I'm going on vacation all week, and there will be no blogging (I know, I blogged on my honeymoon, but this time I mean it). Instead you will get a chance to enjoy Oscar nominated and winning shorts. Why? Because for once, people should enjoy the blog.
Bike to Work Day had a 15% increase in registration region wide over last year--more than 14,600 cyclists total!
WAMU story on DC cycle-tracks "Funding is not as much as an issue as dealing with some of the trade-offs on any given street, especially in downtown where we've done a lot of the easy bike lanes where there was unused space," he said. "When we talk about protection - separation and buffers from cars - and more permanent improvements, it's more a question of planning and consensus building than resources."
"An Oregon funeral home in Eugene offers natural burials where the ride to the person's final resting place is on the back of a three-wheeled bicycle."
The Washington, DC bike counter project is in trouble. "With just four days left on the kickstarter, Khawarzad and his co-inventor, Ted Ullrich, have raised less than 20 percent of their goal. For those unfamiliar with the Kickstarter model, here’s what that means: If they don’t reach their $50,000 goal, they don’t get to keep any of the $9,809 pledged so far."
Falls Church police are enforcing stop sign violations along the W&OD trail. And they're requiring a foot down for a stop.
I went to see Donald and Ivanka Trump talk at the Washington Post today. He's exactly the same in person (all superlatives, arrogant etc..) but less crazy and more charming. Ivanka might have a future in politics if she wants one. She's very good at staying on message.
CaBi set a new one-day record - 9854 trips - yesterday.
The proposed path would be begin at the Frederick MARC station, where bikes would share the road with cars. It is possible that the bikes on the road could be a traffic concern, Gammon said; however, traffic is so slow in that area that he did not think the shared lane would affect drivers.
The path would connect to secondary pedestrian trails at Fifth and Seventh streets, giving bikers an alternate route if they wanted to avoid biking with cars downtown.
At Fifth Street, where there is more space along the road, the trail will become a dedicated bike lane.
The design had several safety features including raised crosswalks and "bike boxes," which help bikers make left turns by putting them ahead of traffic at intersections.
The biggest safety feature would be a new bridge over Md. 26 at Clemson Corner.
“Yeah, he’s really pissed off,” says Escobar. “The docks block our access to the roof that we need access to for our AC unit. We don’t have access to the roof from the inside, so we have to use a ladder, which is now going to have to go over the docking stations.”
“My main concern is garbage,” says Kolesnyk. “With more people comes more garbage. But I am green-oriented, so at the same time I think the bikes are a big advantage for New York City.”
The DC Tune-Ups Bicycle Choir is seeking singers and musicians for our May 2013 performance at Bike to Work day! The Tune-Ups is a light-hearted singing group that performs songs related to bike commuting each year at the downtown bike-to-work day event in May. The Tune-Ups have sung such favorites as "I'm a Commuter", and "Bike Commuter dreamin". This year's performance will be on May 18th at Freedom Plaza.
There will probably be about 4 or 5 rehearsals during the months of March/April/early May. Anyone interested should contact Heidi Goldberg at go.heidi at gmail. You don't have to be a great singer to be part of the fun! Feel free to tell your friends and colleagues who might be interested.
NBC4 plays up the driver-cyclist conflict when talking about the "fallout" of the new safety bill, but really there doesn't seem to be any "fallout". No one really seems oppossed to it. Video below the bump.
There's an uncomfortable set of incentives to on the one hand tell people that biking is safe (so that new people will give it a try) while also telling people it isn't (so that they'll give more money to safety). I suspect that despite the rise in bicycle deaths last year - which may just be noise in the data - biking in America is safer than it's ever been in my lifetime. Nonetheless, America Bikes references last year's uptick in their letter to Secretary LaHood asking that performance measures for states include non-motorized transportation. "In 2011, motor vehicle crash
fatalities were at a 60-year low in real numbers, and a historic low in the fatality rate per vehicle
miles traveled. Unfortunately, bicycle and pedestrian fatalities are on the rise—both in actual
numbers and percentage of overall fatalities. In 2011, a total of 5,109 individuals were killed
while walking or bicycling, an increase of 11.7 percent from 2010. As a share of overall
fatalities, bicycling and walking fatalities increased a full percentage point, now making up 15.8
percent of all traffic fatalities."
The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is hosting a public meeting to share plans for a federal transportation planning study that will focus on pedestrian safety for residents and multi-modal transit users at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue, SE and Potomac Avenue, SE. The public is invited to attend and hear about the details of this study and future plans for this area. Representatives from DDOT and the project’s technical team will be on hand to answer questions.
Using a phone app and organizing themselves on the Washington Area Bike Forum, local cyclists create a winter biking contest called "Freezing Saddles".
More on the recent bicycle fatality in DC "According to investigators, the victim had a barbecue grill tied to his handlebars using a piece of twine. As he was riding, investigators say, part of the grill and a piece of twine got entangled in the wheel, causing the front wheel to lock up....While Alvarez-Benitez was found with a helmet, police say, it is not known if he was wearing it when he was thrown from the bike." [See a video below the bump]
Assualt with a bicycle. I've actually written before about how difficult this is to do and how it puts the cyclist at such high risk (falls can kill as the prior link shows), but I guess people out there are still stupid enough to try (and awful enough to commit hate crimes).
Politco has a story on funding Capital Bikeshare, but it's behind the paywall. "The red blur of a Capital Bikeshare bicycle whizzing by has become a Washington fixture, and now the company and others like it are taking a harder look at advertising revenue to keep it that way. After getting off the ground with federal and local dollars, Capital Bikeshare sees ad revenue as a way to move toward greater independence and sustainability. “If you can be independent and sustainable, then that’s the dream,” said Tim Blumenthal, president of the cycling advocacy organization Bikes Belong. Caitlin Emma has the story for Pros:"
Bike Karaoke, proving that everything is better on a bicycle?
Richard Layman on the Western Baltimore County Bike and Ped plan: "So in 2.5 years, or just over 3 years from the time I started, not only was the plan adopted but legislation based on it was passed within a few months of the plan's submission, and began being implemented more than one year before the plan was adopted. This is half the time that was required for the Eastern Plan."
You can see my latest post on the Green Lane project here. It's on the extended 15th Street cycletrack. And you can also check out this post on making a good neighborhood greenway, which is relevant for the discussion of what to do with Eye Street SE/SW.
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