TheWashCycle

Cyclists "must act like people and stop acting like cars."

Robert Sullivan states that now that bicycles are being treated like a real transportation option, like cars are, it is important that cyclists not be like the pigs in Animal Farm and adopt the same bad habits as motorists.

For biking to make it to the next level, for bikes to be completely accepted as the viable form of city transportation that they are, bikers must switch sides. They must act like people and stop acting like cars.This means doing things that we, the bikers of New York, would have laughed at just a few years ago. It means getting a little personal, though not that personal. Acting like people means that we have to do things that we frankly don’t want to do and things that we want cars to do, like slow down.

He makes four suggestions.

1. Stop at major intersections.
2. Ride with traffic
3. Stay off the sidewalks
4. Use signals

I'll disagree with the sidewalk element, only because in DC - unlike New York - sidewalk cycling is more often legal than not (and I'd actually be OK with removing the restriction in the CBD - at least outside of rush hour), and I think sidewalk cycling is a critical tool for cyclists. The second rule is less of an issue here because we have fewer one way streets, but I still see it way too often. It's not always possible to signal, but at least 95% of the time it is.

I would also add

5. Use lights when it's dark
6. Stop (not just yield) for pedestrians in the crosswalk - even if they're jaywalking

In fact, if DDOT starts enforcing traffic laws this summer, as promised, this is basically a list of the laws I think they should target. I think if cyclists followed these rules it would make everyone, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, safer.

But, I don't think this will fix the underlying problem Mr. Sullivan is trying to address.

they do hate us, they being nonbikers and us being bikers.

Not all of them mind you. Not even most of them, but enough. And I don't know if following these rules is really going to fix things. Just the other day I had a guy reach out of his window and grab me as I rode by. I stopped because I thought maybe he needed help. Instead he yelled at me "You have to follow the law like everyone else." I was lane-splitting. "Lane splitting is legal" I told him. "No it isn't" he shouted back. Sigh.

Someone commented, probably guez, that the Idaho stop rule violated drivers sense of fairness. It's unfair that cyclists should be allowed to go through a red light - even if it were made legal, it'd still be "unfair." Just as lane-splitting in a traffic jam, as I was doing, is "unfair." And in the future, cycling is only going to continue to get faster and more convenient than driving. And thus, more and more unfair. So for those who can't stand that, they'll always hate us.

And some just hate that we're on the road or in their way.

The Evolution of Biking in Arlington County

That's the subject of a paper by Royce Hanson of the Montgomery County Planning Board and Garry Young of the GW Institute of Public Policy. From the abstract

One potentially effective political strategy that was successful in Arlington is for activists to pressure elected officials to select professional managers who see bikeways as crucial to the overall transportation system. Then it is important to formalize the government-citizen relationship through an advisory panel. Also, in Arlington, the incremental creation of biking assets helped create demand for more and better facilities. In turn, this created political support for expanding and upgrading. Finally, Arlington used potentially negative circumstances (e.g., the building of highway corridors, the introduction of the Metro) as opportunities to change the built environment in ways that have encouraged more active living.

St. Elizabeths Master Plan

When it was first announced that the Coast Guard HQ would be moving from the shore of the Anacostia to a hilltop location at the old St. Elizabeths West Campus I was cautiously hopeful for the old rail spur there. When the concept Master Plan was being worked, there was talk of building an access road along that route, but nothing about bike access. Now the Final Master Plan is out and lo and behold, the access road (pictured below) is in the plan and it MAY include a bike lane from Firth Sterling to the campus limits, if the access road is limited to two lanes. From the plan

It may be feasible to reduce the access road to two lanes, thereby reducing impacts associated with the roadway. If the access road is reduced to two vehicle travel lanes then a bicycle-lane and sidewalk could be accommodated from Firth Sterling Avenue into the campus within the same currently proposed cross section. The bicycle-lane and sidewalk would help provide improved access from the west campus to the Anacostia Metrorail Station, the Naval Support Facility Anacostia and the Barry Farm Redevelopment. The bicycle-lane and sidewalk would end at the campus limits and would still allow for reduced impacts through Shepherd Parkway to Malcolm X Avenue. With further design GSA will continue to study reductions to the roadway footprint and provisions for bicycle-lane and sidewalk trail during final design.

If they did include these facilities (Orange Line on above picture), it would make sense to connect them to Malcolm X Avenue - along the continued access Road (Purple line - and a connection from that to 2nd St SE that I didn't show), as well as on a MUP through the forest preserve on the SE side of the campus to MLK Avenue at Milwaukee Place (Blue Line). This would create a better option to Congress Heights than presently exists. Neither S. Capitol Street nor MLK is particularly easy for cyclists. MLK traffic is fast, and going east needs a climbing lane to help cyclists up a steep hill. And with the Master Plan calling for a third lane on MLK it probably won't get better.Obviously the bike lanes should be open for use by anyone.

I know that there are all kinds of reasons why this project is controversial (oddly the report worries about preserving the historically-designated Shepherd Parkway but not so much the unspecified number of historic building the plan will destroy), but if they're going to build it - and based on who supports this, it appears they will - it should include a complete bicycle network.

If you want, you can tour St. Elizabeths this April 4th.

And then of course, we can start wondering what to do with the old Coast Guard HQ (hello waterfront park with Chain Reaction store - though this photo shows more buildings).
 

E. J. Pipkin sponsors bill to kill ICC

Maryland State Senator E. J. Pipkin sponsored a bill to stop spending on the ICC (One would assume this would include the trail). Back in 2005 E.J. Pipkin (R-District 36, Queen Anne's County) voted in favor of a bill to add a bike path to the ICC project.

IRS Issues Direction on the Bicycle Commuter Benefit

The League of American Bicyclists now has a page for the Bicycle Commuter Tax Provision. The IRS recently published Publication 15-B which includes the rules for the Bicycle Commuter Benefit. Go below the rules on LAB's page for the FAQ. I'll try to summarize as best I can.

Fringe benefits are taxable (such as getting free rides in limousines, Tom Daschle) unless they are excluded by law. The bicycle commuter act passed last year excluded bike commuter benefits from an employee's taxable pay, up to $20 a month. However, if you receive the $20 bicycle commuter benefit, you can not receive any other transportation benefit such as commuter highway vehicle, transit pass, or qualified parking benefits in that same month. This is different than with transit and parking. If you want to, you can take the $230 transit benefit AND $230 in parking. But for cyclists, you can either have $20 for biking or up to $430 for using transit and driving (sigh).

Bicycle benefits can be used to replace reasonable expenses such as the purchase of, repairs to, and storage of a bicycle as long as that bicycle is regularly used to commute.

You have to be a regular employee, and use your bike for a substantial portion of travel.

Employers can give you more than $20 a month, but you have to pay taxes on everything above $20.

Bicycle commuter benefits also differ from transit benefits in that they can only be excluded if they're employer-paid. For transit benefits they can be employer-paid or employee-paid. In the second case, the employee buys transit with pre-tax dollars, similar to the way they fund a 401k or contribute to a health care savings accounts. This is not possible for bike commuters. As such, this reduces the utility of the benefit still further as employee-paid benefits help employees - by allowing them to pay for transportation with pretax dollars - and employers - by reducing payroll taxes. So only employees who's employers are willing to pay them extra will be able to deduct the benefit. (double sigh) [The Active Transportation Alliance reads this the way I do, but Accor does not.]

To help employers who are interested in giving the benefit, Accor Services is offering the commuter check for bicycling. This allows employers to buy commuter vouchers and issue them to employees just like they would for transit.  "Vouchers are redeemable at dedicated bicycle shops and bicycle parking and storage locations across the country." As FABB points out, the only "dedicated bicycle shops" (Excel file) listed in the area are REIs.

So there's a long way to go before people start taking advantage of this in large numbers.

However, Earl Blumenauer just introduced HR 863, The Bicycle Commuter Choice Act, which will allow employees to receive transportation fringe benefits for the same month both in the form of transit passes and reimbursement of bicycle commuting expenses, and it would be retroactive to this year.

So that takes care of one problem, but they also need to deal with the lack of employee-paid benefits. (Does anyone know what percentage of transit benefits are employee-paid and what percentage is employer-paid?)

In the meantime, go and harass your boss for this. I don't get transit benefits from my employer, but I do get a taxable gym fee fringe benefit of $500 a year. I'm going to try and convince them to let me take either that benefit or a $500 a year bike commuter benefit (of which $480 $240 would be tax free). Let's see if that gets anywhere.

Not so bad I guess

When I saw this article on the cover of Parade Magazine (How Can We Save Our Roads), I let out a big sigh and expected to see some new Highways of the 21st Century article, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. At least the photo shows bike facilities. And it included this:

Try Innovative Design

Smaller budgets for infrastructure are stimulating innovative solutions across the country.

Pennsylvania’s Smart Transportation initiative calls on engineers to re-examine all of their assumptions. “The old style was that if we had a road that was congested, we’d project the traffic out 25 years and add lanes,” says Allen D. Biehler, the state’s transportation secretary. “Well, guess what? We don’t have enough money for that anymore.”

When Pennsylvania couldn’t afford a long-planned, $465 million freeway north of Philadelphia, Biehler brainstormed with communities along the 8.4-mile route and found a cheaper alternative: a parkway bordered with trees and bike trails. Work on the $200 million project began in November.

So they may the road narrower and added a bike trail? That would never fly here. If we can't afford something, the bike trail gets cut first.

Oregon Bill would tax cyclists for road use

more here. I'm not against paying my share, but I think my sales and property taxes probably cover my use of the roads etc...

Smartbike Stimulus and Fantasy Map

Greater Greater Washington recently had two posts on Public Bicycles in DC.

First was an idea that all the local jurisdictions, or perhaps DC and several other major American cities, team up for one of the stimulus programs "discretionary grants".

The catch: projects have to cost $20-300 million. Arlington currently has a grant of about $200,000 for their planned pilot, according to an Examiner article last year, though Arlington Commuter Services head Chris Hamilton says they're hoping to find more money to start with a bigger system. A maximal system of 1,400 bikes of the fancier kind DC uses, he said, would cost at most $6 million for capital and operating costs for the first two years.

I'm surprised Arlington's maximal system is 1400 bikes, considering DC's is 1200 bikes (DC is bigger than Arlington, 30.75 sq.mi. 61.40 sq. miles versus 25.87 sq. mi.), maybe it's because so much of DC is off limits. GGW estimates it would take 5000 bikes to get to $20 million. For that we'd need to get 800 a piece from Alexandria, Montgomery County and Prince George's County. Not impossible. And for those worrid that Arlington has already decided on a non-compatible system, Chris Hamilton, Cheif of Arlington's Commuter Services, states in the comments

Arlington has an RFP out on the street now for a vendor. We do not know what system we'll eventually have. If the people that run DC's system will do Arlington's for pay instead of ads we'll consider them for sure. The bike planners from DC and Alexandria are sitting on our selection panel. At this point we're open to anything.

For fun, GGW put together a map of a "built out" public bike system. It probably needs more east of the Anacostia in both DC and PG County. I'm going to try to get a copy of the Office of Plannings map for the next expansion, 40 stations with 400 more bicycles, which should be started before the end of the year.

Photo by Devyn

Maryland Should create bicyclist buffer zone

So argues Michael Dresser in the Baltimore Sun.

House Bill 496, along with the companion Senate measure that received preliminary approval last week, would write into Maryland law an evolving national standard that has been adopted in at least 20 states. It won't cost the state money. The State Highway Administration and AAA have endorsed it. Nobody testified against it when it came up for a hearing. It could save a life or two.

Nevertheless, Cardin told me Friday, the bill's prospects are hanging by a thread in the House subcommittee. The Baltimore County Democrat said it isn't being lobbied to death, but it has touched a nerve of resentment among some legislators.

They've seen the way some bicyclists behave. They've seen them scoot through red lights where vehicles are stopped. They see them flagrantly going the wrong way on one-way streets. They see them riding side by side and taking up a whole lane of a two-lane road, oblivious to the vehicle traffic stacking up behind them. Why would anyone possibly want to pass a law on behalf of those people?

Because it's the right thing to do.

Shirlington Underpass Ribbon Cutting

Is tentatively scheduled for 9:45 AM on May 2nd. Of course, if my recent experience is indicative, many people are already using it.