There have been nearly 900+ people who have signed up for SmartBike so far. I don't bike through the downtown region too often, but have seen a few people using them at the grocery store or around town, which is encouraging. I had said all 2000 memberships would be sold in 3 months, so it looks like that won't happen.
Only one bike has been stolen so far, which the Department of Transportation is working to recover, Sebastian said.
Which is a lot if you only have 150 bikes.
Sebastian said his agency wants to increase the number of bikes and
locations throughout the city, but plans for expansion have not been
set.
Here's a report on metcaffination. I've been doing this on school days for a little over a year and my experience with questions was largely similar.
As folding bicycles are rather rare, I am frequently asked about it. A
friend of mine once observed that Americans, in particular, have a
tendency to ask how much you paid for something: this is certainly true
of the Brompton. Complete strangers are often most interested in how
much it cost me and have no hesitation about asking.
From a press release last week (the photo is mine)
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Department of Transportation (DDOT) interim
Director Frank Seales, Jr. and Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells participated in
a groundbreaking ceremony today for the Bicycle Transit Center at Union
Station. Also know as the Bike Station, this innovative project supports
the District’s goal of providing residents and commuters with a wide range of
alternative transportation options. The 1,700 square foot facility will
be the first of its kind on the East Coast and is expected to open for business
in spring 2009.
“The District is already one of the best
cities for biking in the nation,” said Mayor Fenty, “but we’re not satisfied
with that distinction. This facility, with the myriad of services it will
offer, demonstrates how committed we are to making DC even more bike-friendly.”
The striking glass and
steel building will be located at the west end of Union Station, near
Massachusetts Avenue and 1st St. NE. It will offer bicycle
parking, rentals, repairs and retail accessories, all in one convenient
location near an important transit hub. There will be space for
approximately 150 bikes on 2-tier racks. The bike station will also
accommodate recumbent bikes and tandems. Parking will cost $1 a day or
$100 for an annual membership. The revenues are expected to offset the
expense of operating the facility. Some free parking will remain near the
new building. The cost of constructing the Bike Station is approximately
$3 million, plus an additional $1 million for site work on the new plaza.
The bicycle transit center
is just one of many pedestrian and bicycle initiatives currently underway at
DDOT:
The SmartBikeDC bike-sharing program, launched in August 2008, is off to a fast start. More than 775 people signed up in the first month and the program is averaging 136 trips a day.
DDOT is scheduled to install 7 miles of bike lanes on city streets by the end of 2008, more than any single year to date, bringing the total bike lane mileage in the District to 39.
100 more bicycle parking racks are scheduled to be installed in the city by the end of the year bringing that total to 900.
The highly publicized Draft Pedestrian Master Plan was released earlier this year and is currently undergoing its final public review process. The plan recommends new traffic safety policies and roadway improvements to improve pedestrian safety and reduce the number of injuries and fatalities.
Now that school is back in session, DDOT representatives are visiting schools as part of the DDOT pedestrian/bicycle education program. This program looks to educate both children and adults on safe pedestrian and bicycle practices.
Step five in my seven step plan for world domination is this blog and today it turned three years old. It's funny because the pie-in-the-sky thing I talked about in the first post (FlexBike coming to DC) has happened. Otherearly posts have not fared as well. But still, the next year promises to give us the Wilson Bridge bikeway, SmartBike expansion, the Bike Station @ Union Station, the next section of the Met Branch Trail and surely some other improvements I can't even think of. Ridership and readership are up and I'm looking forward to another good year of riding.
Numbers:
As of last year: 997 posts, 1881 comments, 158748 total page views. (roughly 600 hits a day) As of this year: 1889 posts, 3865 comments, 444558 total page views (roughly 1200 hits a day)
While ridership has grown at almost all of Metro’s end-of-the-line
stations, parking use has dropped slightly as more riders rely on
bicycles and commuter buses to reach the stations, officials said.
“Racks are seeing quite a bit of use at a number of stations: Vienna,
West Falls Church, East Falls Church, Silver Spring, West Hyattsville,
Braddock Road, King Street and Cleveland Park, to name a few,” Metro
planning chief Nat Bottigheimer said. “In some cases, racks are well
over capacity and cyclists are locking bikes to any stationary object.”
Officials are developing plans to install more bike racks outside
stations and are considering adding some to secure areas in parking
garages.
A post on GGW about a near miss on Connecticut Avenue near the spot where Alice Swanson was killed triggered a debate about bike lanes. One we've had a few times here. [Full disclosure: I started out for them, then become more ambivalent, but have since moved back into the pro-bike lane camp]. Later he linked to a study that attempts to be neutral on the debate.
This paper critically reviews the claims of advocates on each side of this controversy and finds that what passes for hard fact is often conjecture and exaggeration, including assertions about car-bike crashes, and the potential of both bike lanes and education to affect bicyclist safety and behavior.
Unfortunately, the paper comes off as a bit wishy-washy, the message being "Bicycling is not an exact science, so
keep an open mind." Though these recommendations all make sense
Replace “experience” or “skill” levels theories with the concept of a normal and natural continuum of levels of traffic tolerance. Drop the idea that there are two kinds of bicyclists; one kind described by terms such as experienced, skilled, expert, real, serious, assertive, knowledgeable, vehicular, adult, commuter, fearless, elite; and the other kind falling into categories like inexperienced, unskilled, occasional, recreational, timid, phobic. An either/or, right/wrong, black/white way of thinking is the one-eyed prophet’s trade mark. The built environment is a form of nonverbal communication. It’s meaning is imprecise and subject to various interpretations. It will elicit different emotions and behaviors from different cyclists.
Know, but don’t worship, crash statistics; and respect cyclists with all levels of traffic tolerance. Some people think skydiving is life’s
ultimate experience. Some would not dream of engaging in what to them would
be such a frightening activity, no matter how much training they were offered. This second group is not phobic and neither are those who feel uncomfortable
bicycling in heavy traffic.
Advocate more flexibility in bike lane design to make the system image more closely reflect an accurate mental model of healthy car-bike interactions.
Take a problem-solving approach to bicycle transportation planning. That is, start by gathering information about the bicycling obstacles and opportunities specific to a site, analyze the problems, then—and only then—choose fitting solutions from among many possibilities.
Beware of miracle cures and silver bullets. When someone claims fantastic accident-reducing powers for bike lanes, or bicyclist education, or whatever, you can bet it’s an estimate, not documented fact, and that it’s based on limited and biased information. There is no single “miracle drug” that alone will create a healthy bicycling environment.
Broaden safety-oriented and comfort-oriented programs by striving to nurture bicyclists’ “sense of competence.”
He does "make a case for hybrid lanes, but only to illustrate that there are alternatives to current bike lane designs that are worth pursuing". Hybrid lanes are what we would now call sharrows.
project managers say much work remains before the pedestrian/bike path across the span opens next spring.
But that's not the only pedestrian-biker route still to come as part of the project:
-- A trail from Route 1 south of the Capital Beltway to the Washington Street deck is scheduled to open this fall.
-- A trail starting on the east side of Telegraph Road at Huntington
Avenue and passing over the Beltway to connect with Eisenhower Avenue
near Hoffman Center is scheduled to open in late 2009.
Stop at the first comment if you want to avoid getting angry.
The billboard ad says that she keeps her bike in the locker room and so do a lot of other people. Now they have a riding club on Wednesdays. When I was living at the Marriott, they were willing to keep my bike for me when I came home as well (and once they sent a van to pick me up - no charge - when my bike broke down).
Have you thought about volunteering with WABA but never really got around to doing it? Now is your chance! On the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month From 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM we invite everyone and anyone to come by the WABA office and help stuff membership packets, and brain storm future volunteer efforts. Did we mention that we will be providing food and drink?
WABA volunteer nights are a fun way to get to know other cyclists in the DC area and a simple way to help advocate for better bicycling. At this first meeting we want to do a lot of brain storming, which is why we need you! Do you have a list of ideas for volunteer opportunities you would like to see us offer? Do you want to play a larger role in helping WABA's advocacy efforts? Now is your chance.
In addition to announcing that there will be a SmartBike station in Columbia Heights once SmartBike's expands, NCH (via GGW) found out that
DDOT and the DC USA
developer have identified places to add bike racks, but "the Deputy
Mayor's office has refused to consider racks in the garage." Update: DMPED argues that allowing bikes in the garage would pose a safety problem.
What kind of safety problem exactly? All too often "safety problem" is code for "we just don't want it but we're afraid to say so." The law actually requires bike parking, but I'm not sure if DC USA is grandfathered in. When I rode through the area recently I noticed more bike parking, specifically on the triangle where Park and Kenyon meet. Still, the parking is nowhere near adequate. Business owners are always complaining about a lack of auto parking, but they hardly care about a lack of bike parking.
Maybe some cool Columbia Heights-specific bike parking would dress the area up, something that ties in to the Tivoli for instance. I posted the video before, but CPG has sketches of the David Byrne designed bike racks up. They aren't amazing, and I wonder if anyone would care if David Byrne hadn't done them, but they're clever looking.
Another option - or really in addition - for the area is a bike corral like the one in Portland. (I like the garage parking for employees and bad weather, but the bike corral allows for quick customer use).
I called Union Station. Joan Malkowski, the general manager,
told me, "We have a policy in place that is pretty much in line with
the District's policy." That means that bikes are tagged and, if they
haven't been moved in 10 days, they can be removed. She admitted she
wasn't sure why Georgina's bike was taken.
Removing abandoned bikes by the District's policy makes sense, but it sounds like Union Station wasn't following it.
A coalition of arts groups is trying to raise money and get a lease
from the city to re-open the old trolley tunnels under Dupont Circle as
a new art gallery and event space.
Of course, I'd like to see the area (or one half of it) turned into a bike station after the Union Station one is opened, but I wouldn't stand in the way of a gallery if they could get it to work. It's a shame to leave that space completely unused. Since the trolley station is actually two underground spaces there may be room for both.
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