TheWashCycle

Friday Evening Ride - Catching up?

Good afternoon

• A future Purple Line station in the Air Rights tunnel would include the Capital Crescent Trail, but that section would not allow running or biking. "A new sidewalk, five to seven feet wide, would connect the Capital Crescent Trail to a station that would be built inside the tunnel that cyclists and runners use today to cross under busy Wisconsin Avenue, state transit officials said Thursday. Trail users would have to walk through the station and across the platform between the two train tracks, planners told the Montgomery County Council’s transportation committee during a briefing....Those who wanted to continue running or riding their bikes could avoid the station by using a new path that would require crossing Wisconsin at a traffic light." But Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail don't care much. "“It’s 20 acres of park inside the Beltway,” Bhatt said of the trail. “You can’t replace that. . . .It will no longer be a park. It will be a bike path.” OK, but isn't that the point of the "trail"? If you're really friends of the trees along the CCT, then perhaps your name should reflect that. Also, it doesn't look like the Purple Line will be built.
• Capital Bikeshare got heavy use for the Nationals' playoff games. 
• Drivers continue to perform illegal U-turns across the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. "physical changes will probably not happen until after the Inauguration in January."
• In exchange for a parking variance to provide less automobile parking than zoning requires, Douglas Development has agreed to "give each tenant a free Capital Bikeshare membership.
• The SHA is studying the possibility of replacing the northbound right shoulder and the southbound right lane of Kenilworth Avenue from the Bladensburg Waterfront to East-West Highway with a bike lane and sidewalk. Some people are opposed to giving up space for driving "Hyattsville resident Rodney Willard, 53, said he would like to see more space for drivers and said he is wary about having bicycle lanes because of the danger of a cyclist falling off a bike and into traffic." But there is a bike commuter on the town council "Edmonston Councilwoman Margaret J. Pooley (Ward 2), who bikes to her job in Washington, D.C., said she is looking for anything that will get more people out of their vehicles when traffic backs up on northbound Kenilworth Avenue during rush hour and said the absence of marked crosswalks is a problem."
• Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Floreen "pointed to a bicycle bridge over Veirs Mill Road, funded under the current [public facilities ordinance], as a misuse of funds."
• The Park After Dark Benefit in support of the C&O Canal is tomorrow. 
• Bill Line, NPS spokesman with whom this blog occasionally took issue, took his own life this week. Despite differences, he was an avid cyclist and a dedicated public servant who will be missed. 
• Regional mode share for biking is projected to go up to 13% by 2040, but driving won't go down much. 
• The USADA report on Lance Armstrong's doping came out and it is pretty sweeping and damning. It may impact more than his race results. "according to several marketing experts, Armstrong may well lose his handsome corporate backing from Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Trek and others once existing contracts expire. And given the damning details USADA has compiled — the first-hand accounts that he not only used banned substances but also demanded fellow riders use them, too, in support of his quest for titles — Armstrong likely won’t forge any new corporate deals."

A brief history of biking in Rock Creek Park

The Rock Creek Park website has a document available online from 1985 called "Rock Creek Park - Adminstrative History". There's a section on bicycling and it's really quite interesting. It shows that while much has changed, in some regards, things have stayed the same.

The 1960s saw a resurgence in the popularity of the bicycle as a mode of transportation and recreation for adults as well as children. Rock Creek Park made its first special effort to accommodate cyclists early in that decade, when Ross Drive was occasionally reserved for their use. In 1966 the section of Beach Drive from Joyce Road to Broad Branch Road was first limited to bicycle and pedestrian traffic on Sunday mornings. By that fall about three and a half miles of trail north of the Nature Center had been bluestone-surfaced for bicycle use. In the following years the Beach Drive automobile closure was extended to Morrow Drive, and the bicycle trail was extended.

These initial efforts were not altogether successful. The trail was overly steep in places, and the surface was not stable enough for thin tires. Bicycle use on the closed roads did not appear sufficient to justify their closure, and motorists complained. They also objected to sharing roads simultaneously with cyclists, who tended to hold up traffic. 

Thank goodness those days are over. And here's how the trail got paved.

In September 1971 [cyclists] prevailed upon the Park Service to set aside one lane of the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway north of Virginia Avenue for a week to promote commuting by bicycle in lieu of automobiles. The experiment was well publicized and enjoyed a good response from cyclists, but its positive aspects were overshadowed by massive traffic tieups with severe inconvenience to the great majority of parkway users unable or unwilling to shift to bicycles. The political impossibility of continuing the lane closure--the goal of the bicycle lobby--was quickly apparent. The Service compromised by paving over the existing bridle trail between Connecticut and Virginia avenues for bicycle use; the crash project was completed by the following week.

In 1980 they studied nine alternatives for completing the bicycle system.

At one end of the spectrum, 5-1/2 miles of new bicycle trail paralleling Beach Drive would be built, entailing no effect on auto traffic. At the other end, major segments of Beach Drive would be permanently converted to bicycle use only, eliminating it as a through route for automobiles. Michael A. Replogle, an engineer with transportation experience, advanced a tenth alternative in March 1981 on behalf of the People's Alliance for Rock Creek Park (PARC), an outside group. His plan would permanently close Beach Drive to through auto traffic both above and below Joyce Road as soon as the Metro subway system was opened to the Van Ness station on Connecticut Avenue.

If you think the Klingle Road fight is ugly, just imagine how nuts people would have gone then. Still, that was probably a missed opportunity to make Rock Creek more Park-like. At first NPS leaned in that direction.

In March 1983 the Service advanced a three-phase solution largely endorsed by PARC. Portions of Beach Drive above Joyce Road would be closed to cars on weekends and holidays during the warm months. One lane of Beach Drive south to Broad Branch Road would be reserved for cyclists and joggers during weekday rush hours, allowing cars the other lane in the prevailing rush hour direction. After 1985, when the Red Line of Metro was to be completed beyond Van Ness and reconstruction work on 16th Street was to be finished, a gate would be placed near Boulder Bridge permanently barring that section of Beach Drive to automobiles.

Which is why things are that way today. What? They aren't?

Three months later, however, the Service disappointed the bicycle forces and others interested in curtailing auto traffic by a change of position. It confirmed the weekend closings on upper Beach Drive between Picnic Area 10 and Wise Road and between West Beach Drive and the Maryland line--measures previously tried with good results. But it would not interfere with weekday traffic below Joyce Road. Instead, it would build a 2.5-mile bicycle trail paralleling that segment of Beach Drive down to Broad Branch Road.

WABA and NCPA both opposed the decision and then it appears that they fought about the trail, which WABA supported and NCPA did not. Which is where they were in 1985.

Further measures to curb auto traffic in favor of bicycles do not appear imminent.

No, they don't. 

 

No one will walk their bike

Photo by JeffL

DOI need not ban cycling on Rock Creek Parkway

While most people focussed on the substantial cuts to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, the new Transportation Bill also contained a provision that could potentially reduce cyclists right to the road on federal lands. 

(d) BICYCLE SAFETY.—The Secretary of the appropriate Federal land management agency shall prohibit the use of bicycles on each federally owned road that has a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or greater and an adjacent paved path for use by bicycles within 100 yards of the road unless the Secretary determines that the bicycle level of service on that roadway is rated B or higher.

At first glance, that sounds like Rock Creek Parkway.

When the US Senate first started considering this provision, cycling advocates pointed out that its language tracked the mandatory sidepath rules that have been gradually eliminated from state laws since the 1970s, because they do not promote safety.  John S. Allen worried suggested that "it would ban bicycles on a road even if the path is unusable." 

The provision survived in the final bill.  There is no evidence that Congress even considered the possiblity that banning bikes on roads with trails would make cyclists less safe, and that's a good thing.  Here's why.

The Secretary of Interior (and other land management agencies) have a lot more discretion than the typical police officer or district court judge to decide what a statute like this means, especially if there is no clear legislative intent.  This statute does not even ban bikes from certain roads, but rather directs the Secretary to do so.  So it's up to the Secretary to decide what that law should mean. 

We've heard rumors that legislative staffers were mad at cyclists holding up traffic on Rock Creek Parkway, and that they did not care whether the bill would compromise safety; they just wanted bikes off the road.  But rumors about what staffers wanted do not equal statutory intent.  The Secretary has the duty to determine what the statute means, and move forward on that basis.

Because the heading of the provision says "Bicycle Safety", the Secretary should conclude that the entire intent of Congress was to increase bicycle safety.  The exclusion for especially safe roads (level service of B) further shows that the intent was safety.  The bill says nothing about holding up traffic.  So that objective has no place in the Secretary's evaluation of what Congress intended.

Therefore, the Secretary need only ban bicycling on roads where doing so enhances safety.  Requiring cyclists to ride on narrow paths or paths with sharp turns or poor pavement would clearly not help safety.  Nor would requiring cyclists to ride on paths with heavy pedestrian use.  If pedestrian use is extremely high (e.g. Rock Creek Trail), then the path is not really a "paved path for use by bicycles" but rather a pedestrian walkway, or perhaps a hiker-biker trail.  Conversely, a path designed for the exclusive use of cyclists would be a paved path for use by bicycles.  The Secretary would also have the discretion to decide that if a path does not meet AASHTO standards for safety at the prevailing (85-percentile) speed of cyclists, that it is not a "paved path for use by bicycles" 

Summarizing:  When this "mandatory sidepath" provision was under consideration, cycling activists worried, reasonably enough, that the provision could force cyclists off many federal roads and onto poorly designed and maintained sidepaths.  But now that the bill has passed, we need to stop suggesting that this was what Congress actully did, and instead push for a safety-based policy by the Department of Interior (DOI), which would hopefully be adopted by other agencies). 

A district court construing a state law might not have the ability to read the word "safe" into "paved path for use by bicycles."  Had the federal statute simply banned bikes rather than direct the Secretary to do so, there might be little discretion,  But here we have a Congressional charge to an agency head to prohibit cycling from certain roadways, which inherently vests the Secretary with more discretion, as long as the Secretary is being reasobable.  And who would argue that optimizing safety on federal lands is not reasonable?

Individual park superintendants are generally not lawyers, and they may read the statute narrowly without being aware of the context in which provisions like this apply.  So let's hope that DOI or National Park Service headquarters provides guidance to the parks, to avoid unnecessarily cramped interpretations of the new law.

I have not had occasion to ride the trail along Rock Creek Parkway between Massachusetts and Virginia avenues in several years.  What do you think?  Would banning bikes on that part of the parkway create a safety problem on weekends?

(Jim Titus represents Prince Georges County on Maryland's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (MBAPC) and is on WABA's board of directors.  The opinions here do not reflect the official views of either WABA or MBPAC.)

Thursday Afternoon Commute - 30 Percent

That was some decision, when Woods chose to use his 6-iron on hole #3.

• M-NCPPC Montgomery Parks will perform emergency maintenance on the Rock Creek Trail between Old Baltimore Street and Aspen Hill Park beginning on or about July 2, 2012.
• The complete streets provision was eliminated from the final Transportation bill. RTC doesn't like it either. "The America Bikes coalition said the agreement that was negotiated by the House and Senate after a two-month conference would cut funding for biking and pedestrian programs by 60 to 70 percent because it would allow states to opt out of spending money in the highway bill on things other than roads and transit. "
• Biking mentioned in today's Obamacare ruling. 
• Revenue from e-bike sales this year worldwide is expected to reach $6.9 billion, a figure that is projected to rise more than 70 percent by 2018, according to a recent report by Pike Research , a Colorado-based research and consulting firm.

Monday Morning Commute - I liked Agenda 18 better

Good morning

• More details on the change in ownership at Proteus Bikes. 
• Salon's Will Doig responds to Reason's video on Capital Bikeshare. He gets quite a few facts wrong, but some of his points are solid. At the end though, he doesn't ask the right questions. Of course, having Owen Wilson riding CaBi is not helping with the demographics. 
• DDOT's press release about the Anacostia Trail TIGER grant and a GGW post about it. And more bike-related TIGER winners. Also, there's a FOX5 report below the bump that starts out covering the TIGER grant and then moves on to the 11th Street bridge project. I hope that David Patterson unbuckled his helmet for the interview, otherwise he's wasting his time with it. 
• Do dress codes hamper bike commuting? Probably.  I'm reminded of this quote from Bike Snob NYC "the entire notion that we have to build a transportation infrastructure around allowing people to show up to work clean in suits, why? Who cares?"
• The Lake Frank Trail is almost finished. 
• "Bicycles and pedestrian traffic as an alternative form of transportation to the automobile. That’s Agenda 21."
• The Americans are longshots to win the TdF this year

Monday Afternoon Commute - I would rather smile on a bike than cry in a BMW

Good afternoon

• Capital Bikeshare dad. This is definitely against the rules (one person per bike) and against the law (children under 15? need a helmet).
• Local author has his bike stolen. Assumes black kids stole it - it was in Brookland afterall. "Why was I assuming that the kid who stole my bike was acting out of some terrible pain, as if he had been directly under the lash of Bull Connor?" Better question: Why were you assuming that a kid stole your bike? The bike was, after all, locked up - meaning that they must've had some tools or something.
• There are two more open houses on the I-66 mutlimodal study inside the beltway coming up this month. Input has already included much about bike facilities like improving and extending the Custis Trail and better connecting Tysons to the W&OD trail. 
• Does having Dan Tangherlini at the helm of GSA make this more likely?
• "bicycle use in Beijing has dropped from about 60 percent in 1986 to 17 percent in 2010." and "By comparison D.C. is all clean and beautiful, but the view in front is also kind of sterile after Beijing - everyone is wearing helmets and swathed in flourescent yellow jackets.”

Final Commute of 2011

Good afternoon

• If you noticed closures on the Rock Creek Park Trail this week it was to construct a retaining wall to stabilize an area of the stream bank that has eroded between Massachusetts Avenue and P Street.
• Capital Bikeshare is still the country's largest bikeshare system, but probably only until NYC's is installed. 
• 11-year old cyclist hit by car in Halifax, VA. Paper oddly reports that the crash caused $2,500 in damage to the car.  

NPS supports rebuild and expansion of Rock Creek Park Trails

The National Park Service issued the Rock Creek Park Multi-Use Trail Environmental Assessment last week, and if all the proposed improvements are carried out, it should make for a vastly improved trail experience. NPS identified three alternatives for the trail itself and two sets of options for smaller elements. In every case their preferred  alternative will lead to a better trail. 

That is not to say that it will build the trail that everyone wants. In a few places the trail will remain difficult or narrower than AASHTO guidelines would recommend. The Park service felt that widening the trail to 10 feet for its entire length would cause "adverse impacts to sensitive park resources, particularly from the segment north of Piney Branch Parkway to north of the National Zoo." Another alternative to build to 8 feet with a 2 foot soft shoulder would be even worse they determined. 

Another source of disappointment has to do with the Zoo. Many asked that the Zoo keep its gates open at night to allow commuters to bypass the tunnel. But according to the Zoo, from a meeting this past summer, gate closure is required to maintain accreditation with the American Zoological and Aquarium Association (AZA). That seems like an odd requirement and no further details are given, but perhaps an enterprising young journalist will contact the AZA to make a story out of it. Also odd, is that when the NPS dismissed lighting on the trail they did so, in part, because the park is closed from dusk till dawn which seems to imply that the trail is also closed. Which leads me to ask why they even pursued the opening of the zoo trail section - and why the trail would be closed but the road open?

The last major disappointment is that there will be no direct connection from the trail to Harvard Street. The project team decided that the short sight lines and "other safety concerns" would make it unsafe. 

But despite these spots where things did not go the way many trail advocates and users wanted, there are numerous trail improvements to be excited about, including:

Wider, repaved surfaces - Of the 3.7 miles of trails that currently exist, the report notes that it is mostly 10 feet wide north of Piney Branch and 8 feet wide south of there, with a few narrower portions. The new design will widen the trail to 10 feet for everything but a small section from the Zoo to Piney Branch with a few other small exceptions.  The Rose Park Trail will be widened from 4 feet to 6 feet and the Piney Branch Parkway trail would be widened from 4.5 feet to 8 feet.

Widened path in Beach Drive Tunnel - The existing 2-foot wide sidewalk along the west side of the tunnel would be widened to four or five feet. Not really enough to recommend biking on, but a big improvement for other trail users. There would be signage and some sort of barrier too. The vehicular lanes would be narrowed, which means that another advantage is that cyclists might find slower traffic in the tunnel.

Bridge over Rock Creek south of the Tunnel - This has long been a problematic section of trail since the existing crossing is only 3.5 feet wide. The plan is to build a new pedestrian bridge next to the existing bridge which would create an 8-foot wide trail in this piece. It's unclear why they didn't choose to widen the trail on the bridge to 10 feet. 

Porter Street Underpass - Unfortunately, there is very little help coming to this difficult choke point where the trail drops quickly under the road. The plan is to add some center line striping, but not to do the more expensive and intrusive earthwork that would be needed to really address this spot. Maybe we'll have to wait for the bridge to be rebuilt. 

Crosswalks - new crosswalks would be built at Broad Branch Road to the north of the parking area entrance and across P Street above the ramp to Beach Drive. Existing crosswalks near the National Zoo and Shoreham Drive would be modified to create shorter crossing distances and improved sightlines and the crosswalks at Jewett street and Shoreham Drive would be raised as a traffic calming measure.

Trail Realignment and Grading - There will some minor realignments of the trail to improve sight distances and approaches to trail segments south of Pierce Mill, south of Shoreham Drive and at the approaches to the Devil's Chair Bridge. In addition, a 180-foot segment south of Calvert Street will be regraded to decrease the slope from 12 percent to 8 percent. Finally an 1100-foot segment south of Pierce Mill will have its vertical profile raised to reduce ponding.

The trail we currently have is 20 years old and so many of these improvements are absolutely necessary. A cyclist experienced a crash on the RCPT this past year that led to her death, and while we don't know the cause of that crash, it is safe to say that letting the trail fall into disrepair will only increase the chances of future crashes.

For non trail improvements, there will be some additions to connecting sidewalks at Beach Drive north of Blagden Avenue, repair of a historic retaining wall and numerous stormwater management projects. Bicycle parking is not included in the EA because installation will be so cheap and of such low impact that it wasn't worth studying; but areas to install bike parking will be addressed in the design phase. 

One area of contention in the project was Rose Park. Some people wanted the trail paved at it's current narrow width and others wanted bikes banned in the park. On these issues NPS noted that the current trail was so narrow that trail users often left the trail and trampled on the grass next to it, and thus keeping the trail narrow would do no good. And they wrote:

One of the needs of the project is to maintain support of the diverse trail users and groups including pedestrians, bicyclists, runners, those enjoying nature, etc. Furthermore, NPS Management Policies (NPS(2006), Section 9.2.2 Trails and Walks, recognizes trails and walks as an integral part of each park’s transportation system. Section 9.2.2 also calls for trails and walks to be situated, designed, and managed to allow for a satisfying park experience and allow accessibility by the greatest number of people; and protect park resources. Excluding bicycles from Rose Park would not be compatible with the needs of the proposed action, nor with NPS policies

For those who've been told there is "a perfectly good bike trail right over there," the trail counts show what a misnomer that is as cyclists are a minority of the trail's users. According to trail counts cyclists made up only 34% of those on the "bike trail" while runners (37.2%), walkers (25.5%) and those with dogs and strollers (2.9%) made up the rest. I have no idea why walking with a dog or stroller means you're no longer a walker.

The report is filled with some fascinating historical and archeological information as well as detailed maps of the area that show the names of all the bridges and the location of the Washington City Tunnel Storage Shed (whatever that is). I won't bore you with all the factoids - like the revelation that the hill the Omni hotel sits on is called Shoreham Hill - but you should read the EA if you're interested in such things.

My comments will primarily be in support of the trail rehabilitation as proposed, but I'm going to ask that the relook at the Harvard Street connection. Even if all they can do is build a staircase - with a bike trough obviously - it would be better than missing this opportunity to better connect the trail with the neighborhood across from the zoo.

There will be a public meeting on this tomorrow, Wednesday, December 14, 2011 from 6pm to 8pm at the Columbia Heights Educational Campus, Auditorium at

3101 16^th Street, NW

Washington, DC  2001

Only written comments can be accepted. You may submit comments electronically at NPS’s PEPC website (http://parkplanning.nps.gov/RockCreekTrailRehab) or by mail at the following address:

Austina Casey, Project Manager

District Department of Transportation

Infrastructure Project Management Administration

Attn: Rock Creek Trail EA

55 M Street SE, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20003

 

Saturday Morning Ride - Jet Residue

So, it's the least exciting last week of college football I can remember, but I'm not so confident that LSU can lose and expect to be in the title game. They have to at least keep it close.

• In addition to the good news that was the Rock Creek Park Trail EA (more on that coming Monday) the redevelopment of the GSA Heating plant - where Rock Creek meets the C&O Canal - could also improve the RCPT.  A plan to turn it into a Four Seasons Private Residences, would also build a bridge across the C&O Canal to the RCPT and continue the trail along the west side of the creek over to Water Street. Cyclists trying to connect between the RCPT and the CCT now have to cross Rock Creek and then two at-grade crossings before finally being able to get on Water Street. This would be a faster, safer and - from the looks of it - nicer connection.  There's an aerial view of the trail at the link. 
• "we should not buy into “Save the Trail” and other Purple Line opponents’ efforts to hype the danger of crossing Wisconsin Avenue to hysterical levels. Yes, any at-grade crossing of a busy highway should be avoided wherever an attractive trail bridge or underpass is possible for a regional trail like the CCT. But no, the trail network will not be destroyed if we must cross in a protected crosswalk at a well redesigned intersection."
• The Alice Swanson ghost bike is gone again. While, oddly, I always liked seeing it, perhaps it is time to let it go. Other ghost bikes for Constance Holden and David Williams are gone, without event after all. There have been 18 area bike deaths (involving cars) since Swanson's and I'm not sure any of them have ghost bikes anymore. But I mixed feelings. 
• The Post has a two-pager on the new Long Bridge Park - where "advocates hope to create a direct link to the Mount Vernon bike trail." They found an old railroad bridge while digging it out [ How cool would it be to refurbish that and make it into a future bike trail crossing some where? Probably not salvageable, but still.] It's a really interesting article. Jackson City would be a great name for a neighborhood bar. This quote though... you just can't make this stuff up "“I’d never let small children walk under a jet path, where there’s jet residue, or along a bird sanctuary where there are all kinds of diseases. Some energetic kid is going to climb over that fence to get closer to the railroad tracks. They did a beautiful job. . . . But how are SUVs with three kids going to get in there? You tell me. It’s a treacherous entrance.” Before I pick up my beer from Chocolate City, I plan to check it out.