TheWashCycle

Tuesday Afternoon Commute - Elvira

Nice days for biking, hope you're enjoying it.

• Tomorrow night, DDOT will host the second meeting on the proposed bus/bike lanes on Georgia Avenue between Barry Place and Florida Avenue. Unlike the bus/bike lanes downtown, these would have a buffer between the exclusive lanes and other traffic. 
• DC BAC's facility committee will have a ride of M and Eye street SE/SW on Oct 27. All are invited. "The purpose of this ride is to review the current conditions and develop options for bicycle and pedestrian consideration in this area as suggested by the District Department of Transportation September meeting regarding the M Street SE-SW Transportation Study."
• Lot's of people biked to the National's Playoff games. And here's a visualization of what that looked like for CaBi users. 
• Another ANC candidate puts expanded CaBi in his platform. 
• DC Councilmembers have proposed making changes to the traffic camera enforcement program. Most relevant is the expansion of the program - which should make roads safer for all - and the dedication of half the money to safety programs. It's not unreasonable to think that some of that money will find its way to bike safety - and I'm hoping they will finally dedicate some of the money to funding the Bicycle Safety Enhancement Act. Passed in 2008, the law has never been fully funded so trucks do not include "Side-underrun guards to prevent bicyclists, other vehicles, or pedestrians from sliding under rear wheels." 
• Falls Church Police are ticketing cyclists who run stop signs on the W&OD Trail. "There is at least one instance in which a similar ticket was thrown out because the cited law does not apply to a bicyclist on a trail."
• FABB held a ribbon cutting at the Oak Street Bridge over the Beltway. That bridge has been open for some time, but the new bridges ( Route 7, Westpark Dr, and Lee Hwy) they were celebrating weren't really safe for such a ceremony. 
• "Baltimore City’s efforts to implement a bike-sharing program in the city by this fall suffered a set back this summer when an exclusive negotiating agreement with B-Cycle — a bike-sharing company operating in 15 cities — expired without a deal. Any future bike-sharing program in Baltimore is now at least another year away, according to the Department of Transportation." B-Cycle was unable to find enough corporate sponsors to fund the program. DC and Baltimore are so close - I'm sure there are members of CaBi who live in Baltimore - it might make sense to bring them into the fold. 
• Bike commuting is growing faster in bicycle friendly communities. 
• Gas is expensive - $3.60 edition. [But...]
• Boston launches a controversial helmet safety ad campaign. 
• Another section of Atlanta's Beltline Trail opens. 

The new bike facility on Westpark Drive Bridge (photo via FABB)

Lost Friday Afternoon Commute

From last week. Some of the links were OBE so they're not included.

• Portland's airport has a bike assembly area.
• SEPTA is reluctant to turn a disused railroad line over to trail users for fear they'll never give it back; which is why efforts to "Save the Trail" from railroad reconversion actually harms trails.  
• Lance Armstrong will compete in the Half Full Triathlon on Oct. 7 in Columbia, MD. But he can only do it if the race is unsanctioned. 
• Construction will begin along the NW Branch Trail between Route 1 and 38th Street

Saturday Morning Ride - Floating roundabout

Good morning

• WABA's St. Elizabeths East Bike Carnival fits into a larger effort to change the demographics of biking in DC. In addition, WABA's hired an East of the River Program Manager, BicycleSpace has a weekly Hills of Anacostia Ride and CaBi "mailed 35,000 residents in wards 7 and 8 a $25 discount to the program."
• Complete coverage of Alexandria's addition to CaBi.
• In a rare case, a railroad is asking to un-railbank 1.9 miles of rail trail in Michigan. This is actually good for rail trail supporters as it shows that railbanking works and serves a purpose. And all the better since the trail - Iron Ore Heritage Trail - is still in the planning phase. 
• Floyd Landis said he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors over allegations that he fraudulently solicited donations for a defense fund he set up to fight doping charges. Landis told ESPN.com he will agree to repay all the donors within three years, and prosecutors will agree not to pursue charges. The fund exceeded $1 million.
• Check out this floating bicycle roundabout. Would be nice at Memorial Circle.

Monday Morning Commute - Success is not an option

I might be out for awhile, as I'm having some minor surgery done, and I really don't think I should blog on Vicadin.

• "Many of the mechanics in the shop just off Four Mile Run aren't old enough to drive. Some are performing community service after scrapes with the law. Others are simply looking for something to do."
• Though a new grant will help plan for a WB&A Trail bridge over the Patuxent, it does not appear that Anne Arundel County will support the trail on the rail ROW. "Using the railroad path is not an option since it would cut through the Meyer Station Nature Center, said Rick Anthony, the director of Anne Arundel County’s Recreation and Parks....“That railroad bed is not something we’re willing to resurrect,” Anthony said. “It’s not an issue. We’re going to go around it.”" Because, you can't have a bike trail through a Nature Center - that's crazy. "Anthony said the county government got a “verbal commitment” from New Jersey-based developer Two Rivers LLC to help pay for a part of the trail that takes a detour around the original railroad alignment. Two Rivers LLC is developing The Preserve at Two Rivers, a community for residents ages 55 and older that includes a golf course." Meanwhile, on the PG side of the river. "Eileen Nivera, a planner coordinator for Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation, said Prince George’s planners are currently designing a link to a railroad spur that would fit in line with Anne Arundel County’s proposed detour. She said the sooner the work on the preliminary designs for the bridge begins the better, but said an undetermined amount of grant money is necessary to move forward.“We’ll need more money to do the final design and permitting, then we’ll need money for construction,” Nivera said."
• With kids going back to school today, AAA has some advice for drivers and parents including "Watch for bicycles. Children on bikes are often inexperienced, unsteady and unpredictable. Slow down and allow at least three feet of passing distance between your vehicle and the bicycle. If your child rides a bicycle to school, require that they wear a properly-fitted bicycle helmet on every ride."
• Details on the Easton Rail Trail on the Eastern Shore.
• Floating bicyclists.

Saturday Morning Ride - Grants for everyone!

Good morning

• US DOT announced several discretionary grants for the DC area (Including roadway work to make room for the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial and a program to implement dynamic pricing and a reservation system for commercial vehicle parking. It will encourage freight travel at off-peak times and enable tour bus operators to find parking, as well as use parking revenues to support transit services). 
  • In DC, "TCSP funds will be used to plan for improved bicycle and pedestrian access improvements near rail stations in Washington, DC to support housing and employment development." and "TCSP funds will help upgrade streetlights and sidewalks on Kennedy Street and improve safety at key intersections." The second one may not be directly bike related to biking, it depends on what the safety improvements are. 
  • There's also money for Maryland's Chesapeake & Delaware (C&D) Canal Recreational Trail, bike lanes near the Rockville Metro station and design upgrades for Army Navy Drive in Arlington (which likely includes the cycletrack).
• Hyattsville purchased 180 bike racks that it plans to install this year when they'll also build "25,700 linear feet of bicycle lanes, mainly along Nicholson Street, 40th and 41st Avenues through central Hyattsville, and trails through southern Hyattsville connecting to the planned extension of the trolley trail.... A final list of bicycle rack locations is being finalized and will likely be released next week." That's just phase one. "Phase one of the project will be funded through a $110,00 Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Community Legacy grant." Another 40,000+ miles of bike lanes are in Phase II and III.
• It appears the experimental zig-zag lines on Belmont Ridge Road in Ashburn that are meant to warn drivers of the W&OD Trail crossing are slowing drivers down and getting them to yield more.
• On Thursday, county officials broke ground on the Broadneck Pennisula Trail. The trail will eventually connect the B&A Trail to Sandy Point Park. It might be part of the American Discovery Trail.
• Last week, Maryland announced the winners of 28 Bikeways Programs. This week they're announcing - piecemeal it appears - six Transportation Enhancement Program winners. The Three Notch Trail in St. Mary's County got $1.4 million to go with the $470,000 last week. "The new five-mile pedestrian and bicycle trail will extend from MD 5 in Mechanicsville to MD 236 in New Market." And the Easton Rail Spur Line Trail got $826,500. "The trail will extend 2.4 miles and connect to an existing bike trail along MD 33 (Saint Michaels Road.)  Crossing MD 322 (Easton Bypass), the trail will continue over the Tred Avon River and meander through an open space area within Easton Village." Can't find any information on the other four winners. 
• See if you can find all the things wrong with this letter. [More from the Southern Maryland letter-to-the-editor bike fight]
• "if my only goal is to save other bikers from injury and death, should I follow or break the rules?"
• The International Cycling Union joins in on the Armstrong doping case. "In a testy exchange of letters made public Friday as part of the court case, the International Cycling Union (UCI) proposed that it appoint an independent panel to determine whether the charges against Armstrong have merit." And this is pretty damning:
  • “By our count, of the 21 podium finishers at the Tour de France during the period from 1999-2005, only a single rider other than Mr. Armstrong was not implicated in doping by a subsequent investigation. Yet, only a single one of these riders had a positive test with the UCI.”"
• Helsinki's low line looks really cool. It reminds me of a similar trail in Minneapolis.

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - York

I just saw "The Dark Knight Rises." It was very good. A couple things made me chuckle though. At one point, I saw a Phillies banner in a window (must've been a scene filmed in Pittsburgh), but I suppose you can have Phillies fans in Gotham City. And there's another scene where the police are attacking a mob in the street, and for some reason I watched one big guy just to the right of center. As he got to the mob, he just kept running past people and then engaged in some of the worst fake fighting - with no one in particular - I've ever seen. But still - it's a very good movie. Better perhaps than the two it follows. 

• GGW has more information on and better graphics related to the New Jersey Avenue redesign.
• A three-quarter-mile section of the York Hanover Trolley Trail in Jackson Township, PA is nearly complete. The long term plan includes connecting this to the Heritage Rail Trail, which is the Pennsylvania section of Maryland's Northern Central Rail Trail. 
• An Australian study shows that lights lower risk of a crash, biking faster is associated with more severe head injuries and helmets can cut your chance of a head injury by about 45% (though they admit small sample size on the latter point).
• An Olympics bus has hit and killed a bicyclist near the Olympic Park in east London.

Monday Morning Commute - Wiggins

Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France. It was quite a day for Great Briton, with Brits Christopher Froome coming in 2nd and Mark Cavendish winning the final stage. American Tejay Van Garderen became only the 3rd American to ever win the White Jersey for the Young Classification (best rider under 25) and George Hincapie set the record for most Tours participated in at 17. 

• New bike parking at the Brookland Metro. DDOT urban forestry maintains the Met Branch Trail. Better parking in buildings. All at RPUS. 
• WABA now has office hours EOTR. 
• Longtime anti-nuclear war protester's 31 year vigil interrupted after she was hit by a taxi on her bicycle and broke her clavicle.
• Wolf Trap, now easier to get to, but still with cruddy bike parking. [Maybe they should hire Richard Layman]
• The city of Richmond, VA will buy land owned by a cement company and use the rail line that accesses it to build a section of the Virginia Capital Trail from Williamsburg to Richmond. The cement company will lease back the rest for two years and then will vacate. "The trail also got a boost last week from the Commonwealth Transportation Board, which awarded a $7 million contract to Henderson Inc., a Williamsburg firm, to design and build the New Market Heights trail section. That segment of trail will extend more than 10 miles from Kimages Road in Charles City County to Long Bridge Road in Henrico.Construction already has begun on the Sherwood Forest segment of trail from the Chickahominy River to Charles City Courthouse." Meanwhile, the Cannon Creek Greenway that connects to the Capital Trail got help from the National Guard. The Guard cleared more than a half-mile of trail for the greenway as part of its Innovative Readiness Training program.
• Rails vs. Trails in the Adirondacks (answer: both?)
• Help Rails to Trails win $30,000 from Pacifico.
• "Vulnerable user law" not being enforced as expected in Oregon. 
• Bicycle infrastructure from Vancouver. 
• Tyler Hamilton may have his gold medal from the Athens Olympic games stripped because of his doping admission. Bobby Julich would move up to Silver as a result.

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Dinner

Good afternoon

• Another take on the Arlington CaBi expansion plan
• The City of Greenbelt, MD responds to criticism that they aren't focused enough on bike/ped issues. 
• The new federal transportation law includes the mandatory sidepath rule (with some loopholes) and many opportunities to spend bike/ped money on other things. 
• A Richard Layman photo of the Pennsylvania Avenue cycletracks makes the cover of Transportation Research News
• Minnesota actually shuts down a dinner train to turn the rail line it ran on into a rail trail. Incidentally, do you want to buy a dinner train?

Tuesday Morning Commute - Bar

Good morning

• The soon-to-be new president-elect of the D.C. Bar is Rails-to-Trails General Counsel Andrea Ferster. Maybe that will help with some DC legislation?
• The National Park Service has a new concept for Fort Hunt Park and it is available for comment. The new design keeps the paved road - unlike the old one that would change it to pea gravel - with a lane dedicated to pedestrian and cyclists. It also includes "a connector trail at Area E to maintain existing circulation loop for cyclists and pedestrians outside of restoration area"

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.