How many of your neighbors are commuting to work by bike?

A new map produced by the Pima Association of Governments uses census information from 2000 to detail the percentage of people commuting to work by bicycle. It is broken down by neighborhood blocks.

According to the map, a neighborhood near the University of Arizona had the largest percentage of people riding to work, with 32 percent.

Ann Chanecka a transportation planner with PAG, said the point of the map was to figure out where people are commuting by bike and where they aren’t and then determine why.

“You can see around the University the rates are really high,” Chanecka said. “You can take a look and say, ‘Well is it the facilities? Is it the destination? Is it the density?’”

Tom Thivener, the City of Tucson’s bike and pedestrian program manager, said based on the map it looks like the types of facilities play a part in the number of people commuting.

“If you look at our map it is clear around the UA, we have four really good facilities; Third Street, Mountain, University and Highland,” Thivener said. “Folks living right in those areas have a lot of choices on how they can get around. That is why we see so many bikes. You can follow Mountain up and the ridership stays pretty high all the way up to the Rillito.”

Thivener and Chanecka said the challenge is to figure out how to get people in the areas where few people are commuting by bike to start riding to work or school.

“They live in urban core, they are surrounded by the grid and yet they are not out there biking,” Thivener said. “Why is that? I think that is a big question that us planners have to look at. We should go out there and target those areas. I see a lot of potential.”

Chanecka said she was most intrigued by the areas that appeared to be anomalies.

“What is it about those areas that aren’t completely downtown, but people are biking,” Chanecka asked? “It is just interesting  to figure out what is it about those areas that people are biking.”

Chanecka said the map is a “snap shot in time,” and unfortunately won’t be able to be recreated in the same way because the census switched to a shorter form for the 2010 census, which did not include a question about bike commuting.

According to Chanecka, the American Community Survey replaced the census when it comes to getting detailed information about people’s transportation, but it doesn’t survey everyone and doesn’t get as detailed as the census did.

Download the full map here. Is there anything that jumps out to you in the map?

Editor’s note: I’ve had a few little updates that weren’t worthy of their own post and I’ve collected them in this notebook.

The University of Arizona’s bike valet is scheduled to open on Tuesday and will be free for students and faculty to use until Sept. 24. According to an email from Charles Franz, the alternative transportation program coordinator for the Parking and Transportation department, the bicycle must be registered to be parked in the valet area.

Other interesting details from the document outlining the program:

• Tipping the valet attendant is not permitted.

• The Parking and Transportation Department will not be responsible for damaged or stolen bikes.

• Bikes must be picked up by 5:45 p.m. and will be locked to the rack if they aren’t picked up.

Check out the document for the rest of the details.

UA underpass repainting

Last week, the Olive Street underpass on the UA campus was closed to bikes because the pedestrian crossing zones were being repainted. This came just days after a collision between a pedestrian and cyclist.

Here is a photo of the repainted area:

Reader photo of law-breaking motorist

Tucson Velo reader Edward sent in photos in reference to the opinion piece in the Tucson Weekly about TPD’s enforcement. The author mentions Mountain and Grant being a particularly bad intersection for motorists violating the law.

Here is one of the photos Edward sent in:

Three roadway projects near downtown Tucson will be finished in the next few weeks and will all include bike lanes.

Anklam should be completed this morning, according to Tom Thivener, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian program manager.

Anklam is a popular route for cyclists making their way to the west side of Tucson because it is one of the only roads with continuous bike lanes under the freeway.

Toole Avenue from 5th Avenue to Stone will start on Monday and should be finished by Friday morning. Thivener said the work on all the road projects are being done at night.

The Toole Avenue repaving will reduce travel lanes to one lane in each direction in order to accommodate bike lanes in both directions.

The last project, which should start Thursday, is Congress from Grande to the Interstate. According to Thivener, the city will eliminate one eastbound lane in order to add bike lanes. The street will remain two lanes heading out of downtown.

“It will serve the neighborhoods a lot better than what is currently out there,” Thivener said. “Bicyclists will finally get their place in the road.”

Thivener said federal money is allowing the city to repave 10 corridors in the city.

“These are some of the worst roads in Tucson,” Thivener said.

Update: Here is a photo of Anklam after receiving the new pavement and bike lanes. The speed bumps are gone.

Anklam paving was completed last night. Some bike lane markings still need to be completed.

John Howard, left, listens as Richard DeBernardis introduces him to the crowd.

Four-time Olympian John Howard, 63, is being honored by El Tour de Tucson event organizers.

In a news conference Thursday, Perimeter Bicycling Association of American’s president Richard DeBernardis announced the 28th El Tour de Tucson would be dedicated to Howard.

Howard, a US National Road Race champion, set the bicycle land speed record by going over 150 miles per hour on a bike.

Howard said it was an honor to recognized by the event organizers.

“It is a huge thrill,” Howard said. “The event stands for so much that is important about cycling. Where else in world can amateur riders ride with professional riders?”

Howard, who finished 60th last year after a crash, will ride again this year.

DeBernardis also announced route changes for this year’s ride.

The ride will return to using Oracle Road, which wasn’t used last year because of construction.

The start of the shortest event has been moved from Ironwood Ridge High School to the headquarters of Sanofi-Aventis, the new sponsor of the — now — 40-mile ride.

Click image for a larger version of the map.

DeBernardis said Oro Valley couldn’t afford to sponsor the event and the high school was too small to hold it.

“The school that we started at was getting to be too congested,” DeBernardis said.  “We needed a starting area that would allow for us to grow.”

DeBernardis said in addition to having more space, the start of the event is uphill and will make it safer for cyclists in the 40-mile event to merge with the cyclists who are riding the longer events.

He said the added distance wouldn’t affect people.

“It is not going to be detrimental,” DeBernardis said. “Those who can do 35 can do 40 because that ride is 95 percent downhill.”

Lastly, DeBernardis said they event will continue to use the frontage road instead of Silverbell. The ride was re-routed to the frontage road last year because of construction.

DeBernardis said the police told him it was much safer and easier to control the traffic with cyclists using the frontage road.

According to DeBernardis, Tucson Police have developed a plan to move traffic through the intersections more efficiently this year, which caused frustration among drivers last year.

The ride takes place on Nov. 20 and offers four ride distances. Learn more about the ride here.

Check out the video of Howard’s land speed record-setting ride:

The Pima Association of Governments’ mapping department is working to swap out the current local Google bike directions with their own more accurate maps.

Ann Chanecka a PAG transportation planner, said their GIS department, which is in charge of maintaining data including map information, discovered Google’s data wasn’t entirely accurate.

They printed out the Google map’s bicycle network and compared it to our regional map and found that they lacked a lot of facilities,” Chanecka said.

Josh Pope, PAG’s GIS manager, said he wasn’t sure where Google’s data came from or how old it was.

“It may be current data, but it’s just bad data,” Pope said.

According to Pope, Pima County maintains the most comprehensive data about bicycle infrastructure in Tucson and Pima County, but didn’t have the time or resources to submit it to Google. Pima County told Pope if he wanted to do the legwork, the county would let him use the data.

The county’s data is used for the creation of the regional bike map.

Pope said because PAG would be in charge of submitting the data to Google, it could create a problem because the county owns it.

“We are at the mercy of them approving this process,” Pope said.

Pope said he has no idea what the process will be like when the data is submitted because they are submitting information that would replace the existing maps, not just improve them.

“Everything points you toward, ‘help us improve the data’ as opposed to a wholesale swap out of the Google data for another owners data set,” Pope said.

Chanecka said PAG wanted to ensure people using Google’s map had the most up-to-date information.

“We feel like we might as well get the most accurate information out that we can,” Chanecka said.

The Tucson Police Department addressed cyclists before the Tuesday Night Bike Ride last night.

Check out the video to see what the officers had to say and watch scenes from the ride.

Most of the cyclists on the ride waited for lights to change and generally followed the laws. The biggest complaint from many of the people on the ride was the lack of regrouping, something they hope is addressed.

What do you think? Were the police reasonable?

Read the other stories about the police involvement with the ride:

• TPD to speak at Tuesday Night Bike Ride
• Police a no-show at Tuesday Night Bike Ride
• TPD to work with cyclists to curb bike ride’s lawlessness
• Fox 11 airs story on Tuesday-night ride
• TPD looking to work with cycling community to calm TNBR
• Police present at Tuesday Night Bike Ride, several cyclists cited

The Arizona Cancer Center starts its 11th year of Better Than Ever training program with an information expo on Wednesday.

According to a press release, the program encourages people to make exercise a regular part of their day and had helped more than 3000 people train for various events while raising more than $1.6 million for women’s cancer research.

The training program for the 40 and 66 mile versions of El Tour de Tucson begin on Sept. 7, 2010.

Marisa Allen, the program’s coordinator, said participants must try to do their best in raising between $100 and $275, but will not have to make up the difference if they don’t raise that much.

Event details: Better Than Ever Kick-Off Event and Expo
What: Learn more about Better Than Ever, meet team leaders and fellow participants and sign up to for the 11th season of the program. Refreshments will be served and raffle prizes will be awarded.
When: Wednesday, Sept. 1. Information session at 5 p.m., presentation begins at 6 p.m.
Where: Arizona Cancer Center’s Kiewit Auditorium, 1515 N. Campbell Ave.
Who: Community members of all abilities interested in getting fit, having fun and fighting cancer
Etc.: Registration is open through Sept. 20.
More Information: Contact Marisa Allen, program coordinator, at mallen@azcc.arizona.edu or (520) 626-7177

Download the Better Than Ever brochure.

Catherine Wasmann from the School of Plant Sciences, left, and Lee Ryan bike through New Mexico. (Photos courtesy Lee Ryan, Brian Duff)

Editor’s note: This story was submitted by Jeff Harrison. If you would like to submit a story, email me at tucsonvelo@gmail.com.

Two University of Arizona scientists are among nearly five dozen Alzheimer’s researchers from across the country taking part in a cross-country bicycle ride to promote increased research funding for Alzheimer’s disease.

The Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Ride began July 17 in San Francisco. It ends on Sept. 21, World Alzheimer’s Day, when most of the 57 scientists in the event will pedal up to the U.S. Capitol to deliver petitions asking Congress to support legislation aimed at overcoming the disease. Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurological condition that causes significant memory loss. It is fatal and there is no known cure.

Lee Ryan, an associate professor of psychology at the UA, and Catherine Wasmann, a researcher in the School of Plant Sciences, covered the leg from Holbrook in northeastern Arizona to Albuquerque. Starting Aug. 1, Ryan and Wasmann rode more than 280 miles over desert plateau and pine forests, finishing in Albuquerque on Aug. 4.

Ryan, director of the of the UA Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory, which uses functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning to focus on age-related changes in memory and brain functioning — hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, said she has been road cycling for about two years. She had ridden up to 60 miles at a stretch but had never done such long rides back-to-back over several days.

Wasmann, who studies fungus and plant relationships, is an experienced hand at road racing and helped Ryan train for the event.

“Cathy and I took the training pretty seriously,” Ryan said.  “We started about two months before the run, increasing our mileage significantly, and doing more back-to-back rides.  So, instead of doing one long 50-mile ride, we were doing two or three of these in a row.”

The Alzheimer’s Association organized the ride, which includes 22 stops. The event is headed for St. Louis this Friday, which lies at about the halfway mark.

Bruce Lamb, a neuroscientist with the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and his son, Reza, rode the Holbrook-to-Albuquerque leg with Ryan and Wasmann. Lamb said he came up with the idea for the Breakthrough Ride last summer while cycling.

“I had just returned from reviewing Alzheimer’s disease grants for the National Institutes of Health and was perplexed about the decline in federal funding for Alzheimer’s disease research grants over the past several years. That has resulted in most research laboratories contracting in size and some labs closing all together,” Lamb said. “This was despite the fact that the numbers of Americans dealing with this disease is dramatically increasing, from 5.3 million today to an estimated 16 million by 2050, and will likely eventually bankrupt both Medicare and Medicaid.”

Lamb decided that one way Alzheimer’s researchers might get their message out would be going across the country as a way of engaging everyday Americans. At stops along the way, people are asked to sign petitions asking Congress to ramp up research funding. The goal, Lamb said, is to collect a total of 100,000 signatures. Just over 84,000 have been collected to date.

While everyone thought this was a great idea, Lamb said getting people to sign up for the ride was a challenge.

“We recruited riders however we could: personal contacts, mass e-mails, research websites. You name it, we tried it. For some, like me, it was a professional commitment to the cause. For others, it was the opportunity to challenge themselves in a unique and different way. And for others, it was very personal, as they had family members who have or had the disease.”

Two other Arizonans have been part of the event. Mike Felix from Arizona State University braved the 114-degree heat between Palm Springs, Calif., and Phoenix. Matt Huentelman of the private genetics firm TGen tackled the brutal uphill segment between Phoenix and Holbrook alone.

Two cyclists on the Alzheimer's Association Breakthrough Ride on the Colorado Plateau between Holbrook, Ariz., and Albuquerque, N.M.

“We never got above 90 degrees because it was overcast the whole time,” Ryan said of her segment. “We rode early to avoid afternoon monsoon storms, but the very first day we got slammed by a thunderstorm and had to pull off the road and get cover. But it was absolutely gorgeous to see large swaths of Arizona that I had never seen before. We saw antelope. We had hawks and falcons flying around us. It was stunningly beautiful.”

Ryan said wherever they went, people were curious about what they were doing and were very supportive. Most shared personal experiences dealing with Alzheimer’s disease.

“It was very striking for me because I do Alzheimer’s research and I know it’s a very common disorder. But you really don’t have a sense of how many people are affected by this disease. I think for all of the people who have ridden so far, it makes it so much more personal and so much more meaningful,” Ryan said.

Several thousand people have added their personal stories on the Alzheimer’s Breakthrough website.

Ryan and the others had a memorable encounter on the third day of the trip. The starting point for the day was a school in Ramah, N.M., near the Continental Divide, where a group of cheering students and teachers showed up with a sign that said “You Can Do It.”

“Before we left, we had a teaching session where I talked to them about the brain and memory, about Alzheimer’s and why we were riding. It was one of the highlights of the ride for me,” she said.

Albuquerque was the end of the line for Wasmann and Ryan. Lamb said he plans to ride a segment from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Cleveland, and the final leg of the trip into Washington.  Ryan said also she planned to ride to the Capitol for the finale.

Would Ryan do a ride like this again?

“I don’t think so. I suggested maybe we do it again when somebody finds a cure.”

In an effort to speed up the completion of the Urban Loop, Pima County has applied for a $41 million grant.

The grant is part of the second round of the federal government’s transportation-specific stimulus efforts.

In the first round of funding, Tucson received money for the streetcar

Nanette Slusser, Pima County’s assistant administrator, said the county did some research to make sure applying for the grant wouldn’t be a waste of time because the streetcar had already been funded.

“Before we committed our energy and money to doing this we checked that out,” Slusser said.

Matt Zoll, the county’s bike and pedestrian program manager, said this round of funding had more rules and requirements.

“They are more strict on this one,” Zoll said. “They have raised the bar.”

This time grant applications were required to include a cost-benefit analysis, which breaks down the construction and maintainence costs versus the benefits to the community.

According to the county’s application, the loop would require $41 million in federal money to complete and just over $700,000 a year to maintain.

Although the applications do not require the local government to offer matching money, Slusser said in their research they determined most of the previously funded projects offered some sort of matching.

Slusser said offering matching funds, “is evidence that the project is well developed and supported.”

According to the application, the majority of matching funds will come from a future bond election.

Slusser said the trend in the first round of applications was that the governments got 50 percent of the money they requested.

“None of them have been funded in full,” Slusser said. “Even if we make that cut we anticipate we would get, if we are lucky, maybe 50 cents on the dollar, maybe a lot less.”

Zoll said even if the county doesn’t receive money from this grant application, the work of Donna Lewandowski, the county employee handling the grant application process, will not be a waste because they have much better documentation about the loop and its benefits.

“If we go after additional federal and local sources, we have a better road map, Zoll said.  “We’ve got better documentation of the value and justification of the system so that will help funding even small segments at a time.”

The application is seeking federal money for particularly challenging and expensive portions of the loop.

One such section is a two-mile portion of the loop that would connect the Houghton greenway to Sellarole Street on the east side of Tucson. The county is seeking $12.8 million for the stretch that will cost $16 million to complete.

Slusser said they won’t know anything for at least 30 days from the grant application deadline, which was August 23.

Download the application and cost-benefit analysis.

Get more info about the plan on the county’s Urban Loop website.

The rain and potential police action may have kept some people away from the Tuesday Night Bike Ride — including the police.

Although the police were invited and said they would attend the ride to talk to the group they didn’t show, but between 75-100 cyclists did.

Bike ambassador Colin Holmes and longtime Tuesday night biker Karl Goranowski, who went on some of the original Tuesday rides, addressed the group before the ride.

Holmes and Goranowski asked the group to try to be more respectful of the laws and drivers on the road to avoid having more police intervention in the ride.

Frequent Tuesday night rider Wes Shull said before the ride that he thought the police department’s concerns about drivers having to wait were overblown.

“Yeah we should all share the road, but there are 200 of us and one of them,” Shull said. “They can’t wait a few minutes?”

Goranowski, who led the ride, said he is a pessimist and didn’t think trying to slow the ride down and get riders to obey the laws would work.

Shull said he had mixed feeling about the ride.

In some ways it was better than the last couple times, more controlled, more sane,” Shull said.

The ride was much more reserved and took roads with lower traffic including; Mountain, Blacklidge, Treat and Elm. The overall speeds were much lower and the group waited for riders to catch up when they were caught by a light.

Twice during the ride, most cyclists dismounted at pedestrian signals to walk their bikes across, something Shull said he thought was overkill.

“Yeah, that’s the law, but in a lot of those places there is just no good legal way to get a bunch of people across in one cycle.

Shull said if the goal is to minimize traffic disruption riding across the intersection makes more sense.

Goranowski said he recognizes the ride was slower and the walking across intersections is extreme, but he wanted to make a point that the ride could still be fun when the group slows down and follows the rules.

Shull said he hopes the ride finds a middle ground between total chaos and strict compliance.

“We need to achieve a balance,” Schull said. We over-corrected this time.”