If you are looking for a place to get your bike repaired that is close to downtown, you might want to check out Sic Transit.  They are located a little under a mile from downtown Ann Arbor on Broadway.

Their specialty is fixing up vintage bikes, but they also do repairs of all sorts.

Check out their new website at sictransitcycles.com

For a complete listing of all of the Bike Shops in the Ann Arbor area that sell quality bikes and do quality repairs, check out our Guide to Bike Commuting in Downtown Ann Arbor.

While we might not be as big of a city as Toronto, we certainly have to deal with cycling with traffic.  Biking Toronto is providing a series of 10 “secrets” (not really secrets but definitely great tips) for biking in traffic.

Click here for a rundown of all of the Secrets.

Read on and stay safe!

According to IBM’s Commuter Pain Survey, driving in many large metropolitan cities is pretty unpleasant.

What is causing all of this pain?  IBM looked at 10 different factors:

1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8. traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.

Whoah.  Not good stuff.  Cities ranking high on the commuter pain index include Beijing, Toronto, London, Paris, New York, and of course, Los Angeles.

Interestingly, some of the countries with high commuter pain also have high rates of transit, biking and walking (I am thinking of Toronto and New York in particular).

While IBM looks at commuter pain, I’d love to switch this around to check out a commuter happiness index.  What sort of things could measure commuter happiness?  Short commuting time would definitely be one of them.  But how about some of the things that make biking, walking and busing so great?  Like stronger connection to community, better personal fitness, and lower stress.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what cities rank high on the Commuter Happiness Index and what makes those cities work so well?  It might help understand the reasons behind the pain of these other places.

During the warmer weather months many, many more employees are biking to work in downtown Ann Arbor (as well as the rest of the country).

One of the needs for some of these employees is a shower when they get to work. Currently, if you wanted to shower up after your bike-ride in downtown Ann Arbor, you’d have the following options:

1. Consider non-shower options first. In a previous post, I listed some suggestions from others regarding how to avoid being too sweaty when you get to work.

2. Get a membership to the Ann Arbor YMCA and shower over there before you get to work (useful for employees who work on that side of town).

3. If you are a County or City employee, you should have access to showers in the County Admin Building.  Unsure about this?  Contact getDowntown and we’ll give you the details.

4. Work for an employer with a shower in the office. I don’t know where all of these places might be, but I do know that the Ann Arbor Architects Collaborative offers showers for their employees.

5. If you are an employer, consider putting in your own shower. I’ve done a little research and found that the estimates for retrofitting an existing bathroom to accommodate a shower to putting in a shower stall can range from $2,000 (for a retrofit) to $13,100 (for one stall and one room) to $30,000 (for two stalls and two rooms).  These two estimates were from individuals outside of Ann Arbor, so it’s hard to know if they are entirely accurate for this area.  A local architect did note that a employer should keep in mind the following if they are looking at a shower install:

Some considerations are achieving barrier free access (which [can be] solved using the european shower model ie no stall) and if there is a floor drain–connected to the sanitary in the space. . . A renovated toilet room would be required to be barrier free unless it was accessed through a private office and not a “required” to meet the plumbing code (ie for the office occupant only).

Any other thoughts, ideas and suggestions can be listed in the comments section.

At a recent Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) Board Meeting, I was able to hear a presentation on the AATA’s new Transit Master Plan process.

And before you go looking for the plan with all it’s components on the new Moving You Forward website, let me emphasize that what was presented was a process, not a plan?

Why?

Because what the AATA wants to do (with the help of several consultants) is engage the community on several different levels:

1. First, the AATA wants to find out what Washtenaw County citizens need and want for the County for the next 5, 15, and 30 years.  Do we want a thriving economy?  Do we want to attract more young professionals?  Do we want more focus on the environment?  Do we just want to party?

2. These needs will then be looked at in terms of what types of transportation could help meet the needs.  If we want a thriving economy, does that mean we focus on trolleys or bus rapid transit?  Or better bike lanes?

3. Finally, all of these different types of technologies will be mapped on some different scenarios to determine how they would all fit into a particular plan.

I like this approach because it reminds me what a marketing professional once instructed me to do: You see, when you want to make a pie, you don’t just make a little dough, but you make enough so that you can make sure you’ll be able to cover the whole pie.  And then you cut that dough down until you have just what you need.  So the AATA is going to use the public’s input to make a lot of dough and then work through the process of cutting that input down into something that looks and tastes delicious.

The whole Moving You Forward process has already begun, with the head of the AATA Michael Ford, meeting with many members of the community.  There will also be lots of time for public input beginning later in the year.

If you are at all interested in seeing a plan for transit for this community (including how biking and walking fit into the picture) I encourage you to check out Movingyouforward.org and be a part of the discussion.

If you regularly commute by or otherwise enjoy the Border to Border Trail you might be interesting in helping clean it up:

Its that time of year again along the Border To Border Trail, lots of rain causing lots of vegetation to grow next to,and over, the trail. To help make the trail more passable (although it is really not that bad), there will be a trail-clearing session this coming Thursday, June 24th at 7pm. The assembly point will be the Border To Border Trail at Cornell Street, just west of the main EMU campus. For a map, click here.

The plan would be to clear overhanging branches along the Trail going west to the Dixboro Bridge. The plan would be to be done by 8:30pm. The only thing you would need to bring are pruning clippers and possibly garden gloves. The worst areas are on the trail between Cornell and Hewitt and the Dixboro Bridge.

If anyone could help with this event it would be appreciated!

Bob Krzewinski

Friends of the Border To Border Trail

www.bordertoborder.org

This just in:

From 1990 to 2009, the number of trips taken on foot more than doubled from 18 billion to 42.5 billion. Similarly, the number of bike trips increased from 1.7 billion to 4 billion. (from Ray LaHood’s Blog)

That’s according to a recent Federal Highway Administration Study. And in other good news, at the same time as walking and biking trips has increased, the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed is decreasing.

While all of this is great news, it’s clear we still have a ways to go to make it both practical and safe for people to bike and walk to their destinations.  But these numbers are encouraging!

Recently, the getDowntown Program surveyed bike commuters to learn more about them.

In that survey, we asked two open-ended questions:

1. What do you think could be make it easier for cyclists to commute to work in Ann Arbor?
2. Please include any suggestions/comments/questions you have about biking to work in downtown Ann Arbor

So what do bike commuters want? Not much, actually.  But what they do want, while pretty simple to say, is much more difficult to implement.

Out of the 213 bike commuters who took our survey, the majority said the following would make it easier to commute to work in Ann Arbor:

More Bike Lanes and Paths
This was by far the most requested improvement.  Cyclists would both like to see bike lines on more city streets as well as more paths that allow cyclists to get around Ann Arbor without having to be in the street.  The interesting thing about this is that Ann Arbor does have a plan to add more bike lanes.  The City’s Non-Motorized plan was adopted in 2007 and every year, the City implements some parts of that plan.  So the biggest reason we don’t have more bike lanes and bike paths is not because we don’t want them, it’s because we need to get the funding for them.  That’s why the City is pushing hard for the Rails to Trails 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation.  A couple of years ago, the City submitted a proposal to this campaign to receive 5o million dollars for non-motorized improvements.  Now we just have to wait for the Transportation Bill to be reauthorized.  In the meantime, if you’d like to see the City dedicate more funding to bike lanes, you can always let your Councilperson know.

More Bike Parking, especially covered parking, secure parking and lockers
As many survey respondents recognized, getting your bike from point A to point B is just one piece of the puzzle.  You next have to find a place to park it.  That can be a much harder proposition if you are trying to find bike parking outside of downtown Ann Arbor.  However, the City does have bike parking standards for new construction, which means that at least there will be bike parking when something new is created.  If you have a place in mind where you’d like to see bike parking downtown, you can let the DDA know with this handy form.

More education for cyclists and motorists on the rules of the road
It isn’t surprising that many bike commuters would like to see more opportunities for cyclists and motorists to learn how to play well together on the road.  The Washtenaw Biking and Walking Coalition (WBWC) continues to work on this issue and it always happy to have others help them out!

Better maintained bike lanes
Many survey respondents noted that bike lanes are great, but it doesn’t help if they’re full of leaves, snow, or potholes. I bet if we asked motorists what could be done to improve commuting by car in Ann Arbor they’d also talk about fixing out streets.  Clearly this is a problem for the Ann Arbor area (and Michigan in general) that doesn’t have easy solutions.  However, if you are a cyclists and do see a road maintenance issue you can report it to the City of Ann Arbor.  Click here and go to the Report a Maintenance Issue section in the right sidebar.

Designated bike boulevards and corridors that are geared towards cyclists rather than cars
Bike commuters would also like to have places in Ann Arbor that are specifically geared towards the needs of cyclists.  It’s an interesting idea and I could see many ways to do this, from simply designating certain places in Ann Arbor bike corridors, to actually creating separated streets specifically for cyclists.

So these are the thoughts of bike commuters.  Does this jive with what you’d like to see for bike commuters in Ann Arbor?

Here are the folks who won prizes for logging a Bike Commute during I Like Bikes Week

LED Bike Light    Hector S    Ann Arbor District Library
LED Bike Light    Tom M    City of Ann Arbor
LED Bike Light    Jill T    City of Ann Arbor
Old Town Tavern – $25 gift card    Peter B    ICPSR
Jolly Pumpkin – $25 gift card    Jeff E    Adaptive Materials, Inc.
Footprints – $20 Gift Certificate    Ryan O    Underground Printing
Fourth Avenue Birkenstock – $20 Gift Certificate    Ted L    Menlo Innovations LLC
Sadako Japanese Restaurant – $25 gift card    Markus B     University of Michigan – Nephrology
Sadako Japanese Restaurant – $25 gift card    Tom B    University of Michigan – MLibrary
getDowntown Chico bag and free Barre Intensity Class from Vie Fitness and Spa    Suzanne K    Ann Arbor YMCA

In honor of Bike to Work Day, check out this calculator that shows you how much you could save if you biked to work instead of drove to work and parked your car.