Contenders for the e-bike name

Well, we had a few contenders for the e-bike name, the first seven from my Uncle Cody. Here they are:

1) Crotch firecracker
2) Cherry bomba
3) Hardly Hawg
4) American Flyer
5) Evel BoWeevel
6) Bi-micro-mini SuV
7) Cheeps (as in CHips)
8) The Electrocutioner (by John Lee)
9) Penguin Hearty (by Avah)

I think we are leaning toward Cherry bomba or Penguin Hearty or even the Electrocutioner if it were easier to say. On a semi-related note, our camera fell out of my pocket (or had some help falling out by a pick-pocket) on the bus, so we are going to have a hard time posting any recent photos. We'll see about getting a loaner until we return, since cameras here are about twice the price of ones in the USA. Also, another notable transportation related event (although I missed the picture). Kylie did a back flip out of a grocery cart and landed on her face. Really scary, but she recovered really quickly.

China taking its toll

It seems that China is taking its toll. My students Luke and Elliott have been here for a little less than two weeks and they are already starting to feel the strain of language barriers, cold showers, exploiters, thieves, and yes transportation risks. Their first experience with China was a negative one. No sooner had they stepped onto the mainland from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, had they been taken by an informal taxi driver, who solicited them into his car. Little did they know that this was an illegal operator, not operating on a meter. About halfway between the ferry terminal and the airport did they realize that they were being taken for a ride. When they arrived, the driver demanded 730RMB, a little more than $100 for a ride that should have cost less than $15. Since they didn't know what it should cost, they reluctantly paid (more for the cab across town than the airfare from Shenzhen to Kunming). Well lesson learned. They arrived to Kunming at the beginning of a week worth of rain, which wouldn't be a problem but for their solar powered hot water heater. You guessed it, icy showers. Then the day before yesterday Elliott witnessed a nasty (and likely fatal) car and bicycle accident, so he is vowing not to ride his bike again. The car was apparently driving down the bicycle lane in the wrong direction. Another instance of a "dangerous" bicyclist killed and a car with a dent. This is the underlying perception of many traffic police in this city. On a relatively less significant note, Luke's backpack was stolen from in front of him while playing basketball. Fortunately all that was lost was his (new) camera, and cell phone, not his laptop. Elliott's backpack was next to his and had about $3000 worth of computers and cameras inside. I'm going to bring them to some good McDonalds tonight and they might end up watching an English version of Ironman at the theater. Julie and I went on a date last night and saw it and it was excellent, but then maybe my standards have changed since arriving here.

Pedestrian Research Started

Elliott and I, along with a Chinese student, Ms. Xie, started up our research on pedestrian mid-block crossing behavior. It is starting out with some observations of illegal ped crossing, trying to understand how far one is willing to walk to make a legal crossing. This really depends on a number of things, like traffic and road width. China is known for it's superblocks, so sometimes it is a huge distance to get to the nearest signalized intersection. We are going to try and measure this phenomenon at several types of roadways, with varying geometric configurations and traffic levels to identify where and when signalized or over/underpass style legal mid-block crossings should be constructed. Or, when barriers should be built. I will blog about the new BRT line and it's barrier effect sometime down the road. Often, though, barriers have some effectiveness, but mostly just at reducing walk access to destinations, not necessarily a desirable outcome. We spent a bit of last week finding suitable road segments that have good aerial views to surrounding buildings so that we can trace pedestrian movements. We are then going on top of the surrounding large buildings to video the street segment so we can watch how pedestrians behave. Origins, Destinations, Gap Acceptance Etc. Our first segment has us on a big neon sign on top of a 22 story building. Two cameras with wide angle lenses lets us capture the entire street segment.

Dirty Deeds...Done Dirt Cheap

Ah, gotta love Chinese plumbing. How can I make this transportation related???? A downstream bottleneck caused the turd queue to spill back into our laundry room. The plumbing systems here are pretty open. No P-traps and a lot of drains in floors which are open to the sewer pipes below. What does this result in? Well, most apartments I've lived in smell like sewer, especially in bathrooms. I remember hearing theories that SARS actually spread because of this. We had about three inches of raw sewer in our laundry room, from the five apartments above ours. I thought it was because we are on the first floor and the 4 days of straight rain caused the sewers to back up. After looking outside the window though, the ground is still several feet below our house so that couldn't be the problem. I called the maintenance and they had three guys out for about three hours trying to clear the sewer inside and outside our apartment. Finally they were successful and the laundry room drained, but left a nice mess. We cleaned it up so that it was sparkling and clean, but yesterday evening after dinner it filled back up. Yuck.

Movin' on Up...through the modes

Well, it seems everything has to be transportation related in this blog, so after Bluey was gone, I figured I needed some wheels fast. The round trip cab fare from my house to campus is about 24RMB; and you have to trust your life to a cab driver. I'm an American and I need personal mobility, plus there are no cross-suburb buses to get me where I need to go. So I did the math and I could pay for a bike within a week...80 RMB and I was rolling on a vintage Chinese bicycle. It took about 45 minutes for the bike repair guy to get the brakes semi-functional, but hey it stops fast enough. Well, a couple of days of riding and a little complaining landed me a loaner e-bike, truly my heart's desire. This is actually the same e-bike I used for my dissertation research two years ago. The owner bought a car. This is a pretty sweet ride, but still only a two seater. It gets me where I need to go, but moving the family can be tough. We don't have a name yet, but how can this classless and uninspired ride be named? Any suggestions? I saw an e-bike today that had a sticker on the side "Future Spaceship". Hmmm? I ended up handing down my bicycle to Luke, one of the students who just arrived to work on some research with me. Now I'm rolling in style. I even got a helmet (but not one for all of the family). Luke and Elliott each have a bicycle, we went on a 10 mile bike ride through the city for a few hours to get them acclimated (I believe in trial by fire). Remember, I was on my e-bike...no human power required. I felt like Mickey (Rocky's trainer) riding in the car next to Rocky (my students) pushing them to pedal harder, look out for that manhole, jump in front of that taxi, don't let that nasty granny on an e-bike cut you off, and above all look out for the donkey cart. They did fine and by the end of the trip they went from scared crapless to confident mixed traffic bike riders.

The Boneyard

Well, it has been nearly two weeks since Bluey Louey was taken and I have made some headway toward recovering her. I received the official receipt (fa piao) from the original owner and went to get insurance yesterday. They wanted to charge me 400 RMB, since they thought it was a high power, high speed three wheel motorcycle (not a laoren che, or elderly person car). I decided not to go for it, since there is still a slim chance of recovery and I don't want to invest more. I think I found where she is imprisoned as well...the three wheel bike boneyard. This confirms my suspicion that these are being ousted from Kunming. Hundreds of three wheel bikes-gas, electric and pedal power, all locked up; confiscated because entrepreneurial peasants thought they could make a buck providing low cost neighborhood transportation services. Well, I am not entrepreneurial, nor am I a peasant, but I was caught in the dragnet. Well, I have a couple of more days to find some affordable insurance and that might be my only hope of getting her back, even though I have proof of ownership now. I might call a friend of mine at an insurance and pull in some guangxi. Once with an insurance card, I will go down and submit my paperwork, along with an apology.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

We came to China about two weeks ago, spending the first week in Beijing, presenting a paper on e-bikes at the TDIBP conference (www.jtzx.net.cn/tdibp/). That was interesting, seeing how Beijing has and has not changed in anticipation of the Olympics. A week later we came down to Kunming. One of the first things we did was searched for transportation for the family. Cabs are expensive and buses not convenient enough for those 1-2km trips that we take a lot (seeing friends in the neighborhood going to restaurants etc). Bicycles are ideal, but the kids make that a little tough. After a little search we found her, Bluey Louey is her name. Well, we bought this beauty from an expat family of 6 who was moving to Guangxi province and had driven it for 3 years incident free. Sadly for them, they couldn't take her with. A cool 1675 RMB and she was ours. Not exactly classified as a vehicle, no registration required, my chinese motorcycle/car drivers license would probably do, and with a top speed of about 20 mph, well what else could this thing need. Well, about three days after we bought her, I was heading off to my first day of work, when a cop pulled me over at the corner...now I've been pulled over in China before for no apparent reason (like riding with a headlight on in the daytime), and after producing a drivers license and playing a little stupid, I've always gotten a pass. Not this time. I produced my drivers license, but the cop wanted the original receipt to prove it was legitimately mine. Doh! I forgot to get the receipt from the sellers and now, in the cop's eyes, I was a thief with no way to prove I hadn't stolen this thing. Well, without that proof, I was had. The cop asked for the key and that was it. Bluey Louey was lined up for the impound yard with the three or four other bikes whose owners could not prove ownership. Well, I went the the cop-shop to line up with the other poor souls attempting to prove their innocence. I called the guy who sold me the bike and he explained to the cop that the receipt was on the slow train to Guangxi. In the end, I have to wait for the receipt to get mailed and buy insurance (surely the only three wheeler in China to have insurance). That should get her out of jail...maybe. I also have to convince them that I really don't need a three wheel motorcycle driver license, since I have a three wheel car license and a two-wheel motorcycle license...we'll see how that goes. Welcome to Kunming.