TheWashCycle

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Tourist-family trolleys

Good Afternoon

• Alexandria is converting its fleet of tourist-family trolleys to hybrid vehicles with bike racks on the front.
• NoVa is healthier than RoVa, and part of the reason is that "the construction of bike paths and sidewalks makes it easier to stay in shape"

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - Tracy Jordan would have made it funny

Good afternoon

• "Metro’s Plant Maintenance crews installed over 70 new racks, with space for 140 additional bikes at Braddock Road, Glenmont, Morgan Boulevard, Rockville, East Falls Church, Takoma, and Dupont Circle." See photos at the link.
• A comparison between Capital Bikeshare membership and personal bike ownership. I wonder, why not both?
• Driver in Charles County fatal hit-and-run arrested and indicted. "The crash occurred during the overnight hours of Sept. 1 - Sept. 2 on Chapel Point Road near Taurus Lane in Port Tobacco. A passerby found the victim, Thomas Mark Roepcke, 47, of Port Tobacco, unconscious on the side of the road  and called police. It was clear he had been struck by a car and the striking vehicle had fled the scene. Mr. Roepcke was transported to a hospital where he later died." 
• Women cyclists are also at risk for sexual problems. 
• A highway construction industry group thinks Maryland should widen the whole Beltway (surprise!) but it would include this. "Construction of the Route 97 [Georgia Ave] interchange would relieve congestion and provide bicycle and pedestrian facilities."
• Tracy Morgan has a point. But he could have probably been more careful. 

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.

Friday Morning Commute - stick with it

Good morning

• Mike Madden argues that Gray, policy-wise, isn't that different from Fenty and that includes bike lanes. That may be true, but when I look at what Gabe Klein is doing in Chicago, I sure miss him (and that is not a slam on Terry Bellamy, who seems to be doing a fine job). DeBonis quotes Gray saying about car/bike conflicts "We've got to recognize we're changing the culture in this city, and we have to stick with it."
• Bike share expansion (and small station movement) at 7th and Water St SW and 25th and Penn NW, 
• MoBike's Jake Cochrane sends a list of maintenance needs for Bradley Blvd to the SHA.
• 14 3 Bike Arlington employees  and 11 others spent the weekend earning their League Cycling Instructor certification.
• Indoor cycling studio coming to Clarendon.

Monday Morning Commute - Pathletes

Good morning. Baltimore kept me in my NFL pool last night. Now I just need Philadelphia to win and for the total score to be between 54 and 60 points.

• Coverage of WABA's Regional Call to Action, which included a few speakers on CaBi "An interesting but not surprising finding of Darren's was that proximity to bike lanes has a significant impact on use of CaBi in an area. The results of an extensive survey of CaBi users will be available in December." And more from Richard Layman "As long as transportation enhancement funding exists, WMATA is required to spend 1% of the funds they receive from the Federal Government on enhancements such as biking and pedestrian improvements, and while they cannot fund everything that they would like to do, this is a steady source of funding for bike improvements, so long as the enhancement program continues to exist."
• And also from Richard Layman in the same post "So effective in 2012, the Downtown Business Improvement District is taking over the management and staging of the Freedom Plaza Bike to Work Day event, which is the biggest and best true, but now WABA, which face it, has limited resources, can do more and better and other things..."
• Another story on how CaBi does rebalancing. Careful, that A to B song is catchy.
• Pathletes need to win.
• What can be done to create more bike parking in Arlington County.
• Calvert Investments gives employees who bike to work a one-time payment of $500 toward a bicycle
• Biking in Washington Heights and the search for bike storage space has pushed residential buildings to cull abandoned bikes.
• "$3.8 billion per year are saved in avoided mortality and reduced health care costs for obesity and heart disease by replacing half of the short journeys with bicycle trips during the warmest six months of the year."

Friday Morning Commute - So long LaHood

Good morning.

• A young cyclist crossing Maple on the W&OD Trail was hit by a driver who then fled the scene. They cyclist suffered only minor injuries.
• A driver in central Virginia was found guilty of failure to yield to a cyclist. The crash that resulted from this failure led to the death of the cyclist - well-known competitive cyclist Michael J. Fawell. But the driver did not get off scot free. He had to pay a $30 fine. To be fair, Fawell had no lights or reflectors and was riding in the rain before sunrise. But he was also riding on the paved shoulder. 
• Ray LaHood will be leaving the Department of Transportation at the end of Obama's first term. If Obama should win, who would make a good replacement? Is Oberstar too much of a pipe-dream? He lives in Potomac.
• Giant bicycles responds to GM.
• RAGBRAI leads to a scientific discovery about Parkinson's and exercise. Can WABGRAD ever aspire to such heights? The discovery is that forced exercise - where the participant doesn't control the speed - show fewer symptoms of the disease. "Dr. Alberts suspects that in Parkinson’s patients, the answer may be simple mathematics. More pedal strokes per minute cause more muscle contractions than fewer pedal strokes, which, in consequence, generate more nervous-system messages to the brain. There, he thinks, biochemical reactions occur in response to the messages, and the more messages, the greater the response."

Sunday Morning Ride - WAGBRAD IV

Good morning

• Newly painted bike lanes on 34th Street NW? Do they look a little narrow?
• Surprise! Active commuting is good for you."active commuters cut their odds of obesity by 50 percent. They had lower blood pressure, body mass and triglyceride levels (fat in the blood)"
• According to Dr. Gridlock, despite the lower expected turnout for the rescheduled event, there will still be a bike ban on Metro on the day of the King Memorial dedication. Let them say I'm surprised. 
• A cyclist - 40 year old Matthew Young - riding on Veterans Highway in Severna Park on Friday night (7:30pm) was hit from behind and killed. "Investigators do not believe that either speed or alcohol were factors in the crash. They have cited "bicyclist visibility" as the apparent cause of the accident, and noted the fact that the accident occurred at a particularly dark location on Veterans Highway, as well as the fact that Young was wearing dark non-reflective clothing." There's a pretty wide shoulder there. Was the cyclist on it? More here: "Police said the bike he was riding had a makeshift headlight, but a flashing light on the back of the bike does not appear to have been on." Can they tell after a bike has been hit from behind? Maybe they have witness testimony?

Tuesday Morning Commute - bright orange stickers

Good Morning and congratulations to one of our frequent commenter who had a baby yesterday (or at least his wife did). You know who you are.

• Bike thefts are down at metro stations from last year. There were 95 bikes stolen last year from April to June, and 72 this year (a 24% drop if I'm reading it right). Meanwhile, Metro is rounding up abandoned bikes at its stations and destroying them. Before anyone starts crying, it sounds like it has only happened a dozen times, and only when the bike is pretty picked over. "Police mark the left-behind bikes with bright orange stickers warning the owner. If the bike has not been removed within 10 days, Stessel said, police call maintenance crews to remove the bike. Then, Taborn said, if the agency has no way to contact the owner, officials destroy the bikes." A Metro board member asked them to consider donating them to local groups that refurbish bikes. "The transit agency is considering adding more video cameras in areas where bikes are parked and looking at where it places bike racks, Taborn said. It is also talking to D.C. officials because the city has very few thefts from its public bike racks."

• DDOT is also having a bike rack installation event- the Rack Attack - in the Ballpark district. They're installing 36 bike racks in the SE neighborhood at 3rd and K SE starting at 10am. DC's installed 2000 bike parking spaces in the public space. In a related story, the new GWU School of Public Health and Health Services’ academic building will include 81 bicycle parking spaces (81? That's an unusual number, no?)
• In testing on the name for Capital Bikeshare "people liked the one with 'share' in the title. Holben also says that names like WeBike tested better than names like UBike: 'Most people seemed to like the more inclusive name.'”

• DDOT seeks input on the R Street cycletrack.
• Courtalnd Milloy says "Tell these folks that if they want more Bike Share they could at least learn how to ride the damn bike, stop weaving in and out of traffic. Car bumpers are harder than their butts if not their helmetless heads. Hey, I just want them to live to see another birthday." I think the average bike share rider knows more about riding their bike than the average DC driver does about driving their car.
• It's been one year since Natasha Pettigrew was killed in a traffic crash. "Without an eyewitness to the crash, it's not clear that a charge of manslaughter by motor vehicle could be filed--there are laws against leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and failing to render aid in an accident resulting in death."
• A post article on fighting noncommunicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes discusses the larger role government has in the effort. "Prevention of infectious and noncommunicable diseases both require two kinds of interventions. The first target individuals and are usually delivered by doctors and nurses. The second target populations and are delivered by government, or the things that government can influence." It sounds like making it easier to bike and walk falls under the second type. 
• Streetsblog covers the new ACS commuting data. They include a graph showing Population density vs. Commute rate (spoiler: they appear to be related). If I had the time, I'd compare the bike commute rate to the college-student-population percentage. I predict they're related.
• Rails to Trails release a report on different types of bike facilities.

Thursday Morning Commute - Hostess with the Mostest

Happy Car Free Day, and it's the last day of summer. So soak it up. Also, CaBi's birthday bash is this evening at Yards Park.

• This Saturday at 10am, ANC 5C will be discussing the proposed R Street Bike lanes. "Resident’s will have the opportunity to see what a sharrow looks like, learn how contra flow bicycle lanes and sharrows work and how they will be implemented on R Street."
• Capital Bikeshare will be studied as possible therapy for the mentally ill. "Moghimi said he hopes the year-long study will prove that enhanced mobility and physical activity improve the patients’ mental health....The 20 people selected for the study group range from the chronically schizophrenic to those beset by depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress. The only patients excluded from the program are those with cognitive disorders who might not be able to negotiate the bike."
• The Frederick Bicycling Coalition is having a bike swap on October 2nd. 
• AAA is concerned with the large number of hit-and-run crashes lately. Several of them have involved cyclists including this one "A driver fled after severely injuring a 47-year-old Port Tobacco bicyclist Sept. 2, authorities said. The Charles County Sheriff’s Department said the incident occurred on Chapel Point Road near Taurus Lane in Port Tobacco between Thursday at 10 p.m. and Friday at 3 a.m." and this one "A Bulgarian college student who was working as a lifeguard in Maryland this summer was struck by a hit-and-run driver Aug. 23 on Forest Drive in Anne Arundel County. The 20-year-old victim was riding a bicycle when the driver knocked him off his bicycle. He was hospitalized with a broken clavicle." and this one "A teenage cyclist was severely injured by a hit-and-run driver in Southeast Washington on July 10"
• Speaking of which, there was a memorial ride in honor of hit-and-run (though the driver later called in the crash) victim Natasha Pettigrew. "The most Littleford [the driver] could face is a charge for leaving the scene of the crash, but Henry said she doesn't know what penalty she could face. Littleford will not face wrongful death charges because there were no witnesses, Henry said."
• The Transportation Planning Board is launching a study to find out how drivers want to be charged for roads. Of the three options, the congestion charge would likely do the most to increase cycling (In my unstudied opinion). Other options is GPS-based VMT or tolls on major highways. 
• A proposed Silver Spring apartment building on the site of the old Post Office building would include "a surrounding plaza that would include a bike share station and a trail connection to the planned Capital Crescent Trail." The building will back up to the trail.
• The Examiner is very worried about the lack of bike facilities in Tyson's Corner. I share their concern. "And the ballyhooed bike paths,... are still nothing but pipe dreams"
• The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is trying to educate people about complete streets.
• Oh yeah, that Port Tabacco cyclist mentioned above who was hit by a hit-and-run driver on September 10th, he passed away from his injuries. Police have since located the driver, a 21-year-old Pomfret woman.
• Congratulations to Richmond, VA, host of the 2015 World Cycling Championships. It's the first time they've been in the States in 30 years. "USA Cycling expects more than half a million people to watch in person in the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, along with a global television audience of more than 300 million."
• Chicago launches plans for a new 3,000 bike bike-sharing system. "The enterprise is billed as the city's "first large-scale bike-sharing program.'' A small existing program, called "Chicago B-cycle,'' began last year with about a half-dozen bike rental stations along the lakefront and in the downtown. Chicago B-cycle (chicago.bcycle.com) offers memberships and temporary passes. It attracts mostly tourists and is modeled after bike-sharing programs in Paris and Denver."

Tour de Links - Huntsman

New Amsterdam York, NY - JSK continues to promote bike lanes despite critics "Bike lanes, she explains without prompting, have been shown to reduce injuries to cyclists and drivers alike by 40 percent to 50 percent. In New York, she adds, traffic fatalities per capita have declined to record lows. Yes, bike lanes may be the utopian dream of a starry-eyed environmentalist, but they're also "an investment strategy" for the safety of New Yorkers (only one-third of whom, she notes, regularly commute by car). Sadik-Khan also points out 59 percent of city voters support them." [Or more] And, of course, she'll soon add bike sharing. And Summer streets is back.

Leadville, CO - Jon Huntsman Gary Johnson didn't win this race either.

Portland, OR - As noted last week, former Washcycle fantasy team starting-QB Joey Harrington was hit from behind by a driver while biking. The driver was cited. So an outraged reader wrote an op-ed calling for cyclists to be licensed and insured. Because that would have prevented the crash.

Kelowna, Canada - A cyclist riding in the bike lanes crashes with a car that turns in front of her. Somehow it is her fault for biking too fast. She should have had a license plate I guess.

Barcelona, Spain - A study of bike sharing in Barcelona backed up the data from an earlier study showing that the health benefits of biking far exceed the risks. It showed a small increase in traffic crash related deaths, an even smaller increase in air pollution related deaths (from breathing in bad air, not from making it) and a very large number of deaths avoided by physical activity. While the study was done on Bicing members, it isn't unique to bikesharing (despite most of the media reporting it that way). For 180,000 members, there are about 12 and a half lives saved per year.