge yesterday. I arrived just after the tumble. Neat how the bridge, now a long parking lot, turned into something like the  BC ferries summer lineup. People were out of their cars, watching the fishing boats and freighters. It was the friendliest ride over the bridge all summer, as stranded car folks asked me for news about the blockage, took pictures, and relaxed.

Cats fighting through the window

Approaching the Lions Gate from Stanley Park, I shouted "Watch Out" (honestly, nothing stronger; and my air-horn was out of air) at a driver blocking the bike/ped crossing while she waited for a break in traffic. Later, on the bridge itself, the three large guys in the back of her small car shouted obscenities and they all gave me the finger (hard to do; it was a small window in a small car).

The point: they reminded me of our cat Darla, who fights furiously with the neighbour cat -- but only when protected by a window. Cars isolate us and raise the emotional ante, as it were. Would those three thirty-somethings jump one old guy on a bike? I doubt it.

There are other factors too. They were likely frustrated, having sat in traffic for much of a what might be the last nice day of the year. I was riding free; traffic is my friend.

2 Summers of E-Bike Commuting

As the rain settles to remind us that Summer is over, it's a good time to review two summers of commuting by e-bike, from Ambleside, in West Vancouver, to UBC, on Point Grey.

1. I've had a lot of fun, cycling ~ 20 - 25 km each way in about 50 minutes.

2. The worst experience: getting the controller ripped off, busing home with a very heavy dead e-bike, and paying too much for a replacement, which was mis-configured by the dealer and almost fried my bike's computer. All's well now plus I've removed some of the constraints built in. Generally, security is my biggest problem. Bikes suffer from Vancouver's tolerance of a culture of petty theft; e-bikes have more to steal from. I can't shop on the way home, because rumor has it that the street knows how to break the BionX computer/battery lock, and lugging two panniers and a battery into a store isn't worth it, except at Costco. I wish BionX would build a secure bike; it would be even more useful.

3. Scariest moment: crossing the Lion's Gate Bridge in a 75 Km gale one morning in July. Another biker flew into me because he failed to foresee the vacuum effect of the call box I was resting behind.

4. Best accessory: 120 db Airzound horn -- a bargain at ~$20 from Mountain Equipment Co-op here on the North Shore. The surprise is that blasting away like a truck gets cars respect. I'll follow this up with a detailed post on the "experiment".

5. Risks: it's easy to neglect maintenance and the motor gets you there even with a dry chain or, in my case, only the highest gear working. At my average speed of ~ 30 kph lots gets shaken loose, so I've lost lots of fasteners.

6. I've put e-bike on a new Bell Motivator mag resistance stand (from Costco) so I could continue getting some exercise.

Bottom line: 15 pounds lighter and my WiFit puts my age at 19 years less than my birth certificate, plus all the new ideas -- mostly good, I hope -- incubated during my morning traffic wars.

Who should share with whom?

Should e-bikes share bikepaths (with bikes and plain people) or the road (with motocycles and cars)? No answer is pre-ordained; e-bikes are new and, e.g. California bans them from bike-paths (but allows them twice the horsepower). We need to decide who to mix with whom ride what.

One way to visualize the mix is in terms of power:


Sorry the chart is so big -- I had to stretch it to get walkers, bikes and e-bikes to show at all as google docs doesn't seem to allow exponential scales. The disproportion is obvious, and e-bikes belong with the bikes and peds. All values in horsepower as this is a unit of power drivers and motorcyclists understand and value. (350 watts doesn't impress.)

Assumptions: The e-biker has his/her own bicyclist's power plus the e-bike's .47 horsepower. The average for cars is U.S. for 1997; a 500 cc Suzuki serves as "the average motorcycle". Car should be lower for Vancouver, I suspect, but most of the motocycles I ask about (waiting for traffic) are bigger.

But speed and weight matter too.

E-bikes vs I-pods: Second thoughts on sharing the Burrard Bridge

With just two lanes typically available, bike must share with cars or pedestrians (peds?). Some mode of transport -- the slower -- loses in each case. Here in Vancouver, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk except when designated -- typically bridges but also the Stanley Park Causeway. This seems the right call to me: bikes are closer to cars -- in terms of speed, equipment, and mindset -- than they are to peds. Even if they weren't, the worst-off -- on the streets: peds -- deserve special protection.

In a previous post, I argued against moving bikes into the street on the Burrard Bridge. Now that I've acutually used the shared bike/ped sidewalk, I'm reconsidering. The current mix is dangerous. The nominal speed limit for bikes is 15kph; I've observed no bikes complying on the downhill and few on the uphill. And most of the peds are functionally deaf due to i-pods. (At least I've learned to spot the signature white headphones as a warning that my bell or shouting "On your left" won't work. The women who walked in front of my last evening was especially clueless. My brakes saved both of us but only just.

Near disasters are good teachers. I'll slow down, get an airhorn, and get some liability insurance. (I know it's not required; that's a problem -- for a later post.)

E-bike First Commute: No sweat

I rode my new e-bike to work today. Using a BionX kit I converted an old aluminum trail bike over the weekend. Apart from my mistakes, assembly went pretty well. It's not simple, but the only special tool needed as a torque-wrench.


The ride was surprisingly simple. I rode 20 km over two bridges each way from West Vancouver to to U.B.C. This is a beautiful ride and the e-bike lets one appreciate it much more than my non-e-bike did. I climbed the Lions Gate Bridge, passing a few fast guys in tights and stopped to take pictures at the top. (I usually can't stop, as I'm rushing to catch my bus.)

Next through Stanley Park, then the West End, over the Burrard Bridge and out along the beaches to the U.B.C. bluff (over Wreck Beach).

The e-bike is fast -- just 50 minutes coming home, when I avoiding the bike paths -- and seems much safer than my non-e-bike. For one thing, I can accelerate with the traffic, so I can merge better and make fewer drivers angry when I ride in centre lane. More on the advantages of regenerative braking in a later post.