Thursday Morning Ride - Discovery

The last launch of Discovery is scheduled for today. This is the only shuttle I saw launch in person [I used to work on the shuttle program, and this was also the first shuttle who's software I checked. It was OK as I recall.]

• The ICC trail is not built yet, but in the photo to the right, you can see where the bridges include the ICC trail sections.
• There will be a design workshop on Chevy Chase Lake Sector plan on March 12th. Register here by the 6th to participate.
• Richard Layman has several posts from the Maryland Bike Symposium. On setting an agenda, dealing with aggressive driving, and tourism.
• Mayor Gray's transition team has issued an Economic Development report. The transportation section focuses on "making it easier for people to drive in and out of the District." It doesn't mention bicycles.
• With TBD experiencing massive cuts, will that mean a loss of TBD on Foot, which did a great job of covering cycling issues?
• Jacque Patterson, candidate for District Council, was in a live chat on GGW. He has his appointment to the Bicycle Advisory Council on his resume, but I never remember seeing him at a single meeting. Nonetheless, on the design of the Giant in ward 8 he says "We could have done a much better job in the design of the Giant to make it more pedestrian and bike friendly. In the future, we need to ensure that we take those thoughts into consideration." And on bicycling in general he talks about "Connecting Anacostia Park with bike lanes along Suitland Parkway" and "The putting in of bike lanes to this point haven't had great community outreach. To that point, I don't believe residents and businesses don't want bike lanes, they want to be included in the discussions of where and how they will be put in. I think that's true East of the River and anywhere that bike lanes are planned....We move forward by having DDOT reach out to ANC's during the planning phase and take into considerations the "great weight" that is afforded to ANC Commissions to set the tone of the conversations."
• Last Friday, CaBi set a new one-day ridership record of 2927 trips, half of them 1-day riders. So much for the Stewart/Colbert Rally record (2343 trips) never being broken.
• A profile of one member of Frederick, MD's Bicycle Ad Hoc Committee.

Comments

[Just161]

I'm late to this party, but is the ICC trail going to run directly adjacent to the highway the whole way, as in the picture?

Carbon monoxide, anyone?

[Jack Cochrane]

Wow, the ICC just opened and it's already a parking lot! (I think one of those cars is mine).

@Just161, If only it could be that close to the highway. Instead the state is only putting it near the highway for only about 50% of its length. For the rest, trail users will have to take some pretty long detours along arterial roads like New Hampshire Ave. and Georgia Ave. Get ready to cross driveways, side streets, gas station entrances, strip malls entrances, etc. But the parts that are along the highway will generally not be inches away like on the bridges. The parts I saw looked more like 30 to 40 feet. That's well within my tolerance on a trail like this which, if done right from start to finish, would be like the W&OD and Custis Trails along I-66.

[Dan]

The first part of the ICC Trail, between Emory Lane and Needwood Road is open. I rode it two weekends ago. Not a bad little 2 mile trail. It's not right up against the highway the entire way. A short trip down Needwood Road gets you to the Lake Needwood Park Entrance and connects to the Rock Creek Trail.

The plan for the ICC Trail is, to save money, for the trail to follow the existing sidepaths on Emory Lane and Georgia Ave back to the ICC Trail, where another section of trail is already scheduled to be built down to Layhill Road.

Going east from there, the exact route of the trail is still to be determined. The next section, with the potential for a connection with the Matthew Henson Trail, should be really interesting.

[washcycle]

Dan, next time you go out there, could you get a photo of it?