Thursday Morning Ride - BikeDC registration

Flickr is no longer supporting typepad. Grrr. Another reason I might have to migrate to one of the other services.

• From the comments, Montgomery County Council Member Roger Berliner said, when talking about charging for Saturday parking in county lots and garages in Bethesda and why it might be good for business, "Because some people won't just hog a space all day, take their bike, go on the Capital Crescent Trail." I agree. I'm sure there are people who do that. Because that's something people do when parking is free. Charging for parking makes biking a better value. Maybe those who do that (and I wonder if CCCT has any idea how people arrive at the trail) will bike there instead or maybe some metered spaces can be set up near the trail, with money going to snow plowing.
• WABA is offering Confident City Cycling classes this spring
• Baltimore TV stations have been giving positive coverage of the push for the new Vehicular Manslaughter law in Maryland. As we know, AAA is good at getting the media involved. 
• Bike DC registration is open!
• An 8-foot wide paved bike path on River Road in Potomac, MD from River Oaks Lane to Norton Road should begin construction this spring. This is the first section of the project. "A public meeting on the second segment — an 8-foot wide bike path from Riverwood Drive to River Oaks Lane — is planned for 7 to 9 p.m. April 7 at Potomac Elementary School, 10311 River Road."
• Takoma Park has annexed Flower Avenue and plans to turn it into a green street. That may include bike lanes.
• It's a year late, but the Cedar Lane bridge over Rock Creek in Kensington is going to close for a month starting in June to be rebuilt and put on a diet. "Craig Fuss, the county's Bridge Program Manager, said the renovated bridge will have three lanes instead of four, removing a southbound lane in exchange for a pedestrian and bicycle path." Naturally, not everyone is excited about the diet. "Martin Cullmen, a resident of nearby Parkhill Drive, said removing a traffic lane will exacerbate the already heavy traffic along Cedar Lane.  'I like sidewalks, but Cedar [Lane] becomes a busy road for people coming home,' he said. 'It needs to get bigger, not smaller.'" Actually it's not getting smaller, it's just that car space is being given to bikes and pedestrians. But I guess "people" only come home in the roadway.
• Speaking of bridges with sidepaths, Glebe Road over Arlington Blvd in Arlington County is scheduled to be rebuilt starting this summer. When it's done it will go from this, to what is seen in the rendering below. That will include a 17-foot shared use path on one side and an 11-foot sidewalk on the other. It will be done in August 2012.

Comments

[JTS]

Re: River Road. AWESOME NEWS. Although most of the users will be/are weekend warriors, this is a sorely needed connection, especially as more people try out biking.

My parents live out that way, and I remember when they added 'bike lanes' to River Road back in the early aughts. After all of this roadwork and repaving, they painted little bicycles on the shoulder (maybe 24 inches wide). It was basically an excuse for drivers to get pissed off at cyclists for taking the lane.

Sending this to my cyclist mom now, who will freak.

[JeffB]

Re Council Member Berliner comments,

I'm sure too that people use the parking in Bethesda along the trail to ride the CCT. But how justified is the businesses complaint on that?

Maybe I am misunderstanding the meaning of 'public' in public parking. Also - are the businesses giving credit for all the users of the CCT who ARRIVE at Bethesda by bike for lunch and dinner?

On a broader sense though I sometimes feel sad when I see people coming to the CCT by car to bike or walk. Isn't that a measure of how poorly we have provided for livable communities that people feel compelled to DRIVE to a distant location just to walk or bike?

[JeffB]

Re River Road path,

I'd feel very hesitant to describe any 8 foot path as a BIKE PATH. The article only calls in a path or sidewalk.

Any MUP only 8 feet wide and being used by walkers, dogs, kids, etc shouldn't probably never be used by an adult cyclist.

[washcycle]

The article calls it a bike path. I quoted it above. But I agree that 8 feet is very narrow.

[JeffB]

@washcycle

Your right the article does use sidewalk and bike path interchangeably.

Frankly I don't know what a bike path is. Is there an example anywhere of one? It seems the term du jour is MUP.

But as a MUP 8 feet is a design failure.

I think the Gazette article is sloppy referring to it as a bike path. Next time I'm on River Rd taking my lane I sure hope I don't receive a brush pass from a motorist followed by a string of invectives ordering me to use the BIKE PATH.

[oboe]

Looking forward to being screamed at by motorists to "get on the 'bike path'!!!"

:(

[MB]

Yeah. I'm a supporter (but pretty much non-user) of MUTs, but this River Road one just makes me cringe, knowing what's coming. Perhaps we could just pull the MacArthur Blvd macro out and let it run itself?

(Does anyone know the story/history of how River Road turned out to be so popular with cyclists/racers? The terrain is obviously good, but - if you take away the enormous population of weekend riders - it's kind of an objectively crap road for riding. Narrow to non-existent shoulders at critical parts. High speed traffic. Etc. I can only imagine that when the riders first found it, it had some small fraction of the present traffic.)

[Nancy]

@MB--The traffic on River is a fairly recent development (for us old folks). As late as the mid-to-late '70's, there wasn't much out River except for horse farms. You could ride a nice century riding from DC to Sugarloaf Mt and back. River Rd is still the best way to get from the suburbs to the the Agricultural Reserve.

[oboe]

As late as the mid-to-late '70's, there wasn't much out River except for horse farms.

River Road is popular because it's

You could ride a nice century riding from DC to Sugarloaf Mt and back. River Rd is still the best way to get from the suburbs to the the Agricultural Reserve.

River Road is popular (at least among the folks I know, who seem pretty representative of most cyclists who train on the road) because you can ride from the city, out MacArthur, to Great Falls, then out River Road to points west.

It's actually pretty great riding--at least compared to the other options out there--if you're trying to put together big miles from your doorstep in DC.

DC is one of the few cities in the East Coast Megalopolis from which you can ride out of downtown, and put together a double-century on somewhat reasonable roads.

I'd much rather ride River Road than, say, Pennsylvania Ave east into PG County, or Central Ave. I guess it's all relative.

[Richard Layman]

wrt flickr you can still just input photos as inline code. That's what I do most of the time anyway.