TheWashCycle

Monday Morning Commute - Who are you, and what have you done with John Townsend?

Good morning

• Congratulations to WABA award winners.
• A CaBi station at 28th and Meade in Arlington was damaged. 
• Contact the Montgomery County Council to support the Metropolitan Branch Trail. 
• An 83 year old woman went missing on the MVT. 
• On the M Street Cycletrack
  • On why the M Street and L Street projects were decoupled: "These projects have lots of pieces. We have limited staff working on them. That's really all we can handle -- one at a time," said Mike Goodno, who oversees bike lanes for the D.C. Department of Transportation.
  • And then check out this refreshingly reasonable response from AAA's John Townsend, maybe he truly is giving up the "war" rhetoric of the past. "'We think the [cycling] trend is here to stay. ... Motorists have to become more sensitized to the presence of cyclists," Townsend said, adding that he would like to see D.C. invest more in roads. "We're not adding any more capacity for automobiles, and that is a great concern for many motorists."'
• A problem unique to L.A.: It has a bright green bike lane is on a street film crews like to film on. "the bright green of the bike lane is costly to erase if you're filming, say, a scene that takes place in the 1940s and you don't want a bright green bike lane running down the middle of your shot. It can't be lifted out of film by the usual post-production technique known as chroma keying, and it is more expensive to remove than other greens. And it's not just the street that needs to be color-corrected. Under the bright lights used for filming, the green bounces off the street and tints everything it touches, including actors' faces" But filming companies are being pretty reasonable, they want it painted another color. "There may not be 50 shades of green that will work for both bicyclists and moviemakers. But surely there is one."
• A natural combination? The Portland Art Museum is teaming up with the World Naked Bike Ride. "For the museum, its new exhibit "Cyclepedia" is opening -- a collection of 36 weird and wonderful bikes highlighting innovative design through the decades....And so it is on June 8, cyclists in various stages of undress will meet at the museum. They'll get a special deal to see "Cyclepedia" from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., when the ride begins: The price of admission to the show is $1 per item of clothing. That means no clothes -- no charge." The Portland Art Museum is featured in this not-particularly-funny sketch from Portlandia.

Tuesday Morning Commute - SOTU

Good morning

• DC Bike ambassadors to hit the L Street cycletrack today. 
• Look, it's the Penn Ave cycle-track bollards. 
• Montgomery County DOT has finished mapping the “Montgomery Mall to Downtown Bethesda route”
• Who would have thunk that Reston would have bicycle delivery service before DC or Arlington. [Though to be fair, a pizza guy in my neighborhood delivers by bike. I call him the ninja delivery man because he dresses all in black and rides without lights. I say a prayer to the Madonna del Ghisallo for him every time he rides by.]
• Sign a petition asking President Obama to participate in the Ride of Silence. He'd probably ride in DC's/ 

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.

Maryland announces 28 Bikeways Program Grants winners

From the press release

As part of the O’Malley Administration’s Cycle Maryland Initiative, Governor Martin O’Malley today announces 28 winners of the Bikeways Program Grants.  The Maryland Bikeways Program, administered by the Maryland Department of Transportation, was established in November 2011 as a program to support planning, design and construction of projects that create and improve bicycle connections in Maryland to key destinations, like work, school and shopping.

Local projects getting funding include

• The 0.4 mile connection of Anacostia Tributary Trail to the Washington D.C. River Trail ($1,000,000 Bikeways funding in 2012, $500,000 Bikeways funding in 2013)  
• Feasibility assessment and preliminary design of WB&A Trail bridge over Patuxent River ($560,000)
• Three Notch Trail Phase VI construction,  through Mechanicsville ($470,000 Bikeways funding)
• Clopper Road sidepath closing gaps in Germantown ($100,000)
• Sidepath to close gap on River Road. Grant funding contingent on ROW acquisition by Montgomery County ($100,000)
• Woodglen Road bike lanes and sidepath in White Flint ($100,000)
• College Park Shared Lane markings near metro station and University ($58,000)
• Anacostia Tributary Trail wayfinding system design ($50,000)
• Path connection between Indian Head Rail Trail and town green and local businesses ($40,000)
• BWI trail signing and wayfinding enhancements ($30,000)
• Bike route connecting C&O trail, Brunswick MARC station through the town ($25,000)
• Signing bike routes connecting schools, shopping in Takoma Park. ($5,000)
• Lafayette Ave bike route to Laurel MARC ($4,000)

Friday Afternoon Commute - "I was a Bikeshare member, and it encouraged me to get a bike."

Good afternoon

• Must Read: "Bike store owners say bike sharing is actually helping their businesses by fueling an explosion in bicycling enthusiasm. Moreover, bike shops say they are witnessing a culture change in their neighborhoods as more people leave their cars at home and hop on two-wheelers." and "a 2008 report in Bike Europe, a website for bike professionals, cited a 39 percent growth in sales of city bikes possibly attributed to the huge popularity of the Vélib system."
• Apartment building owners are looking to attract customers who are looking for bike-friendly accommodations. This includes locations near trails, access to CaBi or other bike rentals and storage or bike-repair rooms. 
• The BAC has some suggestions for improving Ward 4 and the Georgia Avenue corridor. 
• The ICC Trail isn't particularly good, perhaps we can make it better. 
• “At least it’s not as bad as our Republican colleagues wanted,” complained Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Democrat, who has championed bike and pedestrian programs. “But make no mistake, it is not a bill to be proud of.”  Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation thinks cutting bike funding is fantastic. Mark Blacknell tries to discuss this at Patch only to have the comments overrun by Streetcar opponents. 
• A rundown of Tour de France favorites, and of the way in changes how male cyclists view the Olympics. Mark Cavendish, for example, is focusing more on the Games in his home country than on the Tour. Meanwhile, news continues to trickle out about the accusations against Lance Armstrong. 

Monday Afternoon Commute - instinctively Neanderthal reaction

Good afternoon

• In 1903, a bicycle race track called the Coliseum, opened on A Street NE, between 14^th and 15^th Streets. "The name was a bit of a misnomer, as it consisted of two short sets of stands at right angles at one corner of an oval course of 1000 ft. Nonetheless, it was considered one of the finest tracks in the country.....The crowd that evening was treated to [Elkes] traveling around the 1/5 mile track 5 times in 1 minute and 39 seconds, indicating a speed of 36 mph – this at a time when the top speed for a production automobile was something like 20 mph...Elkes would die almost exactly 2 years after his debut at the Coliseum when his tire burst during a race in Cambridge, MA."
• "If the purpose of bollards is to deter motor vehicles from accessing pedestrian and bicycle facilities, they should only be located at points where trails and streets intersect. This makes particular sense at points where a driver may mistake a trail for a street. There aren’t too many of these situations in Arlington, but the W&OD near Bluemont Park is no stranger to SUVs driving to the picnic pavilion. And I can imagine how bored teenagers might find it fun to try to drive up the access bridge from the Roosevelt Island parking lot. So yes, bollards do have their place."
• How Montgomery County should sign bike routes. 
• Once, when we were going to an art opening of an acquaintance of mine, my friends and I planned ridiculously over-the-top comments we could make about the art to complete strangers. One that sort of struck a chord and been repeated often was, "This work is all the more terrifying for its repulsive brilliance." It is praise I would bestow on this letter. 
• "Bicycle advocates in Washington are worried that the path to a possible deal in Congress on a transportation spending bill this week will involve throwing them under the bus."
• The US Census Bureau's "Profile America" feature (who knew?) focuses on the development of tires, inlcuding the invention of balloon tires by a Scottish veterinarian in 1884.

Maryland BPAC meeting minutes Feb and April 2012

Items of local note from the February and April minutes

• Dennis Callahan, former mayor of Annapolis and opponent of the W&BA trail alignment
  proposal through the Myers property in Anne Arundel County, had passed away.
• The Committee voted in support of a motion for the Chair to send a letter to the Secretary
  of Transportation noting MBPAC’s support for the concept of rails with trails
• The name of the rail to trail proposal in south Washington County has been changed from the Roxbury-Weverton Trail to the Civil War Railroad Trail to note that it passes nearby the sites of much Civil War activity, including the Antietam National Battlefield. This 24 mile proposed trail alignment extends in a northwesterly-southeasterly alignment from the C&O Canal at Weverton to Hagerstown’s City Park. Sixteen miles of the proposal trail is owned by the Department of Natural Resources. The upper five miles would be a rail-with-trail proposal. CSX railroad opposes this concept and this trail proposal will be added to a MBPAC resolution expressing support of both rail-to-trail and rail-with-trail concepts. Support for the proposed trail from the Town of Keedysville and the Save Historic Antietam Foundation citizens group. There is much more support in southern Washington County for the proposed trail now than there was when the trail was proposed twenty years ago.
• Greg Hinchliffe met with Andy Harris, Mid-Atlantic Coordinator of the East Coast Greenway and Michael Jackson to discuss ECG’s request to sign Maryland’s portion of the ECG.
• Jim Titus discussed his concerns with differing guidelines between the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation and the State Highway Administration regarding the width of bike lanes on Virginia Manor Road.
• A motion was introduced a that MDOT increase the funding eligibility for bikeway projects from a distance of one half mile to two miles from a rail transit station if the bikeway provides a connection to that station. Scott Hansen seconded and the motion was approved with three abstentions.
• Michael Jackson with MDOT mentioned that he had been asked to provide testimony on SB 977/HB 1278 which would require public institutions of higher education to include bicycle and pedestrian transportation planning in their facility master plans at the House Appropriations Committee and that Dr. Maria Prince from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also provided supportive testimony
• A motion was approved requesting that MDOT provide a family-friendly trail spur between the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport Terminal and the BWI Trail. Michael Jackson noted such improvements are contemplated in the BWI Trail Improvements Conceptual Plan currently being finalized.

DDOT installs over 750 signs, creating 5 new bike routes

I've seen many several new bike route signs around DC lately. Instead of just reading "Bike Route" they tell one where the route goes and how far away it is, which makes so much more sense. On I-95 they don't just have signs that read "Interstate" after all.

Photo by DDOTDC

Well, these weren't just isolated improvements, but part of a larger effort.

DDOT has installed new signage to mark five bike routes on the east side of the District. The five routes total over twenty miles in length and provide on-street linkages between the Metropolitan Branch Trail, the Marvin Gaye Trail, the Oxon Run Trail, the Anacostia River Trail System and the Anacostia Tributaries Trail System in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The routes use a newly designed Bike Route sign and provide distance information to key destinations. Over the past few weeks, contractors have installed more than 750 sign plates at 255 locations to mark the new routes.

The new routes are

• Pennsylvania Avenue cycletrack to Nationals Park and Historic Anacostia
• Marvin Gaye Trail to Metropolitan Branch Trail
• The Heights Bike Route, from the Marvin Gaye Trail to the Oxon Run Trail
• The Heights Bike Route to the East Bank Anacostia River Trail and Anacostia Park at Nicholson Street
• An on-street connection between the MBT in Brookland and the Northwest Branch Trail near Mt. Rainier, Maryland (which is also part of the East Coast Greenway)

Which is great news, especially when combined with the recent flurry of bike lane installation catch up.

Wednesday Noon Ride - Employment

Happy lunchtime

• WABA is hiring a program manager for their East of the Anacostia 2012 Bicycle Outreach initiative.
• And The Daily Rider, the new bike shop on H Street NE, is hiring too.
• Maryland has announced the 2012 winners of the state's inaugural Bikeways Grants. Some of the nearby projects include
  • The largest award of $1 million was announced by Governor O’Malley in November for the missing trail link connecting Maryland’s Anacostia Tributary Trail to Washington, D.C.’s Riverwalk Trail.  The current plan is to break ground in 2012 on this final missing link.
  • the signed, on-road bike route connecting Bowie Town Center and local parks in Prince George’s County;
  • the signed bike route connecting Montgomery Mall and Naval Medical Center and Bethesda Metro stations to support new BRAC jobs in Montgomery County
  • the signed on-road bike route and striping from Columbia to Fort Meade to support new BRAC jobs in Howard and Anne Arundel counties;
  • the design of the north extension of the BWI Trail to the Nursery Road Light Rail Station;
• Take the Shirlington bike parking survey.
• DC BAC meeting is tonight at a new location. See video of the oversight hearing here.
• Don't just bike to work, bike at work.

Tuesday Morning Commute - Woodmont

Good morning

• Kensington Sector Plan moves forward. "Pages 33-35 of the plan pretty much sums up where the bikeways will be.  These “bikeways” are just streets with signs that say “bike route” (if that).  The bikeways in the plan include some new/modified streets but most of the streets will just be left the way they are. "
• How to fix the Woodmont Avenue bike lane.