Why drag us into this

Listen sluggers, we've got nothing against you, so please don't pull us into this.

Apparently, D.C. Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein has been too busy establishing bike lanes to understand the slug line concept. Encouraging the use of bikes is a good idea, but one bike takes one car off the street, while discouraging convenient pickup points for slug riders makes traffic congestion worse. It’s simple math: One slug pickup puts a minimum of two extra riders in the same car, which means two fewer vehicles on the streets.

But now that you bring it up, the original sluggers were people waiting at the bus stop. It's possible that slugs don't reduce car use, but reduce transit use - though it's likely it reduces both.

Comments

[Kevin]

Slug lines are a suburban thing anyway as far as I know. Why would the DC DOT head be focused on increasing slugging for people who don't live in DC. At least with bike lanes the department is benefiting primarily people who actually live in DC and pay for the services... Am I way off base with this?

Not trying to put down slug lines, I think they're great; I'm just saying that's not really Gabe's responsibility.

[Tom]

Kevin you are kinda off base. Slugging makes it easier to commute into Washington DC. DC office space is in competition to some degree with office space in the suburbs. If the metro is packed to the gills and all roads into the city are clogged with traffic, companies may decide to relocate to the suburbs. Thus, depressing demand and likely putting a damper on rents for downtown office space.

If all the companies that are currently in downtown are required to stay for some reason, and there is a redskin-like waiting list for new office space, you are not off base. Then it would be perfectly appropriate to make slugging a pain.

From a political perspective, slugs don't vote in DC, but their landlords make campaign contributions and pay taxes.

[Tom]

"It's possible that slugs don't reduce car use, but reduce transit use - though it's likely it reduces both."

The same could be said for cycling. In my case it's the latter.

[Jim Titus]

This problem seems to have been created by MPD's decision to ticket scofflaw carpoolers from Virginia to increase the traffic flow for other people driving soutbound on US-1 into Virginia.

[nookie]

Tom is completely correct.

Fact is 300K people a day, half the Districts entire population commute in from VA and MD everyday to their jobs downtown. We already lose out to those jurisdictions any time a new company comes to town, and DC's dept of econ development spends all their time stemming the loss of existing companies leaving dc. Making commuting more difficult just gives companies a greater reason to abandon the already higher lease rates and go to the burbs.

Lastly, the requirement to slug is 3 people per car, a far more efficient way to transport people than bikes. So yes...perhaps it would be a good idea to set aside a sliver of the tens of millions Gabe is spending on the people who make up ~2% of the daily trips in DC, to the people who make up far more.

[Contrarian]

Lastly, the requirement to slug is 3 people per car, a far more efficient way to transport people than bikes.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "efficient." Even at three to a car you can move a lot more people on the same amount of pavement using bikes than you can with cars.

[Blue-eyed Devil]

So help me out here, I'm a little thick and apparently the coffee ain't kickin' in yet...is the issue that bike lanes somehow interfere with establishment of slug areas or that DC should focus resources more on slugging than on biking infrastructure?

I mean, the linked article says of Klein, "He's promoting car sharing...", which I assume means slugging. So, what's wrong with doing both?

[nookie]

"Even at three to a car you can move a lot more people on the same amount of pavement using bikes than you can with cars"

From Fairfax and Prince William Counties?

[Jim Titus]

Perhaps there is a way to promote bicycle slugging.

[Fred]

Parts of Fairfax county are reasonable for bike commuting. Also some people bike commute one way and take transit the other way.

[R]

As someone who has both driven and biked 14th street in the AM and contended with sudden erratic stops by slugging cars I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face. Random stopping by any vehicle on major arterial roads shouldn't be permitted as a matter of course. Now if on a tertiary road someone wants to put a slug line adjacent to a bike lane, I've got no problem riding around it. We already do likewise for buses, taxis and delivery vehicles. It's not a big deal on a calmer side street, such as the Crystal Drive/12th St slug lines in Crystal City.

[SJE]

I agree with Washcycle: don't put the bikes into this mess. Random stopping by drivers on a busy road is dangerous to all road users. Perhaps the city should establish slug zones. e.g. convert some of the places currently taken by tour buses on the mall to slugging stops during weekday rush hours.