Five Ways To Feel the Holiday Spirit

Something I haven't told that many people: I have a really hard time feeling the Christmas spirit like I used to. 

It's been like that a few years, actually: the last time I really felt the buy-me-the-biggest-goose-in-all-of-London! feeling was the morning I took the bike ride I took to different toy stores on December 14, 2012.


And on the way back I found out about the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary.

One of the twenty pictures I posted a few days later - one for each of the child victims - this one summed up the feeling of Christmas in Connecticut at the time.

The following year the division I led at my then-workplace which studied consumer books was closed and I was laid off in the most unceremonious and maddeningly polite way imaginable. Today I do take some comfort knowing I was right when I predicted the resilience of print books and independent bookstores and I predicted the disaster that would ensue if Barnes & Noble tried to separate their e-book business from the rest of the company. 

But still, it stung.

My point is it can take a while to move past the derailments that can sometimes take place around the holidays - or you just aren't feeling the Christmas vibe. Either way, I got a few suggestions at ways to try and feel the holiday spirit.  

Here goes: 

5) Watch the Cranksgiving San Jose video shot by Tanner Marcoida


https://vimeo.com/247746177

Yeah it has been a while since I've written, hasn't it? Cranksgiving San Jose took place on Nov. 18th. It was harder to do this year since I was running it - and I'm not just referring to my painful lack of leadership skills but my inability to drum up volunteers to replace the ones who moved out - or were priced out - of San Jose between the first Cranksgiving San Jose in 2016 and this one. 

Still I'm incredibly happy with what was done: we had 61 riders gather 891 pounds of food to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank. And the other day Tanner released the video and it is really difficult to watch without smiling. 

4) Donate to Housing Trust Silicon Valley

If you've got year-end charitable contributions you want to make before the year comes to an end, please donate to Housing Trust Silicon Valley. They do a lot of great stuff to help people who are impacted by the cartoonishly high home and rent prices out here: financing affordable homes, down payment assistance for buyers, programs to help homeless move into a place they can afford. They do important work, and as of two months ago, I am happy to say I help them do it.

3) Take a Yoga Class and donate a class at Be The Change Yoga & Wellness

Three days before Cranksgiving I was in for a shock: TechShop closed suddenly. While my anger at their Chapter 7 filing and sadness that it couldn't stay open in an area revered for its innovation is still with me, it was a reminder that in order to support local organizations you have to pull out your wallet. 

When I started doing yoga a few years ago I looked at it as a chance to be in a room full of beautiful women once a week while gaining the flexibility necessary to repair a kitchen sink with the aid of a spinx pose. But it's turned into more, and I felt a lot less unanchored in San Jose when I found Be The Change Yoga & Wellness. 

This is a very well organized pile of clothes and supplies Be The Change gathered in order to help the homeless. They allow students to take something if they can give it to a homeless person they know but I think they'll be eventually giving them out at St. James Park (which was the starting point of Cranksgiving San Jose this year). 

So when you donate to them and support BTC by taking a class as a student this is the kind of thing you're supporting. They just rock. Support them and, even better, also take a class since it's a great way to de-stress this time of year. They also have a tree right now that you can decorate by writing something you like about yourself and hanging it on a branch.

2) Volunteer

That's me with my new creation: a towable bike workstand made from the skeleton of the child's bike trailer someone in my neighborhood was throwing away. It made its motion debut at the Turning Wheels for Kids Big Bike Build that took place on December 2nd. 

Thousands of bikes were assembled by hundreds of volunteers. I put together eight of them. I wasn't in the most Christmasy mood at the start. "Ugh!" I said to myself more than once, "If they play Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas is You song again she'd better show up with an apron and a spanner to help!"

But something happened during the day. I started smiling more - and it wasn't just because strangers kept coming up to me to admire the workstand. I began to realize that little kids will grow up into adults and will always remember the Christmas morning where they came into to the living room and saw it near the tree. 

The bikes were all built with incredible speed. By the time everyone left mid-afternoon I was in a better mood. I even caught myself mumbling/singing "I don't care about the pres-ents under-neath the Chris-mas tree" to myself quietly on the way out. 

Find a place you believe in and donate money, time or both.

1) Ride a bike at night

Before you take a ride at night make sure you take ownership over your safety and get a light yourself - a Blaze Laserlight if you can.

There's not a lot of time toward the end of the year for leisure rides, but you can take miniature bikeations around your own neighborhood at night and look at all the Christmas lights. I did this a lot more in Shippan Point in Stamford and am just starting to get back in the habit of doing it again out here. It's a good way to absorb some Christmas through your rods and cones - and silently criticize the decor of others, if you choose. 

So that's what I've got. If you are a long-distance holiday traveler, I feel your pain. If you are welcoming a long-distance holiday traveler: they just want to see you and everything else is just details. No matter what, enjoy your time with family and friends. Ride together if you can but make it a no-drop ride with an asterisk: drop grudges, drop attitudes, drop regrets, drop stress and drop the general extracurricular ridiculousness. Enjoy the holidays. And if you don't feel the the-goose-that-is-as-big-as-me?! excitement rest easy. You'll get there. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Riding the Ferris Wheel at Christmas in the Park in downtown San Jose. 

Can We Be Enraged When Cyclists Are Killed...All The Time? and other post-NYC questions

Picture I took biking just after the Five Boro Bike Tour, 2014.

A pretty nerdy thing I am proud of is some work I did on the Connecticut Bike & Pedestrian Advisory Board a few years ago. I worked with a small number of people in the state DOT to reword a few things in the driver's ed manual - a document that probably hadn't been updated since before I got my license in the Nutmeg State a long time ago.

Going through the manual with a red pen was kinda gratifying in that I could make edits that would be seen by thousands of Connecticut teens who would, the hope went, learn about driving in more of a share-the-road style. One thing I distinctly remember was a passage in a section about aggressive driving behavior. It started like this: "When a driver, bicyclist or other road user does something to anger you, do not retaliate..." 

My suggestion was to replace the word "to" with "that." My reasoning was that actions that annoy or anger road aren't always done to get that result. For example, the guy who passed me too closely on Market St. in San Jose (he broke the three-foot law as he sped by...only for me to easily pass him at the next traffic light) didn't say when he left work that day: "You know what? I'm gonna piss off a cyclist on the way home."

I thought changing the word "to" to "that" might be a good step in creating a road culture that recognizes that things that anger you are things that are often done unintentionally, and should just be let go. I have no idea if this change works or not, but it is still in the Connecticut Driver's Manual to this day (you can find it on page 25).

Another part of my reasoning was that not matter what I am riding, any kind of a fight between me and a motor vehicle that outweighs me by twenty or thirty times I am going to lose. 

So when I hear people talk about how awful it is that cyclists were mowed down by a truck on a bike path in New York - one that I rode on frequently when I lived out there - I have to ask a few questions.

Have you been standing with us as we've been trying to build safer streets? If not, can you stand with us now?

I've been to many a town hall meeting where motorists gripe when cycling infrastructure of any kind is on the table. The disproportional anger I see is bang-your-head-against-the-wall irritating. In fact, the Mercury News' Mr. Roadshow column just ran a letter from a motorist (one who, no doubt, complains incessantly about car traffic without realizing he is part of the problem by driving) whining about a new $35 million bike and pedestrian bridge being built. Yet this area seems to routinely spend $1 billion or more on one highway interchange and nobody bats an eyelash.

                    View of the Freedom Tower from the bike path in 2013

And that's not even the worst part - the worst part is these massive car-oriented projects do not work. In 2014, NBC ran a story showing that after spending a billion dollars, commute times went up one minute after widening a ten-mile stretch of the 405. Of course, once the public and elected officials realized this, they decided not to build any more highways.

I am, of course, kidding. Just last month I saw the headline: i-405 Improvement Project Aims to Shorten Commute Times. The project, funded by Measure M, is expected to cost about $1 billion. 

The only way to improve highways is to have fewer people driving on them. That happens when big, effective bike/ped/train infrastructure is built and people leave the car and take the bicycle. Even if it doesn't happen overnight, cities and states can change their metrics over to Vehicle Miles Traveled from the outdated, car-friendly Level of Service and build roads as Complete Streets. 

Would your response to the NYC attack be the exact same if the angry person behind the wheel was white and wasn't motivated by ISIS?

Like I wrote in the Connecticut Driver's Manual, people on the road don't always do something intentionally to anger someone. But let's talk about those who do. Not just the terrorist in New York, but the one in the pickup truck in Marin, who, the very same month of the NYC attack,  intentionally rammed cyclists on a charity ride before taking off. He was eventually found and a lot of cycling advocates were at the arraignment. 

There has been very little coverage of this since then. 

If the driver in Marin wasn't white screamed something in a foreign language while attempting murder, what would the coverage be then? 

You know the answer to that already. 

You also know how angry I can get when journalists do the color-by-numbers coverage of a crash that involves a bike or pedestrian. It's not a sexy, click-baity topic like terrorism. 

The reporters often use words that assign blame (such as asking "was he in the crosswalk?" in an accusatory tone) and almost never follow up with the people affected by tragedy. It's long past time to talk about the design of roads and the use of motor vehicles to begin with. 

Cause, you know, we take off our shoes at the airport because of some dolt fifteen years ago and you don't see news stories of someone going on a rampage and running people down on a cargo bike, do you? 

                    View of the Freedom Tower from the bike path, 2013

Are you ready to speak up and ban cars from cities altogether for national security reasons?

This kind of question and conversation that will follow is going to make a lot of people really uncomfortable and possibly angry.

I don't care. It still needs to happen.

We're wading toward it now - and someone more famous and more articulate than me (that is a really big pool) needs to take this up. One kid gets killed by an alligator in Florida and nets go up all around the ponds. A tiny number of lithium batteries burn and talks of banning them from flights engulf us all. Four planes are used as weapons and cockpit doors of thousands and thousands are fortified. 

Can we harness that kind of reaction when cyclists and pedestrians are killed instead of shrugging? And can we do something other than making it illegal to look at a phone in a crosswalk? 

    Avert your eyes, Honolulu (also your ordinance won't make pedestrians safer) 
Cyclists and pedestrians have to share space everyday with machines that weigh thousands of pounds and can do an incredible amount of damage in the wrong hands. This is already in addition to the fact that cars cost a lot, pollute, are bad for our waistlines and take up space in cities that can be better used to build affordable housing. 

The time is now for city engineers to take several steps to not just do more to separate cars from bikes and pedestrians, but separate cars from cities altogether. 

I know these questions may not go anywhere and in a week ADHDmerica may have moved on to something else. I can tell you one thing though. Bicycles were in cities before cars and before terrorists. And we will be in cities after both of those are gone. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Cranksgiving San Jose update -  It is happening on Nov. 18th. Like Cranksgiving San Jose on Facebook and learn how you can help feed hungry Bay Area families this season!

Five Things the Bay Area Should Know for the Weekend

5) Mt. Umunhum is Cool...by Bike

Sept. 21, 2017. Rode Bike Friday (w/ Cranksgiving San Jose trailer in tow) 5.5 miles up to Mt. Umunhum where I listened to Eminem and ate M&Ms. Really.

I took the day off yesterday and rode my Bike Friday up Mt. Umunhum, which just opened a few days back. I would have ridden straight from my house but I opted instead to park my car at Almaden Quicksilver County Park across the road (side note: the Santa Clara County Parks annual parking pass is the best value in the Bay Area) and ride about 5.3 miles. Up.

Five years ago I swapped out a triple chainring on the Bike Friday for a larger double and I remember wondering if I'd regret it later. Half a mile in, I did. 

Still it is a beautiful ride up Mt. Umunhum Road, and when you get to the top you can skip the parking lot on the left and turn right to pedal further to the old radar installation - also know as the rectangular thingy in the Santa Cruz Mountains visible from most highways.

Here at the top there is handicapped car and van parking available BUT there is a bike rack. The views are every bit as great as you'd expect and it is satisfying to get there by bike. 

The #ThirteenWords apply big time: If you have a bike and can ride it safely, please ride it. If you must drive to Mt. Umunhum to see it please fill your car with people, drive slowly both up and down, and give cyclists three feet of space when you pass. I had a few cars cross the line between "annoyingly close" and "dangerously close." 

Be courteous AND thankful, motorists. Because of me, you get an extra parking spot to choose from when you get to the top. And we all get a buffer between now and the inevitable news story from motorists wrongly complaining that there isn't enough parking there. Cars: you're already ruining National Parks. Don't ruin Mt. Umunhum too.

4) Suma CM's Sketching Class is Live

Artist Suma CM, sketching Viva Calle SJ 2017 from a Box Bike by DIYBIKING.COM

Suma CM - a Bay Area artist who sketched at the Bay Area Proud blood drive the other day, rode in a Box Bike by DIYBIKING.COM for Viva CalleSJ 2017 so she could sketch while I pedaled. It's always fascinating that one doesn't realize how much space is given to cars until that space is given to people.

It's also fun to ride a cargo bike and look down to see Suma's hat.

Having her sketch in the bike was cool - but what is even more cool is that she is now teaching a sketching class on Craftsy called Urban Sketching in 15 Minutes a Day. So if you have ever wanted to learn how to draw or learn how to improve your drawing technique you should take her class.


3) Yoga Teacher Training in San Jose SimaSutra.com

Yoga instructor Sima Chomicz Velez at St. James Park just after teaching a class.

All of the yoga teachers at Be The Change Yoga & Wellness are amazing people but the instructor I've known the longest is going to start yoga teacher training in a couple weeks. If you live in San Jose (or anywhere in the Bay Area, for that matter) and want to be a yoga instructor visit www.simasutra.com to learn more about this 200 hour class. 

As most of you know I've been a big fan of yoga for years and am convinced yoga has made me a better cyclist - and some days I am convinced I'd be in Nerf Hilton without it. 

You can sign up for classes at BTC on their site and if you want to be the person in the front of the class with the calm expression and the soothing voice, now is your chance: visit www.simasutra.com and sign up. 

2) Cranksgiving San Jose is Coming!

Another reason to love Be the Change Yoga & Wellness is they are one of the sponsors of Cranksgiving San Jose this year. Speaking of Cranksgiving...

By now you have probably seen the NBC Bay Area news story on Cranksgiving San Jose last year so you know what it is about. It is coming back on Nov. 18 this year, and we want to get even more riders together and collect even more food for Second Harvest Food Bank. Remember: If you can ride a bike and can feed yourself, you can ride a bike and feed others in need. Please like Cranksgiving San Jose on Facebook and help spread the word in the South Bay!

1) Speak Out Against Banning Cell Phones While Walking
I recently wrote about how terrible it is that Honolulu and my original home city of Stamford, Connecticut are seriously thinking of passing ordinances so pedestrians can't use cell phones while crossing the street.   can absorb more blame when they are hit by cars.

Mr. Roadshow (Gary Richards) of the San Jose Mercury News has taken a letter or two from entitled motorists who are annoyed pedestrians don't stop what they are doing to worship at the alter of Tesla and GMC when crossing the street. In this column, Mr. Roadshow has opened the conversation about banning cell phone use while walking giving motorists an extra tool in the blame-assignment utility belt so please let him know if you don't support a ban on texting and walking. His contact information is at the bottom of his column and, as always when I ask you to do this: no foul language and stay polite. 

That's all I got for now (not that this is of interest in the Bay Area but David Martin's Cycling With Candidates ride in Stamford was postponed this week because of the rain - more on the new time/date later).

Today is the day summer spills into fall (apparently this is happening at exactly 1:02 pm) so make it count. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

Cycling With Candidates update - Stamford: Thanks, Barry Michelson!

Republican Candidate for mayor of Stamford, Barry Michelson, Sept. 14, 2017. Photo by Ronald Morse

Note: I am typing all of this with a big grin on my face

I need to give a big thanks to Ronald Morse of Speakerbike for leading the first #CyclingWithCandidates ride with Republican Barry Michelson - and of course thank Barry for taking part in the ride (and a shout-out to Pacific Cycling & Triathlon on High Ridge Road in Stamford for outfitting Barry with a Specialized bike).

I knew the ride was taking place at 8:00 this morning at the Bedford Street Diner in Stamford. 2,983 miles away, at 5:00 in the morning At precisely the same moment, I was sitting outside my home in San Jose, in the dark, waiting for sunrise, sipping coffee and listening for screech owls* while wondering what was going on. 

As it turned out the ride took place as it was scheduled and photojournalist Michael Cummo of the Stamford Advocate was also there and took some great photographs - please check out Michael's photos - plus one from Ronald's iPhone! - and share the Stamford Advocate story below:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Stamford-mayoral-challenger-participates-in-12198354.php

There will be more to come on this - and David Martin's ride will be coming up soon so keep watching this space. Remember that #CyclingWithCandidates can be done in your home city and that no one (it helps to say this in Bryan Cranston intonation) should run for mayor anywhere without addressing cyclists or cycling issues. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

*My morning routine has changed since moving to California.

Cycling With Candidates - the 2017 Mayor Election in Stamford

I promised not too long ago I'd have something to say about Cycling with Candidates - a campaign I started in 2013 to go biking with mayoral candidates in the city Stamford. 

I live in San Jose, California now but what goes on in Stamford matters a great deal to me. I still have friends I love and business I adore out there and even though I haven't ridden a bicycle in Stamford since May 1, 2015 I'm not ruling out a return someday.

So I decided to hand off the Stamford edition of Cycling with Candidates to Ron Morse - you may know him from his excellent cycling creation Speakerbike and from the Bike Party Stamford rides - and by the way, if you live in Stamford there is a Bike Party Stamford Ride tonight and you should bring a bike and go. 

That's my whole message at the moment: Ron is doing Cycling With Candidates and the two candidates for mayor (incumbent David Martin and challenger Barry Michelson) have already agreed to do the rides. As I write this they are coordinating schedules with Ron to do them. If you are a member of the press and want to know when the rides will be please let Ron know.

Rather than explain things further I'll share with you the email I sent to both the David Martin and Barry Michelson campaigns the other day. If anyone out there also believes that no one should run for mayor in your town without speaking about bike and complete streets issues, please crib whatever you want and start #CyclingWithCandidates in your town - and watch this site as I'll publish a Cycling With Candidates Tool Kit soon. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

----

Dear (campaign contact),

(this very same message has been sent or will be sent within a minute of this one to your candidate's opponent)

Thank you and thank (David Martin/Barry Michelson) for agreeing to do a Cycling for Candidates ride! A good friend of mine, Ron Morse, who lives and works in Stamford, is cc'd on this message and he will be your contact for scheduling your ride, which, like last time, will start at the Bedford Street Diner and go right on Bedford, left on Oak, left on Summer, right on Broad and a left on Washington to end at the government center. 

Ron will be writing about the ride for DIYBIKING.COM. Before or after the ride Ron may ask about any plans or issues you may have in regards to bike/transportation issues in the city and your record on this, if applicable. He also has a spare bicycle handy if you need one (let him know beforehand if it is necessary) but I do ask that you bring your own properly fitted helmet and understand you are riding at your own risk. 

Please feel free to have any of your own campaign staff on hand for your own photos/social media fodder if you wish but I do ask that you do not have any volunteers or staffers ride with the candidate and Ron - but please feel free to have anyone along the route or at the government center to take your own pictures if you like. 

An announcement will be made on DIYBIKING.COM Tuesday, Sept. 5 that Cycling with Candidates is back in Stamford. The intent is not to announce when the rides are taking place at that point in case you need more time to schedule one, but I will link to you and your opponent's literature about bike and transit issues if you have pertinent pieces on your web site. If you have published material on this subject on your campaign site by noon on Tuesday, Sept. 4, please send the links my way and I'll be happy to put them up.

This probably goes without saying but the rides will not be scheduled for the same day at the same time (the morning rush is best) and just like last time if anything physically embarrassing happens it will not be covered by DIYBIKING.COM. You will also not be judged on the kind of equipment you ride or the attire you choose to wear. 

I've let a few folks in media know about the rides - you can call them too if you like/when you schedule your ride. 

I would like to thank you personally, regardless of the election outcome, for taking part in Cycling with Candidates. The link to the first one done in Stamford in 2013 is below and some of that years' press coverage is on the Press page of my site. It is not along the route but please have an alfajore cookie for me at Lorca on 125 Bedford.

Sincerely yours,

Michael

----

Link to first Cycling with Candidates Ride: 

http://www.diybiking.com/2013/08/cycling-with-candidates.html

------

Ten Things I Want Google to Google Before They Build in San Jose

Google bought a lot of property - and I do mean a lot - in downtown San Jose. If you want detailed, quality journalism about what is going on with this city-changing event - read the San Jose Mercury News. 

If you want to know what a guy currently wearing faded Pearl Izumi socks with the 'On Your Left' sock on his right foot wants Google to Google before they start building, you've come to the right place. 


10)

Extra Context: If you want to build something in any given city that is 'x' square feet it must have 'y' number of parking spaces. This is why there is a huge amount of land lying around busy urban areas for unoccupied motor vehicles. Google has the muscle to talk the city into making the best possible use of their space - and space for cities going forward. Besides, their Waymo cars won't need to park (they just must never be found in the bike lane and must follow the 3' law).

9)

Extra Context:  The Bay Area is going to collapse under its own weight if home prices keep climbing the way they do and thus pushing barbers, teachers, non-profit workers, wait staff, clerks, drivers and everyone else out. Market forces are making it happen but the free market doesn't do anyone any good if massive numbers of people can't participate in it. There are several organizations like Housing Trust Silicon Valley that help people afford a home, but the problem is just massive. I hope Google Googles this and finds the answers - and I hope the city of San Jose, when they meet today at 4pm, avoids trying to look like part 1 of a six-part HBO mini-series of the housing crisis and will say yes to tiny homes for the homeless. 

8)

Extra Context: Transit works better than cars to get around if - and only if - a person lives close to transit and needs to get to a place close to transit. As I said in the Bay Area News Group story about Hacking Your Commute, a bicycle combined with mass transit is very powerful (and remains, to this day, one of the things that impressed me the most about California when I first moved here). Right now how we humans get from one place to another is stacked in favor of cars, and a big-ass tech titan headquartered in Mountain View could help change that. 

7)

Extra Context: Small coffee shops and restaurants are part of what makes a neighborhood what it is. They are landmarks. They are verbal shortcuts. They also have specialties. If I fancy waffles I go to Hub's Coffee. If I want to meet a friend to talk about Cranksgiving San Jose I go to Chromatic. If I want a mint mojito (or if my sister is in town) I go to Philz. I haven't hit all the little coffee shops in San Jose yet but I like the promise that I know I can do that. That's part of what makes the city what it is. So do a lot of people who work and live here. Let's find ways to make the coffee shops and restaurants stay and flourish. A good way to do that would be to allow workers to have restaurant vouchers instead of a cafeteria so the offices are not islands.

6)

Extra Context: This is an easy one. You're not going to use a bike every time you need to move something - you might use a car or a van. But the more you use a bike to get stuff from one place to another, the less car traffic there will be. And as everyone knows from reading about it San Jose residents are rightfully worried about traffic. The G-Bikes in Mountain View for employees to get around the campus is phase one. Cowgirl Bike Courier can help you start phase two. 

5)

Extra Context: Bikes are too important a tool to be left to weekend use by people who lash them to their Porsche Cayennes. They need to use them to get around - and a lot of people can only count on a bike to get around because they don't own a car. Places like Good Karma Bikes and San Jose Bike Clinic sell good bikes at good prices - and that's the least of what they do and what a bike does. Know who they are. 

4) 

Extra Context: You don't need extra context for this one. 

3)

Extra Context: What's a better investment? A two-bedroom, one-bed ranch tucked next to a noisy highway on-ramp or the same house that shares a yard with a quiet, walkable park? 

2)

Extra Context: See the rest of this blog and/or rent a Box Bike by DIYBIKING.COM to see what I'm talking about. 

1)

Extra Context: I'm not going to compare Google's upcoming office with the giant bike tire lying on its side in Cupertino. But what I will say two things: small gyms and yoga studios should be packed with employees in the middle of the day (and one of the great yoga instructors from Be the Change Yoga is going to start training new yoga teachers beginning in October, so if any Googlers or non-Googlers need a career change visit her web site).  And the second thing to say is this: if you design everything right, the city is your fitness center.

Thanks for Googling and thanks for riding. 

How Stamford and Honolulu Are Making Streets Less Safe

Intersection of Hoyt & Summer Stree in Stamford - Summer 2014. A pedestrian in the crosswalk was killed there shortly before I took this photo.

Motorists in Honolulu - and, sadly, in the city of Stamford - are being given a new tool in their utility belt of Blame Assignment.  

I'm talking about banning the use of cell phones while walking. "Distracted texting" or "distracted walking" as it is sometimes called. We've all probably seen the footage of a distracted pedestrian or two walking into an open manhole or the like and there are cases of a person distracted by a phone and walking into the path of a car - but the practice of banning the use of a cell phone while walking is not the way to make streets safer.

In fact, if I wanted to kill as many pedestrians or cyclists with motor vehicles as possible I'd push for such a law, and push hard.

From Summer 2014. Is the intersection any safer?

Here's why: the balance of power on the street is in the favor of cars to begin with. If I'm walking or biking and a car hits me at 40 miles an hour, chances are excellent I am going to the morgue. The driver - as long as he or she is "remaining at the scene and cooperating" - is going to Maaco. 

Power is also in the hands of the motorist because of the implicit bias in way too many news articles about cars hitting pedestrians. A few years ago, in an article for the Stamford Patch, I pointed out that almost every piece about a car hitting a pedestrian talked about whether or not the person struck was in a crosswalk - and that people want the answer to that question to assign blame to the pedestrian. 

Very, very soon, "Was he/she holding a cell phone?" will augment the old "Was he/she in the crosswalk?" question. Just another way to shift blame away from the motorist and toward the pedestrian. 

Here's my prediction: Streets in Stamford and Honolulu will not see fewer pedestrian deaths. They'll see more because it'll be all the easier for a driver to face little if any repercussions from striking someone. 

Do I think pedestrians and cyclists should take more ownership over their safety - following the rules of the road and looking both ways? Of course I do. But when I put one foot on the street to cross and the approaching driver is going too fast to stop that is a problem with the speed of the motorist - not whether or not I am holding a cell phone in my hand.

That is yet another important thing to remember: even if you follow the ordinance and cross with the phone in your hand - at your side and away from your eyes - that isn't going to matter if you are hit. The driver will be conscious and will be able to give his or her statement to the police that you were holding a cell phone which will be found at the scene. Because you - the unconscious, bleeding pedestrian - can't give your statement to the police that you weren't using the phone, the deck is stacked against you once again. 

It's also a bit unnerving to see a city in Connecticut essentially create an ordinance that chips away at a state law that says drivers must yield to pedestrians who are at a crosswalk. The no-cell-phones-while-walking-rule essentially turns that around. This is motorists - many of whom are also using their phones - saying: you stop what you are doing and you yield to us. 

If you agree and live in Stamford, politely call or email Stamford's Board of Representatives - especially John Zelinsky, an architect of this ordinance - and tell them not to enact this. Do not be rude in any way or use swear words. I am not kidding.  

I know I live in San Jose now, but I miss Stamford. I miss Lorca. I miss Rippowam Labs. I miss Exhale. I miss the art scene and I really want to go to Danger Gallery. I miss free plastic grocery bags. I miss being in the same time zone as 98% of my family. I miss living close to Indian, Greek and Mexican restaurants that deliver. I miss rappelling Santa.*

What I don't miss is the 1970s-style pro-car bias that clings to some people like a disease in the Constitution State. Every road user matters and I have zero interest in telling someone that their much-loved wife, husband, sister, brother, dad, mom or friend isn't coming home because, well, we want drivers to get to where they are going one light faster. 

The aftermath of a bike crashing into a car never, ever looks like this.

By the way, Stamford: I know there is a mayor's race coming up - and friends who still live there know it too. If you are running for mayor (or, running for re-election) I have four words: please check your inbox. Cycling with Candidates is returning. More on this in a few days. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

*In Stamford, that is A Thing - and it is a wonderful Thing. Check out the Stamford Advocate coverage.