TheWashCycle

Streetcars

According to DC leadership streetcars are coming. This means two things for cyclists. First, tracks

D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) officials announced last week that laying tracks for the planned 3.5-mile streetcar line, stretching from Union Station to Minnesota Avenue, will be included in a $43 million project that will rebuild the H Street-Benning Road roadbed. The project, currently in the design phase, is expected to be bid this spring for construction to commence in the fall.

Not just tracks at a 90 degree angle, but tracks you have to ride parallel to. Think P and O street in Georgetown. In any form they're an added danger for cyclists. There are things that can be done to alleviate the risk. Cyclists must demand that the street be designed to keep cyclists away from the tracks as much as possible. Here's how that went down in Portland.

In addition, so called "flange fillers" can be used to fill the gap and improve safety. Ernst Poulsen, editor of the Bicycle News Agency

We promoted a sollution[sic] used by the Danish Rail Roads in the city of Soenderborg in the southern part of Jutland. (The peninsula part of Denmark). Here the rail-track (flange) was filled with a rubber-material. This material was soft enough for a train-car to depress it because of the huge weight - where as cyclists would just feel a smooth surface and possibly a slight bump. But cyclists couldn't get caught by the rail-track when this flange filler was used.

And of course the other issue is making sure that the new streetcars will allow for bicycles on board as is true in Portland and other places.

I'm not against streetcars - though I know other cyclists who are. At least they can't swerve over and hit you like a bus. But cyclists concerns need to be addressed early on in this - not later.

(Photo of tram tracks bicycle warning in Nottingham, England)

Baltimore Throws Down the Gauntlet

Baltimore plans to create a bicycle network that combines designated lanes and shared roadways to create more than 400 miles of bike routes. Work could begin within a year, pending approval by the city's planning commission.

Baltimore might as well say "it's on like King Kong" when they throw out stats like this:

City planners presented census statistics showing that less than one-half of 1 percent of Baltimore residents commute to work on bikes, compared with more than 1 percent in Washington.

Building a "bicycle friendly city" is no easy task. Painting a bunch of bike lanes, (which are of debatable value) and throwing up signs isn't nearly enough. It requires well paved and designed roads, free of potholes and sewer grates. It requires education and traffic calming. It requires parking and shower facilities.  And it requires integrating bikes into all local transportation.

"It's about infrastructure - making sure you have connections to the light rail system and buses and MARC," Macdonald said. "I would love to be able to bike to the MARC station and go wherever I need to go."

It would be great if you could take your bike on MARC, or Metro during rush hour(MTA lets riders bring bikes during rush hour and many cities have bicycle racks inside their light rail trains[pictured above]). But at least there's bikes on buses.

Transaction 2030

According to a story in the Examiner, Tim Kaine and the Virginia Senate both presented transportation plans for the next four years. (The story claims they're $3.7 and $3.8 million plans, but they must've meant billion). Anyway, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) figures they need $664 million annually, $2 million of that for bicycle and pedestrian networks, which doesn't seem like much to me. Heck DC gets half that much just for Safe Routes to Schools.

NVTA has a transportation plan called Transaction 2030 (Ever notice that transportation plans are always looking ahead to years divisible by 5? No one has a Transfuture 2019) that defines transportation plans in the future and in their summary they write:

The TransAction 2030 Plan includes over $60 million in improvements to the Northern Virginia multi-use trail system. These improvements were identified as part of the Northern Virginia Regional Bikeway and Trail Network Study completed by VDOT. Major trail projects include:

• VA Route 7 between Leesburg and Alexandria

• Beltway Trail

• Potomac Heritage Trail

• US Route 1 between Stafford County and the Beltway.

In addition, over 150 individual trail projects are included to improve linkages between activity centers and provide connections along and between existing trails.

If you go to the NOVA bike plan page they have a map (large pdf) of the proposed system that's quite ambitious. I think it'll take more than $2 million a year. I'm just glad to see that someone wants a Beltway Trail besides me.

WB&A Trail Construction

Despite the gloom and doom of a few years ago about the WB&A Trail, it looks like things are moving along in a positive way. Phase I in Anne Arundel County opened last year. Construction on Phase II south of Strawberry Lane was suppose to begin in October of 2005. I haven't been out there so I don't know if that's true, but it seems encouraging. And then there's this bit of good news:

The County purchased six acres of land from Constellation Properties along Patuxent Road. Our plan is to build a future parking lot for trail visitors and possibly a Ranger Station for the WB&A Trail Park. When we completed the purchase Constellation gave the County an additional 200 acres of wetlands along the WB&A right-of-way to add to our greenway system. These two 100 acre parcels north and south of Patuxent Road allow the County to connect Patuxent Ponds Park to the greenway.

In addition the county is pursuing funding for the South Shore Trail, which will connect the WB&A with Annapolis and the B&A Trail. The news on connecting the two pieces of the WB&A with a bridge over the Patuxent is a less firm. The town of Bowie has it on its list of recommended projects for the state, but that's pretty much where it stands for now.

Utilitarian Exercise

A new study came out about kids and utilitarian exercise (exercise you get while running errands or commuting) and found that

about as many kids stay active by pedaling their bikes to a friend’s house or walking around a neighborhood as do others by participating in organized athletics.

Which is interesting since I never see kids in DC biking to school. I live near a school and never see bikes locked up there. Which is too bad because

About one in eight American children bike or walk to school as compared to one in two children 30 years ago. The percentage of children who are overweight has more than doubled in the same time frame.

Which does not mean there is a cause and effect, but common sense says they're linked. A more interesting realization was then when kids spent more time riding bikes recreationally, they used them less (though not much) to go to their friends and vice versa.

The civil engineers also estimated the impact of adding exercise-enticing features to a neighborhood, and found they provided modest benefits. The study showed that increasing the number of bike lanes by 25 percent might increase the time spent in recreational travel in a neighborhood by 15 percent. Concurrently, the time kids spent walking or biking around their neighborhood would then drop about 1 percent. As a result, their overall physical activity levels only increased about 2 percent.

More on the Trimet thing

The Randy Albright/Trimet thing is becoming something of a national story - so you'll excuse me if I report on it again even though it's on the other side of the continent. The Oregonian ran a front page story called Uneasy Riders about the tension between cyclists and drivers. Having read more about this, I agree that Mr. Albright was way out of line, though he didn't deserve being attacked (see photo) and I agree that when cyclists pull stuff like this - which admittedly, I've gotten angry and done - they aren't helping.

There are some shocking things in the Oregonian article. One couple claimed they moved away because of all the bicycles. That's a first. DC needs to look at ways to avoid the "cold war" between bikes and cars if we're to achieve the same level of growth as Portland

Since 1991, daily bike traffic on the Steel, Broadway, Burnside and Hawthorne bridges has increased by 257 percent, according to the city's transportation department.

The increase in automobile traffic: Zip. Zero.

and isn't our goal to say the same about Memorial, TR, 14Th Street etc...?

 

Walter Reed

Earlier I wrote about opening up more of DC's blocked off areas to bicycles. The NIH has a done a good job of this in Bethesda building a small (if not formally for bikes) trail south of it's new perimeter fence, but that was because residents had gotten used to crossing the campus - it's different opening up a previously closed area.

With Walter Reed scheduled to close, the question has come up - what to do with the spacious campus? The answer came this week when the GSA asked for 34 acres for office space and the State Department requested the remainder for embassies.

The part that interested me is this:

"It is considerably more likely that Walter Reed will be spoken for,'' said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who was briefed by Army officials yesterday. She said she hopes to fight for a sliver of the base to be turned over to the city for retail development along Georgia Avenue NW.

I also hope she fights for an even smaller sliver of land along Aspen St. - the southern edge of Walter Reed - for a bike trail. The western edge of the 0.5 mile trail would connect to Sherrill Drive in Rock Creek Park (a street that is closed to vehicular traffic on weekends), and the eastern edge is only 0.6 miles from the Metropolitan Branch Trail.  Maybe one of the embassies they open will be Dutch.

CCT to NBT

I had been having trouble getting from the Capital Crescent Trail to the North Bethesda Trail, mostly because I was following this cue sheet which is riddled with errors.

Here's what I have now. Coming from the south,

- Turn left on Little Falls Parkway and stay on it until it turns into Glenbrook Road.
- Follow Glenbrook all the way to Rugby Avenue
- Follow the trail through the park straight ahead. This will take you to the NIH campus and the paved path on the south side of the perimeter fence. But be warned:

The purpose of the paved path was to provide a paved route for non-NIH pedestrians outside the security fence around the southern campus perimeter.  It was not intended or designed as a formal bicycle trail.

turn left on the paved path and take that out to Old Georgetown Road.
turn right and follow the sidewalk/side path to the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Charles St.
There you'll find the North Bethesda.

Alternatively you could just turn left off of Glenbrook onto Old Georgetown. For more directions around NIH look at the NIH Bike Commuters Club website.

The "paved path" along the south side connecting Old Georgetown to Jones Bridge is nice, but why not create a formal bicycle trail? What they have now is too narrow and meanders.

Rock Creek Park Comment Period

The comment period for the Rock Creek Park General Management Plan (GMP) runs through February 28 of this year. I've poked through the report and I have trouble determining why the Park Service chose Alternative A over Alternative D. The difference between the two is that Alt D would eliminate automobile traffic along three segments of Beach Drive from 9:30 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. each weekday. By the admission of its own report, it's the environmentally preferred solution. For Alternative A they give a very non-specific argument that it will

most effectively balance the recreational, environmental and traffic consideration for the short- and long-term future of the park.

So, the WABA preferred alternative gives too much consideration to recreation and the environment over traffic. One would think that a park would err on the side of recreation and the environment.

That is until you read these choice words from local elected officials:

Further restricting the permissible uses of Beach Drive during the week strikes me as unfair to those citizens wishing to enjoy the park whose mobility requires a car. The new proposal would eliminate use of Beach Drive during the one segment of time when individuals with disabilities, and others who require a car for mobility, can enjoy the park without having to compete with rush-hour traffic. (U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen)

I write to express my concern about Alternative D in the absence of information that significant numbers of residents would benefit. The Park Service has conducted no survey or offered any information regarding how many people might use the park during the proposed closure, and who they might be.(U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton)

These residents already contend with cut-through traffic on the weekends, due to the closure of Beach Drive. (Senator Barbara A. Mikulski)

Van Hollen, Norton and Senator Paul Sarbanes also promised (amid some nice self-aggrandizing) that they could provide money for a complete and improved  trail (ostensibly to get cyclists off the road).

Western Maryland Rail Trail Extenstion

In October, Gov. Robert Ehrlich announced that Maryland would spend $5 million on a 4.5 mile extension of the Western Maryland Rail Trail. The new section will run from Pearre Station to Little Orleans, MD with access through a 4400 foot tunnel. The Western Maryland Railway ran all the way to Cumberland and the trail may eventually go that far - then it could connect with the Allegheny Highlands Trail. The AHTM is part of the Great Allegheny Passage, a combination of rail trails running from Cumberland to Pittsburgh. Connecting with the C&O canal tow path, they create a continuous trail from DC to Pittsburgh. I've ridden both the AHTM and the WMRT and they're both great. The latter is paved. On the former I saw a bear.