I just saw this and, except for the fact that the Penn Ave bike lanes aren't open, it's the best coverage of BTWD that I've seen this year. It reminds me why I love VOA.
Why does AAA-MA keep pointing to the closed section of Penn in front of the White House? The only thing it has in common is that, technically, it's the same street (though it isn't even contiguous). Perhaps you could argue that the reason Penn is overbuilt is because that section was closed, but nonetheless it isn't an argument against the bike lanes.
And it's odd that Fenty rode down the bike lane that morning - when his administration refused to open them and was unhappy with them at the time.
Nice factoid thrown in
A study by the University of California Berkeley found that Americans spend five times more on driving than on exercising.
Having said that, USA Today also had some nice coverage, more about bike commuting than the ceremony, but again it had a local story to tell. It featured a local bike blogger (not me).
They bring up PA Ave in front of the White House because it's a high-profile example of taking road space away from cars, just like the PA bike lanes do.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 08:28 AM
Great VOA piece. I like how during the interview with AAA-MAs john Thompson Penn ave is empty behind him.
Posted by: Eric | June 03, 2010 at 09:01 AM
... begging the question as to why bike lanes are needed ...
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 09:41 AM
Yeah, closing that section in front of the WH proves PA Ave is overbuilt. What kind of "spin any delusion to make a point" lunacy is that?
The Secret Service used their national security hammer and simply closed it in 95 thanks to Timothy McVeigh. DDOT had no say in the matter and it was and still is a complete clusterf*&k. Anyone who lived and drove through central DC prior to closure (I'm guessing you didn't) knows how significantly it clogged the street network from Constitution to K street and from 20th to 12th. Then again, thats what happens when you close a road that ~30K cars a day were using and funnel them to smaller side streets.
PA Ave is about as far from being overbuilt as it gets. It is clogged as it is, the removal of 25% of the lanes has made it significantly worse which is why Gabe Klein has gotten his wrist smacked and now has to go back and "revise" the plan.
Glad he wasted a million dollars on something that never even got opened before it was closed.
Posted by: nookie | June 03, 2010 at 09:55 AM
Nookie,
Causality fail. Wash said that the WH closure may have caused PA Ave to be overbuilt.
Also, is the million really wasted? Are they spending another million before it opens? Or are you just hopping DDOT will reverse course entirely?
Posted by: Ron Alford | June 03, 2010 at 10:55 AM
Umm...I hate to break it to you, but PA avenue has been in its current 8 lane alignment for decades before the section in front of the WH was closed. PA avenue wasn't enlarged after 1995 to its current alignment.
Please tell me you knew this.
And yes, the money is so far wasted. Why? Because DDOT will now (as they have already admitted) and reconfigure the lanes, which will also require retiming of lights ect. This is ofcourse, after they actually do an honest to god traffic study quantifying the effect, which they hadn't done before. If the lanes stay in some configuration, it will have cost atleast double the original million before they open So yes, a complete waste of a million dollars.
I'm an avid cyclist. I love it, but a 7 year old could have understood taking 25% of the lanes away from a road that carries ~34,000 vehicles per day and is already congested, to give it over to the couple hundred cyclists per day who use it (when the weather is nice of course) was a bad idea.
Posted by: nookie | June 03, 2010 at 11:19 AM
Nookie,
1. Ron is right about my point. Penn has 8 lanes, which may have been appropriate before 1995, but after 1995 is less so. As you state, the closure funneled traffic to smaller streets. It also reduced demand on Penn in general. So then the road was overbuilt.
2. DDOT will not do the traffic study as they got permission to do this as a pilot program.
3. You do not need 8 lanes to move 34,000 cars a day. "One road lane can move about 2100 cars per hour no matter what their speed." Do the math. Please tell me you already knew this.
4. Umm...I hate to break it to you, but taking 25% of the lanes away is not the same as taking away 25% of the capacity. It's the law of diminishing returns.
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 11:54 AM
I think everybody needs to calm down a little and recognize that there's logic on both sides.
One side of this debate, quite logically, argues that taking away lanes from cars will increase congestion.
The other side says, also logically, that congestion isn't increased because the road is over-built.
Fine, I get it. But, here's my problem - the pro-bike lane side (ie, this blog) seems shocked - shocked, I tells ya! - that the suggestion that taking lanes away from cars will increase congestion somehow resonates with some people. I don't know why. It's just logical, even if (as you attest) it's incorrect.
It seems to me that another part of the problem with the PR battle here is that you're relying on an argument that is self-defeating to a certain extent: if the road is so over-built, that means there's plenty of room for cars and bikes to co-exist without special lanes. That's why you can look at that interview with an empty PA Avenue in the background in two ways - you think that's proof that the road is over-built; I'm thinking that's proof that special lanes aren't really needed in such a wide-open space.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 12:15 PM
Chris, you keep asking that question and I keep giving the same answer.
Studies by DDOT and others show that adding bike lanes to a road dramatically increases the number of cyclists who use that road. That's the reason.
You might think people are stupid for being uncomfortable riding in the road, but comfortable riding in a bike lane. You might think they're illogical for wanting a bike lane with little traffic. But that doesn't matter. Your complaint is with human nature.
What matters is that DDOT has as a goal, doubling the number of bike commuters. Science shows that bike lanes can help achieve that goal. That is why they're putting them in.
If you want to argue that they aren't needed, you need to argue against THAT point. That it WON"T get people to bike. You haven't done that yet.
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 12:15 PM
I'm not shocked by the suggestion. I'm shocked that they've chosen this place to make their fight, when the facts are so powerfully lined against them. I'm shocked that they're so willing to ignore reality in order to make their point.
My argument is not self-defeating because it is not reliant on the amount of car traffic on Penn. See my above comment.
Or, more accurately, it relies only on a Penn that is not crowded. Because taking out a lane has very low cost for drivers and high benefit for cyclists it is a good idea. If Penn were completely gridlocked all the time, that might be different. But it isn't. I've never seen it gridlocked without some sort of anomaly (Crash, closed streets etc..)
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 12:22 PM
It's true that I don't like or use bike lanes, but I never said (or thought) that people are stupid for being uncomfortable riding on the road outside a bike lane. I think you need to remove some of the emotion of your response to my commentary. I am not an elitist, and my interests are the same as your's - increasing bike traffic and assuring safety.
I'm fine adding bike lanes, even though I don't use them. But, as I've said before, I think they should be added in a way that makes sense and are better thought-out. I don't think that happened with PA Avenue, and I think the current situation offers some proof of that.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 12:24 PM
OK Chris, let me try to get to your position then.
You implied that bike lanes are not needed on a road where traffic is light. Why is that?
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 12:27 PM
"I'm thinking that's proof that special lanes aren't really needed in such a wide-open space."
"Need" is a strong word for experienced cyclists, as most of us are. For most of us they're probably not 'needed' (but having ridden in them, they're VERY nice, and having 10 blocks of low stress pleasant riding has to count for something).
But for my wife, somebody who owns a bike, would like to ride it more places, but isn't comfortable on the road, and is just not inclined to tough it out in a class or 'sucking it up', those lanes are one more place that she will ride.
That may not line up with your rationale of how people should use their bikes, but for me, having more places where people like my wife will ride is a net positive for all of us.
Posted by: darren | June 03, 2010 at 12:31 PM
You're joking right? All I see is a bunch of subjective "facts" that have zero basis in reality, that are then spun out of conjecture to make a point. No where did I even see that a "one" lane road can handle 2100 cars per hour regardless of speed or situation (signalization etc). I am also sure that you have a quantatative (i.e. not randomly subjective) source of data, perferably from DDOT, but a FHWY study will also do, that shows PA Avenue is "overbuilt" or has "excess capacity". I won't hold my breath, but in the interest of saving you a snarky remark, I do have a 3 year old DDOT study that shows PA Ave LOS at failure. Shall we show our cards? You first, since you seem to have all the answers. Like I said, I won't hold my breath.
I had to laugh at your "law of diminishing returns" comment because it is pretty obvious you have no idea what it actually means.
Really, you do nothing for your argument by flagrently ignoring the factually obvious. Only in your laser like bike focused mind does removing 25% of the available lanes NOT reduce the LOS.
Just ballpark for me how many people you think bike PA Avenue on a daily basis. I am curious. Throw out a number.
Biking is great, I love it, but any rational (which you don't seem to be) person can objectivly look at both sides of an argument. Mine is reallocating ROW for the underwhelming minority at the cost of the overwhelming majority is asinine. Something someone higher up the food chain than Gabe has obviously seen.
Posted by: nookie | June 03, 2010 at 01:17 PM
I don't think I implied they're *not* need where traffic is light so much as they're less needed. I was basing it on common sense - if you're a cyclist who is uncomfortable about riding on the road, it because of traffic, yes? If there's more traffic, you'll be more uncomfortable, yes?
Put another way, a primary benefit of bike lanes is to assist the cyclist in channelling through in congested areas. If there's no congestion, the need is less.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 01:17 PM
1. I agree with Darren. I regularly ride by myself on busy roads and roads on which drivers do not always pay attention (e.g. Mass. Ave); however, it do not do so when I have my child in the trailer or when I am riding with somebody who is not comfortable in traffic. The Penn. Ave. bike lanes opens that road to me during those times and to all of the people who generally are uncomfortable biking in traffic.
2. Why does AAA keep suggesting that we have not yet seen the effects of taking away two lanes on Penn Ave? (e.g. "Now if you remove complete lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue, from the White House to the Capitol, would you replicate that nightmarish scenario in terms of gridlock?"). DDOT already took those lanes away. The nightmare should already have happened, but it hasn't. I've been on Penn. Ave. at all times of day (9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 10:00 PM) since DDOT closed the two lanes of traffic, and I have not noticed an appreciable difference. Sure, things get a bit backed up during the height of rush hour but: 1) the backups are mostly due to people turning (which would not be solved by the addition of two more lanes in the middle), 2) the backups are not that bad and they are gone soon after the end of rush hour, and 3) traffic does not seem appreciably worse. Granted, it's possible that I have missed the nightmarish periods every time that I have been on Penn. Ave. (amazing luck, I suppose), but then why hasn't AAA provided its own proof of that nightmare. Stop pretending like the costs have not already been borne. We're now just waiting for the benefits.
3. There's a world of difference between completely closing the street outside the White House and taking away one-quarter of the lanes between the White House and the Capitol. Trying to equate those two is just silly.
4. How can AAA-MA possibly have any credibility on this issue? Their groundless arguments and attempts to hide their true opposition to the bike lanes, while amusing, demonstrate that they are not serious players in this issue.
Posted by: todd | June 03, 2010 at 01:37 PM
I think it might be worth remembering that the bike lanes on PA Ave represent a very short distance of dedicated, separated bike lanes. Unless you live across from the National Archives or something, you're going to have to ride on the road some place to enjoy the benefit of those lanes.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 02:59 PM
Oh nookie, your confidence is only exceeded by your lack of knowing what the F^%$ you're talking about.
No where did I even see that a "one" lane road can handle 2100 cars per hour regardless of speed or situation (signalization etc).
On the internet there is something called "links" which are short for hyperlinks. They allow you to "link" one page to another. A link is underlined and a different color than the text around it. In my post I linked to a page that served as my source for the number of cars a lane of traffic can carry. Perhaps you think that number, 2100 per hour, is too high. In order for Penn to be in need of more lanes, each would have to be able to only move 354 cars per hour. Do you think that is the case? Perhaps you can cite a contradictory source.
I am also sure that you have a quantatative (i.e. not randomly subjective) source of data, perferably from DDOT, but a FHWY study will also do, that shows PA Avenue is "overbuilt" or has "excess capacity". I won't hold my breath, but in the interest of saving you a snarky remark, I do have a 3 year old DDOT study that shows PA Ave LOS at failure. Shall we show our cards? You first, since you seem to have all the answers. Like I said, I won't hold my breath.
Well you could have, because I do. I have a DDOT analysis from this year that shows that Penn's level of service is B or C (depending on the section) and that it will not change after bike lanes are added. I also have a study from 5 years ago showing the bicycle level of service is a D. Now, I'm curious to see your study. Hurry, because I will be holding my breath.
I had to laugh at your "law of diminishing returns" comment because it is pretty obvious you have no idea what it actually means.
I understand it as meaning that we get less and less extra output when we add additional lanes while holding other inputs fixed. In other words, the marginal value of each lane will decline as the number of lanes is added holding all other inputs constant. Enlighten me if I'm wrong.
Really, you do nothing for your argument by flagrently ignoring the factually obvious. Only in your laser like bike focused mind does removing 25% of the available lanes NOT reduce the LOS.
Mine and DDOT's.
Just ballpark for me how many people you think bike PA Avenue on a daily basis. I am curious. Throw out a number.
~1300
Biking is great, I love it, but any rational (which you don't seem to be) person can objectivly look at both sides of an argument. Mine is reallocating ROW for the underwhelming minority at the cost of the overwhelming majority is asinine. Something someone higher up the food chain than Gabe has obviously seen.
What number of drivers do you think uses that 4th lane? And by use I mean all four lanes are being used side by side simultaneously. Throw out a number. It's no more than 8500/day but certainly much less. So it is not really an "underwhelming"" minority or "overwhelming" majority.
I thank you for you patient and courtesy responses.
Posted by: Washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 03:15 PM
Chris you wrote "...begging the question as to why bike lanes are needed..." after Eric pointed out there were few cars. Then you wrote "I don't think I implied they're *not* need where traffic is light so much as they're less needed." You can't both question why they're needed and then say you understand that they're needed. Which is it? Needed or not?
Posted by: Washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 03:19 PM
Unless you live across from the National Archives or something, you're going to have to ride on the road some place to enjoy the benefit of those lanes.
Chris, we know they induce cycling. It's well documented. And since we can't put 100 miles of bike lanes and trails in place overnight, we have to move in small pieces. And of course. This bike lane connects to others (4th, 7th, 9th etc...)
Posted by: Washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 03:22 PM
Washcycle, I was pointing out that, in the abstract, the argument could go both ways.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 03:25 PM
The PA bike lanes connect to other bike lanes that are not separate from the roadway. If one is nervous about riding in traffic, those bike lanes you cite offer no protection from that traffic - they only offer a strip painted on the road.
Again, I'm not questioning rationale of the bike lanes (to get more people to ride bikes); I'm questioning the priority that has apparently been placed on those particular lanes.
Posted by: Chris | June 03, 2010 at 03:51 PM
Oh WashCycle...will you ever stop putting your own foot in your own mouth? I mean really now, your arguments were pretty hilarious before, now they are just sad.
1. The TIA = fail, but thank you for the racuous laghter it provided. Want to know why? Hint, look at page 5 and 6, then get back to me. Don't worry, I don't expect you to apologize.
2. Law of diminishing returns. You would be right, "IF" we were "adding" additional lanes. "Ahem", removing a lane in each direction = the opposite of "adding" lanes. Your argument is the one people make when plans are made to add lanes to say the beltway, but as I hinted above, lanes aren't being added, they are removed. Get it?
3. 1300 huh? Well, this really made me laugh because the link you yourself provided but apparently didn't bother reading (see #1 above for another example of this) is that they quantified the number of cyclists on PA at peak hours, just like they did for cars. The highest peak hour number for cyclists was 56. Yeah, 56 per PEAK hour or less than 1 per minute. Of course we won't mention vehicle traffic at said intersection was 29 times that (29 cars per minute). Odd that you seem to think that ~ 1 bike per minute deserves two entire travel lanes to accomodate. By that math and logic you yourself are saying that cars should have 58 lanes (29 x's 2) of traffic to accomodate the volume, but I digress. Even if you were to apply "peak" hour bike volumes for the rest of the day (lets just say 12 hours) you would get a total of 672 bikes per day. You would have to literally take the "peak" hour number and multiply it by all 24 hours in the day to get your number.
Of course "peak" hour volumes are called that because they are the highest volume hour, not because that volume is matched ever hour day and night. You know that right?
Again, thanks for the laughs but really, your argument = epic fail.
Posted by: nookie | June 03, 2010 at 04:02 PM
w -- one lane of freeway moves about 2100 cars/hour. It's much less on nonlimited access streets. Throughput drops with every intersection and curb cut. Urban lanes move 300-1000 vehicles/hour.
Anyway, while I don't remember PA Ave. so much before 1995, even though I've been in the area since 1987, I don't ever recall the street east of 15th Street to be all that busy.
It is way overdesigned for the amount of traffic it carries. Even before the closure of the section in front of the WH.
A four lane road can easily carry 30,000 vehicles. Probably PA Ave. in a 4 lane configuration could do so to. But 6 lanes means there would be no problem, or one lane could be dedicated in each direction for buses (although there is really only significant bus service between 15th and 7th Streets in the section from the Capitol to 15th Street.
In my opinion, not just because the street and the lanes are so wide, clearly the road is so underutilized that adding bicycle lanes won't have much impact on vehicular traffic.
(Although the issue is really political... PA Ave. isn't a well used road generally, so it isn't likely to experience a lot of bicycle-use, so making it the dramatic location of cycle tracks could be counterproductive if they are not used. My take anyway.)
Posted by: Richard Layman | June 03, 2010 at 04:31 PM
@Chris-
Your point that bike lanes don't always protect cyclists is well-taken; however, the Penn. Ave. lanes will provide an important connection between a few sets of reasonably-protected lanes. For example, when the Penn. lanes open, a person will be able to travel along the East Capitol bike lane (which is quite nice), across the Capitol grounds, and along the PA bike lanes to 14th Street w/o much direct exposure to traffic. Then north on 12th ST (which is pretty wide) to one of the other east-west bike lanes. That's just one example. The point is that Penn. Ave. provides an important connection between bike lanes.
By the way (and this does not address your point), nobody has mentioned that E Street is also closed to traffic, so the "nightmare" that AAA-MA referenced was caused by the closure of two major streets.
Posted by: todd | June 03, 2010 at 04:32 PM
oh yeah, of course the closure of PA Ave. in front of the White House diverted traffic to I and K, which were beforehand not great places to drive, but now are much more congested, for more hours of the day.
That being said, those are two of the handful of roads that have much congestion in DC. Most roads have plenty of capacity, because transit is so heavily used, especially in the core of the city.
Only the main commuter roads, especially NY Ave., have much congestion.
(It still takes a long time to get places by car, but that's not because of congestion.)
Posted by: Richard Layman | June 03, 2010 at 04:34 PM
Nookie. I'm still waiting for your 3 year old DDOT study that shows PA Ave LOS at failure.
And could you stop being lazy and actually provide your facts. Instead of just yelling FAIL like a 6 year old?
1. I didn't link to a TIA or anything with 6 pages. If you mean this TA, I still don't see how page 5 and 6 undermine my point. You'll just have to quit surfing kiddie porn for 2 minutes and explain it to me. Page 5 shows that the maximum volume to capacity ratio is 0.66. So that traffic is only using 66% of the capacity - at peak. Then it shows some information about turning and the existing cross-section. Page 6 shows proposed cross-sections. Not exactly devastating.
2. The law of diminishing dictates that the utility of the 4th lane is less than of the 3rd. So it works in reverse.
3. 1300 is ~4% of the car traffic you quoted, which is the general ratio of bikes to cars in downtown. Those counts were done at only 3 intersections on the whole stretch, so there will be some undercounting.
The current count is only slightly pertinent, as the point of the bike lanes is to get more bikes on the road. So the lanes would be built, in part, for future cyclists. And as noted the road is only being used at 66% capacity at peak.
DDOT "The results of the alternatives analysis indicate that any of the bicycle compatible roadway
diets would result in acceptable vehicular intersection operations."
Posted by: Washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 04:38 PM
nookie:
Law of diminishing returns is just another word for a sub-linear function.
Highway capacity is often a sub-linear function of the number of lanes. If when we double the number of lanes we expect less than a doubling of capacity, then when we halve the number of lanes, we expect to have more than half the original capacity remaining.
Posted by: Ron Alford | June 03, 2010 at 04:38 PM
Richard beat me to the point I was going to make...freeway lanes can handle 2100 vplph (vehicles per lane per hour). At-grade arterials are much less...in no small part due to traffic signals, which typically have a throughput of 500 vplph (depending on cycle length and how much of the cycle is devoted to through traffic on the road in question).
While 30K ADT is at the high end of what a 4-lane arterial can normally handle, there's no reason why Pennsylvania Ave can't operate effectively with 6 lanes.
But I'll tell you what works AGAINST Pennsylvania Ave...both for cars and for bikes: abysmal traffic signal progression. Regardless of your mode, you can't make more than one or two lights before you're stopping for a red light again. And this is a problem prevelent THROUGHOUT the District.
Posted by: Froggie | June 03, 2010 at 05:02 PM
Froggie, I asked you for a ruling earlier and you weren't there. Do I need a bat signal or something? I'll concede to Froggie's expert opinion that 2100 cars/lane/hour is too high, but that 6 lanes is adequate.
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 05:34 PM
Didn't see your earlier request...sorry. E-mails or tweets usually work to catch my attention.
Posted by: Froggie | June 03, 2010 at 06:11 PM
Hmm, peak auto traffic is 29 times peak bike traffic and daily auto traffic is 34,000.... that would imply that daily bike traffic is 1172, or roughly what Wash estimated.
Froggie -- don't get too bent out of shape about the traffic signal progression. The lights can only be timed for one direction at a time. Streets in the downtown core tend to have heavy traffic in both directions at the same time and there is no setting that will accomodate both (or all four in the case of a grid).
What kind of a cyclist stops for lights anyway? [duck]
Posted by: contrarian | June 03, 2010 at 07:58 PM
Contrarian,
Its peak "hour", not total traffic volume for the day.
34,000 per day (total cars) and 56 per minute (bikes) are all clearly delineated in the study wash himself is unable to apparently read. So you would have to assume that the number of bikes PA ave experiences during rush hour, is also the number it experiences every hour for the remaining 23 hour day. I've never biked PA ave at 2:00am, but I am assuming PA ave doesn't get the same bike traffic at 2:00am as it does at 8:00am.
Wash...still waiting, but so fun to watch your subjective, ever changing argument - squirming.
Posted by: nookie | June 03, 2010 at 08:17 PM
You didn't read what I wrote. My calculation is not based on assuming that every hour is a peak hour.
We have three numbers:
- Peak hour rate for bikes
- Peak hour rate for cars
- Total daily traffic for cars.
From those three I tried to estimate total daily traffic for bikes. Go back and read what I wrote.
By the way, I've been biking PA Ave for over 20 years and the only times I've ever seen it at capacity were for big events like fourth of July and the morning of September 11, 2001. It gets congested, sure, but the problem isn't lane capacity, it's capacity on the cross streets.
Posted by: contrarian | June 03, 2010 at 08:31 PM
Nookie, come back when you have some facts...
Posted by: washcycle | June 03, 2010 at 10:48 PM
how about directing some of the blame at the ILLEGAL stopping and parking throughout the corridor which takes 2 lanes of traffic out of service!!! How is this fact always overlooked to instead blame those greedy cyclist who want to ruin it for all the poor motorists stuck in traffic.
Posted by: Joe | June 04, 2010 at 08:59 AM