TheWashCycle

Thursday Morning Commute - Fire at the Hardware Store

Good morning

• DDOT is taking comments on the zebra barriers proposed for Pennsylvania Avenue until June 13th. (Video below the fold)
• "It’s too early to tell whether parking spaces lost when bike lanes were installed will cause ticket revenue to dip or whether the sharp uptick in the number of people riding bicycles around town will mean less demand for the city’s 260,000 on-street parking spaces."
• The Landmark Mall redevelopment comes with $500,000 for pedestrian and bicycle paths 
• One way that seatbelt laws differ from helmet laws.

Route 27 Bridge replacement should help the Route 110 Trail

Previously unreported highlights from the March 2013 Arlington BAC Meeting

• The 2013 street paving and slurry seal maps are now available. These projects often drive where and when bike projects can be done. Paving on N. Harrison Street is likely to include bike treatments.
• Not only will the Route 27 (Washington Blvd) Bridge over Route 110 (Jeff Davis Highway) improve the trail on the bridge, but the abutments will be changed to allow for trails under the bridge. 

Monday Morning Commute - like a childhood dream come true

I'm sorry, but the White House Correspont Dinner is not "prom for nerds." Journalists are not nerds. Look at who plays them in movies: Robert Redford, Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson, etc... These are not nerds. Sure, there's Clark Kent, but he was really Superman. A journalist hanging out with the gang from Big Bang Theory would be really out of place. George Will is a nerd, but he never goes, because he'd rather go to baseball games because he's a nerd. All I can say is that prom for nerds probably takes place at ComicCon or something and it isn't on TV and Katy Perry doesn't go to it and the people that do go probably average a near perfect score on the math portion of the SAT.

• The Washington Post had a cover story on how the DC area biking boom is leading more adults to learn to bike.  This is one of those stories, like bike polo or fixies, that get reported every few years but this is a pretty good version of it, with lots of good details. 
  • "Embarrassing seems to have become unbearable for many of the area’s non-biking adults; thousands of them are fueling a boom in adult learn-to-ride classes. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is holding 14 adult-only classes this spring and summer, including some courses that cost as little as $1o in the District, Alexandria and Arlington. The association may add more adult classes to meet the soaring demand, and other groups offer similar classes."
  • "There will be no training wheels on these full-sized Treks, no instructors running beside, steadying their seats and shouting breathless encouragements before shoving them to their fates. Instead, the instructors just remove the pedals."
  • "Krantz, a federal worker in Alexandria, came to a stop, planted his feet and recalled all the times in life he couldn’t do this, like the time he had to take a van back to the hotel by himself while his college buddies went for a ride in Costa Rica."
  • "Mansell plans to sign up for Capital Bikeshare, which allows users to check out bicycles from stations around the region. Several students mentioned the wildly popular program (it passed 4 million rides earlier this week), as well as other spokes of the bicycle boom that has enveloped Washington in the past decade. "
• The Maryland State Highway Administration is now accepting applications for Recreational Trail program funding for the 2014 fiscal year.
• Word is, the new Secretary of Transportation will be former Charlotte, NC Mayor Anthony Foxx. "He was seen as having aspirations for higher office, but earlier this month, Foxx surprised much of his city when he announced he would not run for reelection. He said then that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and two young children." And after two weeks, he's done with that.
• Groupon has a deal for Bike and Roll. 
• Biking to work helped one man retire at 30. [Of course, running a rental property, doing carpentry and real estate work isn't really "retired" IMO]

Monday Morning Commute - Schedule is uncertain

First time event for me. A pedestrian yelled at me to get off the sidewalk and into the bike lane. Not shocking? Did I mention I was running?

• "The prospective buyers weren’t interested in the ­three-bedroom, 1,092-square-foot ­house, which Cloud and her husband purchased for $5,000 in the 1940s. They wanted her lot, which sits next to a bike trail on a street within walking distance of the Metro and great public schools."
• "Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the No. 3 Democrat in the House, counters that there are many reasons beyond "equity" that the FBI should move to Prince George's County, including "ample, underdeveloped land near the Metro, the MARC commuter rail, the Capital Beltway, a variety of Metro and county transit bus lines and regional bike trail networks." "
• Richard Layman wants a cycle-track on Military Road. 
• "Oak Street this month is losing two of its four through lanes. “By taking away the second travel lane in each direction, we make room for left-turn lanes, dedicated bike lanes, and on-street parking,” VDOT traffic engineer Randy Dittberner said in a statement. “All these features will help eliminate the most extreme speeders and improve safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.”"
• Several Virginia Univeristies are now Bike Friendly Universities. The new entries are James Madison University, Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech. No DC schools make the list - same as Texas. 

DC BAC has the transcript from the WeMoveDC web-based chat. Below are the bie related Q&As

 

Q: When will bicycle lanes be placed on Connecticut and Wisconsin avenuess?

A: We will look to this plan to help identify the future networks for all modes, together. Streets like those that you mention are especially complicated because of competing demands. This planning effort will help to resolve those conflicts.

 

 

Q: Aside from the 15th Street Cycle track, there are few north-south  or east-west corridors that are safe for cyclists. are you planning more protected cycle tracks to make cycling safer for everyone?

A: This plan will look comprehensively at the bicycle network.

 

 

Q: Can we have a coprehensive bicycle parking program, especially in the CBD? Now, the installation process is dictated by the "squeakly-wheel" method. Could we work with BIDs, businesses and communities to better allocate spaces, even if it removes some car street parking?

A: We will be looking at bicycle parking on and off-street as a part of this plan.

 

 

Q: Where did the end-of-block bollards on the L Street cycletrack go (the ones that keep cars out of the cycle track), and when will they be back?

A: They went away for snow removal and will be back in the coming weeks. [WC: They are now back]

Q: FYI valet drivers also pull U-Turns through the PA Ave cycletrack. Some outreach to the valet companies and restaurants would help.

A: DDOT is working with many partners for better enforcement and education to reduce instances of this sort of behavior.

Q: Just to note, police officers are often in that same category.  They park in bike lanes all the time

A: Thanks.

Q: We also need to have some regulations in place to ensure bicylces are on the street and not the sidewalks.  Is this going to be looked into?

Q: There are cycle paths (particularly Rock Creek Pkwy) that are in serious need of repair and revision.  Is the National Park Service party to this planning process?

A: Yes.

Q: Are there any plans to repave the 15th St. bike lane?

A: Yes. Schedule is uncertain.

 

Thursday Morning Commute - Leaving on a jet plane

Good morning

• A good point I failed to make about the Hurt article. 
• Dr. Gridlock suggests wider trails as a way to dial down conflicts between peds and cyclists. 
• "After spending four days riding almost 400 miles from Newtown, Conn., the cyclists of Team 26 pedaled down Constitution Avenue through the rain Tuesday with a police escort leading them to the Capitol."
• DuPont Circle Bike groper being deported. 
• "To grasp the enormity of London’s $1.4 billion bicycle investment, Janette Sadik-Khan, the sitting Commissioner of New York’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has a budget of roughly $2 billion at her disposal… that’s her entire transportation budget."
• Heritage Foundation hates diverting "highway" funding to other transportation: "The current surface transportation law, called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), did eliminate some TAs, such as transportation museums and acquisition of scenic or historic sites and easements, from the list of previously eligible activities, but lawmakers should go further. They should eliminate the eligibility of these programs [including bike projects] for federal funding and turn them over to the states and localities." But they love the idea of diverting other tax money to highways. [ And while it's true that $27.3 billion is technically diverted to transit, TA, etc... $18.8 billion of the trust money came from general tax funds (and not user fees); so really only $8.5 billion is being diverted from users.]

Saturday Evening Ride - Saboteur

Good evening

• A study of graffiti along the red line - and thus the Met Branch Trail. 
• Bike to work day registration is open. 
• WABA wants DDOT to install the M Street cycle track this spring. At a recent facilities committee meeting, DDOT said that M Street was still in design and that the design could be finished in May. 
• Ronnie Kweller makes the case for enhanced residential parking. The question really is, can the city afford to provide very cheap parking to every resident who wants It? And then I guess we should ask, should it? Ronnie Kweller might be better off investing in a zipcar membership and getting rid of her car. Or she can rent a parking space in the neighborhood for $250/month.
• A Frederick bike trail has a bicycle saboteur. 
• Pulled up from the comments. Brian Wrenn, who wrote the recent LTTE complaining about dangerous cyclists, had a previous letter to the Examiner complaining about cyclists in which he admitted to illegally roller-blading on DC roads and nearly causing an accident. 
• It's too bad, I'm actually good at rocket science. 
• A Boston apartment building will provide no car parking, but will have bike racks on the ground floor. 
• Photo - French Cardinal Phillipe Barbarin rides his bicycle in St. Peter's Square after a meeting at the Vatican. [But not everyone is young enough to bike to work, and some people have to look nice when they get there.]

Tuesday Afternoon Commute - Snowquester

Driving and biking is not a zero sum game, IMO. But, I do think that driving is quite a steal, whereas biking is more accurately priced. So, policies that bring driving closer to the real price, make biking more competitive and probably result in more biking on the margin. That's why policies to more accurately price parking (through the removal of minimums or a change in the RPP system) or gasoline use (as Maryland is proposing) are likely to result in small upticks in biking, again IMO. Which is why I report on it here. In addition, the Maryland transportation funding issue is relevant because bikes are transportation and funding the Purple Line is key to extending the CCT.

Martin Di Caro's story at WAMU on the parking minimum issue is very good, and actually makes readers smarter, not just angrier. 

• 'US DOT will partner with the two-wheeled community for two safety summits this spring. After asking where it should be held (Portland got a loud response), LaHood clarified that D.C. is out of the running: “I’m sorry for all you D.C. people,” he said.' More from the Bike Summit here. 
• DC has to reopen the solicitation for it's streetlight contract. The new contract was going to include providing light on certain trails, but now that's been delayed.
• Bicycle Pub coming to Arlington. I heard that the first one of these was built for Burning Man, which just shows that you can't stop capitalism. 
• WABA has "prepared a fact sheet on MoveDC with complete talking points and supporting data" for the upcoming public meetings that DDOT will host. 
• Used bike sale this Saturday. And it's for a good cause. 
• " Curiously, a small portion of Americans walk or bike 60 minutes to work each way." I'm actually surprised that bicyclists aren't a larger percentage of super-commuters than they are of commuters, but then the data is for bicyclists and pedestrians, so cyclists probably get drowned out by pedestrians in the data. But I know many people who, like me, are willing to bike longer because it counts as their daily excercise too. 
• What do Capitol Hill pols think of bike advocates. And, sequester could impact some bike programs. 

Central Branch Avenue Corridor Revitalization Sector Plan accepting comments

Unfortunately, I'm getting this out after PG County hosted a public hearing on the plan, but written comments are being accepted until the 14th. 

Written comments may be submitted until November 14, 2012, to the Clerk of the County Council, County Administration Building, Room 2170, 14741 Governor Oden Bowie Drive, Upper Marlboro, Maryland  20772. 

The Centrail Branch Avenue Corridor Revitalization Sector Plan looks at the economic, land use, and transportation relationships between the communities to the west of Joint Base Andrews and along the Branch Avenue corridor. The plan will examine opportunities for redevelopment, transportation improvements, and strategic public investments that can promote economic development and better connectivity within the plan area.

Since transportation improvements are one of the few areas called out, it's good to see that it does include quite a bit about bikes and cycling, including bike lanes, cycle-tracks, trails and bike parking. This all makes sense since one of the goals of the plan is to reduce reliance on cars - and enhancing and expanding the bicycle network is part of achieving that goal. T 

The plan notes the area's current environment and how unwelcoming it is to cyclists.

The area’s bicycling infrastructure is equally lacking. At present there are no dedicated bikeways on major roads within the corridor, making it very difficult to navigate the area by bicycle. The area also lacks infrastructure, such as proper signage and bicycle parking facilities, which would make cycling safer and more enjoyable. Furthermore, connections are lacking between existing trails or bikeways and other transportation options, including the Branch Avenue Metro Station. As a result, the area, especially primary streets and commercial areas, has become highly auto-oriented. County policy promotes the importance of pedestrian streetscapes and bicycle-friendly communities. In order to achieve these goals, efforts should be made to implement sidewalk and bikeway connectivity, particularly to key destinations.

Despite this, they have already seen an increase in bike commuting as more Andrews employees have starting livinng in the plan area and biking to work.

The plan calls attention to existing plans to improve the trails network. 

Within the sector plan, the Master Plan and Sectional Map Amendment for the Henson Creek-South Potomac Planning Area recommends trails along the Henson Creek and Tinkers Creek stream valleys. These trails will link to other trails or sidewalks and connect to key destination points. However, these trails are in different stages of development.

And then it lays out specific plans for additional bike lanes, cycle tracks, trails, shared use roadways and side paths. This can be seen in the map to the right.

The plan calles for

• bike lanes and cycletracks on Command Lane, Camp Springs Avenue, Allentown Road, Beech Road, Mike Shapiro Drive, Clinton Street, Morris Avenue,Yochelson Place, St. Barnabas Road, Woodyard Road and all new roads
• sidepaths along Surratts Road, Allentown Road, Schultz Road, Woody Terrace, Stuart Lane, St. Barnabas Road, several new roads and connecting the proposed development on the west side of Branch Avenue, north of Woodyard Road, to the trail network to the south
• Hard surface trails
  • on Woodyard Bridge and Camp Springs Bridge,
  • at Southern Maryland Hospital, 
  • along Clinton Lewis Spring in Coventry Way
  • from Allentown Road to just south of the Beltway, parallel to Branch Avenue
  • Connecting the Pea Hill Branch to the larger proposed trail system just north of the  Woodyard Road area.
  • Connecting Suitland Road to the pedestrian network to the west that connects to the Branch Avenue Metro area. 

All of which makes for an ambitious proposal. 

Still, it's never too early to start thinking about bikesharing in the area. Even if that is just centered around the Metro station. 

Thursday Morning Commute - Streetbond CL

Good morning. I don't want to bury this key point so, WABA is reporting that DDOT says the L Street Cycle track will start going in in early November.

• Virginia Del. Jim Lemunyon says that "localities in Northern Virginia support using transportation funds for the Columbia Pike trolley, bike paths and sidewalks where safety is not an issue. Such projects do nearly nothing to improve regional mobility." Because mobility is defined as driving.
• Why progress is slow on the Met Branch Trail. “All of the area around Fort Totten is National Park Service land, and there are certain agreements that WMATA has with rights of use to get the Red Line through. So they have to make sure (that) all those different legal agreements on land use work together to allow for the trail access, [but] The partial completion of the MBT is not stopping bicyclists from using it as part of their daily commutes or for recreation. There were 11,503 trips on the MBT last year, a nearly three-fold increase from 2010, according to DDOT figures." And problems in Maryland include "The group Montgomery Preservation Inc. is unhappy with a plan to run the trail between its building that houses a B&O Railroad museum and Metro’s Red Line tracks.  The plan also calls for building a bicycling bridge over Georgia Avenue that would block views of the historic railroad bridge. "
• Making bikeshare available to and usable by the poor isn't easy. 
• There's another CaBi station on the Mall right near the Lincoln Memorial.
• Photos and coverage of the Diamond Derby.
• "You won’t be seeing miles of green paint soon. Painting miles of lanes is expensive, requires on-going maintenance and doesn’t increase the overall safety for cyclists. Instead, DDOT has developed a striping policy for applying green paint to bike lanes. Their focus will be conflict zones (end of bike lanes, mixing zones with cycle tracks, etc), safe zones (bike boxes, floating bike lanes, etc) and at major intersections to guide bicyclists through them....See the full list of bike lanes in Arlington County planned to be painted green (or have already been painted). DDOT will be painting lanes over the next few weeks and the highly anticipated L St cycle track (PDF) will include green paint (M St cycle track will have green paint in 2013).  Officials expect the L St cycle track will be installed during the first few weeks of November. So, be on the look out for green paint in a bike lane near you!"
• One reason developers are reluctant to add parking: bikes. 
• It was walk and bike to school day yesterday. Unfortunately, two teens in Montgomery County were hit while walking from school to the bus stop. A driver lost control of their car and jumped the curb to hit them on the sidewalk.

Thursday Night Commute - Zaminer

Getting this out very late.

• So, did everybody see the Examiner story? The story itself isn't terrible, though it's got its flaws and doesn't really represent the world I live in.
  • "The increasing popularity of biking is giving drivers and cyclists a crash course in the rules -- fueling road rage and leaving both sides scared, annoyed and angry." I actually think things have gotten steadily better over the last decade, and those emotions are nothing new.
  • Saying that county roads are "clogged" with weekend cyclists is overstating it, to say the least.
  • It's unclear how valid DC's bike crash data is - reporting might just be up - so using it to show more conflict may not be accurate.
  • "Capital Bikeshare users cause the most problems, both groups say." According to whom? I thought we were all in agreement that it was the razor operators and segway drivers who were the real problems?
  • Mostly it feels like something someone threw together to meet a deadline.
  • But the real problem is the headline of the print edition "Motorists fuming as bicyclists pack roads; Everyone angry at clueless Bikeshare riders." which is over the top. DCist makes fun of it a bit here. The cover really does look like something you'd see on the Onion.
• Work begins on the new at-grade "Southeast Boulevard" that will replace the Freeway between 11th Street SE and Barney Circle. The project includes the creation of an "adjacent new multi-use trail to allow bicycle and pedestrian travel not currently possible in this area."
• Alexandria bike shops see Capital Bikeshare as a sales pitch for cycling and a good tool for making new bike advocates. “The person on the Bikeshare bike, they’re going to lobby for bike lanes or safer ways to commute and that helps our business as well,” Strang said. “What we’ve noticed … is the more assigned [bike lanes] we get on roads and the more bike specific trails we get, the more people who buy bikes and that’s what’s fueled our industry. That’s the goal: it’s introducing somebody to a bike who might otherwise not ever buy one....Even seemingly direct competitors like bicycle rental companies believe Bikeshare caters to a different costumer.”
• It's someone else's birthday.
• "Instead of staying at the scene, the prosecutor said, Mr. Clement paused his truck for just 30 seconds, pulled to the side of the road for another two minutes, and then drove away, ignoring a cacophony of honking horns and “horrific screams” as bystanders rushed to Ms. Dershowitz’s aid."
• The young people like biking. "Compared with previous generations, today's younger techies are less interested in owning cars and big houses. They prefer to live in central locations, where they can rent an apartment and use transit or walk or bike to work"
• "owing to extensive reporting by Mr. Hamilton’s co-author, Daniel Coyle, “The Secret Race” is much more than just one disgraced cyclist’s confessions and accusations."