DDOT had its recent celebration of it's latest cycling milestones: 40 miles of bike lane and 1000 bike racks. Though they're 10 miles behind schedule, DDOT hopes to reach its goal - as established in the Master Bike Plan - of 60 miles of bike lane by 2015 (there is some padding in the schedule so this is possible).
They're ahead of schedule on bike racks and halfway to their goal of 2000 by 2015. But I feel they should subtract the 400+ parking meters they've removed, so really they're at 600 (or even 800 if you want to equate a bike rack to 2 parking meters).
Looking at the bike plan: the Met Branch Trail and Anacostia Riverwalk should both be done - they aren't even close, we should have 80 miles of signed bike route, Improvement at 3 bridges - nope, 40,000 bike maps distributed and bike programs at 12 schools. Not sure about all of these goals, but I remember thinking the bike plan was lacking in ambition when it was finalized. Maybe I'm too ambitious.
If you were only to count properly engineered bike lanes -- unlike the door-zone beauty in the picture for example -- they'd be at about 10 miles.
Posted by: Contrarian | November 12, 2008 at 08:18 AM
there should be a pair of bike racks put in every place that they remove a parking meter. places like k street downtown are impossible to park on now...
Posted by: IMGoph | November 12, 2008 at 10:37 AM
I agree with Contrarian on this, and then some.
I'm also wondering when they're going to fix the problems that exist with the current bike lanes. An example: I brought up numerous issues with the really poorly-designed bike lanes at Thomas Circle way back when they re-did that piece of work. Though I found the ideas presented to me as improvements wanting, none of them were implemented (painting the bike lane itself a different color, putting up more obvious signage).
Posted by: Chris | November 12, 2008 at 11:30 AM
"Not sure about all of these goals, but I remember thinking the bike plan was lacking in ambition when it was finalized. Maybe I'm too ambitious"
I think the underlying issue remains that these plans are made by people who predominantly drive cars. I love driving but I also love biking so I develop a good sense of what would improve biking.
The ignorance (in the true sense of the word) of the planners leads to a weak plan whose success is further hampered by the lack of effective internal advocacy for budget allocation. How can you expect people to advocate effectively for issues in which they have neither a solid grounding nor any personal involvment?
Of course, I could be wrong since I am not really familiar with how this piece of the DC government works.
Posted by: Eric | November 12, 2008 at 12:13 PM
these plans are made by people who predominantly drive cars
That's incorrect in this case.
The Bike Plan was put together by Toole Design Group and DDOT. Most of the TDG people I met were cyclists. Jim Sebastian, the bike coordinator for DC at the time, is a cyclist and did much of DDOT's work. The Bicycle Advisory Committee and WABA gave a lot of input. There were several public meetings for the Bike Plan and as you can imagine, most of the people at the ones I went to were cyclists.
I think at the time, people were so used to getting little that they were scared to ask for too much. I expect the next bike plan to much more bold.
Posted by: Washcycle | November 12, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Thank you for the clarification washcycle!
Maybe then it is a version of the second point I made: The usual car-centric mindeset makes it hard to have effective advocacy when it is budget time.
Let's hope for a[n even] brighter future!
Thanks for all the info you post here! Wonderful resource.
Posted by: Eric | November 12, 2008 at 03:30 PM