Good morning
- Alex Baca at City Paper went to the Build it and they will Ride presentation at the Building Museum and reports that future cycling infrastructure in DC is going to be more likely to take space from drivers than in the past. Many bike lanes, up to now, have been built by taken a wide single lane and splitting it into a bike lane and all-traffic lane. "The next step for safe, dedicated bicycle infrastructure in D.C. will be more intrusive than simply throwing down some paint."
- Meanwhile, Harry Jaffe at the Examiner is a believer in CaBi. "I thought the rent-a-bikes were goofy and the program was doomed to failure. How wrong I was. The system is a raging success." But he includes some bad news that I missed 'Gray reduced the bike and pedestrian budget by about 30 percent. "We can still do a lot of work for pedestrians and bicyclists," Sebastian says.'
- A nice profile of a retiring bike messenger. "The twilight of the city’s once booming courier business is ironic and a little sad, because it comes amid a huge bicycle renaissance....Keefe joined the bike messenger scrum in its pre-fax, pre-e-mail glory days, when there were about 400 of them downtown, and they could easily pull down $100 for a couple hours’ work. (Today, they might not even break $75 in a 10-hour day.)...Keefe was a Vietnam War veteran who was studying physics while working on satellite projects for NASA." What is is with satellites and biking?
- Dr. Gridlock followed his blog post on area trails with a longer column on the same subject.
- With increased cycling, there is concern with increased competition for space (Frankly I don't think it's true. 75-80% of my commute is spent on bike lanes, trails, shoulders or riding in the pulses between cars on quieter streets. Whereas when I drive, I'm always mixing it up with other drivers). 'Farrell has this take on the problem: "Beyond enforcement, beyond education, which, as important as those two things are, there's a long-term need to rebuild and restructure the infrastructure that we have."'
- Spotcycle is now more accurate.
- U-MD aerospace engineering students are trying to build a flying bicycle. Literally. But they call it a human powered helicopter. This is how I plan to commute in 2021, and I will blow every stop sign when I do. On a serious note, I'm surprised they have the cyclist in the recumbent position. I'd think you'd get more power standing, but the video says they studied that to get the ideal position. Maybe they're trying to keep it closer to the ground for more ground effect.
- How to buy a bike advice in the Post. BTW, Complete Bike Maintenance by Fred Milson, which I'm currently perusing has some good bike shopping advice too. This weekend, I'm going to try some of the repairs and so we'll see how idiot-proof it is.
- Tales from the sharrows has an interesting post on facilities and commuting. His workplace has the ideal set-up for bike commuters (indoor, secure bike parking; a secure locker room with showers; the bike commuter benefit and a CaBi station) yet few people bike commute. I wonder how much each of those items induces bike commuting. People always tell me they'd love to bike commute, but there's no shower. Are they all liars?
- Laurel's new bike lanes are finished. "City Engineer Bryon White announced April 14 the completion of bikeways on Fourth and Fifth streets that connect Riverfront Park in historic Laurel to Gude Lake Park on the south side of Route 198....He said the next step in the bikeway master plan will begin this summer with road markings and signs from the Laurel Municipal Center to Montrose Avenue through West and Eighth streets. This bikeway will connect with the new ones on Fourth and Fifth streets."
- DDOT is repaving East Capitol between Lincoln Park and RFK. Yesterday I noticed the prep lines for the street marking and it appears they're extending the bike lanes east from 17th to 19th. Delicious, low-hanging fruit.
- Last video of DC biking. This one of 15th Street.
Washington DC, 15th street NW cycletrack (partial, 3x speed) from Greenbelt Bike Videos on Vimeo.
I usually have no use for Petunia's columns, but I appreciated this one. She accurately portrays the figurative passing of a figure from the golden age of bike messengers, with a nod to the wacky subculture they created.
These battle-scarred men and women bridged the era between the first time when bikes were widely used for urban transportation (ending in the 1950's and 60's) and the current rebirth. They were often a little condescending ("you're doing great!") toward us commuters, but never mean-spirited.
Someday our children will ride their carbon-cavorite Trekuji (don't reverse the order) Velocipede II's to see an exhibit about these figures from DC history and the battered, widely varying collection of bikes they rode, much like we see exhibits about the C&O bargemen today.
Posted by: Krickey7 | May 13, 2011 at 10:07 AM
Re: the flying bike--Recumbent is definitely the way to go. You get a better power transfer from your core and it is more aerodynamic. That's why all of the human powered speed records are set by recumbent cyclists.
Posted by: Jmg | May 13, 2011 at 10:48 AM
@Jmg:
Recumbent is definitely the way to go. You get a better power transfer from your core and it is more aerodynamic. That's why all of the human powered speed records are set by recumbent cyclists.
Exactly! And the Achilles Heel of recumbents--that you can't actually climb a hill on one--doesn't enter into the equation. It's a helicopter! There are no hills!
Posted by: oboe | May 13, 2011 at 10:55 AM
But aerodynamics doesn't matter because you're just hovering. I thought you got better transfer from an upright position because you can use your weight, that's why it's hard to climb hills.
Posted by: washcycle | May 13, 2011 at 11:19 AM
@washcycle:
Uh-Oh, the genie's out of the bottle! You're going to hear from the 'bent fans now!
Jobst Brandt's hilarious take on recumbents:
http://yarchive.net/bike/recumbent.html
Posted by: oboe | May 13, 2011 at 11:24 AM
I don't think the next round of intrastructure improvements needs to be all that "intrusive" or "pushy" except maybe to cars looking for downtown curbside parking.
Posted by: Greenbelt | May 13, 2011 at 12:35 PM
"Spotcycle is now more accurate." goes to " Twitter is over capacity " at 1:22 pm EDT.
Could this be a sign that the bike share apocalypse is upon us?
Posted by: Riley | May 13, 2011 at 01:29 PM
That, or the singularity.
Posted by: washcycle | May 13, 2011 at 02:51 PM
KNowing my reputation as a critic, you shouldn't be surprised that I thought the Weds. nite program was overly self-congratulatory.
WRT the point about Tales from teh Sharrow's tale, my subhead for the weds. nite session was that build it and they will ride works "if the right spatial pattern and density is already in place."
Getting people to commute on a bike is a big deal, especially if you don't live within the city and say within 5 miles of where you work.
His tale proves that the infrastructure isn't enough in and of itself, that you have to have support programs in place to encourage people to make the change and to help them with the transition. (And that's what I write about in plans and other venues about how to move biking mode split up to more significant numbers, e.g., more than 10% of daily household trips.
Posted by: Richard Layman | May 15, 2011 at 10:35 AM
Re: bike commuting, I'm speaking as a newish bike commuter, who after never riding in 5+ years, became a 2-3 rides per week CaBi member, and today bought a used Trek hybrid at Bike and Roll's inventory sale.
In my anecdotal experience, one thing I've found is that peer groups and word of mouth seem to be among the strongest drivers of bike commuting at my federal agency, and it was one of the things that got me interested. Once I realized I could get to the office in 25 minutes on a bikeshare bike (and probably less on a bike with more speeds that weighs less than 50 pounds), I didn't need much convincing, particularly as my building does have a gym with showers. But if I hadn't talked to a number of people who already do it, I probably would never have started.
Posted by: Jacques | May 15, 2011 at 04:29 PM