Pretrial set for Summer Black’s hit-and-run killer: 10/10/2019

Amber Taylor Borden, a 21 year old from Middleburg, struck and killed Summer Black on Beach Boulevard near Southside Boulevard on March 25 and fled the scene. Borden’s pretrial will be held 10/10/2019, 9:00 am, 508, 5th floor, 501 W Adams Street, Jacksonville, FL 32202. Borden is being charged with Leaving the Scene of a Crash Involving Death S316.027(2)(C). It is at the discretion of the State Attorney and the Judge as to whether non family members of the victim, or the accused, may be present for the pretrial.

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Summer Black

Sweet, genuine, wildly creative, charmingly quirky, passionate and sensitive, called out bullshit, and biked further and harder than every single cyclist at the 2011 MS150. You biked all the way from Jacksonville to St. Augustine to Daytona, and turned right back around and started biking back to Jacksonville… all in the same day. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as we didn’t know you well. But we knew enough to really like you a lot. Summer, you are a profound loss to this community. Duval honestly feels different now.

With love and respect…

 

 

 

Video of Kids Biking to School in Jax for 4 Harrowing Miles

Our friends, the Mayhews, always make the long trek to school every year for National Bike and Walk to School Day. The boys are now 8 and 10 and have always been extremely proficient with bicycles. But as you’ll see in the video, even little badasses like these kids can’t realistically ride to school without an experienced adult bike rider. Jacksonville still has a long way to go with infrastructure. It’s sad and crazy how much our world has changed within just one generation’s worth of time.

Jacksonville’s Car-Free Week Event and Ceremony

 

JACKSONVILLE’S CAR-FREE WEEK

DUMP THE GAS PUMP AND GO CAR-FREE!

A personal motorized vehicle can be a costly dependence, both for our wallets and our environment. For one week in Bike Month, May 15 – 19, the Jacksonville BPAC is encouraging you to try other options — for just one day, or all week. Then join us that Friday, May 19, from 6:00pm-8:00pm, for our Awards Ceremony!

WALK TO WORK
Since every trip by car, by transit, or even by bike starts and ends with walking, it’s easy to walk to work. Drivers can switch to transit, or carpool and park away from their place of work. Bus/skyway riders can simply get off 1 or 2 stops earlier. For those who have to drop off children at school, just park your car away from your place of work in a secure area after you drop of your children, and walk from there.

RUN TO WORK
Morning runs before you get to work will ensure you arrive at the office feeling awake and ready to start the day off right. And if you choose to run-commute home, it’s an opportunity to clear your mind after a hard day. For those who have to drop off children at school, just park your car away from your place of work in a secure area after you drop of your children, and run from there. For tips on running to work, visit runwork.net.

BIKE TO WORK
National Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 19, but why not bike to work all week during Car-Free Week? The purpose of Bike to Work Day is to have higher numbers of bicyclists in regular clothing out and visible to motorists who are also trying to get to work. Bicyclists wearing regular clothing sends a message — “Yes, you, too, can go to work by bicycle!”. For those who have to drop off children at school, just bring your bike with you when driving, park your car away from your place of work in a secure area after you drop of your children, and bike from there. For tips, visit jaxbikecoalition.org/2017/04/02/national-bike-to-work-day-2017.

SKYWAY TO WORK
The skyway is faster than driving through downtown, it’s usually not crowded, and it’s free! We’re currently seeking permission for bikes on the skyway during Car-Free Week, so stay tuned. For stops and schedules, visit jtafla.com/schedules.

BUS TO WORK
Riding the bus is common place for most people living in large, metropolitan cities. It’s cheap and you can chill out on the way to work — no fighting traffic, catch up on your reading, or even take a nap. And in Jacksonville, the bus system is better than ever! For stops and schedules, visit schedules.jtafla.com.

AWARDS CEREMONY
Friday, May 19 
6:00pm-8:00pm
Intuition Ale Works

PERK #1 — Intuition Ale Works will be offering $1 OFF BEERS at the May 19 Ceremony AND all week — May 15-19 — to all participants who posted “commute selfies” on social media using the hashtag #CarFreeWeekJax. AND Dahlia’s Pour House and Magnolia’s Pub will ALSO be offering $1 off beers during Car-Free Week! You must show the bartenders your photos/videos to get the discount.

PERK #2 — The MOST IMPRESSIVE COMMUTERS are eligible to win prizes! Examples of impressive commuting:

• Participated multiple days during Car-Free Week
• Longest distance running to work
• Longest distance walking to work
• Longest distance biking to work
• Longest distance taking the bus to work
• Most diverse transit user (used the bus, and walked, and biked, etc. to work)
• Most enthusiastic (posted the most social media photos about their active transit to work)

Those who are known in the community to commute to work using active transportation nearly EVERYDAY, ALL YEAR, will be announced and cheered!

In order to be eligible to win prizes, you must fill out the survey, tinyurl.com/CarFreeWeekJax, and post “commute selfies” using the hashtag #CarFreeWeekJax. Prizes are limited. SURVEY WILL CLOSE BY 4:00PM MAY 19. If you’re commuting from work after 4:00pm that day, you may estimate the mileage of the final stretch of your commute on the survey before it closes.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

1. Decide which car-free option is best for you — or choose several options
2. Decide which day of the week is best for you — or choose the whole week
3. Take a photo or video of yourself on your commute and post it to social media using the hashtag #CarFreeWeekJax
4. Take a quick survey sometime before May 19, 4:00pm, tinyurl.com/CarFreeWeekJax, to provide more details about yourself — SURVEY WILL CLOSE BY 4:00PM MAY 19.  If you’re commuting from work after 4:00pm that day, you may estimate the mileage of the final stretch of your commute on the survey before it closes.
5. Attend the Closing Awards Ceremony at Intuition Ale Works on Friday, May 19, 6:00pm-8:00pm. Don’t forget to invite your entourage to cheer you on in case you win!

JOIN US

Find other participants and let others know that you’ll be participating for CAR-FREE WEEK:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1282646578478186/

RSVP to the AWARDS CEREMONY:

https://www.facebook.com/events/495890540535194/

Come out and meet like-minded people for a night of camaraderie and recognition for a job well done! Contact us with questions or learn more about us at facebook.com/bpacfriends.

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CAR-FREE WEEK EVENT SPONSORS

A very special thank you to all of our sponsors for their dedication to our community, donating countless hours of time and generous monetary contributions for the cause:

 …(more to come)…

                                            

Cops to ticket pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists on 4 troubled roads

While the headline of this news article should have also mentioned MOTORISTS breaking the law, here’s a decent story on bike/ped safety by the Times Union.

http://jacksonville.com/news/public-safety/2017-04-17/cops-ticket-pedestrians-cyclists-during-traffic-safety-push-4-roads

While the JBC doesn’t condone jaywalking in heavy traffic, we understand the many challenges pedestrians face in this city. Some typical Jacksonville road and cultural problems for both pedestrians and people on bikes:

• Many roads have crosswalks that are too far apart from one another
• Some crosswalk signals do not give ample time to get across wide roads, so the elderly or disabled are forced to run halfway through
• Many roads are very wide with up to 6 lanes to contend with when trying to cross
• Florida motorists generally don’t understand the crosswalk laws and will not stop for pedestrians even if the pedestrians have the right of way
• Florida motorists certainly don’t understand the road-sharing laws with regards to people on bikes
• Being a person who chooses to ride a bike is still, strangely enough, a stigma in Florida
• Jacksonville is severely lacking in appropriate infrastructure for pedestrians, bicycles, buses, and its very limited elevated train, and has no infrastructure at all for commuter trains. It’s still archaic, catering overwhelmingly to cars only. Sadly limited.
• Speeding is an epidemic here
• Jacksonville is still the third most dangerous city in the entire nation for bikes and peds
• And arguably the worst challenge of all — distracted motorists — an absolute plague, nationwide, and just about as deadly

 

 

Jacksonville’s Bike Month in May

Get geared up for National Bike Month in May! Check out Jacksonville’s Bike Month site —www.jacksonvillebikemonth.com —  for a listing of events and generous sponsors, and to view an inspirational noir short film, The Convert, shot right here in Jacksonville by local advocates. Be sure to check it periodically for additions and updates.

If you’re organizing a bike-related activity, please email info@jacksonvillebikemonth.com with information and we’ll add it to the website.

RIDE BIKES!

National Bike to Work Day 2017

National Bike to Work Day for 2017 is May 19th!

The purpose of Bike to Work Day is to have higher numbers of cyclists in regular clothing out and about and visible to motorists who are also trying to get to work. Cyclists wearing regular clothing sends a message to all the doubters out there – “Yes! It can be done! You, too, can go to work by bicycle!”

You CAN actually choose to ride your bike to work if it makes sense to do so. Do you only live a handful of miles away from work? Have you been meaning to get on that New Year’s resolution about getting fit? Do you see a reasonable route you can take to work by bicycle that isn’t going to be too harrowing? Sick of shoveling out huge piles of dough to Big Oil?

Remember, you’re not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic. So get yourself unstuck and RIDE BIKES… to work.

Advice for Novice Bike Riders on “Serious Rides”

PLEASE NOTE: The advice in this article is NOT actually endorsed by me, or anyone from the Jacksonville Bicycle Coalition. I felt the need to list out a few tips and tricks to help make novices feel more comfortable on what I call “serious bike rides”, but I must stress that only YOU can fully educate yourself, and you must accept the fact that YOU ride at YOUR OWN risk.

So here goes…

Firstly, You may not want to make your bike route the very same route as what you take with your car. Get to know the general area between your home and to where you wish to ride. For safer routes to where I need to go, I check out Google Maps on occasion to see if I can find low-traffic roads to ride on.

I’ll use my commute to work as an example: After Google Mapping the best possible route to take by bike,  I then drove on those roads to and from work, finally deciding which ones I could get away with on my bike. I went back on Google Maps a few times and drew out my own personal bike route. The route consists of both high traffic roads and low traffic neighborhood roads, bike lanes, big shoulders, and a short area where there is neither a shoulder nor bike lane with relatively heavy traffic (the only part of my bike route that stinks big time).

Secondly, ride your bike regularly to and from the corner store, a friend’s house, the park, etc. Take long joy rides in neighborhoods but also make sure you’re getting a feel for what it’s like to ride on roads with real traffic. If the traffic is too heavy, too fast, or too scary, you don’t have to force yourself to ride it. Start out by riding on roads that make you comfortable, slowly building up to the more challenging roads. That way, when you’re ready to take a serious ride, such as commuting to and from work or biking to Art Walk downtown, you’ll not feel so intimidated. When a bike rider feels intimidated, they may not be in the right mindset to handle situations gracefully enough. And remember, don’t ride your bike on roads with fast, heavy traffic if there’s no large shoulder or no bike lane.

Third, after you’ve ridden your bike quite a bit in and out of traffic on joy rides, and after you’ve driven on that route with your car a few times, making sure you’re driving that route during the times you’ll be riding your bike, you’ll then be ready to ride that route with your bike, but only during non-peak days and hours. Meaning, take that route with your bike on a lazy Sunday to get a feel for it. See how long it will take you to ride it so that you’ll make it to your destination on time. Make sure to give yourself plenty of time in the event you’re somehow stuck in heavy traffic during rush hour. Also, give yourself extra time so that when you arrive to your destination, you can freshen up and change clothes.

Finally, after getting a good feel for bike riding on the street in general, and getting a good feel for the best route on a bike, you’ll ideally be more confident a rider to be able to handle a serious ride.

Some additional tips:

You should wear a helmet.

Now, the bike helmet option is actually a topic of great disagreement between different types of cyclists. Honestly, sometimes I wear a helmet and admittedly sometimes I don’t. It really depends on my gut feelings about the time of day or how serious my ride is. When commuting to work, I wear a helmet. It makes me feel safer and it is safer. I’ll say this, bike riding is about as dangerous as any other form of street transportation, but that’s my opinion. This is not the opinion of the JBC in general. We are all made up of different cycling types and have various degrees of advice. Some folks may feel turned off to bike riding when they see people wearing helmets. Don’t allow yourself to buy into that school of thought. There’s nothing wrong with wearing a helmet.

I would personally recommend you wear a helmet. Just be on the safe side and do it.

You could also go to a book store and browse through some bike safety books. Don’t get overwhelmed with all the info out there. A lot of it is useful and some of it is not. Some of it is quite overkill and can turn people off to riding. Just use common sense:

• Don’t listen to music while riding.
• Always keep a sharp eye out for cars.
• Don’t make impulsive decisions unless you’re trying to get out of a sticky situation. Acting in a predictable fashion will help other cyclists and motorists know how to act when they’re on the roads with you.
• Don’t do something you’re not comfortable with. You’ll experience a bit of discomfort and that’s normal. But if your gut is screaming at you not to do something, your discomfort level is too high in which case you should back off from the situation.

Get familiar with fixing a flat, even if you haven’t had one yet. Most bike shops offer a free or very inexpensive bike maintenance basics class every once in awhile.

Always be prepared with a Plan B. Be familiar with bus routes, have a couple of backup phone numbers, and have the phone number for North Florida’s Emergency Ride Home service (http://www.northfloridatpo.com/cool_to_pool/) just in case something prevents you from riding.

Ultimately, what’s important is that you’re interested in riding bikes more often. If you do it each day, you’re going to save loads of money on gas and you’re going to be more physically fit. Just make sure you feel confident enough to take on your serious rides by first practicing with joy rides. You’ll find the practicing will not be a laborious, boring chore, but actually quite delightful. You’ll discover other things that you can do, other places you can go, on your bike while you’re practicing for the serious rides. You’ll get sun on your skin, fresh air in your lungs, you’ll be getting exercise that’s fun and relatively easy on the body – not cooped up in a boring gym or taking a toll on your joints with jogging.

Just take it slow at first and with time, you’ll discover on your own what works best for you.

Happy riding!

The JBC is On the Mend

A lot of you might have wondered at some point, “The JBC’s been pretty quiet for about a year. What’s the deal?”. Well, quite a lot has happened actually. Two main members moved to other cities, three main members had babies last year, and the other sub-members have been involved with non-JBC-related bike events.

This doesn’t mean we’re defunct, however. Merely in a lull of sorts prompted by a huge laundry list of offenses. Er, I mean excuses. No wait, “reasons”. Yea, that’s it. Bear with me while I break it down:

We planned a wedding; one we couldn’t have pulled off without the help of some incredible friends whose integrity is truly astounding and unbeatable. For some of you who’ve ever planned a wedding, this doesn’t require additional explanation. Just trust me. It consumes your every moment.

On May 2nd, 2013, Harley and I found out we were pregnant. This, of course, changes everything. Again, for some of you who are parents, we may not need to expound upon that any further. ‘Nough said. But I’ll humor the rest of you…

The lease to our apartment was going to be up at the end of September, so immediately after our honeymoon, we were on the lookout for a new home. Long story short, we had to move temporarily to Tennessee. Yes, we did actually move up northward for a bit. If you blinked, you missed it and many of you probably didn’t even notice we were gone. We moved back to Jax as my belly grew right alongside our new-parent worries.

We moved temporarily into our parent’s home and then again into our generous and wonderful friends’ garage apartment while feverishly searching for jobs. It’s around the end of October by now and I’m due early January. Day in and day out we searched for jobs, finally landed some temp jobs alongside my freelance work, and spotted that pinhole of light at the end of this frighteningly obscure tunnel.

After the job hunt came the house hunt. It took a while to find a property owner who managed to look the other way regarding our temp jobs. Most of the time the landlord is going to insist that at least one of you must have a steady full time job, not some miscellaneous freelance work and a temp job you just landed a couple weeks ago.

We moved our stuff, yet again, to our new apartment in Riverside in November and were resolute to finally settle into our own private space once again. My desire to nest was so strong, it nagged at me sweetly, growing louder and louder each day with no possible way to satisfy its cries until around the last month of my pregnancy. By the end of November, I believe we were nearly fully settled and nested. My belly was becoming quite large. Harley insisted we have a real Christmas tree that year because it was going to be a particularly special Christmas for us. I beamed over the idea and we made it so.

I rode my bike through eight and a half months of my pregnancy, even through the hills of Tennessee and North Carolina. I even made it to the annual Riverside Avondale Luminaria Bike Ride in December which was three weeks before my due date. Call me crazy (and maybe I am) but I love riding bikes, even in this Godforsaken “Third most dangerous city in the nation”. I remember riding while obviously quite pregnant through the new roundabouts in San Marco. Cars continued to treat me as if I were invisible. Those two new roundabouts and the new stop-sign-and-stop-light-free San Marco Square still, to this day, confounds and infuriates me and Harley to the point of complete avoidance. We no longer ride bikes nor drive in that area. Motorists still do not always stop when a pedestrian is trying to cross. Whoever decided that a never ending flow of traffic in a residential area was a good idea must either be crazy or simply isn’t familiar with the area.

My belly endured its final kick and Jonas introduced himself late December, one week before he was due. It came as no surprise to me. His grande physique and relentless kicking were the only signs I needed that this boy was going to insist on coming out sooner rather than later to stretch out those long legs of his. He was a beautiful, beautiful sight. Instantly we felt that obligatory discernment, that staggering love that every other parent has struggled to describe properly. If the reality of “everything changes” didn’t fully sink in before, it certainly did at this point. He was welcomed home by the glow of our Christmas tree.

We narrowly survived the first three months of parenthood. But the abundance of bonding with two of the most important people of my life–Harley and Jonas–more than made up for the lack of sleep. These precious moments were laced with anxiety; we both still needed to find better employment. Months 4 through 6 were full of discoveries for Jonas and the rekindling of the simple joys lived vicariously through our little one’s fresh perspective on life. And thankfully in that time, we both landed really great and secure jobs.

Much like my womb, our family quickly began to feel the walls of our little one bedroom apartment contract. Our boy had begun the scooting stage. Before you know it, he’ll be crawling… walking even. But our lease isn’t going to be up until November 2014. We figured we’d just have to suck it up until then. That is, until another fortune befell us. And so… yet again… on July 2nd we moved to a sweet two bedroom home, and still within the urban core.

Did you lose count? We’ve moved five, count ’em FIVE times, since October of last year. Believe it.

At this point, Harley and I keep asking ourselves and each other, “When are we going to get back to focusing on the JBC?”. We’ve realized everything we’ve been doing since May 2nd has only and ever been for the betterment of our family and especially that of our son.

If we want to keep doing right by our son, we also need to be sure to continue to be actively involved in improving the Jacksonville core, namely in cyclist and pedestrian advocacy. As of right now, Jax is still considered the third most dangerous city in the nation. If we want our child to be active and feel free enough to, at the very least, ride his bike around the neighborhood (and we do), we need to get back on the wagon and keep doing our part to make it safer for him.

Now that we’re finally settled, it looks like we can realistically start doing more. We’ll be attending the FDOT Public meeting at the Cummer regarding the new proposed segregated bike/ped path for the Fuller Warren Bridge–the first ever on any of our bridges! I have a few more PSA billboard designs ready to submit to Clearly Jax again. And speaking of PSAs, we’re brainstorming over some ideas for short video clips depicting some of Jacksonville’s most challenging situations for cyclists and pedestrians.

The BPAC and other renowned advocates in this city have already made huge strides in the right direction. But we all still have a great deal more work cut out for us, including keeping the City Council in check about budgets and frivolous spending. We hear about cyclist and pedestrian fatalities all the time. More money needs to be put into driver education and infrastructure if we’re ever going to have a respectable metropolis.

The Jacksonville Bicycle Coalition will be up to our old antics in due time. To those who remained our friends through what has been our toughest, and at once, most glorious year of our lives, you are certainly one of our greatest motivating factors. Thank you for toughing it out with us. We’re ready to get back to work, albeit a bit less rigorous this go around, what with a baby on board.

In the mean time, and in the immortal words of Harley Henry himself, RIDE BIKES.

 

Revive Downtown Jax. Ride bikes to One Spark!

Don’t forget to attend One Spark this Wednesday through Sunday and vote for Community Couriers Jax. They deliver by bike. What’s not to like?! Find out more about CCJ here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JBC Co Founder once again discussing Sharrows in Duval (or lack thereof)

Harley Henry, JBC Co-Founder

Jacksonville Bicycle Coalition Co Founder, Harley Michael Henry, was recently on air with Catherine Varnum of ActionNewsJax to discuss the missing Sharrows on Riverside Avenue in front of The Cummer Museum to just beyond The Fuller Warren Bridge. These road signals were originally set in place to thwart motorists from ‘edging out’ and/or ‘buzzing’ cyclists on this main artery for pedal pushers within the urban core (and not just merely on Saturdays for RAM goers or Road Training Sessions held on Tuesdays for the Acosta Bridge loop) because of their having to avoid menacing obstacles like uneven manhole covers.

For more information on these road markings please see What is a SHARROW?!

Riverside Avenue is heavily travelled nowadays; for commuters, roadies, pedestrians-on-bikes, and first timers alike aiming to enjoy The Riverwalk. It is not just a section of roadway that bicyclists could afford to take lightly when FDOT/JEA/sub-contractors removed the markings this past August to replace outdated water mains in the area. Especially when there are stories like fellow JBC Co Founder Abhishek barely surviving with his life back in 2011 bicycling next to a JTA bus on Riverside Avenue [precisely in the location where these markings were left unanswered for so long].

{Updated Dec. 11, 2013}

Therefore, we of The JBC applaud the enduring and endearing effort of newsrooms such as ActionNewsJax who continually ask the difficult questions within a city so prone to be lax as Jacksonville has become with regards to its concern and welfare over the livelihood and safety for its citizens, and the daily deadly degradation thereof.

As of now, the Sharrows have already been put back in place on Riverside Avenue (the very next day following the news story going live, thanks to JEA subcontractors) and our bicyclists can once again if seeing/feeling the need to use the entire lane if necessary. Now if we could get JSO to enforce these traffic codes pertaining to pedestrians/ bicyclists, and motorists…Duval just might make it out of the top three for such ap-thy in permitting the most dangerous city streets in America-

There is a way to better all of this; by way of bettering the lack of infrastructure through purely creative revolutionary means, educational awareness and/or community care, and with proper/adequate enforcement of such laws of the road. (PSAs too, but The JBC is venturing there next for our future campaign because we tire of suggesting it with candor to all around but with no resound)

This could thereby revive Jacksonville Downtown, promote it as its center forever via more foot traffic and cyclists once they again feel safe and secured that their town is truly walkable and bike friendly, as every town should aspire towards…[most early burgs in Jacksonville we constructed on a five points radius; like the spokes of a bicycle wheel radiating outward, we should take advantage of these early designs and mimic them and create thoroughfares for people to travel/ segregated paths do work best or let us repaint some of the wide lanes down creating a place for non-motorized traffic and add protective barriers to ensure the livelihood of all…making this town more viable and fun].

I will close with a quintessential ending worthy this very sporadic train of inconstant thread, which is to simply but endearingly say “RIDE BIKES” in Duval.

– Harley Henry

…