Monday Morning Commute - I liked Agenda 18 better

Good morning

• More details on the change in ownership at Proteus Bikes. 
• Salon's Will Doig responds to Reason's video on Capital Bikeshare. He gets quite a few facts wrong, but some of his points are solid. At the end though, he doesn't ask the right questions. Of course, having Owen Wilson riding CaBi is not helping with the demographics. 
• DDOT's press release about the Anacostia Trail TIGER grant and a GGW post about it. And more bike-related TIGER winners. Also, there's a FOX5 report below the bump that starts out covering the TIGER grant and then moves on to the 11th Street bridge project. I hope that David Patterson unbuckled his helmet for the interview, otherwise he's wasting his time with it. 
• Do dress codes hamper bike commuting? Probably.  I'm reminded of this quote from Bike Snob NYC "the entire notion that we have to build a transportation infrastructure around allowing people to show up to work clean in suits, why? Who cares?"
• The Lake Frank Trail is almost finished. 
• "Bicycles and pedestrian traffic as an alternative form of transportation to the automobile. That’s Agenda 21."
• The Americans are longshots to win the TdF this year

Comments

[5555624]

I think dress codes provide an excuse not to commute by bike, not that they "hamper" bike commuting. Although we don't have a dress code and many people wear business casual, I find a shirt and tie to be easier -- the shirts go to the cleaners up the street and never go home. (As noted in a comment a few weeks ago, all too often, I sweat way too much not to shower once I get to work.)

[Kolohe]

And of course, the reason why dress codes are a concern for bike commuting is that bike commuters are predominately white collar workers.

[darren]

@Kolohe - true in DC. But nationally, the bike as primary mode of commute to work has slightly higher modeshare among lower than higher income brackets [by my best monday-morning recollection at least]

[Tara]

I've seen several different Fogo de Chao employees commuting by bike downtown in full gaucho uniform.

The issue of work clothing and bike clothing is also driven by the distances of one's commute. If your commute is 1-2 miles, you can probably wear your every day clothes (I've certainly seen men in suits on CaBis). If your commute is >10 miles, like mine, it doesn't matter what I could wear at work, because whatever I do wear to bike would be unacceptably disgusting for even the most casual work environments.

A bigger barrier I think would be clean and available shower/locker room facilities.

[antibozo]

Update on CycleMoCo indicates Lake Frank Connector now finished. Note this is just the connector trail. I will have to check it out soon.

[Jonathan Krall]

For those of us who speak at public meetings, the Agenda 21 article is worth a read, along with the comments. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I figure I will eventually get a question about it.

The Agenda 21 conspiracy theory seems to be a reaction to policies that place limits on capitalism in order to protect the environment (among other goals). Zoning restrictions on building density are an example. Bike lanes, OTOH, do not seem to be a threat to capitalism, except among the cars=capitalism, bicycles=socialism crowd.

Apparently, some Agenda-21 theorists think that the purpose of public "visioning" meetings is to gather people together and use a mind control device on them (no I'm not making this up). Hopefully such people will have the good sense to stay away from public meetings.