I am not an unequivocal supporter of the California HSR project-- I really don't like what they have planned for the "Riverside" station in particular-- but I am very happy to see that the project broke ground yesterday in Fresno. The first construction phase will go north, from Fresno to Modesto. Future phases will bring the train all the way down to just outside of Bakersfield, and still further future phases will bring it in to the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
I've ridden HSR in four countries now, and it is the way to travel 500-ish-mile distances. We need this. We're finally seeing some progress, 7 years after Prop 1A. Let's hope this train keeps rolling.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Woo IE!
San Bernardino's E Street won the Streetsie for Most Dramatic Street Transformation, beating out several dramatically-changed streetscapes in places as distant (and dense) as Boston and Pittsburgh.
I feel slightly guilty that I still haven't actually ridden sbX.
I feel slightly guilty that I still haven't actually ridden sbX.
Friday, December 19, 2014
App Happy
Here are a few apps that can take some of the guess work out of getting around town sans-car:
RTA Bus Watch
RTA Bus Watch
This is a website, not an app, but RTA promises an official app in 2015. Until,
then you can bookmark the mobile version
of this website and create a homepage
shortcut on your phone.
After you select “Mobile Device Arrival Times,” you will
receive a prompt to choose the appropriate route and stop. The website will
then provide the next three stop times. I usually use this website when I’m
already at the bus stop and can’t tell if the bus is running late or was running
early and I already missed it.
GoogleMaps
I thought everyone knew about the bus feature on the
GoogleMaps app, but my baby sister who is bus bound since her car caught on
fire, didn’t know this feature existed. GoogleMaps lets you toggle between car,
bus, bike and walk as your modes of transportation. Simply plug in where you’re
at and where you want to go, then tap the bus icon. Once the map loads, tap the
bus icon again, and you will be shown a list of bus routes and travel times.
Scroll down far enough and there is a shortcut to open your Uber app.
If you tap “Depart At,” you will be taken to a menu that
allows you to choose between depart, arrive and last as options. You can also
select the day and time.
If you tap on “Options,” you will see a menu that gives you
the option to select your preferred mode of transportation and the ability to
prioritize your route by best, fewer transfers or less walking.
If you’re using your computer, you can actually pull your
bike route up on the Google Maps website and it will generate a graph that
shows you how many feet down hill and how many feet up hill your route is. This
comes in handy if you’re trying to decide between multiple bike routes.
TripGo
TripGo is an app that you can sync with your daily schedule.
Plug in home, work, school or any place you need to get to regularly and then
create your agenda in your calendar and TripGo will plan out your route for the
entire day, whether it be bus, bike or car.
WunderWalk
If you’re lucky enough to be in a highly walkable area, you
can use WunderWalk to plot out your own personalized walking tour. Plug in a
few things in your interested in eating, drinking or seeing and WunderWalk will
populate a route for you. This can also be a great vacation app.
Weather
This last app may seem silly to some, but I often rely on my
Weather app to tell me when the sun is going to set. Whether I’m trying to get
home before dark or deciding whether or not to head out on a bike ride this app
comes in handy.
What are some of your favorite apps for getting around town?
Share the wealth in the comments!!
____
Want to read more by Minda? Visit her blog at www.mindahoney.com.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Quick Hits for December
A few posts are working their way through the pipeline, including photos and analysis of Riverside's first (one-block-long) protected bikeway and a presentation on the big bike grant for downtown, but I wanted to get a couple of things posted.
First, Streetsblog is running a contest to show off the most-transformed street in America in 2014. San Bernardino is one of their finalists, with a beautiful before-and-after shot of sbX on E Street. Show the IE some love and go vote!
Second, Omnitrans just announced a new Veteran's fare category, which allows retired military veterans to ride at the Disabled price, and will institute a new policy allowing active-duty military members, as well as uniformed police and firefighters, to ride free. While this is an undoubtedly positive move, I question the wisdom of putting together yet another fare category. In Canada and other places, they simply have a single "Concession" fare, and riders are asked to demonstrate their eligibility for the fare to purchase passes or during fare inspection. This has to be cheaper than printing four different types of fare media.
First, Streetsblog is running a contest to show off the most-transformed street in America in 2014. San Bernardino is one of their finalists, with a beautiful before-and-after shot of sbX on E Street. Show the IE some love and go vote!
Second, Omnitrans just announced a new Veteran's fare category, which allows retired military veterans to ride at the Disabled price, and will institute a new policy allowing active-duty military members, as well as uniformed police and firefighters, to ride free. While this is an undoubtedly positive move, I question the wisdom of putting together yet another fare category. In Canada and other places, they simply have a single "Concession" fare, and riders are asked to demonstrate their eligibility for the fare to purchase passes or during fare inspection. This has to be cheaper than printing four different types of fare media.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Our Long Campuswide Nightmare is Over
Four years ago, I noted the removal of the pre-existing bicycle lane on University Avenue between Iowa and the freeway. This asinine move was caused by Caltrans policy, which required the city to provide two lanes to feed in to the I-215/CA-60 eastbound on-ramp there. Well, today, I have a bit of good news:
That's right, the bike lanes are back! And, in an a stunning move for our suburban-minded City, a car lane was removed from Iowa all the way to the freeway!
The bike lane is significantly wider than the one that was there four years ago, and it comes complete with conflict-zone markings where it crosses the right-turn-only lane on the approach to the on-ramp.
This is part of the University/Canyon Crest re-design process, which includes Riverside's first on-street cycletrack (for one short but critically-important block). Pics of the latter will be up once it's actually finished.
The bike lane is significantly wider than the one that was there four years ago, and it comes complete with conflict-zone markings where it crosses the right-turn-only lane on the approach to the on-ramp.
This is part of the University/Canyon Crest re-design process, which includes Riverside's first on-street cycletrack (for one short but critically-important block). Pics of the latter will be up once it's actually finished.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Guest Post: Bikes across State Lines
For the first time since I started writing this blog, I got an offer to do a guest post. So here we are! Minda is a recent addition to the UCR MFA program, and her first post is about moving with a bike. She has some great info, especially if you're dealing with a shipping service to move your baby. I'll let her introduce herself:
Hi. I’m Minda.
I recently left my gig in sales to get my MFA at UC Riverside. As a sales rep I covered a large territory, first from Santa Barbara to San Diego and all of the Inland Empire and then after a promotion and a move to Denver, half of the state of Colorado. I was averaging 500 miles per week behind the wheel! Fortunately, I was provided a company car and my gas and insurance were both covered. Unfortunately, when I left my job, that meant also leaving the car behind too. After crunching the numbers over and over I came to the conclusion that I would be better off financially during grad school if I did not wipe out my savings to buy a car. So, for the first time since I turned 16, I’m going carless. Please join me in my journey as I learn how to navigate Riverside on two wheels and public trans. I’m looking forward to sharing with you what I learn along the way and any tips you can share with me will be much appreciated :).
(J: And here's her first post. I'm bad at segues.)
Ok, so I totally brought this headache upon myself. In March, I received a quite nice gift card from my company for being the top sales rep in the region last year. At the time, I knew there was a move in my future, but I had priced out PODS type moving options and figured I would throw everything in my small one bedroom apartment into a POD with plenty of room for a bike too. This way, I could enjoy riding my bike around Denver all summer. I bought a cutsie Retrospec Ladies’ Sidd 7: Flash forward a couple of months later. I’m ready to throw some money down to reserve a POD and the prices have TRIPLED! Waaaaaay out of my price range. It quickly became apparent that the cheapest way to do this move would be to get rid of or sell as much as possible and replace what I needed on the other end. That left one issue though: my bike. I had just bought my bike, so I really didn’t want to sell it for half price and have to buy another bike at full price once in Riverside. So what were my options?
Amtrak
Amtrak is probably one of the lesser known options. If you’re taking Amtrak for your move, then you’ll pay $15 for the bike box and another $10-20 to carry your bike on-board. If you just want to ship your bike via Amtrak, you can call to get a quote for Amtrak Express, which you will tack another $15 on for the bike box. The boxes, I hear, I very large, so typically you only need to take the pedals off your bike to fit it in the box. This is one of the most affordable ways to ship your bike if there’s an Amtrak station convenient to you on both ends.
While there is an Amtrak station in Denver, the closest (J: staffed) one to Riverside is in Fullerton. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get my bike from Fullerton to Riverside (and I wasn’t sure how long I would need to leave my bike at the station since I didn’t have a place picked out in Riverside yet) and just simply was not up for one more logistical problem to solve. (J: The Fullerton Amtrak is also the Fullerton Metrolink, so if you want to ship your bike there, you can simply take the 91 line back to Riverside with it. They'll hold it up to 3 days.)
Bike Rack
Since a friend and I would be road tripping to Cali another friend suggested I buy a bike rack and then Craig’s List it at the end of my road trip. This seemed like a super affordable option. I’ve never used a bike rack (my company car was a minivan, so transporting large things was not an issue), so I had some concerns about whether or not the rack would scuff up the trunk of the rental car over however many miles we would be driving. I was also concerned about not installing the rack correctly and causing damage to my bike, I was concerned about causing damage to the rental car any time I took my bike on and off the trunk, I was worried about my bike getting stolen and I was worried about how it would fare in the parking garage during the Vegas leg of our trip. Just a lot of worrying! I was also having a difficult time finding a Saris Solo rack in town and didn’t really have time to order one in. I also had the challenge of not knowing what car the rental company would give me. There just seemed to be a lot of variables involved. But still a worthwhile option for someone else to look into.
Shipping
Ultimately, I decided to ship my bike, which was the mostly costly option, but was not as costly as I was led to believe it would be and it was also the option that I had to worry the least about, especially since I was shipping all of my other stuff and having it held at the local FedEx anyhow (it’s cheaper to ship from a FedEx to a FedEx and most FedEx locations will hold your items for 5-days).
My local bike shop boxed my bike for $50. You can Google how to do it yourself if you’re handy like that, but I’m a biking newbie, so I decided to let the experts do their thing. My bike shop told me shipping can be tough on your bike, so you really want it packaged well. The bike shop that reassembled my bike said my bike was packed great and to definitely ship wit FedEx over UPS as they receive brand new bikes all the time via UPS and the boxes are all torn up or upside down, just not well cared for. Bike boxing services vary from shop to shop, so definitely call around. Give your shop at least a week’s notice that you’ll be bringing your bike into have it boxed, so they can save the box from a bike they’ve sold that will fit your bike. It’s crucial that they box your bike in the smallest box that will work. I had my bike box measured at one FedEx location and was quoted $46. When I brought it to another FedEx location to ship it that was on my work route, the guy measured an inch more in width and height and the price jumped to $162! Over two inches! Size DOES matter.
There are also discount bike shipping services like shipbikes.com and bikeflights.com. These sites give you discounted shipping prices and track your package for you to make sure it arrives safely. You can also buy a box from their site to box your bike in. It’s really easy to get a quote on the site as well (Ship Bikes quote process is a bit more thorough than Bike Flights). Ultimately, since I didn’t need one of their boxes and had a small discount on my own FedEx account, the few dollars difference wasn’t worth it to me to use either site.
Once my bike arrived in Riverside, I was able to lay the seats down in the back of my rental car and drive it over to Neighborhood Cyclery in Moreno Valley to be assembled (they were the closest bike shop to my new apartment complex). They charged me $60, prices vary, I think fixies are cheaper because you don’t have to deal with the gears and it just depends on how broken down your bike is. It’s a husband and wife ran shop and they were both super kind and friendly over the phone as well as in person. It only took a day until my bike was ready! I caught the bus to their shop and then rode my bike home… in the scorching heat. Welcome to the Inland Empire!
In total, I spent $50 to have my bike boxed, $42 for shipping via FedEx and $60 to have it reassembled for a total of $152. One bike shop in Denver told me it would cost $160 on shipping alone, so I feel like I got off lucky. Getting my bike to Riverside was definitely one of the biggest logistical issues I faced and was ⅓ of my overall shipping costs. Hopefully this breakdown helps anyone that’s not in a position to sell their bike and needs some ideas on how to get it from point A to point B.
I recently left my gig in sales to get my MFA at UC Riverside. As a sales rep I covered a large territory, first from Santa Barbara to San Diego and all of the Inland Empire and then after a promotion and a move to Denver, half of the state of Colorado. I was averaging 500 miles per week behind the wheel! Fortunately, I was provided a company car and my gas and insurance were both covered. Unfortunately, when I left my job, that meant also leaving the car behind too. After crunching the numbers over and over I came to the conclusion that I would be better off financially during grad school if I did not wipe out my savings to buy a car. So, for the first time since I turned 16, I’m going carless. Please join me in my journey as I learn how to navigate Riverside on two wheels and public trans. I’m looking forward to sharing with you what I learn along the way and any tips you can share with me will be much appreciated :).
(J: And here's her first post. I'm bad at segues.)
Ok, so I totally brought this headache upon myself. In March, I received a quite nice gift card from my company for being the top sales rep in the region last year. At the time, I knew there was a move in my future, but I had priced out PODS type moving options and figured I would throw everything in my small one bedroom apartment into a POD with plenty of room for a bike too. This way, I could enjoy riding my bike around Denver all summer. I bought a cutsie Retrospec Ladies’ Sidd 7: Flash forward a couple of months later. I’m ready to throw some money down to reserve a POD and the prices have TRIPLED! Waaaaaay out of my price range. It quickly became apparent that the cheapest way to do this move would be to get rid of or sell as much as possible and replace what I needed on the other end. That left one issue though: my bike. I had just bought my bike, so I really didn’t want to sell it for half price and have to buy another bike at full price once in Riverside. So what were my options?
Amtrak
Amtrak is probably one of the lesser known options. If you’re taking Amtrak for your move, then you’ll pay $15 for the bike box and another $10-20 to carry your bike on-board. If you just want to ship your bike via Amtrak, you can call to get a quote for Amtrak Express, which you will tack another $15 on for the bike box. The boxes, I hear, I very large, so typically you only need to take the pedals off your bike to fit it in the box. This is one of the most affordable ways to ship your bike if there’s an Amtrak station convenient to you on both ends.
While there is an Amtrak station in Denver, the closest (J: staffed) one to Riverside is in Fullerton. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get my bike from Fullerton to Riverside (and I wasn’t sure how long I would need to leave my bike at the station since I didn’t have a place picked out in Riverside yet) and just simply was not up for one more logistical problem to solve. (J: The Fullerton Amtrak is also the Fullerton Metrolink, so if you want to ship your bike there, you can simply take the 91 line back to Riverside with it. They'll hold it up to 3 days.)
Bike Rack
Since a friend and I would be road tripping to Cali another friend suggested I buy a bike rack and then Craig’s List it at the end of my road trip. This seemed like a super affordable option. I’ve never used a bike rack (my company car was a minivan, so transporting large things was not an issue), so I had some concerns about whether or not the rack would scuff up the trunk of the rental car over however many miles we would be driving. I was also concerned about not installing the rack correctly and causing damage to my bike, I was concerned about causing damage to the rental car any time I took my bike on and off the trunk, I was worried about my bike getting stolen and I was worried about how it would fare in the parking garage during the Vegas leg of our trip. Just a lot of worrying! I was also having a difficult time finding a Saris Solo rack in town and didn’t really have time to order one in. I also had the challenge of not knowing what car the rental company would give me. There just seemed to be a lot of variables involved. But still a worthwhile option for someone else to look into.
Shipping
Ultimately, I decided to ship my bike, which was the mostly costly option, but was not as costly as I was led to believe it would be and it was also the option that I had to worry the least about, especially since I was shipping all of my other stuff and having it held at the local FedEx anyhow (it’s cheaper to ship from a FedEx to a FedEx and most FedEx locations will hold your items for 5-days).
My local bike shop boxed my bike for $50. You can Google how to do it yourself if you’re handy like that, but I’m a biking newbie, so I decided to let the experts do their thing. My bike shop told me shipping can be tough on your bike, so you really want it packaged well. The bike shop that reassembled my bike said my bike was packed great and to definitely ship wit FedEx over UPS as they receive brand new bikes all the time via UPS and the boxes are all torn up or upside down, just not well cared for. Bike boxing services vary from shop to shop, so definitely call around. Give your shop at least a week’s notice that you’ll be bringing your bike into have it boxed, so they can save the box from a bike they’ve sold that will fit your bike. It’s crucial that they box your bike in the smallest box that will work. I had my bike box measured at one FedEx location and was quoted $46. When I brought it to another FedEx location to ship it that was on my work route, the guy measured an inch more in width and height and the price jumped to $162! Over two inches! Size DOES matter.
There are also discount bike shipping services like shipbikes.com and bikeflights.com. These sites give you discounted shipping prices and track your package for you to make sure it arrives safely. You can also buy a box from their site to box your bike in. It’s really easy to get a quote on the site as well (Ship Bikes quote process is a bit more thorough than Bike Flights). Ultimately, since I didn’t need one of their boxes and had a small discount on my own FedEx account, the few dollars difference wasn’t worth it to me to use either site.
Once my bike arrived in Riverside, I was able to lay the seats down in the back of my rental car and drive it over to Neighborhood Cyclery in Moreno Valley to be assembled (they were the closest bike shop to my new apartment complex). They charged me $60, prices vary, I think fixies are cheaper because you don’t have to deal with the gears and it just depends on how broken down your bike is. It’s a husband and wife ran shop and they were both super kind and friendly over the phone as well as in person. It only took a day until my bike was ready! I caught the bus to their shop and then rode my bike home… in the scorching heat. Welcome to the Inland Empire!
In total, I spent $50 to have my bike boxed, $42 for shipping via FedEx and $60 to have it reassembled for a total of $152. One bike shop in Denver told me it would cost $160 on shipping alone, so I feel like I got off lucky. Getting my bike to Riverside was definitely one of the biggest logistical issues I faced and was ⅓ of my overall shipping costs. Hopefully this breakdown helps anyone that’s not in a position to sell their bike and needs some ideas on how to get it from point A to point B.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Good News, Bad News, part 2: Good News
So I discussed the Bad News at length on Friday, with an overview of the present 10-Year Transit Plan. Here's something to help cleanse your palate: some of the better recommendations of the 10-Year Plan, including those regarding frequency, are coming down the pipe in January.
First off, no cuts! Not a single route-mile or trip is being removed from the system. This update is all about frequency improvements. Route 1 will finally be the first route in the RTA system to crack the 15-minute barrier, plus later Saturday service. Routes 3, 15, and 19 will join 16 on the list I keep in my head entitled "reasonably useful transit service," with frequency improvements to 30 minutes on weekdays, plus a frequency increase to an impressive 10pm on the 3 and 15. 16 gets better weekend frequency and span, as does the 19, with an astounding improvement from 55 minute headways all the way down to 30.
Routes 22, 29, and 74 will move from being laughable abominations to being halfway useful bus routes, with frequency improvements to 60 minutes. 21, 22, and 206 will all get extra trips, and 206 will get a new park-and-ride lot at Tom's Farms. Route 20 will be upgraded to 45-minute frequencies.
You may also notice that, save route 20, all of these will actually be clock-face schedules. So, all-in-all, good news for the bus-riding public of western Riverside County.
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