TheWashCycle

Ride Bike, Get Paid

This came from Phil over at DC Snacks (edited slightly).

We are a late-night delivery service serving Downton, Foggy Bottom, Dupont, and the southern edge of Adams Morgan. We have been in business for over 3 years, operating as CampusSnacks.com.  We do all our deliveries on bikes.  We're looking for people who would be interested in biking for us.  Bikers make on average $12-$16/hr, but we have one guy who regularly makes over $20/hr.  The company is owned by a 24-year old and our staff is very diverse (undergrads, grad students, a 5th grade teacher, a freelance videographer...) and it's a pretty laid back place to work. Scheduling is flexible, we have bikers that work one night a week, bikers that work 5 nights a week, and everything in between.  If anyone is interested, the application is online at www.dcsnacks.com/jobs.

The Transit Shed

The transit shed is a term I first read on Richard Layman's blog. The idea is that people will walk a short distance (1/4 mile?), bike a larger distance (1 mile?) or drive even farther to get to a transit station. When you look at Metro's different stations it's interesting to see how these are planned out. Some are at the center of a pedestrian and bicycle friendly area (Virginia Square, Bethesda, almost every station in DC). Others are basically a station surrounded by surface parking (Huntington, Greenbelt or, to a lesser degree Stadium-Armory). The thing, and Mr. Layman's says this too, is that you can never build enough parking for everyone to park where they want, when they want to. This problem had reached a debilitating level in New York's suburbs.

More than 7,000 people board commuter trains each day at the Princeton Junction station, but there are only enough parking spaces for about half of them

So, what do people do when there's inadequate parking?

Earlier that morning, Kristan Flynn, a 34-year-old research associate who lives in Princeton, five miles from the station, sped into the parking lot on her bicycle.

“No place to park,” she said. “Even the bike racks are nearly all full.”

It may be, though I doubt it, that you can never build enough bike parking for people to park their bikes where they want when they want to. But you can accomodate a lot more cyclist, for a lot less money and leave a much smaller footprint than you can cars.

Metro, as I've mention before, is pretty accessible to cyclist. Still, they should pull out a map, draw mile long circles around each station and ask themselves "Can everyone in this circle bike to this station safely and directly?" In most cases the answer will be yes. In others they should work to make improvements.

I've been biking to New Carrollton lately, people have helped me to find the safest route, but it's quite circuitous. Michael Plakus pointed me to this study that advocates adding a bike bridge over the Beltway along the side of the ramp between US-50 (the John Hanson highway) and MD-950 (Garden City Dr.) That would be nice. Better (and cheaper) would be a trail passing under the Beltway - from Annapolis Road to 85th Ave or from Lanham Station Road to Cobb Road - under the same bridge the railroad already uses.

The 50 States Ride - 2006

  The 50 States Ride 
  Originally uploaded by volcrano.

I didn't do the entire 50 States ride this time (Only the first half) but it was fun, and I feel that more people participated than in the past. There is a complete, and I mean complete, write up about it here. He actually took photos of every street sign (clever).

The photo I took shown here, was taken while riding - not recommended kids - shortly before I stopped for delicious coffee.

This is the third one (or second and a half one) I've done and the best thing about it is the way the dynamics of the city make it so different. For example the ride past the future baseball stadium. Of course the ride does change a little every year. I think this has the potential to become something truly amazing. Something like the five boros tour in New York - where people will come into town for it.

Safe Routes to School in Virginia

Virginia, like Maryland and DC, is getting around to figuring out how to spend it's Safe Routes to School money.

Gov. Tim Kaine announced his statewide Safe Routes to School program Tuesday for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Kaine said fewer children walk or bike to school than a generation ago, and he called it a "lost opportunity." He said improving access and safety to let more children walk or bike to school will "enhance the quality of life" and reduce vehicle emissions around schools.

The program will be funded by $13 million in federal funds through 2009. The money was provided for the program under the federal surface transportation program.The Virginia Department of Transportation will administer the grant program and begin accepting applications this winter. A statewide advisory panel will help VDOT review applications.Grants will range from $5,000 to $500,000.

Awesomer T-Shirt

I mentioned that this shirt was awesome, but I've got an even awesomer T-shirt available. And it won't sell out. And it's D.C. related. Actually it's several shirts. If you click through to the store you'll see them all in different styles but the same basic theme as seen here.

I have shamelessly stolen this idea (OK, I got permission) from BikingToronto - who admittedly co-opted it from Milton Glaser.

In case you're wondering what will happen to the money from this (and the Google ads on the side), it will go to reduce my cost of running this blog. Should that be paid off, it will reduce WABA's cost of sponsoring it. And should that be paid off, I'll go on Project Runway because I clearly have my finger on the national fashion zeitgeist. But I really didn't make them for money. I just thought they were cool.

Dulles Corridor Metrorail ignores bikes (so far)

With the decision about whether or not to tunnel under Tyson's Corner out of the way (though I think they got it wrong, but that's not what this blog is about) the Dulles Metrorail Corridor Project is ready to move forward. This puts us in the design-build phase, with the preliminary engineering to be complete in the next few months, and construction to begin late next year.

Unfortunately, the project website thus far doesn't mention bicycle access even once. In general I expect the new stations to have the same cycling amenities as the present stations (namely bike boxes, racks - though hopefully the inverted U type and elevators). But I'm also hoping for a little more.

First, there's the Wiehle Avenue Station. This will be the end of Phase 1 and more importantly it's the closest station to the W&OD trail. The station will be in the median of the Dulles Toll Road, at Wiehle Avenue. North of the station is a planned 2300-space Metro parking garage (see photo), connected with a pedestrian walkway. North of that are a few buildings that front Sunset Hills Road and then the W&OD trail. Here's a google map of the area.

There doesn't seem to be any plans to create a connection to the trail. I don't bike out there very often so I'm not sure how much traffic Sunset Hills Road gets, but it's four lanes and I'd suspect that it's not a quiet rural road. Before this moves forward, they should look at either improved surface facilities to connect the station and the trail or, better yet, consider a grade separated crossing of the road. There's a small stream west of the site and a trail could go under the road there (or between Wiehle and Isaac Newton Square).

The other thing I'd look at is running a bike trail underneath the elevated section. I've seen this done with Miami's Metrorail (which allows bikes even during rush hour, though you need a permit). Unfortunately this is the only photo I could find of Miami's trail - the trail is to the right hand side. The plans I've seen for the Dulles line are incomplete - it doesn't seem they're looking for any pesky public input - so it may not be feasible, but looking at the image above, it looks like there's room.

This is the next big transportation project in the area. Bikes were included in the Wilson Bridge, left out of the Springfield Interchange and are being paid lip service on the InterCounty Connector. This project has a long way to go to be considered bike friendly a la the Orange Line Bikeway.

MoCo Voter guide addition

In case you're unhappy with Ike Leggett, astute reader Nancy sent me this link about perpetual candidate for Montgomery County (MD) Executive, Robin Ficker.

To that end, [Robin Ficker] reiterated his challenge, which he emailed two weeks ago to democratic mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty, to a bike race from Bethesda to the Key Bridge and back on the Crescent Trail.

Bikes on Metro (flatbeds)

Speaking of Steve Eldridge, he also had a letter about the new Metro rail car configurations, with a pretty good idea

My suggestion is a train car configured with no seats at all, one specifically designed to attract people who don’t mind standing. This specific design could be called a Flatbed.

It would allow for folks with bicycles since that car would have a lot of space.

I think this may be a way to allow for bikes on Metro during rush hour. A car configured like the Hong Kong Airport shuttle (pictured) would create more space, some of which could be used by cyclists.

Speed limits and Speedometers

I've mentioned before that Denver has a speed limit on its trail system.

Thousands of Denver cyclists use the city's 85 miles of bike paths -- so many, in fact, that crowding has led to serious collisions and, in the fall of 2003, to the death of a bicyclist in Littleton, Colo., a suburb. Now the Department of Parks and Recreation is proposing a cyclist speed limit

And that cops with radar guns enforce it

Patrol officers use radar guns to gauge a person's speed and ticket skaters and cyclists who are breaking the speed limit, Denver television station KMGH reported. The enforcement came as a result of an increase in accidents involving pedestrians, Denver police said.

Steve Eldridge with the Examiner caught on to it and brought up these points.

The problems, as I see them, are that few bikes are equipped with speedometers any more. I used to have one on my old Huffy Stingray bike (the one with the ram handle bars and the four-foot back bar), but you just don’t see them too often on today’s bikes. The other problem is enforcement. Are police there going to stand next to the path with radar guns? Will repeat offenders find their privileges revoked? According to an ABS News story, the police aren’t even certain whether they will issue tickets. That seems to make the whole idea more of a suggestion. Even still, it might be something worth considering on certain paths and trails around here where problems exist.

Someone pointed out that he was wrong and that many people have speedometers.

“You are mistaken on the subject of bike speedometers. They are very common, but they are called ‘cyclocomputers’ now. They’re light and accurate and don’t have inefficient mechanical parts like the one on your old Huffy. They can cost anywhere from 20 to 1,000 bucks and some include heart-rate monitoring and all sorts of cool stuff.

But they added

“It’s probably impractical to enforce a 15 mph speed limit on multi-use trails. People who use the trails just need to learn to use a little common sense — stay to the right, look where you’re going, etc. And if you regularly go extremely fast on the trails, you should probably be riding on the road instead.”

I'll agree with that - except that a good road option may not always be available. I'm not sure if ticketing people is a good idea, I think it's better to try and Denver's other idea where possible

dedicated pedestrian trails to get joggers out of the way of bikers.

I think it's time to build a second pedestrian trail parallel to the Mt. Vernon Trail and separate the two. Much like here on the Orange Line Bikeway in LA (bikes ride in the middle).

Forest Service fee hits Creeper visitors

Effective Sept. 1, the Forest Service began charging businesses that transport people to the Virginia Creeper Trail 3 percent of gross revenue plus heavy insurance charges. The fee is being charged nationwide to commercial users of Forest Service land.

About half of the 34-mile Creeper Trail - which runs from Abingdon through Damascus and on to Whitetop Mountain - is on federal land. It is the main trail affected in Virginia, Sara Schell of the Forest Service said.

Most business owners are worried that raising prices to cover the fee could drive customers away.

"When we have to go up a dollar because the gas goes up, people don't like it," said Steve Mann, owner of The Bike Station Rental & Shuttle in Damascus.

The permit and insurance will cost his business an estimated $6,000-$10,000 a year, he said, adding $1-$2 to the price of a ride to the trail.

Most of the shuttle services now charge around $11 per person, and about double that if bike rental is included.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who represents Southwest Virginia, said he has asked the Forest Service to abandon the policy. If a member of the relevant congressional committee proposes legislation to eliminate the policy, he would support it, he said.

Rich Boucher, you'll recall, was wed earlier this year on the trail. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm usually OK with user fees on federal land if I think the fee make the federal lands better, and if you're already forking out $11 another $1 is not going to kill you. But wilderness organizations and the Sierra Club are against it because

The kind of Recreation now being promoted is very different. It is Industrialized, Commercialized, and heavily Motorized. It is NOT a panacea. It is not an environmentally acceptable alternative to logging. It is big business coming to our National Forests, promoting equipment-intensive play where nature is little more than a scenic backdrop and proving ground for the latest and priciest toy.