Streetfilms: Return of Bike Box!

We can’t set this one up any better than Mr. Eckerson himself, so without further ado:

At just about any public gathering I go these days, there’s usually
at least one person who will come up and give me an enthusiastic "Bike Box!", based upon our earlier, popular Streetfilm.
In my heart I hoped there would one day be a sequel to Bike Box, and it
all came together last week while in Portland at the World Car-free
Conference. Earlier this year, Portland’s Office of Transportation
installed many high visibility bike boxes that are filled in lime green
to help cyclists avoid right hook collisions. (Note: NYC now has a few
green ones as well.)

What we were unprepared for was being stopped by random cyclists who
wanted to lend their collective "Bike Box!" exclamations. So watch and
see all the fun improv as it flows.

Clarence and the Streetfilms crew are also looking for homegrown bike box videos to feature in the Streetfilms sidebar. To participate, post a vid of bike boxes in your city on YouTube and tag it "streetfilms."

Bike Box!

  • gecko

    Great rallying cry!

  • alf

    this video is a little too annoying and inadequately informative.

  • Mike D.

    Judd makes a good point: http://www.commuteroutrage.com/2008/06/28/bike-box

    The purpose of the bike box is to prevent right turn accidents, but it’s only relevant when both the bike and the car come to complete stop at a red light.

    “Compare this to the other right hand turn scenario, which is legitimately dangerous: A car and a bike approach the intersection at substantial speeds, the light remains green, the bike goes straight through the intersection at 20 mph, the car hooks right, the car slams into the bike. In this scenario, which logic tells us causes the greatest number of collisions, the bike box is completely irrelevant.”

  • gecko

    Seems suicidal going through an intersection at 20 mph on a bike without having very clear view of what is going on there.

  • Dane

    I don’t think this is a particularly good Streetfilm but the “Commuter Outrage” guys are complete morons and have no idea what they’re talking about on this or any number of other topics.

    “Advanced stop lines” have a number of purposes and research from Copenhagen is showing that, combined with some other measures, they appear to be useful in enhancing cyclist visibility and safety and are reducing crashes at intersections.

  • Mike D, you are either playing for or getting played by repeatedly linking to that site’s reactionary posts. Their strategy is to stalk Streetsblog with posts taunting both the main content and commenters here. Streetsblog is popular while Commuter Outrage has no friends. Let them rant in obscurity, please. Any Streetsblogger that wants to read low quality venting against this weblog, and indeed the shifting national priorities that it chronicles, is free to subscribe to their feed. I think it works best if you yell “outta my way, asshole!” and make a horn-honking motion with your left arm while clicking the RSS icon.

  • Tom Rorb

    Doc,

    I agree. Commuter Outrage has zero popularity unless it does a story on Sblog or tears down one of the people who contribute to or work hard for it. While they are free to do that, it is a sad way to build a blog. Let them continue to do it, but their rants are insanity disguised as lunacy. I have stopped going there even as a curio.

  • Mike D.

    Well, I’m definitely not playing for them. And sure, I definitely think they’re wrong on most of what they write. But I enjoy reading the other side. I’ve linked a few times to their articles when they address Streetsblog directly. That kind of thing is interesting to me. As to trying to gain popularity by linking to Streetsblog, maybe. But then again Streetsblog is a HUGE site in the transportation blogosphere, very influential. Sorta like the NYTimes op-ed page for cyclists, urbanists, etc. So it makes sense that the other side would want to address the posts and threads here. I dunno, I guess if these guys were really trying to become some huge blog, they’d have picked some MASSIVE topic like Israel-Palestine or whatever and attack Little Green Footballs. Anyway, point taken Doc.

  • Hey, glad to hear you’re not a shill. You can just assume that every weblog wants to increase its readership, whether its writers admit it or not. These guys do not in any way represent “the other side”; they would love to speak for every frustrated commuter in the country, but in reality they are just some dudes that set up wordpress and made a header graphic, then started attacking a leading symbol of livable streets to try to attention. I guess it could still be interesting reading, but they have no more authority than any random angry commenter that shows up to confront the Streetsblog eggheads with a fascinating and unique 20th century suburban American perspective on transportation.

    But why not comment on some other topics and let c.o. insert their own links into the web? I’m sure you’ve got some thoughts to add. 🙂

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