More Bike to Work Coverage

There are more stories I missed from last week. DCist ran a promotional post. The comments included this remark - that usually follows a bike story and not always this politely.

there is need to remind the occasional users who will be out en masse tomorrow that DC law prohibits bike riding on sidewalks in the Central Business District (generally considered to be the downtown area south of Mass Ave.), requires bike riders to ride in the streets in same direction as traffic, and to obey all traffic regulations (Speed limits, traffic lights, stop signs, etc.)

And lookey here.

Bicyclists are reminded not to bike on the sidewalk. In downtown D.C., it's illegal.

"If you're riding on the street, you are much more visible to motor vehicles. But when you're on the sidewalk and you come to an intersection, for example, people just don't expect you to be there. You're kind of like a fast pedestrian."

"You just have to remember your bike is a vehicle," says Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

"We (bicyclists) are subject to the same rights and responsibilities as people in motor vehicles. We hope people in motor vehicles will treat us with that kind of respect."

Eric also did a good job of tying drivers interests (reduced congestion) to those of cyclists.

“Every bike that you have on the road is really one car that you don’t have on the road,” said Gilliland

Charlie Strunk, Fairfax County’s bicycle program coordinator, said less than 1 percent of people in the county walk or bike to work on a given day. “We need to get it up over 1 percent,” he said. “It makes sense. The roads are getting crowded with traffic. Our peak hour has turned into a peak period, and it’s going to get longer as more cars are added to the network.”

Of 68 metropolitan regions in the country, the Washington area ranks third in traffic congestion and fourth “in the amount of extra time needed for a trip during rush hour,” according to WABA.

Cyclists don't slow traffic, they reduce it.

CommuterPage covered the Rosslyn event and mentioned that Bike the Sites will again loan bikes (at a discount) to those who want to do the A&A ride.

And here's still more from NPR.

"We've been adding bike lanes, we've been adding bike racks," [Tangherlini] said. As for a two-wheeled commute, he added: "You don't get quite the same feeling in a car.

In the end, fears such as being crushed under the wheels of a garbage truck proved unfounded. And whatever the reasons — exercise, cost, environmental friendliness — the small but dedicated number of folks who bike to work really feel they're on to something. And maybe they are.

And there's audio too. Maybe you'll hear someone you know.

Finally, there was a story in the Gazette that focused on College Park.

Several said traffic isn’t usually a problem, particularly because of the number of trails around the area. But two cyclists said cars almost hit them at the intersection of the Paint Branch Trail and the Paint Branch Parkway.

The area is problematic because of a blind curve and lack of a traffic light, said College Park resident Mark Shute, who bikes to work at the REI outdoor store daily.

‘‘I swear, the car almost sped up,” he said. ‘‘It’s a blind curve, so they can’t see you until they’re on top of you.”

By participating in Bike to Work Day, College Park officials are trying to make the city more bike-friendly, but still have work to do in that regard, said Jeremy Lambson, a REI bike technician who was helping tune bikes for free.

The city could be more proactive in installing bike lanes on roads that could be hazardous, Lambson said.

‘‘The city should be more proactive. It’s a college town, and there are a lot of student jobs in the area,” he said. ‘‘To preserve the way College Park looks, people should bike more.”

Comments

[Tim]

What can we do to remind motorists that bikes are allowed on the road in the Central Business District? My wife and I have had a couple instances in the last month.

A driver on Independence around 0900 on a Sunday morning pulled up on top of us at a stop light and yelled at us to "Get on the sidewalk where you belong"

A second, perhaps more outrageous, incident was the driver of a Greyline tour bus (full of tourists) opening up her door to yell at us to get off the road at Louisiana and Columbus Cir (Union Station).

My wife and I have commute from Alexndria into Anacostia about 3 days a week. It is pretty rare that we have an issue in VA, along the waterfront in DC or over in Anacostia. It seems every time we venture through the Central Business District we run into hostile motorists. Perhaps it is just bad luck.

[Contrarian]

I was very disappointed in WAMU's coverage. On their website (http://www.wamu.org/calendar/community_minute/may_is_national_bike_month.php) they had a bulletin that reminded people that cyclists have the legal rights of operators of vehicles.* However, when they read it on the air, they edited out that part, and just said that cyclists need to obey the law.

I got the same feeling I get when I see the signs along the C&O that say "No Alcoholic Beverages" -- but only in Spanish! I.e., What are you implying?

*(Actually, they said that "bicycles are vehicles with the same rights, rules, and responsibilities of other road users." It's the cyclists that have the rights, not their vehicles. But I'm not going to quibble semantics.)

[Contrarian]

"Cyclists don't slow traffic, they reduce it."

Yes! The reason that is an effective advocacy message is that it appeals to non-cyclists' self-interest. Traditionally, cycling advocacy has taken one of two tacks: either appealing to people's guilt ("share the road," "same road same rights") or telling cyclists how morally superior they are because they don't pollute and excercise. Taken together, it's not a compelling message for non-cyclists. Rather, cyclists come off as preachy, smug and whiny. (And incidentally, the ideal type to tag as hypocrites -- I mean, they're always running red lights and breaking traffic laws, right?)

Studies have shown that the reason public transit is popular is not because people envision using it themselves, but that they envision how much better easier driving will be if everyone else uses it.

And it's not just a slogan. There's a reason that local transportation officials are getting increasingly serious about encouraging cycling. It has become astonishingly expensive to add capacity to our transportation system, so demand reduction and reutilization of existing facilities are looking more and more appealing. For the most part, bicycles extend the capacity of existing roadways. Currently cyclists make up about 2% of all trips in DC. We could double that with neglible impact on traffic. Doing so would increase the capacity of the system by 2%, which would be like getting a mixing bowl project for nothing.

[iconoclasst]

I like the NPR bit, but did they really need to invoke the spectre of being crushed by a garbage truck to make a point? Nothing like that image—even when used as it was to shoot down the likelihood of such an event—firing a motorist up to eschew the car and pick up a bike, eh?

Still, plenty of good stuff there. BTW day seems to have been a pretty successful event this year.

[mike]

The College Park area is so far from being bike friendly the rational thing to do is give up on it...