TheWashCycle

February 2009 Maryland BPAC Meeting Minutes

Running just a little bit behind...

1. A scope of work proposal for conducting a survey of Maryland school policies regarding student travel by bicycling and walking was scheduled to be sent to MDOT within one week.

2. The MBPAC decided to support the following bills

HB 97 Manslaughter by Homicide - which creates a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 3 years in prison and $5000 fine, for criminal negligence in the operation of a vehicle that leads to the death of another. [No action was taken on this bill]

SB 428 Three foot passing bicycles - Requires drivers to give at least three feet when passing [Passed the Senate with amendments, failed in the House's Environmental Matters Committee]

SB 98 No Texting While Driving - Passed

HB152 Leaving the Scene of an accident - requiring the police to arrest someone, without warrant, if they suspect them of leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in a injury or death. [Failed in the Judiciary Committee]

SB 15 - Authorizes Use of Public School Construction Funds for Student Bike/Ped Access - [Failed in the Senate]

SB 370 - Extending Duration of Quiet Car Task Force - allows the task force another year to report on recommendations for he minimum sound level for new vehicles. [Passed]

They voted to oppose the following bill

HB 187 - Mandatory Helmet Law - [No action taken]

[They also support a law calling Hoye Crest the highest point in the state. I find that funny. I've been to Hoye Crest. It's nice and near the smallest church in the Continental United States. But Hoye Crest is the highest point in the state -  - law or no law. It reminds me of the attempt by the Indiana legislature to change the value of pi.]

3. Henson Creek Trail Extension - This project has been in the works for a few years. It would extend the Henson Creek Trail from it's current terminus at Temple Hill Road, outside the Beltway, to the Branch Avenue Metro Station, inside the Beltway. In 2006 and 2007 PG County officials missed the deadline to apply for funding for it. Now it appears the application has been submitted and rejected (by SHA?). The trail would pass under the Beltway in the existing box culverts through which the creek passes - as is done with the Shirlington Underpass. But it appears SHA staff is concerned with the TEP application's lack of a Hydraulics and Hydrology study that they requested. It appears they'll try again.

Michael Jackson, Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator, MDOT, will set up a meeting between Henson Creek Trail extension stakeholders including M-NCPPC staff and SHA staff to discuss project prior to a resubmittal of the TEP grant application.

Washcycle's 4th Anniversary

Today the Washcycle blog turns four years old, which is 28 in human years. Interestingly, the very second blog post dealt with the Bike Station at Union Station. That will open on Friday, almost four years to the day after that post.

Numbers:

As of last year: 1889 posts, 3865 comments, 444558 total page views (roughly 1200 hits a day)
As of this year: 3164 posts, 7439 comments, 836095 total page views (roughly 1450 hits a day)

Next year we'll have to do a happy hour.

Lots of Competition for TIGER grants

Over the summer, local transportation planners submitted a $10M proposal for TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) funds for a 1600-bike, regional bike-sharing system. The stimulus act appropriated $1.5 billion of discretionary grant funds to be awarded by the DOT for capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure. The proposal was approved by the TPB and then submitted to the FTA.

All proposals were due by September 15th and so, now, they're all in. Nationally, there are $57 billion worth of requests for that $1.5B of money. Yikes. Those are tough odds. The DOT will start announcing "winners" as soon as possible and all money will be allocated by Feb. 17, 2010.

In all, DOT said it received 1,381 requests for money from the $1.5 billion grant fund. They include 125 rail applications for $5.6 billion; transit systems turned in 220 requests for nearly $11 billion; and states poured in 770 applications for $32 billion in highway infrastructure grants.

Climate Ride Comes to DC Tomorrow

Tomorrow the ~140 riders doing the Brita Climate Ride are coming into DC after spending the last four days riding from New York City.

There will be a rally at 3:15pm at Thompson's Boat House, and then they'll head over to the Capitol. They'd love to have as many cyclists as possible with them so if you'd like to join them for the final leg of the ride and make your voice heard on climate change, you can meet up with them then.

Bike Friendly Businesses, Fall 2009

The Bike League's new list of bicycle friendly businesses is out. A few are local (including some that aren't actually businesses).

Silver
The National Park Service - National Mall and Memorial Parks

Bronze
Arrow Bicycle in Hyattsville, MD (the only one in Maryland)
National Geographic Society

Honorable Mention
Community IT innovators in DC

There wasn't a single one in Virginia I'm sorry to say.

Rock Creek Park could take a lesson in Bike Friendliness from the National Mall I suppose. They declined to allow Bike DC to close the Rock Creek Parkway. At least they didn't pull a Bruce Babbitt. ANC Commissioner Mike Silverstein did note this about BikeDC:

It was disheartening to see this letter from NPS. But Rick Bauman has met this afternoon with DC Police, and it looks like we'll have a solution that allows for a police-staffed crossing at 21st and P that will allow Bike DC to use city streets while mitigating disruptions.

Hopefully next year we'll be able to apply early enough and have enough political ducks in line to make sure that Rock Creek Park can be used. Two hours on a Saturday morning should be no big deal.

Anyway, thanks to Rick and Chief Lanier for a workable second-best solution. Here's a case of the Fenty Administration and bicycle enthusiasts working together to everyone's benefit.

Washington Post Thinks Fixies are News

The Washington Post had a big article on the front page of the Style section yesterday on the fixie fashion craze.  The title "Look Ma, No Brakes!" unfortunately focused on the fact that some fixed gear cyclists choose not to have brakes, which is true, legal and not the same as not having a means of stopping.

Fixies are built for speed, but if you must slow down, one way to do it is to resist the pedal momentum with your leg muscles and knees. (Your poor knees.) Toe clips or cleats help you pull back on the pedals. A more dramatic recourse is the skip-stop, which involves leaning forward, hopping the rear wheel and locking one leg to start a skid when the rear wheel comes down. In the unlikely event your chain falls off, you will be a helpless, speeding missile with only a helmet for protection, if you wear one. Some do, some don't.

Anyway, this is the paragraph that most commenters decided to focus on, asking if they could take the brakes off their SUV and talking about Darwin Awards and such.

I've never ridden a fixie, but I do get it. It's like trying to ski a double black diamond slope or raft Class V rapids, you do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard (as they say). There are other advantages, like some people think that a fixie is less likely to be stolen and with fewer parts there are fewer parts to break - making the bike more reliable which is good if you ride a bike for a living. You have more control at slower speeds (so I've been told). Etc... I could also see it as a certain statement about ones skill - despite all the predictions of doom, I've never read a story about a cyclist on a fixie getting killed, nor have I seen research pointing to them as more dangerous.

There is not much news in the article, though it did get a lot of coverage in and of itself. (Here's DCist). It's bad enough to see the Post get scooped by the NY Times in 2007, that could just be the fashion lag between NYC and DC, but the Gazette already covered this too - and like two and a half years ago.

Opening Day at the Union Station Bike Station

Ghost Bike Removal Back Story

Why.i.hate.dc, who has done a fantastic job covering the Alice Swanson ghost bike removal, accessed many DPW and a few Executive Office of the Mayor (EOM) emails through a Freedom of Information Act request and has uncovered many interesting details. You should read the whole post. Here are a few highlights:

• Ed Grandis, the Executive Director of the Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association, first requested that DDOT remove the bike because he felt it had become an eyesore.
• Eight days later, Andrew Huff, Mayor Fenty's Ward 2 Outreach Specialist demanded that DPW cut the lock on the ghost bike immediately, but that the bike be left where it was.
• Jim Sebastian noted that cutting the lock was unnecessary as WABA had the key and could they wait a few days. They agreed to wait until Monday.
• The next day they cut the lock anyway and removed it.

Then there is a whole lot of blame gaming, discussions of permanent memorials, cover stories and covering up (For example, why.i.hate.dc got a lot of emails from DPW that he didn't get from EOM). What a mess.

Yield to Life Foundation Event

This Thursday at 7:30 pm at CycleLife

Please join CycleLife and professional road cyclist David Zabriskie as he welcomes his foundation, Yield to Life, to the metro D.C. area. Yield To Life is a non-profit devoted to creating a safer environment for cyclists and, by so doing, encouraging more people to ride for their own health, the good of the environment and the well being of society.

Zabriskie was inspired to launch the foundation after suffering a near career-ending collision with an automobile in 2003. The event will be a great way for the D.C. cycling community to learn more about the organization, and rally behind its various initiatives on a local, grassroots level.

David will be giving a short presentation followed by an open Q&A session. Food and drinks will be served. The general event (7:30pm) is open to the public with a $25 donation. There is an intimate 1 hour cocktail reception (6:30pm) with David Z to talk about YTL and other cycling topics with a $100 donation. All proceeds go to the Yield to Life Foundation.

Local Family Speaks up for Ghost Bikes

In Saturday's Free for All section of the Post, Kathy Padilla of Falls Church wrote about what a ghost bike means to her (not available online). Her daughter, Liz Kasulis Padilla was hit and killed by a delivery truck in Brooklyn in the summer of 2007.

Words can not adequately convey the depth of our families' losses, but the ghost bike project makes a difference by providing a powerful, visual image of a life taken from us senselessly and also by revealing our sadness publicly; in the hope that cyclists, pedestrians and most important, drivers, will help these accidents from happening again.

The 4th Annual Liz Padilla Memorial 5k "For The Love of Bikes" is coming up early next month.