Friday Morning Commute - U-turn, Me-turn, we all turn for ice cream or something

Good morning

• One person stood on Penn Ave during rush hour and observed 25 cars make illegal U-turns across the cycletrack in 30 minutes. In response MPD put up those earlier mentioned "No U-Turn" signs and reportedly wrote some tickets. 
• There was a forum on bicycling this week that featured Martha Roskowski of Bikes Belong, Jim Sebastian of DDOT and Ellen Jones of the Downtown BID, which is probably why you're seeing so many stories like this one. 
• "What is the best way to bike in the Georgia Avenue corridor from the Matthew Henson Trail crossing to Forest Glen Road?  As with the proposed Rt. 29 corridor route, Montgomery County DOT is planning to post bike route signs along the best Georgia Avenue corridor route and is asking the cycling community for input."
• WABA and MoBike make recommendation to Montgomery County about which facilities are needed to make bike sharing a success. 
• "Cycling teams are calling for an independent audit into the sport's fight against doping after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles."
• Wired on bike sharing and Capital Bikeshare.

Comments

[T]

GA Avenue answer--improve the other nearby trails. I wouldn't bother with all those turns and would simply ride down to Sligo and down from there or depending on how far south I am on GA, ride down 410/EW Hwy to RCP.

[SBG]

Georgia Ave. is the main North - South transit route and is one of the busiest in the entire state. Layhill Road does provide an on-road bike lane which intersects the Henson trail. As far as I can tell its the only one in this part of the county. Cyclists need side street alternatives here as there is no good direct route through Wheaton Regional Park to access the Sligo trail. (I cut through Brookside Gardens but its awkward) Good to see MoCo is at least now interested in providing side street bike routes as it is impossible to ride on GA Ave.

[Crikey7]

3 Metro stations are on Georgia Ave. It's high time the County realized people might actaully use it to get to and from those stations.

[Crikey7]

By bike.

[Jack Cochrane]

They will extend the Sligo Creek Trail northward through NW Branch Park (or near the park on the west side) to Bonifant Rd where it will intersect what will be a new sidepath along Bonifant (the de facto ICC trail). We need to make sure the Sligo Creek Trail makes a good connection to this trail.

[Jack Cochrane]

I think that the Ga. Ave. signed route will start at the Matthew Henson Trail as identifed on CycleMoco (maybe a fork to the MH Trail at Conn. and to GA respectively), and cross Randolph Rd at Livingston which has a crosswalk and no signal. That avoids the mess at the Ga/Randolph intersection (some signs will point to the Metro). The route will then cross GA via Blueridge, follow Amherst south to Plyers Mill, then zig zag southeast to Dennis Ave (via Inwood). Dennis hits the Sligo Creek Trail and then you can head south to Silver Spring. Trying to follow closer to GA is difficult and doesn't take you anywhere special. You can always cross back to the west side of GA at any time -- Plyers Mill and Dennis might have signs pointing from Amherst west to do that. But the main route will be Amherst to Plyers Mill with zig zag to Dennis to the Sligo Creek Trail.

[Crickey7]

I forgot Glenmont. Georgia Ave. has 4 Metro stations. That might hold the record for the entire system.

[Nancy]

@Crikey, MD Rt 355/Wisconsin has more than Georgia: Shady Grove, Rocvkille, Twinbrook, White Flint, Grosvenor, Medical Center, Bethesda, Friendship Heights and Tenley Town. There is no good direct bike route that goes all the way down 355/Wisconsin, and even going short distances requires some very inelegant workarounds.

[Crikey7]

I just had a mental picture of trying to bike along 355 south of Grosvenor. Shudder.