Thursday Morning Telecommute - 5-10"

It got ugly out there last night

• Update on upcoming WABA rides. Also WABA got FedEx to commit to not parking in the bike lanes on 15th St NW.
• Sign a petition to save the Sycamores along the Tuxedo Trail.
• The three-foot passing bill was killed in the VA house. The bill still has a chance on the Senate side.
• Chris Ziemann writes about why cyclists often don't obey the law. I disagree with him that bikes are not vehicles and prefer what one of the commenters wrote "that they're not the kind of vehicles that vehicular codes are designed for is pretty accurate. Saying they're not the vehicles lawmakers are thinking of when they use the word "vehicle" is probably accurate." The best argument for changing the law in my opinion is that since the Idaho stop law was instituted, Idaho became safer. We should institute laws that make the roads safer, especially if they make things more convenient as well. Or even laws that make things more convenient as long as they don't make things less safe.
• Sen. James Inhofe doesn't think of "bike trails" as transportation. Which is odd since Oklahoma City is builiding a network of bike trails, which I'm sure are used for transportation. Bill Dorey of the Associated General Contractors meanwhile must not want get any bike trail construction work, “It’s hard for me to defend a bike path.” Meanwhile Maryland's own Ben Cardin came to the defense of bike trails

“We need to look at multimodal transportation. Yes, the overwhelming amount of dollars that are reauthorized are going to be for the  traditional types of transportation, whether they be roads or bridges or conventional transit. But we need to look at smarter ways,” he said. Baltimore’s designer, he said, tried to connect communities through greenspace.

We’re looking at ways of trying to connect communities again so they don’t have to use our roads! So we don’t have to build so many roads! To me, that saves money in our transportation! And it’s the right investement for our nation. Every dollar that we authorize needs to be spent efficiently and appropriately for transportation in this country. But let us not be afraid to look at alternative ways that can save money, create jobs, and then have more dollars available for the expensive projects that we know we need to build such as high speed rail.

• Arlington County will have even more trail use data available next year.
• The Silver Spring Transit Center, and its section of the Met Branch Trail, has fallen 6 months farther behind schedule. It won't finish until December.
• More bike racks coming to the Bethesda Metro.
• As much as I admire this guy's moxie, I wish he'd get a tail light and head light.

Comments

[Michael N]

If you go to the article, the photo that goes with the article is of a bicycle crank and the caption is, "The Alexandria Police Department has launched a campaign to crack down on bicyclists." Not "bicyclists who break the law" just "on bicyclists." Certainly it feels that way from time to time. Perhaps the police will do something to offending bicycle cranks? (Oh, that would be me.)

[DaveS]

Am I reading it wrong to see FedEx as saying they're going to continue to ignore bike lane parking regulations everywhere except 15th street? And that WABA considers this a good thing?

[washcycle]

I don't think that is accurate. What they've done is agreed to not park in the 15th street bike lane and WABA will continue to work on getting them to make more changes. It's the foot in the door technique.