TheWashCycle

Bike Items that Have Little to Nothing to Do With DC

A town in the UK is cracking down on bad driving.

I think you should let the rider decide.

A left-wing party in Amsterdam is proposing that gay men replace the miniskirted women who traditionally kiss the winner of the first leg of the Giro d'Italia, one of Europe's premier bicycle races, which begins May 8.

"I don't even think the race participants want to be kissed by men,"

More turn signal jackets.

Fourth-generation bike sharing allows travelers to use the same card for bike sharing that they use for transit.

79 year old PA woman gets probation and community service for the hit and run death of an 11 year old boy from Baltimore. He reportedly ran a stop sign. "She was coming home from church that evening and thought she struck a bicycle in the roadway." She came forward when she realized what had happened. I think this is the right punishment.

Eugene, OR gets a grant from the EPA to encourage transit use, cycling and walking. And a region in North Carolina gets another larger one for Reading, Riding and Retrofitting to make schools greener, which includes smarter transportation.

Speaking of hit and run, here's a case where the question is what actually counts as "running." Stopping, giving your name, inquiring about the person's condition and having them tell you they're OK before leaving is not running as it turns out.

At a hotel in Antigua, every room comes with a bike, unlike the Marriott in New York (official lodging site of NYC's five boro ride). The latter doesn't even allow you to keep your bike in your room and then charges you $20 a day to store it - I'm doing the five boro ride if that isn't clear. I've also learned that Amtrak won't let you bring your bike on the train - I mean not even in a box - unless it is the 10:00pm train. I'm learning, and sharing, so much for the blog which is why this trip is tax deductible.

ART Bridge Image

This is a new rendering of the approach for the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail Bridge. Sorry it's not a bigger image.

Saturday Morning Ride

DCist has more information on the Giro to DC story. Danillo Gallinari? Really?

Good news from Richmond, SB546 which protects railroads from nuisance lawsuits when recreational users cross railroad property at designated places, to access rivers, boat takeouts, or trails.

Passage of SB 546 is a big first step in creating rails-with-trails, and a significant barrier for recreational access has now been eliminated.

Montgomery County Planning Board staff recommend putting the CCT on the north side of the Purple Line in the Georgetown Branch Corridor, giving special attention to the Lynn Drive access path, connecting the CCT and Met Branch Trail at the transit center with as little interference with pedestrians as possible, and making the Green Trail at least 8 feet wide - with the trail plus buffer at least 13 feet wide.

A student group at George Mason, the Bike Village, is working "to make bikes, as an alternative form of transportation, more accessible to the George Mason Community through recycling old bikes."

Specifically, we will provide bikes to students for use during the school year as an alternative to automobiles. We are starting with 40 bikes with the possibility of expanding in the future. The idea is to charge $15 dollars per bike per semester, plus a $50 refundable deposit. We will also keep up to 10 bikes on-hand for daily rentals.

We will also have a small repair shop where members of the Mason community can use our tools to build their own bikes or repair a bike that they already have. Additionally, we hope to offer regular workshops to teach people the skills that they need to maintain their bikes.

As far as we know, the Bike Village will be the first such program in Virginia and we are very excited to be pioneers in this area. We're planning a big kick-off event in a few weeks so be on the lookout for that. Hopefully, we'll be able to set an example for schools across the commonwealth to follow our lead.

Richard Layman likes believes  that we need to really think about electric bikes as they increase the number of people who can now bike to work (and they do involve pedaling). But obviously they come with new challenges (Can they use the bike lane? bike trails? Can the bus racks hold them? Will they be allowed to hang out with other cyclists at lunch or will they have to sit at the segway rider's table?)

The jobs bill includes $932 million in transportation grant funding. That money may go to TIGER grants if the House version wins out - which would be a third bite at the apple for Metro-DC bike sharing super expansion, or it might go to two other grant programs that would automatically send 58% of the money to California, Louisiana, Washington and Illinois if the Senate version wins.

WABA Alert: Fairfax Budget Eliminates Bike Program!

Fairfax County is proposing to eliminate all funding for the bicycle program. At a time when other communities are investing in new bicycle infrastructure, Fairfax County is taking a step backwards. The Board of Supervisors recently voted to support development of a bicycle master plan, but without a funded bicycle program, that will not happen. The county executive stressed that these cuts will be permanent.

Braddock District Supervisor Cook recently said that "the bicycle is not a transportation device," and Springfield District Supervisor  Herrity recommended elimination of the Bicycle Coordinator position. Now is the time to speak out in support of bicycling as a basic part of the transportation infrastructure of Fairfax County. We urge Fairfax cyclists to contact the Board of Supervisors to demand that funding be restored to the bicycle program.

We urge all Fairfax cyclists to write the Board of Supervisors and request that funding be restored for this important county program.  Please visit WABA's Action Center for a draft letter to send to the Board. The Action Center can be found at  http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/451/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2411

Examiner's "Daily Outrage" Criticizes Bike Facilities Again

Boy they really hate bike funding. First they got all outraged about the DOE funding bike parking in Columbus, OH and now it's a bike trail that will connect New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

Who: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

What: Menendez and his fellow senator from New Jersey are touting a $2.3 million upgrade to bicycle paths that will connect New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

Why it's an outrage: The grant comes from $1.5 billion in transportation funds awarded as part of the federal stimulus. Unless the new economy means we're using rickshaws for shipping, it's unclear how bike paths will "stimulate" the economy.

First of all, why is Sen. Menendez being criticized. He didn't grant the money, DOT did. He's just glad about it. Sheesh. Talk about spitting in someone else's ice cream... Is it even a good idea to have a daily outrage? That can't be good for one's health.

Jeff Peel at Bike League responds.

    The paper fails to recognize bicycling as a legitimate form of transportation for starters, but also misses the point of the TIGER grants.
    The bicycle industry supports nearly 1.1 million jobs and generates an estimated $17.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. This includes the over 140 bike shops and major bike manufacturer in New Jersey. Bike facilities are great at stimulating the ever more competitive tourism dollars. For example, the Outer Banks area of North Carolina saw a 9 to 1 return on their investment in bike paths and widened shoulders. TIGER grants were also about sustainable, innovative designs that improve livability. Something that increases lanes on existing highways doesn’t do enough.

Giro d'Italia. No one knows for certain, I'll let the mystery be.

Though it is not a set thing, the Post called the announcement of a District start for the 2012 race "imminent".

Officials with the race held a gala on Thursday night at the Italian Embassy in Northwest Washington to introduce the race, and although they stopped short of making an official announcement, it was clear a deal is imminent

The 2012 race would begin on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the National Archives and close to the White House. Cyclists then would pass the FBI building, Freedom Plaza and the Ellipse before going behind the White House to the State Department, Virginia Avenue, the Watergate, Rock Creek park and then reversing course.

A featured backdrop to the race would be the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Two bronze sculptures there were cast by Leo Friedlander in Florence, Italy, in 1950 and presented to the United States by the people of Italy a year later.

The Examiner, meanwhile quotes Fenty

How close is the deal to being done? "We're on the cusp," said Fenty

[Laywer Mark] Sommers added that other U.S. cities competing to host the start of the Giro "have been whittled away."

DDOT's Action Agenda

The Action Agenda that DDOT released this week is the most positive new document to come out of DDOT since the Master Bike Plan. It includes initiatives that should help make streets safer for cyclists like (emphasis mine). It features five Core Values each with several polices. Under the Sustainable Living, the first Core Value is to "Make walking the mode of choice for trips of less than one mile and biking the mode of choice for trips of less than three miles." Implementing the recommendations of the Bicycle Master Plan and Pedestrian Master Plan are only part of the plan to get there. They also want to

• Transform the DC bike-share system into a substantive transit option with 100 stations and 1,000 bicycles.
• Set aside 5% of the capital budget each year as a core program for pedestrian and bicycle improvements.
• Quadruple the lane miles of separated cycle facilities.
• Formally adopt bike boxes for bicyclist safety at intersections into DC standards and implement them in at least 100 locations.
• Repurpose on-street parking spaces for bicycle parking in at least 25 locations.
• Add four more bike stations.
• Increase marketing and private sector promotion of non-motorized modes.
• Improve the District travel-demand model to capture non-motorized trips.
• Update and expand the Bicycle Master Plan for the next decade.
• Support non-vehicular travel and unique place-making in the public space.

Yes. That just happened. Turns out that the goal is to more than double bicycle mode share by 2012 from levels in 2009 (2.3% to 5%).*  And by 2012 they aspire to double bike lane mileage to 80 miles, have 0 bike fatalities and reduce crashes from 335 to 250.

But on-street facilities are only part of the solution. The fourth policy is to "encourage development projects that promote and support non-auto mobility"

• Partner with developers to ensure private sector implementation of transportation demand management (TDM) strategies.
• Require convenient, covered, and secure bicycle parking in new development; require building owners to allow bicycle access.
• Support zoning code updates that expand bicycle parking and amenity requirements and implement vehicle parking maximums where feasible.
• Meet the challenges of a 21st century urban DOT by incorporating a new administration—the Progressive Transportation Services Administration—that will focus on non-auto mobility.

In the 6th Policy they suggest moving toward fourth generation bike sharing - one card gets you on Metro, bike sharing, car sharing and pays for parking meters. [Factoid: DDOT’s bike-sharing program has 1,200 members who use the system for an average of 90 trips per day. The average rental time is 27 minutes.] In the Firm Foundation section they mention regional bike sharing.

But wait, there's more. Many other policies would make the roads safer or more fun for cyclists, like (emphasis mine)

    -- Train bus and taxi drivers on pedestrian and bicycle laws and safety.
    -- Pursue legislation requiring that new drivers receive bicycle and pedestrian education before obtaining a driver's license.
    -- Develop and expand the annual Feet in the Street event, whereby the city closes select streets to vehicle traffic and allows full bicycle, pedestrian, and retail use.
    -- Expand the enforcement powers of traffic control officers and school crossing guards.
    -- Consider lowering speed limits on local roads.
    -- Reduce speeding on local and collector streets. Ensure appropriate traffic speeds on all roads. Pilot lowering speeds below 25 mph on select local streets.
    -- Implement traffic calming studies citywide.
    -- Continue and build upon regional campaigns such as Smooth Operator, the annual effort to curb aggressive driving.
    -- Improve safety at the top 50 high-crash intersections.
    -- Expand mobile photo enforcement to work zones.

If they pull half of this off, it'll start to look a lot like Portland around here. Very exciting stuff. It's like our DMV has grown up into a real Transportation Department.

*Who's a transportation blog now DCMud?

DDOT's 2009 Annual Report

Here's what the annual report has about biking in DC. 

About two percent of District workers bike to work, and there were 257 crashes involving bicyclists in 2008 and one fatality – up slightly from the previous two years.

Initiatives

There are 64 miles of signed bike routes in the District, 44.7 miles of designated bike lanes, and 55 miles of bicycle trails. More than 1,200 bike racks have been installed since 2002.

Bicycle and Pedestrian Crashes Reduced

On average, 265 bicycle and 600 pedestrian crashes are reported to the Metropolitan Police Department each year in DC. While DDOT is pleased to report annual decreases in crashes, the District government recognizes the importance of a continued commitment to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety. DDOT is also committed to increase the amount of bicycling and walking in the city, and has completed several different initiatives to improve safety and bike and pedestrian accessability[sic].

Bicycle and pedestrian fatalities and injuries continue to decrease, according to Metropolitan Police reports.

Bicycle Master Plan Work Completed

Using the Bicycle Master Plan, DDOT has continued to work towards providing safe and convenient bicycle access throughout the city through the creation of a network of interconnected trails. These include the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, the Marvin Gaye Park Trail, the Metropolitan Branch Trail, the Recreational Trails Program, and the Garfield Park - Canal Park Connection. DDOT anticipates that the completion of these trails, along with other bicycle initiatives, will continue to encourage an increase in biking in the District of Columbia. The goal? The District of Columbia will be a world-class bicycling city that offers a safe and convenient network of bikeways for all types of trips

Bike Station at Union Station Opened

A bike transit facility at the west end of Union Station is the first of its kind on the East Coast. The new facility offers bicycle parking, rentals, repairs and accessories and holds approximately 133 bikes of all types. It boasts a hybrid natural and mechanical venting system to minimize power use. The design also allows for rainwater runoff to be used for irrigation. A portion of the runoff from both the bike station as well as the plaza will be channeled to nearby planters for use as irrigation and to take advantage of the bio-retentive qualities of the planting beds. The project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and DDOT. It’s one of many DDOT projects to promote sustainable transportation within the District.

176 new bike racks were installed in 2009.

Car Sharing and Bike Sharing Encouraged

...Also available are SmartBikes, a self-service, point-to-point bike program available at stations throughout the District. DDOT works to support Washington, DC as a cyclist-friendly city for visitors and commuters

Metropolitan Branch Trail (MBT) Continued

The MBT will run from Silver Spring to Union Station, connecting the Capital Crescent Trail, the Anacostia Tributaries Trail System, and the National Mall. It will be part of the East Coast Greenway. The recreation and transportation route will provide direct access to seven of Metro’s Red Line stations.
MBT is named after the “Metropolitan Branch,” the first rail line built through the corridor by the B&O Railroad. The corridor is now home to Amtrak and Metro as well as freight lines. It is anchored by two significant railroad landmarks, Union Station and the old B&O Railroad station in Silver Spring. Since trail planning began in the 1990s, three segments are currently in place; New York Avenue to Union Station, 1st Street NE, and John McCormack Road.

As well as information about Safe Routes to School, Street Smarts, Feet in the Street and the Inauguration bike valet.

Being for bikes and transit is not necessarily anti-car

When I read this article last night, I read it online where the title is "Transportation chief says bikes, buses are way to go in D.C." which I thought was great and not particularly inflammatory. But the paper version has the title "An anti-car transportation czar?" with the thing about being pro bikes, buses (and trains and walking) below that. Anyway, the Get There blog followed it up with the question "Is DC anti-car?"  Commenters on both the article and the blog seem to think so, but then there's a heavy dose of crazy there.

Dr. G adds some sanity to it by stating

I've never met a transportation chief who was anti-car, and I've met Gabe Klein. Wanting city residents to have more choices for getting around, wanting to reduce the number of solo drivers and wanting to make the streets safer isn't anti-car. If the District's approach to the snow cleanup was anti-car than so was that of the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Maryland State Highway Administration, because they were all basically the same.

He then talks about some meeting that bloggers were invited to on Wednesday to talk about the Action Agenda and poke around on the website. And so do DCist and DCMud. [Dr. Gridlock and DCist I can understand, but DCMud got invited and I didn't? They write a real estate blog... It looks like some Stuart Smalley time for me tonight.] DCMud adds this

By 2012 DDOT aims to more than double the bicycle road share

Double from when? From 2010? [What terrible reporting. They should've invited someone else.]

DCist writes mostly about the website(s) adding the link to the Beta testing DTAP, which is now reachable from the Projects and Planning section.  DTAP is freaking sweet! No more getting misreported status information from this blog, you can now go right in and see all the work that a project includes, what's finished, what isn't, what's behind schedule etc... Here's the link for the Met Branch Trail for example - where you can see that there are a few items overdue, but mostly it's on track for a May 1 completion. What will I pester Jim Sebastian about in BAC meetings now? [Don't worry there is still the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, Marvin Gaye Trail and other items not in DTAP yet.] They also had a link to the 2009 Annual Report.

I'll go into the Report and Agenda more in my next post, but if you read them you'll realize that DDOT is not anti-car unless you define anti-car as anything that doesn't commit 99% of funding, planning, time and energy to cars.  This is the point Dr. Gridlock makes as well.

BikesPAC Reception and Fundraiser to Honor Del. Norton

Meet Cycling’s Congressional Champions

Please join us during the National Bike Summit for a special event to honor members of Congress who support bicycling’s national agenda.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Reception 5:30–7:30 p.m.
The Monocle Restaurant On Capitol Hill, Senate Side
107 D Street NE
Washington, D.C. 20002

202/546-4488

RSVP to Bruno Maier at bruno@bikesbelong.org by 5:00 p.m. MDT on March 8.

BikesPAC is the bicycle industry’s bipartisan political action committee, administered by Bikes Belong Coalition. Contributions are accepted from individuals who work for Bikes Belong member companies. Suggested amount: $100–$5,000. Donations are voluntary and are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. Other amounts may be given without benefit or disadvantage. Contributions of $200 or more require a completed contribution form. Contributions from corporations and associations cannot be accepted and will be returned.

Honorees are

U.S. Representatives
Tom Petri (R - Wisconsin)
Charles Dent (R - Pennsylvania)
Frank LoBiondo (Democrat - New Jersey)
Eleanor Holmes Norton - (Democrat - District of Columbia)

Peter DeFazio- (Democrat - Oregon)

U.S. Senators
Chuck Grassley (Republican - Iowa)

Scott Brown (Republican - Massachusetts)

Barbara Boxer (Democrat -California)

Thomas Carper (Democrat - Delaware)