Bikemore Statement About Street Attacks

As we posted earlier today, another person was attacked while riding his bicycle this past weekend on Guilford Avenue in Greenmount West. Attacks like this have been reported sporadically over the past few years — not just on people riding bicycles, but people walking as well — usually along Guilford Avenue and Charles Street between Mount Royal Avenue and 25th Street.

These incidents do not represent the actions of all Baltimore City youth. Many City youth ride bikes for transportation or otherwise get around Baltimore peacefully, and many engage in positive after-school bicycle activities like the Baltimore Bike Experience at Digital Harbor High School and Baltimore Bike Party.

The only way to know what motivated the specific group of youth who appear on the video is to ask them, but we suspect that if Baltimore had more productive adult supervision and more safe places for youth to learn and engage in positive activities, this incident would not have occurred.

Obviously, there must be consequences for assaulting another human being, but we should also use this unfortunate event as an opportunity to teach young people the impact of their actions and address the underlying causes of the assault.

Bikemore is actively engaging with the police and community leaders to ensure the neighborhoods along the Guilford Avenue Bike Boulevard are safe for commuters and residents alike, regardless of one's chosen mode of transportation. We hope this incident promotes a constructive dialogue about increased after-school and evening opportunities for youth in our city.

If you would like to be part of this dialogue, please feel free to contact us.

Beware on the Guilford Bike Boulevard

You may remember last April, there were a number of assaults on cyclists around the Copycat Building on Guilford Ave. This author was among the riders who was threatened but escaped physical injury. Mark Brown, former blogger at Car Free Baltimore, wasn't so lucky and incurred physical trauma.

According to this YouTube video and its accompanying Facebook post, these assaults are back. Here's the report from the victim:

[Video above] recorded on 4/12/14. Attacked by a group of teenagers on the bike route on the 1600-1700 block of Guilford Ave. You can hear when they threw a bottle at me from behind and then see when I try to grab my lock as a last resort as they started to attack, but dropped it. Grabbed it before they did. Only damage was to my thumb when they stomped it. Took punches, but they must have hit my helmet, because I don't have any marks. Camera cuts out at the end around this time. On the ground I started yelling "help help help". Residents started coming out and a distant siren scared them off. Called 911 after and met with an officer a few minutes later.

Please exercise extreme caution in this area. If you experience or witness an assault, report it to police and send them a video (if possible) to see if any faces can be made out. Feel free to contact BIkemore and we will initiate contact with our main people at the BCPD.

Be safe out there.

Anti-Bicycle Policing Must Stop

UPDATE (2/20): It took a while, but Mr. Densmore's report was changed to reflect the actual circumstances of the crash! He is now processing his insurance claims.

UPDATE (1/30): After our blog post went live, Baltimore Police responded and promised that an amendment to the report would be filed. We will stay on this to be sure that the amendment is filed, but for now it appears that, thanks to our advocacy, this issue will be resolved soon. Please do not send any more angry e-mails to Baltimore Police...for now!

On December 3, 2013, Henry Densmore was riding his bicycle on the Jones Falls Trail. On President Street between Fayette and Baltimore Streets the trail is on the sidewalk and clearly marked as such. At the corner of President Street and Baltimore Street, Mr. Densmore entered the crosswalk with 13 seconds to go, and a box truck accelerated into him. The truck driver stopped after the collision and admitted to illegally turning right on red. This is the truck:

Henry Densmore was crossing legally within a section of sidewalk clearly marked as a bicycle/pedestrian path, and the officer wrongly told him that he was illegally riding on a sidewalk. Despite copious evidence that the truck driver was 100% at fault, Officer M. Baldwin’s police report states that Mr. Densmore and the truck driver each had 50% responsibility. According to Mr. Densmore, Officer Baldwin said that the trail is for walking and the sign shouldn't show a bicyclist. He even said that the sign should be graffitied. Further attempts to engage Police higher-ups on this issue have led nowhere; it is our goal to convince the Police to issue a correction to the report stating that Mr. Densmore was at no fault in this crash, so that he can get reimbursed for his wrecked bicycle and for medical costs.

Here is a diagram of the collision.

The photo below was taken from Mr. Densmore’s perspective before the crash. He was traveling south along the sidewalk on the east side of President Street. The bicycle wayfinding sign clearly shows that bicycles are allowed on this section of sidewalk.

Henry was bicycling south along the Jones Falls Trail, which, as the below screenshot from Google Maps’ bicycle layer shows, goes along the eastern sidewalk of President Street between Fayette and Baltimore Streets, then crosses President via the southern crosswalk.

The truck driver was on Baltimore Street, just east of President, facing west, and was attempting to make a right onto President. As the photo below shows, a driver in this position has only one legal option: a right turn on green. In Mr. Densmore’s collision, the driver’s light was red.

As the below photo shows, the yellow sign to the left of the crosswalk indicates that people are allowed to cross on bicycles via the crosswalk. The white car in this photo is in the same position as the truck that hit Mr. Densmore

Here is another view of the bicycle/pedestrian crossing sign that Officer Baldwin claims was somehow improperly installed by the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT).