Category: Transportation

Bike businesses that keep me pedaling: UV Metal Arts (1 of 4)

April 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Four part series of Midwest bike-related businesses that keep me and my bike rolling without hassle.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Well, my rear rack was broken and I wanted someone to fix it. I didn’t want to buy a new rack if it could be fixed – I don’t want to send raw materials to the landfill. I contacted Owen Lloyd for help with welding a piece of my Planet Bike Eco Rack back together. The “deck” had detached from the last rail and was flapping around making noise but also reduced the strength of the rack structure. Thinking about it now, I could probably have asked Planet Bike for a replacement as they have a lifetime warranty on all of their products. But I wanted it fixed here and now.

Owen brought me over to Yuval “UV” Awazu of UV Metal Arts in Bubbly Dynamics at 1048 West 37th Street and his UV Metal Arts workshop in Bridgeport. The rack is made of aluminum and UV was the only craftsperson in the “factory” who can weld it. He can do way more than repairing small parts like these. He also powdercoats bike frames and “bakes” them in a tall, custom oven he built himself.

10 minutes later, I had a rack that was stronger than brand new!

My repaired rack. I highly recommend this rack as it only costs $21 on Amazon, but if you expect it to last longer than two years and carry weight on it daily (and maybe sometimes too much or lopsided), then get something stronger.

UV at the Bike Winter Cycle Swap in February. See more photos from this event.

A bicycle that UV colored. UV says you can choose just about any color (including metallics) for your item (powder coating is for more than just bicycles).

More in this series

  1. UV Metal Arts – You’re reading it!
  2. Lloyd Cycles – coming soon
  3. Kozie Prery – coming soon, and with a contest!
  4. Planet Bike – coming soon

Using Google Refine to get the stories out of your data

April 8, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Let’s say you’re perusing the 309,425 crash reports for automobile crashes in Chicago from 2007 to 2009 and you want to know a few things quickly.

Like how many REAR END crashes there were in January 2007 that had more than 1 injury in the report. With Google Refine, you could do that in about 60 seconds. You just need to know which “facets” to setup.

By the way, there are 90 crash reports meeting those criteria. Look at the screenshot below for how to set that up.

Facets to choose to filter the data

  1. Get your January facet
  2. Add your 2007 facet
  3. Select the collision type of “REAR END” facet
  4. Choose to include all the reports where injury is greater than 1 (click “include” next to each number higher than 1)

After we do this, we can quickly create a map using another Google tool, Fusion Tables.

Make a map

  1. Click Export… and select “Comma-separated value.” The file will download. (Make sure your latitude and longitude columns are called latitude and longitude instead of XCOORD and YCOORD or sometimes Fusion Tables will choke on the location and try to geocode your records, which is redundant.)
  2. Go to Google Fusion Tables and click New Table>Import Table and select your file.
  3. Give the new table a descriptive title, like “January 2007 rear end crashes with more than 1 injury”
  4. In the table view, click Visualize>Map.
  5. BAM!

I completed all the tasks on this page in under 5 minutes and then spent 5 more minutes writing this blog. “The power of Google.”

The stories the IDOT automobile crash data can tell

April 8, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Lots of stuff to learn from the 2007-2009 car crash data, with 309,425 crash reports.

What I noticed

  • SUV drivers do not cause all crashes, contrary to some stereotypes. That vehicle type (for both vehicle 1 and vehicle 2) is only involved in 45,776 crashes (14.79% of all crash reports)
  • The vehicle type most commonly involved in crashes is “personal passenger,” with 294,941 “personal passenger” vehicles involved in 208,888 crashes (67.51% of all crash reports)
  • 1,465 crash reports report “unknown” for both vehicle 1 type and vehicle 2 type (0.47% of all crash reports)
  • 61,645 crash reports have vehicle 1 hitting a parked car (19.92% of all crash reports)
  • There were 16,554 taxis involved in 15,223 crashes (4.92% of all crash reports). And there were 1,311 “taxi on taxi” crashes (0.42% of all crash reports)
  • 3,861 CTA transit buses (that can hold more than 15 passengers) were involved in 3,853 crashes (1.25% of all crash reports). And there were 8 “bus on bus” crashes (0.003% of all crash reports)
  • 1,644 school buses were involved in 1,635 crashes (0.53%). And there were 9 “school bus on school bus” crashes (0.003% of all crash reports)

Data does not include estimated cost of property damage.

Not all vehicles may be unique – some vehicles may be involved in more than one crash.

Construction update: Pilsen streetscape improvement

April 7, 2011 / / 0 Comments

The most popular posts on Steven Can Plan are Chicago infrastructure construction updates.

In October 2009 I told you about the Cermak/Blue Island Streetscape project from the Chicago Department of Transportation. The article was called, “Pollution fighting bike lane coming to Pilsen.” I was kind of skeptical at first, but never mentioned this to anyone.

I’m happy to say it’s a reality and you can see the world’s first (I think) bike lane made of permeable pavers that have an ingredient that reduces the amount of nitrogen oxide in the nearby air. On Tuesday I was riding to Bridgeport via south Halsted Street and saw the construction on Cermak Street. I rode west to check it out. Then I saw work happening on Blue Island Avenue and had to check it out. These’re the results!

The construction situation at the northwest corner of Halsted and Cermak, where new sidewalks will be built.

Some vaulted sidewalks are being filled in.

The pollution fighting bike lane! Not complete: it needs signage and striping so you may see people parking in the future bike lane. The top inch of the permeable pavers has TX Aria from Italcementi.

More evidence of your bicycling culture transition

April 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Low numbers of people in “your” cycling organizations and advocacy groups. From the comments on “Why I’m not a ‘cyclist’ anymore,” a story about moving from a bicycle subculture (United States) to bicycle culture (Copenhagen):

In Amsterdam, 700,000(?) people cycle, only 4,000 are member of the Fietsersbond (cyclist’s union). We always explain this comparing it to the non-existing vacuum-cleaners union. Everybody owns and uses a vacuum cleaner, no-one feels the urge to unite themselves around this.

People riding their bicycles in Copenhagen, Denmark.