Monday Morning Commute - DMV

Good morning

• Pennsylvania Avenue will be resurfaced in advance of the inauguration, and this will include the cycletracks. The cycletracks will be restriped and improved "including additional space to accommodate turning/waiting bicyclists at the intersections with 15th St. NW and 4th St. NW." There will also be new bases installed for the plastic safe-hit posts. But they won't be going back to the original design - the one that was hurriedly taken out to save Mayor Fenty's re-election - in case you (like me) held out hope that would happen. And so far there is no word on using colored pavement or barriers that will prevent "illegal" U-turns across the cycletracks. 
  • WABA adds "For those who rely on the Pennsylvania Avenue cycletrack, you will still be able to travel on the unmarked street. While light timing will not be changed during the project, we cannot recommend continuing to ride in the center of the roadway during construction, so we encourage cyclists who wish to use Pennsylvania Avenue to ride in the right lane as you would any other road without a center cycletrack. For those who prefer a route with bicycle facilities, your best alternatives are the bike lanes on E St. NW & G St. NW. Other alternatives with little traffic might be Madison Dr. NW & Jefferson Dr. SW along the Mall."
• About those illegal u-turns. The DMV doesn't think they're illegal even though there are signs that instruct drivers not to do U-turns. "the DMV adjudicator has interpreted the laws in a way that does not prohibit mid-block U-turns across the cycletrack.  Thus, MPD is reluctant to ticket motorists when the agency adjudicating the tickets has deemed such a ticket invalid....[DMV] seemingly shares a concern for the safety of cyclists and would support a change in the law to make the mid-block U-turns legal." WABA is pursuing two solutions to this, getting DMV to interpret the law the same way MPD and DDOT do, or explicity changing the law. 
• On L Street, the cycletracks now have flex-posts at the entrances. And here's DDOT's informational flyer on how to use it. 
• John Diehl, the former DC police officer who is accused of intentionally hitting a cyclist and then leaving the scene (an event caught on video), went to court last week. He changed lawyers and rejected the plea deal. He's accussed of four charges: Assault with significant bodily injury, Hit and run with personal injury, Hit and run with property damage and destruction of personal property. The case will now continue into at least February. 

Comments

[Greenbelt]

I rode a section of the L Street cycletrack this morning -- conditions much improved in my opinion with the flex posts at the intersection entrances. Might be tough for pedicabs or large bike trailers to squeeze through, but they seemed to be very effective at keeping the cars out.

[brooks]

Someone's going to get killed in the new L street lane. i doubt we can rely on drivers to either 1 single or 2 yield to bikes. my big worry is someone is going to miss the opening and try to turn left from the furthest left straight lane.

[washcycle]

I don't know. I heard the same thing about Penn Ave and 15th Street and so far it hasn't happened. {though there have been a fair number of crashes in the Penn Ave bike lanes}

[brooks]

yeah, but that's a design that's not based on having cars merge into the ACTUAL BIKE LANE. i rode L st the other morning and it felt very dangerous. It's also pretty slow, since it crosses a lot of main streets.

[washcycle]

No, instead it has cars turning left across the bike lanes where bike traffic goes straight and emerges from behind parked cars.

So, they're different in design. But the "OMG, people are going to die" predictions were the same. This same design has been used effectively elsewhere, if I'm correct.