Upcoming adventures in lobbying and legislation

Well, it's about time to get into the busy season of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy. It looks like we're going to have the opportunity to really make a statement about Cincinnati's commitment to bicycles being used for transportation with a push to get City Council to adopt a comprehensive set of bicycle safety ordinances. The personal is definitely political on this one: I had a car door opened into me while riding my bicycle home from work when I lived in Chicago. If Chicago had not passed a set of bicycle safety ordinances a few weeks before the crash, I would have been left holding medical bills in excess of $8,000. Cincinnati has almost no protection for bicyclists in the event of a crash, and in order for people to feel safe on the road they need to know that the City supports their right to be on the road. Bicyclists hit by automobiles lately have been labeled as "pedestrians on a bike in a crosswalk" when making left turns. I am not out to excuse anyone's bad behavior on the road, but having protections in place and educating the police force is important for our community's attempt to become a bicycle friendly community.

Here's a copy of what we're trying to make happen, courtesy of the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Active Transportation Alliance:

Chicago bike safety ordinances (2008)

View as a PDF

These ordinances are located in the Municipal Code of Chicago, Title 9: Vehicles, Traffic and Rail Transportation.

Penalties for Bicycle Safety Violations 9-4-025

• This section establishes fines for violating the following proposed ordinances.
• Each violation will be classified as a petty offence with a $150.00 fine, increasing to a $500.00 fine if the motorist violation results in a bicycle crash.

Failure to Exercise Due Care 9-40-160

• Includes bicyclists under the existing ordinance that protects pedestrians from careless driving.
• Brings consistency with a similar Illinois statute. See 625 ILCS 5/11-1003.
• Simplifies procedure for police to issue tickets and for prosecutors to bring charges when bicyclists are struck by motorists.

Turning Left or Right in Front of a Bicyclist 9-16-020 (e), (f)

• Clarifies that motorists must yield to bicyclists when turning left at an intersection, as they would to any other approaching vehicle.
• Prohibits a right turn in front of a bicyclist, similar to the Illinois statute prohibiting a right turn in front of a mass transit bus. See 625 ILCS 5/11-801(c).

Overtaking a Bicyclist at an Unsafe Distance 9-36-010 (c)

• Defines 3 feet as the minimum safe distance for motorists to leave when overtaking any bicycle or person on the roadway.
• Brings consistency with a similar, new Illinois statute. See 625 ILCS 5/11-703 (d).

Opening a Vehicle Door into the Path of a Bicyclist 9-80-035

• Brings consistency with a similar, existing Illinois statute that prohibits opening a vehicle door into moving traffic. See 625 ILCS 5/11-1407.

Driving, Standing or Parking in Bike Lanes or Marked Shared Lanes 9-40-060

• Increases the existing fine for driving, parking or standing in bike lanes (see bottom left) from $100.00 to $150.00, the first increase for this violation since its establishment in 1999.
• Establishes a $150.00 penalty for double parking in a marked shared lane because of the danger to bicyclists.

We'll also be starting a big push to improve "broken windows" policing in Cincinnati, which will hopefully include more on street traffic policing.

Talking Transportation Blog

Although I have my beef with the Cincinnati Enquirer and its "news interface platform" thingamajib that devotes more time to its coverage of Moms than to international events, I am impressed with their attempt to have pertinent blogs. Unfortunately, their Talking Transportation blog is one of the least updated. Why don't people get up in arms for transportation change? Is it so much to ask that people consider life outside of a single occupant vehicle? While I try to restrict this blog's content to my commentary on relevant stories, I am honestly furious with the Enquirer's inability to comprehensively cover transportation developments in the region. The only follow up to the recent article about the Union Station terminal came in the form of vitriolic user comments.

Sigh. Indeed, BuckeyeKey, this is just a lot more of the same.

So, there's a new bus in town. Posted by BuckeyeKev at 10/30/2008 8:26 PM EDT on Cincinnati.com

Just read over on the politcal blog that today marked the "new and improved," agreement between the City and Hamilton County regarding SORTA / Metro. Does anybody really think that in this economic climate that there are extra funds in Butler, Warren, and Clermont County for a service that is already paid for mainly by the City and it's income tax? I haven't had a lot of time to reseach everything, but this sounds like more of the same - just in a new wrapper.

Thoughts?

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Maintenance and Public Safety

What does the public safety budget have to do with transportation? Everything. The annual operating budget needs to do everything from make sure that streets are clean to making sure the lights stay on at the firehouse. Unfortunately, public safety will consume approximately 63 percent of the City's budget for this fiscal year. What city services will suffer? Most pertinent to transportation, street maintenance budgets are consistently underfunded. This means that center lines on roadways are likely to go longer without being re-painted, and that the already stretched resources will go towards more car-culture enabling. The constant refrain from DoTE is "we'd love to, but the money just isn't there." Spending an exorbitant proportion of our budget on public safety may be politically expedient, but it doesn't leave room for programs that proactively improve quality of life. The City's Bike Program is doing okay in terms of financing, but it is mostly limited to the installation of bike racks. The budget is set for this year, but it doesn't mean that you can't tell Council that street maintenance needs to be fully funded in order to improve motorist, bicyclist, and pedestrian traffic.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Public safety spending consumes Cincinnati's indebted budget

As Cincinnati faces a $51 million operating budget deficit for 2010, with the chance of the deficit worsening in 2011, many Cincinnatians and local leaders are looking for ways to close the gap without further cutting into already slim programs elsewhere.

Cincinnati's 2010 General Fund Operating Budget totals $393.8 million of which public safety departments make up $181.9 million or 63 percent of the annual operating costs. A large chunk of that $181.9 million is made up in payroll costs for 1,135 police officers (3.4 officers per 1,000 residents). The question that must be asked is if other operations have continually been cut over recent years, then how can we close a $51 million budget deficit?

For comparison purposes, the City of Columbus has more than twice the population of the City of Cincinnati with 773,277 residents spread out over a much larger land area. Compared to Cincinnati though, Columbus has only 1,876 police officers (2.43 officers per 1,000 residents) and a Part 1 crime rate 4 percent lower than Cincinnati.

The objective data seems to indicate that a more robust police force alone is not necessarily the path to lower crime rates. But since 1974 while Cincinnati's population has decreased 26 percent the police presence has increased 36 percent. Over that same time period public safety's portion of the annual General Fund Operating budget has increased from 31 to 63 percent, and has seen spending increase 124 percent while non-public safety spending has decreased 43 percent.

The data is alarming. While the City continues to cut essential programs in order to balance a budget in a shrinking city, public safety programs continue to see expenditures increase with virtually no public opposition or discussion about the need for these expenditures. Of the more than 1,100 police officers only 698 are used for patrol purposes. The Cincinnati Fire Department meanwhile saw 86 percent of all fire runs in 2009 go to non-fire events.

Public Safety related spending accounts for 63% of Cincinnati's 2010 General Fund Operating Budget.

"Police visibility in crime hot spots and enforcement of nuisance properties actually prevent crime, but in Cincinnati much of our approach is responding to crime in a defensive manner," said former City Council member Greg Harris. "This reactive approach will never lessen crime and we will never have enough cops to make it effective. As a result, we have to implement proven crime fighting strategies built on greater police visibility."

In Cleveland, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have begun rejecting calls for minor ailments such as toothaches or hemorrhoids, and as a result has been able to reduce its ambulance fleet by three vehicles in an effort to help close their own glaring budget deficit. The difference between Cincinnati is even greater as Cincinnati EMS also sends fire trucks on these calls.

Reductions in Cincinnati's public safety budgets could very easily help close the budget deficit for 2010 and offer long-term cost savings for the city. The comparisons to Columbus and Cleveland are only so useful as each city is unique, but they do offer an interesting insight into Cincinnati's budget discussions especially when current budgets are examined with past budgets.

The answer for Cincinnati seems to lie in more efficient public safety operations where the police force is managed to operate in a proactive way that helps reduce violence long-term and fire fighters are used to fight fires and not to respond to 911 calls for toothaches. The question now is whether or not our political leaders will have the courage to stand up to the police and fire unions and make these decisions.

More bicycling improvements in Cincinnati!

After almost ten months of lobbying, advocate input, and countless hours of hard work on some DoTE employees' parts, a bicycle corral will finally be installed in Northside at Hamilton and Lingo. I could not be prouder of my fellow advocates and of the people in DoTE who really believed in making this happen. A bicycle corral removes a parking space and replaces it with a certain number of semi-protected bicycle racks. It will make cycling more visible, and will create additional demand for a safer crosswalk at Hamilton and Lingo. Next up? Getting city police to actually police this corner and issue tickets for refusing to yield the right of way to pedestrians. Broken windows policing works, and it definitely extends to "minor" traffic issues like crosswalks. Civic engagement: it works.

Cincinnati to install region's first on-street bicycle parking this April

Soapbox, 3/2/2010

The City of Cincinnati will be installing the region's first on-street bicycle parking this April in the bicycle heavy Northside neighborhood. Once installed, the bike corral will remove one on-street automobile parking space and create 12 on-street bicycle parking spaces. The installation of the new bike corral at Lingo Street and Hamilton Avenue will cost around $1,000 according to the City's Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE), and will require no disruption to surrounding properties. Additionally, the bike corral represents something more to local bicyclists.

"The bike corral means that the city is listening to bicyclists about infrastructure," said Katie Vogel, Chair of the Cincinnati Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee (Bike/PAC).

"On-street parking is advantageous in that it doesn't take up much needed space on narrow sidewalks, and it's also a major opportunity for City officials to show that they are willing to innovate with our infrastructure."

According to Mel McVay, City Planner with the DOTE, the project is similar in scope to recent projects in Seattle, Portland, and Columbia. This increased effort by the City to make Cincinnati more bicycle friendly has been noticed by the local bicycling community, and is something many are already taking advantage of, or plan to in the near future.

Vogel stated that she "definitely" plans on utilizing the bike corral when it is completed, and is looking forward to being able to lock her bicycle up knowing that it's not going to get knocked over by a pedestrian or by someone trying to put change into their parking meter.

In addition nearby businesses look to benefit from the increased bicycle accessibility, while bicycling advocates are excited about the effect on people’s mentality as the bike corrals act as an equalizer for bicyclists trying to share the road with automobiles.

"Cars and bicycles are inherently unequal as I'm not in a giant metal box and thus am more vulnerable than an automobile driver will ever be, but we can address that inequality as a community by implementing infrastructure improvements specifically for bicyclists," explained Vogel.

Recent infrastructure improvements including new dedicated bike lanes, sharrows, trails, and bicycle parking requirements within parking garages are just a step in the right direction according to Vogel.

"Cincinnati needs to make a significant commitment of political will and funding to implement the bicycle plan that is currently being worked on. This is going to involve funding maintenance of roadways in terms of paint and other infrastructure improvements that may be made," she said.

"It's easy to fall into the trap of viewing infrastructure exclusively in terms of bike lanes or on-street bike parking; Cincinnati also needs to pass a comprehensive package of bicycle safety ordinances that will help to make motorists and cyclists alike more accountable for their behavior on the road."

Writer: Randy A. Simes
Photography by Scott Beseler
Stay connected by following Randy on Twitter @UrbanCincy