I understand that it’s been dreary and miserable for days, and it’s got people on edge. It’s keeping me hunkered down in my living room surrounded by pillows and blankets and videogames, as I  have been all winter. But seriously, automobile commuters, fucking suck  it up. You have a roof. You have heat (usually). You have FUCKING WINDSHIELD WIPERS. I have to reach up and swipe away the droplets collecting on my glasses with an increasingly sodden glove.

This is why it irks me that drivers somehow think they are allowed to be increasingly homicidal when the weather is bad. I was intentionally hit by another driver today, who intoned the old standby, “you should not be on the road!” as he swerved sharply toward me, knocking my front wheel and sending me over the curb.

I had been in the left lane of Eliot street, Harvard Square, about to take a right on to JFK. I stay in the center of the lane during this turn because impatient drivers tend to cut the corner off as they pass me, creating a pinch point that could send me under the car. The middle eastern gentleman in dark blue sedan, plate 6CJ890, was in the lane to turn left on JFK but swerved sharply into my lane as I passed him, causing me to scream and swerve. I caught his plate as I slowly renavigated around him, and continued on down JFK about an arm’s length from the curb.

The gentleman first tailgated me and then swerved alongside to confront me, stating the old standby. As I started to retort with, “You are WRONG, Sir.” he jerked the car sharply toward me in an arc, hitting me and sending me off my bike and on to the sidewalk. I wasn’t hurt much, just a twist of the right ankle and knee and some  palm jarring, but it could have been much worse.

As I was on my way to work in Brookline, I wasn’t able to report this to the Cambridge police, and frankly, I’m not sure I even will. What is the point? The last two times I reported these incidents, I was told nothing could be done.

I regret that this ‘blog’ is turning into a running account of the impotency of the pro-cyclist movement in terms of driver deference, but I am only reporting what I encounter. I don’t encounter people waiting patiently at intersections, or stopping obediently at red lights. I watch people, day in and day out, run red lights, travel in the bike lane, double park, turn left against red and through pedestrian lights, and hit cyclists without remorse over and over and over.

Infrastructure planning is great, but the real challenge is changing the way cyclists are viewed and treated by motorists (and pedestrians, though they endanger us a bit less). And I don’t really see any headway happening in that arena. I wish I had some suggestions, but having to witness the wanton acts of stupidity and violence perpetrated by motorists daily, I am at a loss to even begin how to change their way of thinking. There is simply no way to reach these people. They don’t take the T, so a sign campaign would be fruitless. They may watch television, but who is going to spend the money on commercial spots for PSA’s about how to respect cyclists rights and bodies?

I know what you’re going to say. “Lead by example. Follow the rules, be courteous, and motorists will follow in kind.” And to that I say,

“HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahaha..haha…ha.. *cough*  *cough* ”

I used to say the same thing, about six years ago. Since then I’ve learned that no amount of good will and positive example will keep me safe on the roads of Massachusetts or anywhere else.

So ok, I swear that this is the last  of these posts. There is no point in me stating and restating my argument.

Next post, I swear to god, will be a tutorial on how to make Carpunching Gauntlets.

So, let the fun begin!

…

Guys? Anyone? Helloooo!?

Yeah, so far this ‘spring’ has been a buttload of unsatisfying riding days and hibernation nights. Sure, there were some great 50+ days. Three, exactly. But come ON March? In like a lion and out like a douchebag, is what I have to say about it.

Last week I got hit by a car. Yes, again. This time, the twenty-something trust fund twats put some icing on the cake. After brushing by me yelling obscenities and smacking me with the mirror of their spotless black Audi, they stopped for a second, I can only assume to make sure I got the entire well articulated manifesto of hate. When I clambered up to the window to inform them that they’d hit me, and that I’d like their contact information, the hipster-bearded shaggy American Apparel wearing piece of shit on the passenger side spat in my face.

Yeah.

Happily, I was able to get their license plate as they sped off. A day after filing a report with the Brookline Police, I received a call back with the name of the driver, and the description of their report; not only did they not ‘notice’ hitting me, I apparently kicked their car. They did not want to press charges, and would like to avoid court.

The officer I spoke to explained to me that because neither I nor the bike sustained any injury, I would not be able to charge the driver with hit and run. I would, however, have the option of pressing charges on the passenger for ‘assault with bodily fluid’. I said yes, please, I would like to go to court.

I haven’t yet heard further about this  supposed court date. I get it, bureaucracy. I’m not holding out any hope, however, of this ending up in my favor. It seems that if you’re a cyclist, any number of acts of violence, belligerence, and murder can be exacted on your person by noncyclists who then need not fear the slightest accountability. Do I need to link evidence to this fact in the form of countless articles portraying cyclist tragedies in which the crime was labeled a blameless ‘accident’? This incident was the second in THREE WEEKS in which a motorist has swung toward me in order to frighten and harass me and subsequently contacted me with the vehicle, and the last in a long line of ‘accidents’ of negligence and hostility in which I was given no recourse. We are powerless out here, and the efforts of local ‘bike czars’ and activists are doing fuck all to change it. No amount of local ‘bike repair stations’ or badly painted sharrows will change the way motorist view cyclists – as pretentious interlopers or hapless peasants stealing a portion of the roadway that the taxes they’ve paid have so entitled them to enjoy. And I’m not joking, here. I’ve been the audience to at least five earnest monologues, hollered from the driver’s seat through the passenger window, outlining exactly why the excise tax they paid on their vehicle entitled the driver to the entire road, and that I was inconveniencing them and even greedily hijacking something they had paid blood, sweat and tears for the rights to.

I don’t really know where to go from here. I’ve come to the conclusion that unless the Age of Aquarius rolls in, nothing is going to change the murderous environment that cyclists in this area suffer daily. Evidence to the contrary? I wish I had even the remotest shred. The only positive I experience on the road every day is the volleys of ‘nice goggles!’ that come from pedestrians and my fellow cyclists and yes, even cops. I suppose, if you ain’t going to ride fly than you might as well hate, eh?

I’m at work for the first time in three weeks. This year so far has been … annoying. Broken toe (incident with a shopping cart).  Frozen pipes, exploding washing machine, kitchen fires, oh my! The Black  Plague (or tonsillitis, I’m not sure) paid our friend group a visit. On top of it all, the death of our sometime friend Eric the Red (see posts from last summer) has Dadoo Climbout in an existential crisis. Oh, and DEAR BABY JESUS WTF SNOW!?

I know, I know. I talk a big fat streak of piss about how I loooove to ride in the winter. Seriously though, kids? I can work from home, and when the roads have three layers of sky diarrhea in various states of frozen covering them, I will do so.  So in bed I have been for the last four storms, and all the clean up in between. As much as I am very appreciative of this opportunity to out sloth the entire community, I was starting to get really bored. So here I am at the office, blogging for the first time since  August. (Sorry guys, shit happened.) Oh, I should blog about the shit that happened.

Ok, here we go.

I’m not really on any committee. I don’t go to meetings, for a few reasons, including inability to remember when/where they are, and crippling social anxiety. I’m not part of any official bike club or movement. I’m mostly a loner (Dotty), a rebel. But when I’m on the phone with people, I do make a lot of lofty claims about the level of contact I have in the community – I have a squeaky girl voice, so to be taken seriously on the phone is a bit of a challenge.

Today I spoke to a nice gentleman at the MASSDot about the state of the Mass Pike pedestrian bridge in Allston. He informed me that it is the Mass Pike Authority’s responsibility to maintain it, and not the city’s. He also admitted that he did not have the direct number to the Mass Pike authority. No wonder nothing really gets done around here.

I don’t want to jump the gun and get hopes up, but I have ordered a small, battery powered spy cam. I’m hoping to mount it on my helmet in such a way that all the idiocy I witness during my daily commute is captured and useful as evidence in the event that I am struck (again) or otherwise menaced. Not sure about the quality of the cam yet (it was cheap) or the method of mounting, so this plan is tentative, but I’m pretty excited. I have the feeling that attitudes will be completely different if people know they are being filmed. Better, or worse… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Or not…

This blog has fallen a bit by the wayside in the last couple months. This is not because I’ve been low on complaints about the cycling situation in Boston – far from it. Rather, I am feeling a bit jaded about the struggle to instigate change in a city that is so woefully politically and capitalistically corrupt and totally devoid of compassion. Despite the grandiose claims by Tom Menino, Nicole Freedman, Richard Davey, none of the issues plaguing the city when I began my own campaign for change have been solved, or indeed described any measurable improvement. The MBTA is still totally unaccountable for it’s unlawful transgressions and terrible service. Motorists are as abusive and neglectful as ever to the cycling community. Public servants continue to treat cyclists as second class citizens, and people keep getting hit and menaced with no hope of justice from our fundamentally flawed legal system.

True; there are many new bike lanes in the city. What good does this do if motorists, delivery vehicles, and taxis use them as a traveling and parking lane? And they do, every day, all day. True, there are new signs and sharrows indicating that the traffic respect cyclists as vehicles and allow them to travel accordingly. Motorists still honk, swear and menace cyclists – all day, every day. I know, because I am out there experiencing it.

All the work in the world done on the infrastructure of Boston’s roadways will do dick diddly squat to change the mentality of the area. Pedestrians remain aloof, ignorant, and self absorbed. Motorists will continue to be stressed out, wrathful, self important. Cyclists will remain recalcitrant, self-righteous, easily incensed. Public servants will continue to be lazy, unhelpful, belligerent. MBTA drivers will remain under trained, oblivious, and continue to disregard the safety needs of their position.  What we can do about all this… I really have no idea. I have always tried to do my tiny part to instigating a change in mentality – treating others with respect and care, trying not to be easily thrown into a rage by the abuse I suffer daily from drivers. I can keep this up, I think… but it doesn’t give me much hope for change in the future.

To be fair, hope is in short supply right now, for reasons we all know and I can’t bring myself to discuss in this blog. We are inundated with news of the horrors being wrought on our fellow man, our fellow creatures, our very world, by our own kind. I can’t really blame the average person for not having much good will to impart. Sadly, this is probably the point at which we need it the most.

On my way back from my afternoon snack trip, I walked by a scraped up, shirtless biker talking to a paunchy business suit. Obviously the cyclist had just gotten hit by this guy. The older guy was trying to convince the kid that his bike was fine, as the kid looked for obvious damage.

“Take it to a shop.” I blurted. Couldn’t help myself. “Don’t just eye it, take it to a shop.”

“Yeah… ” said the kid, agreeing with me. He then noticed that his break lever was hanging off by a thread. “See!?” he gestured to the older guy.

“Call the cops, now. File a report.”, I said. I was so pissed off that the old dude was just trying to drive away from this.

“Nice shirt..” the biker said to me.

I walked into  my office, peed, and grabbed a bottle of water, running outside to give it to the biker as he waited for the police…

… and he was gone. They both were. Obviously they didn’t wait for the police. I really hope the guy is on his way to the station now to report this. I’m so pissed off.

Wherever you are guy, good luck. And I also hope you were wearing sunblock.

via Universalhub.com –

Ask the manager, MBTA style

By adamg – 4/7/10 – 12:12 pm

Have something to say to the guy in charge of the T? Of course you do. Tomorrow’s your chance: Richard Davey will be at the North Quincy stop on the Red Line between 7 and 9 a.m. “to customers concerns, and promote public transportation.”

Nowhere near the City of Presidents? He’ll be doing a whole lot of listening every Friday for the next few weeks, including Thursday, April 15 between 7 and 9 a.m. at Dudley Square and the same time on April 22 at Kenmore.

For as long as I’ve been Cycling the streets of Cambridge, the east end of Cambridge Street has had two perfectly serviceable bike lanes .. but with one conspicuously absent feature.

Where's the little man?

Or the 'cyclist diamond'?

I’m no expert, but I hear tell that unless these little icons are present in the lane, these lanes are not lawfully bike lanes, and cyclists using them are therefore not subject to the same protection that they would be in a true bike lane, or even a ‘squeezeway’! The horror! To be bamboozled into thinking we’ve got the protection of the city when the lines mean nothing at all!  And this is a road where lanes like this are truly necessary – double-parking is at it’s worst here on Cambridge Street, meanwhile cars blast by at speed, trying to make it past the next yellow light. Aggressive driving is rampant, and motorists in this area are none too kind to the average cyclist – I’ve learned this the hard way.

Another thing I noticed was a significant lack of bicycle parking… and a suspicious coating around all the meters.

What and why?

This black plastic coating made it very difficult for me to use my ‘fun size’ Kryptonite U-lock. Is this thing here to help or hurt cyclists? For the love of Gond, what is it? There are scores of businesses on Cambridge Street that can, will and do benefit from the patronage of cyclists, but sadly this fact seems to have gone unnoticed.

In January, that is. God I hate the cold. It’s not that I don’t find it manageable to ride in – I have only taken the bus once this winter, and that was to the Slutcracker cast party, because I fully expected to be too drunk to ride (which is a feat in itself) and I wasn’t off with my prediction. It’s just that everything is so sloooowed doown and extra complicated. In May you can just throw your shoes on, slap your lock under your belt and GOGOGO to wherever, when ever. In january you have to check your temp wiget, find extra socks, locate your thermal shirt, whine about the fact that your face muffler is still soaked with boogers, Cat-Crap your goggles. etc etc etc… so not necessary. I mean, necessary, but not in any way acceptable. Grumble.

Last night I rode to Coolidge to be a Tip Monster for the production SHOW – a film, burlesque/drag extravaganza and book signing with local photographer and long-time PRC supporter Henry Horenstein. Haven’t gotten around to unpacking my panniers yet, but I have the sneaking suspicion that a tub of silver glitter has exploded in there, because I was leaving a Tinkerbell trail all the way home.

I’ve finally linked all my hot hot cohort’s pages to my blaaargh so when I write about my exploits, you can follow the link and figure out just WTF I’m jibba-jabbin about. And ALSO, so you can check out all these fine performers and see what they’re up to on any given week, because if you haven’t yet you’re missing out, bigtime. So clicky! Go. DO IT.