Two Year Anniversary - Two Year Experiment

Well it's been two years now. What started as a one year experiment is now entering its third year;to be, to live car free in the Silicon Valley. It was two years ago today that a car ran a red light seriously injuring a family of three and destroying my own car. Since I was preparing to leave on a summer cycling trip through Quebec, Canada, I decided to wait until returning to look into getting a new car.

After cycling through Quebec that summer, I reflected on just how far behind we are in our own here in California in terms of a cycling culture, public health, the livability in our cities, and in general just enjoying what we have here in this state. Here was an area with over 4,000 km of some of the most beautiful cycling trails, known as La Route Verte. The organization and investment evident in the trail was superior to anything I have seen in the states.

Bay Area and Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley lies between two mountain ranges, the Santa Cruz mountains and the Diablo range of mountains. From ridge to ridge its about 26 miles and from foothills to foothills (using highway 280 as a guide from west to east) its about 17 or 18 miles across. The valley contained by these two ranges and the San Francisco Bay is generally flat.

With a Mediterranean climate that makes for livable area I always wonder; why aren't their more cyclists in this area? Why are their more cars in the bay area then the population of Sweden (9 million), or Quebec, Canada? Why are there more cars (vehicles) in California than the poulation of Iraq (31 mil vs. 29 mil). With a population of 36 million and total vehicle registration of 31 million there is a car for just about every resident (86% of residents) of the state! This is over the U.S. vehicle penetration rate of 84%.

So what started as a one year experiment is slowly evolving beyond that initial goal. Who knows how long I will keep this up. I have tried to highlight the state of cycle transportation in the valley, along with other topical and current issues such as; traffic safety, livability, public health, community, and non-auto advocacy. With the recent and continual decline of automakers, auto dealers, and the other industries that feed off of Detroit, I hope to continue to highlight and tell the story of others that choose not own a car. Although I choose, at this time not to be a "car-nivore", that doesn't mean I do not ride or drive in cars. I do occasionally and have rented a car for the weekend on one occasion. I like to consider myself an "Omni-tran", one who does not exclusively seek out transportation options by automobile.

Along the way I have met some great people in Portland (thanks Meghan and Elly), New York (Clearance), San Francisco (Dave), and Brazil (Thiaggo). Also others out there who advocate for transportation options; Katie Alvord - "Divorce Your Car", Donald Shoup- "The High Cost of Free Parking", Jonathan Maus - "Bike Portland", Clarance Eckerson - "StreetFilms.org"and James Kuntsler - "The Geography of Nowhere".

Anyway thanks to all of you who have made this experiment a fun one!

Population and Vehicle Density Correlation

This was a little fun I had playing with a graphical representation of the amount of land converted to parking; assuming a density of 6,000 residents per square mile (Sunnyvale, CA). I came up with just under 25% of the land would be needed to park cars, on average. This does not assume land needed to move those cars. I haven't gotten there yet.

The land here in the Silicon Valley only 50 years ago used to be full of orchards now parking lots have taken there place.

Parking Requirement Calculations (Google Docs)

The larger square represents one mile square. Notice how the old orchard roads were one mile distant. Now these "one mile roads" make for perfect suburban arterial roads. The smaller red square represents one quarter of a square mile.




View Asphalt Jungle in a larger map

Another Hit and Run On a Pedestrian...This One a 4 Year Old

Hit-and-run driver kills 4-year-old girl playing in driveway

Currently reasearching the number and trend of hit and run accidents relating to cyclists and pedestrians.  Absolutely senseless, any way you look at it.

James Howard Kuntlser - TED.org Talk

This is a great talk by James H. Kuntsler author of "The Geogarphy of Nowhere", "Home from Nowhere", and "The World Made by Hand".

Thinking of the Current Transportation System as a Health and Safety Issue

All I know is that first you've got to get mad.

You've got to say, 
"I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!" 


Three vehicular events in the Silicon Valley area this weekend highlight the fact that we are all subject to property damage, trauma, critical injury and even death from vehicles.  With this weekends death of a solo driver in Los Altos, a hit and run pedestrian accident in downtown San Jose, and a hit and run accident involving two cyclists, we need to stop and seriously consider the pain and suffering these events cause.

I am acquainted with Ashley (Ashleigh), through work and we share several mutual friends.  Ashley was riding with her boyfriend  this weekend when she was struck by a car that drove into the bike lane.  As I have written before, death and injury has visited family members, a favored author (David Hallberstam's tragic death near the Dumbarton Bridge), three high school friends, a college friend, and bike riding buddies.  Many years ago, while riding my bike, I witnessed a accident victim's final seconds as the blood from his head flowed onto the asphalt, on that early spring morning.  I was stunned and helpless.  Unable to move the truck that had just slammed his head to the ground and was now pinning his body to the roadway, all  I remember was the color of  his face, and how it seemed to change color the more his blood drained from his motionless head.

Several years after witnessing speeding and erratic behavior by a driver on a southbound San Diego Freeway, I came upon the prostrate body of the driver in the middle lane; motionless as we drove by, suddenly making the connection that the driver had met his end in his own horrific way.

With almost two years of a car free lifestyle under my belt, people often ask me; "isn't bike riding dangerous?  I'm to afraid to ride my bike.  I think I'll just go to a spin class instead."  First, bikes can be dangerous, but not many people fail to consider the large number of car accidents every year; whether classified as solo vehicular accidents, alcohol related accidents, accidents due to youth and inexperience, or just sheer and utter stupidity.  We seem to just accept, "as if that's the way it's supposed to be.   

"We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone." 

Ask anyone who rides or walks and they will tell you horror stories of the streets.  Freeing yourself from the cocoon of your car you notice more.  In the two years since my own accident, I have witnessed four accidents involving a car running a red light ( myself  a victem as well).  Of those four, I was the first responder on three of them.  One involved a person trying to flee the scene.  Six victims required medical attention.  

 In the two years since giving up my car in favor of a lifestyle involving cycling, walking and public transportation as a means of mobility, I have kept tract of most of the accidents involving cars, whether solo, with other cars, with bicycles, or pedestrians.  Also motorcycle accidents; which seem almost to be predictable in rider age and accident location are document.

We strikes me and also troubles me the most however is the continued increase in hit and run accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists.  I have read somewhere that it may approach 50%.  That would be one out of two accidents involve a vehicle leaving the scene; an absolute disgrace on any measure of moral, ethic, or civic responsibility.

Anyway here are three Google Maps so far that I have put together.
(Blue - Vehicle, Red - Pedestrian, Yellow - Motorcycle, Green - Cyclists) Dot in the marker represents a fatality.

2007

2008 

2009

Pedestrian Friendly

La Rade by Yann Tiersen....Must be Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan ....Look at the size of the crosswalks and the signals are timed so pedestrians all walk (scramble) at once. At least the first scene was....