Wednesday Afternoon Commute - Esplanade

Good afternoon

• Cities with mandatory bike helmet laws are trying to figure out how to do bike-sharing. Some cities have just removed the law. A Canadian company is looking at setting up a helmet sharing system with bike sharing to address their needs. A question worth asking is this "Is it needed." In 1 million trips+ in DC there's been very few crashes, only one of which is serious and it was a neck injury as I heard it. So if you put a helmet on all those riders who went without, it's likely you would have improved safety by something close to zero. Of course, we may just not have enough data yet. 
• I don't think I mentioned this, but Long Bridge Park had a ribbon cutting earlier this month. This is just for Phase I, but some day this could be a busy bike route if it connects to the MVT. 

Comments

[MB]

There's an organization - Friends of Long Bridge Park - that is dedicated to making sure that Arlington County will "Complete & Connect" the park. The Complete part refers to an aquatics center, and the Connect part refers to following the line of the Esplanade east for a connection *over* GW Parkway to the MVT.

I'm involved with them, and invite others to check out http://longbridgepark.org/ for more information.

[Jonathan Krall]

Interesting about the neck injury. According to a paper in Accident Analysis and Prevention (Elvik, 2011), helmets tend to reduce head injuries but increase neck injuries (the overall effect was found to be a slight reduction in injuries). The problem is that a modern, relatively-soft helmet can grip the road and twist the head, injuring the neck.

[Walsh44]

While waiting for that over-the-Parkway bridge, how about extending the path from the VA-side Humpback Bridge tunnel the reset of the way around Boundary Channel to Boundary Channel Drive?

[washcycle]

Walsh44: "That would be great" says everyone in the world except the Pentagon.

[Susan Meehan]

I cringe when I see so many people who ride without helmets. Why? I had a friend whose bad bike accident when he was riding without a helmet gave him TWELVE YEARS with AMNESIA.It was pitiful, believe me. Even if only a few cases like that were reported, you wouldn't want to be one of them, I'm sure. Give your head a chance, and always ALWAYS wear a helmet.