Some might think the new Lexus Velodrome is Detroit’s first — or even the first one indoors. It’s not. The Dorais Velodrome isn’t either.

In fact it’s challenging to know how many bicycle tracks Detroit has had since many were built just for a specific event.

One of those — and perhaps the first  — was built inside the former Music Hall for an endurance event in 1882.  Ms. Elsa Von Blumen (a pseudonym for Caroline Kiner) had come to Detroit in an attempt to ride 1,000 miles in six days, something she’d accomplished in Pittsburgh during the prior December.

Von  Blumen was born in Pensacola, Florida (or Kansas?), and not unlike Susan B. Anthony, moved with her family to Rochester, NY .

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Oops!

The state legislature recently enacted bills that raise speed limits in Michigan and decrease penalties for doing so. That wasn’t smart but that’s not all.

Many Michigan cities have bad local bicycling laws. We’ve documented them both here and here, though some may have been removed since these articles were written. Now fortunately nearly none of these are enforceable since current state law (MCL 257.606 Section 4) requires local authorities to post these local bicycle ordinances on signs.

That requirement goes away on January 5th, 2018.

Why? Because the that speeding bill we mentioned earlier incorrectly amended 257.606. It removed items from Section (1) and failed to update Section (4) which referenced those items. It appears to only affect the enforcement of local bicycle ordinances (posted signs are no longer required) and truck routes (posted signs are now required.)

The Detroit Greenways Coalition worked with Detroit City Council to remove its outdated local ordinances. Other cities have not. We expect the Coalition will help get this state law corrected. It would also be a good opportunity to remove local authorities from requiring bicycle registrations and licenses — and fees.

Not that you will, but you can potentially get tickets for the following bicycle violations starting January 5th: (more…)

The Detroit Police Department (originally called the Metropolitan Police) were among the first to put officers on bicycles.

In 1893, Officer Charles J. Stewart was appointed to the department and began his assignment on the Elmwood Precinct bicycle patrol. The Elmwood station was on Elmwood Avenue between Lafayette and E. Fort Street. The station and those segments of Elmwood and Fort no longer exist, but it would have been a block east and just south of the current Lafayette/McDougall intersection where the MLK High School is now

The Detroit News has an 1895 photo of Officers Joe Whitty (left) and Stewart taken at the Elmwood Station. Both are wearing their bicycle police uniforms, which included knickers to prevent their pant legs from getting caught in their front sprocket. Their bikes were fixed gears with dropped bars and designed to go fast. It doesn’t appear they had brakes.

There were very few automobiles on the roads, but Whitty and Stewart had to be able to catch the fast cyclists of the day who might be scorching (i.e. speeding) on Detroit’s streets. The speed limit was 8 MPH in the downtown area and 12 MPH outside of it. (more…)

The following editorial ran in the August 5th, 1899 Detroit Free Press.

This year was arguably at or near the peak of Detroit’s golden-era of bicycling. What’s striking is how the benefits of bicycling are practically the same today as they were more than a century earlier. Surprisingly, the health benefits of bicycling are not mentioned.

Evolution of the Wheel

There could be no more fitting time to apostrophize the bicycle. The pavilion dedicated to it last evening at the island is a monument to one of the most marked and widely appreciated innovations of our modern civilization. The evolution of the wheel has been steadily toward the ideal. In beauty, speed and utility, its record is one of unbroken progress. It has made itself a formidable factor in the social problems, in politics, in war and in the ever pressing question of personal economy. It is the foe of monopoly, the handmaid of pleasure, the companion of loneliness and the champion of good roads.

Like many other great successes in this uncertain world, the bicycle was of humble origin. It sprang from the wheelbarrow, and no one blames it. This is the reason that you can fall so far and be so long about it when you are mixed up with one of these machines, no matter what price or what model. The velocipede, which the best authorities testify was a connecting link, was uglier than anything except a three-humped camel trying to escape its keeper. The device will best be recalled as propelled by a small boy with a straw hat over his ears, his busy feet on a level with his chin and his shoulders settled down on his waist line. Then came the ungainly affair with the enormous fly wheel in front, and a pitiful little baby wheel trailing. To drop from it was like falling off a load of hay and it forced upon short, fat men the indignity of mounting from a second story window or a convenient shade tree. Nearly all of those who were thrown from it and survived are miscellaneously maimed.

But it is through such rugged stages that success is reached. The bicycle became a thing of beauty and a joy forever, with pneumatic tires that are blown up as they deserve it, artistic finish, ball bearings, spring seats and an unaccountable disposition to participate in a scorch. At last they have thrown off their chains and have the highest degree of freedom attainable by things inanimate. They neither eat nor drink but are always merry. They toll not, neither do they spin — when a policemen is looking — yet Solomon in all his glory could not have ridden one of them to save his life. They do not shy at firecrackers, a cow in the road, or a locomotive whistle, it does not require two hands to hold them when an interested couple are going home, as it does a horse headed for the oats bin, and they will stand without hitching, wherever the bicycle thief permits. In time, it is predicted, they will have wings, and humanity itself aspires to nothing more desirable.

The pavilion mentioned in the editorial was Bicycle Pavilion on Belle Isle. It still stands but is now called the Athletic Pavilion.

The Good Roads movement led by bicyclists in 1899 is similar to today’s Complete Streets movement.

A “scorch” is riding fast on a city street. Those who did that often were called scorchers.

Wings? Well that prediction came up a bit short.

Six meeting are planned this week to discuss the initial bus rapid transit (BRT) plans for Woodward Avenue.

• Tuesday, December 3 from 6 to 8 pm (Royal Oak and Birmingham)
  Beaumont Hospital Administration Building, 3711 W. 13 Mile Road, Royal Oak, MI 48073
  (Free parking in South Deck Parking, enter from Coolidge Highway.)
• Thursday, December 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm (Berkley and Huntington Woods)
  Berkley Community Center, 2400 Robina Avenue, Berkley, MI, 48070
• Saturday, December 7 from 11am to 1pm (Pontiac, Bloomfield Hills and Bloomfield Township)
  St. Joseph?s Hospital, Anthony M. Franco Communications Center Auditorium,?44555 Woodward Avenue, Pontiac, MI, 48341
• Monday, December 9 from 6 to 8 pm (Detroit and Highland Park)
  Michigan State University Event Center, 3408 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201
• Tuesday, December 10 from 6 to 8 pm (Detroit and Highland Park)
  Next Energy, 461 Burroughs Street, Detroit, MI 48202
• Wednesday, December 11 from 6 to 8 pm (Ferndale and Pleasant Ridge)
  Coolidge Intermediate School, 2521 Bermuda Street, Ferndale, MI 48220

BRT is the preferred model for connecting Detroit and the suburbs for a lower initial cost when compared with light rail. A well-designed BRT can greatly increase bicycling as well. Bicycling is often used for the first and last miles of a transit ride.

One of the major concerns we have with this planning involves M1 Rail. As you probably know, M1 Rail will be predominantly curb-running on Woodward where cyclists now ride. Adding tracks to the roadway will make it much less safe. The mitigation proposed by MDOT is to improve Cass Avenue for cyclists, which parallels a portion of Woodward. There have been rumblings that M1 Rail may also force the BRT off Woodward as well — and on to Cass. This could make Cass much less bike friendly. Our preference is to keep BRT on Woodward where it belongs and make Cass more bike friendly. MDOT owes bicyclists a safe alternative to Woodward per their Complete Streets policy.