If you know of a place where bike racks are needed, please contact the CDTA to ask about the Bike Rack Program, or contact us, we maybe able to help.

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Livingston Ave. Bridge - Open

We were pleased to see growing momentum for returning the Livingston Avenue Rail Road Bridge to its original configuration combining train, bicycle, and pedestrian travel over the Hudson. Albany Bicycle Coalition has joined with the Livingston Ave. Rail Road Bridge Coalition  and others to support this effort.

As reported in Albany Times Union  (1/28/12), Mike Stammel, Rensselaer County legislator, is proposing legislation to give a push to his side of the river.

What are we doing on the west bank?

Bryan Fitzgerald, TU Staff writer reported that Mr. Stammel will introduce a resolution to restore a walkway on the Bridge. For reference, this will connect directly to the Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Trail facilitating access to Albnay, Troy, Watervliet, and points north and south as well as opening up Rensselaer County to recreational and commuter riders.  This is not asking for anything new as the bridge always had a walkway.  The dilapidated walk/bikeway closed in the early 1990s.  Reopening the bridge to cyclists and pedestrians will draw tourists.  The rotating bridge was built in 1866 and rebuilt in 1901.

A project to replace the bridge has been in the works for years, but has stalled over lack of funding.

After my Keen Springwater shoes broke I was a little bummend. I had been commuting on them for the last year and a half so that was to be expected. I thought that they were out of warranty, but when I called up the costumer support line, for which an actual person answered which took me a back a little, they said it was on a shoe by shoe basis. So I filled out my warranty form and not 10 minutes later did I get an email back with a coupon code for the price of my shoes. Imagine that in this day and age a company would take someone at their word and not have to go through the time and expense of shipping a product back for inspection. I was honestly floored by the trust Keen shows in its costumers.

That’s not the end of it. I go online to order my new shoes when I see that Keen does not have my size in stock. The “Request your size” option was also displaying some sizes that they already had in stock as well. So I decided to call up Keen to see if they could check for me. After being on hold for about a minute another women picked up the phone and informed me that not only had they just come out with the Springwater II but that it was 20 dollars less expensive than its predecessor. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the first one to buy the new shoes.

Honestly Keen, you have made a customer for life. The service and the timing could not have been more perfect. Thank you very much for all that you have done for me today. I know I’ll love my Springwater II’s just as much as my old Keens; that and the new wallet. Thanks again.
- Chris Belsole

Written by Chris Belsole

Right across the front page of the Times Union’s website was President Obama’s face and below, “Obama American dream in peril“

So this immediately gave me the idea to post videos which relate to innovative bicycle ideas. Good, bad, ugly? Does America even need innovation? Well we certainly believe America needs bicycles! Here are some good ideas for all of us to think about.

Genre de Vie from Photo Booth Works on Vimeo.

• Red Fatal
• Blue Injuries
• A Dot Indicates a Hit and Run

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How many incidents have happened in Albany?

I can vouch, the following video depicts Chinese culture mega well.

Gotta love cyclocross for being us winter riding.

And the winner…

Cyclists,

Word has it that there were responses to the city on the RFP [request for proposal] for the traffic study for “traffic calming” on Madison.  One more successful step . . .

Traffic Calming, Madison Ave, responses to the city, RFP… WTF?

I quickly jumped to the phone to ask Worden questions.  He told me that there is a committee of people called the Madison Avenue Traffic Calming Committee (MATCC), which he is a part of. MATCC is calling on the City of Albany to refurbish Madison Ave between Lark St and S. Allen St onto Western Ave until Manning Blvd.

The committee asks the city to reduce the number of lanes from four to two, install a third (middle) lane which may be used as a turning lane or emergency lane for quick response teams, an overhaul of the Madison and Western split at S. Allen, and amenities for cycling (bike lanes – yes please!) according to Virginia Hammer the ADHOC Chair of the MATCC.

MATCC lane removal request.

The project description from the City of Albany’s RFP states that the project, “is to determine the most effective multi-modal lane configuration for the Madison Avenue corridor between Lark Street and S. Allen Street as well as Western Avenue between S. Allen Street and Manning Boulevard.”

The city’s RFP asks bidding firms to be able to produce three traffic calming options.  “[The chosen firm] shall identify and evaluate a minimum of three (3) alternatives and recommend the best lane striping, signage and traffic signal treatments for this corridor.  The study must be based upon sound data and information on peak hourly/daily traffic distribution, street geometry, traffic signal operation, transit, pedestrian, and bicycle travel for Madison Avenue and its intersecting roadways.” This means that if traffic calming measures are installed- they may be separate from what the MATCC currently asks.

The city is clearly listening.

The RTP says, “All alternatives shall include and use potential options for traffic including but not limited to lane reduction or reassignment, improving motor vehicle safety, improving pedestrian access and safety, and improving/adding bicycle amenities on this corridor.”

Hammer says the projected cost of the study is near one hundred thousand dollars, funded by both the city of Albany and MATCC. MATCC procured approximately thirty thousand dollars from various entities. Worden says some of MATCC’s funds for the project have come from St. Rose College and Price Chopper.  The remaining seventy thousand from the city.

Possible redevelopment of split between Madison Ave and Western Ave.

Worden says that Madison Ave, ”is a well known disaster zone,” “…with more  accidents in lower volume, compared to less accidents in more volume of Western Ave.”

The following firms have submitted proposals in response to the City’s RFP for Engineering Services – Madison Avenue Traffic Study/Road Diet Feasibility Study according to Hammer.

• Greenman-Pedersen, Inc.

• CHA Companies

• Creighton Manning Engineering

• Laberge Group

• WSP – Sells

• Barton & Loguidice P.C

The initiative to redevelop the stretch between Lark and Manning is spear headed by the Madison Avenue Traffic Calming Committee, which is chaired by Virginia Hammer of the Pine Hill Neighborhood Association.

The City of Albany’s Request for Proposal.

The Pine Hills Neighborhood Association’s Powerpoint on Refurbishing Madison Ave.

NONVIOLENT TRANSPORTATION

By: Ted Johnson

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And I’m at work.

(No, it’s not because I live in Arizona. We actually do have this holiday here — although you may remember that our state was notoriously reluctant to observe the holiday. Rather, it’s because of FedEx. I work for an online retailer, so if FedEx doesn’t have the day off neither do we.)

With all my advanced Googling skills, I was unable to find a photo or quote that shed light on what Martin Luther King may have thought of bicycles. Perhaps he viewed them, as many people still do, as symbols of poverty, and inequality.

Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Denver, Colo.

But I’m thinking that somewhere in the complex mix of motivations I have for cycling rather than driving a car, is the belief that cycling is a relatively nonviolent form of transportation.

As I am writing this, there is a customer in the showroom who is sharing his homicidal fantasies toward the person who stole his bike recently. So, obviously, not every cyclist is necessarily a believer in, or a practitioner of nonviolence.

But, to state what should be obvious, when you bike, you are responsible for less environmental destruction than you would be were you in a car. When you bike you are less of a participant in the politics and economics of petroleum and their violent foreign policy implications.

And then there’s the mere lethality of motor vehicles. I’m certainly glad that the homicidal customer currently in the shop will leave here on a bike — and not driving a one ton weapon.

I get to bike home now.

Happy Monday!