Wednesday Morning Commute - High heels

Good morning. Tonight is DDOT's Capital Bikeshare expansion meeting

• So far, the money for next year's expansion is still in the budget (this is beyond the expansion that will be discussed this evening).
• Request for comment-disproving photos please "A circulator bus can take you from the station to Adams Morgan faster or you can also utilize the city's rental bike share, but try doing that in high heels for a night on the town."
• Georgetown is one of three schools with no cars on campus. "Georgetown, for instance, does not allow students who live on campus to have cars there, though the school's Washington, D.C., location allows access to a vast public transportation system"
• This year's bicycle crashes in Fairfax County. Can DC get something like this going? The fault breakdown is ugly (14 bicyclists and only 6 drivers).  I'm intrigued by the cyclist who was "drunk in public" 34 minutes after the New Year. Weren't we all? And I'm curious about the cyclist who was at fault in a crash with a hit and run. Who did the running?
• More about Lance. Why he should confess and Sally Jenkins' thoughts on him. Oddly, she blames the BCS.

Comments

[Ren]

I had occcasion to visit Georgetown Hospital numerous times this week (as a visitor) and was happily surprised at the availability of bicycle parking. Much easier than my experiences with Virginia Hospital Center. And of course, much faster to get there by bicycle than to drive during rushhour. Yay Georgetown.

[SJE]

re: CaBi in high heels: wasn't there a picture from BTWD?

Beside, we cannot expect public transit to accomodate every particular niche.

[Froggie]

Wash: the time is listed 24-hour time, so that's 12:34PM, not AM for that New Year's bike incident.

[washcycle]

Froggie, that just makes it more intriguing.

[Leslie]

I CaBi'd in a cocktail dress the other night to get from an event in Georgetown back home to Columbia Heights. I had a change of shoes with me, though. (And no photographic evidence, unfortunately.)

[Catherine]

That article almost made my had explode. Forget the "try biking in heels" part (which, trust me, I will get to), but did you READ all those people complaining about the walk from the station to the Zoo?! .3 miles? What?!

Excluding the elderly, sick or disabled, how can you find .3 mile walk, even an uphill walk, taxing? The state of affairs with American physical fitness reminds me more and more of Wall-E every day. And this coming from someone who could stand to drop a few and work on endurance herself.

Yikes.

Now, onto biking in heels. Does it not occur to people that it is *significantly* easier to ride a bike in high heels than it is to walk in them? Not kidding. As long as the heel isn't so high as to get in the way on the downstroke pedal, it is like riding in any other shoe, really.

::Headsmack::

[jj]

as catherine says, it is much easier to bike in heels than it is to walk in them.

pretty much the only time i wear high heels is if i am biking somewhere. if i am walking, or walking to the metro, i'm much more comfortable in flats.

[Jonathan Krall]

At the risk of stating the obvious, I'll point out that the Fairfax crash data comes from the police and is almost certainly biased in favor of motorists.

[SJE]

I agree with Catherine: people have become completely reliant on motorized transport. I recall asking someone how to get to Georgetown via Metro and they said you can't get there via Metro. I found you can walk 10 minutes from Foggy Bottom, did so, and reported later to my coworker that it was possible. They dismissed it as some sort of weird ability not shared by ordinary people.

The problem for getting cycling popular is that you have a group for whom walking 0.3 miles is impossible, who cannot imagine themselve commuting by bike for 5-10 miles. One afternoon on the bike convinces them they are correct. If they tried for a couple of weeks, it would seem a completely do-able proposition. The trick is to get them to try for a few weeks, and not have them terrified by aggressive drivers etc.

[Jacques]

SJE -- I agree in general, and I think that's where Bikeshare has been a great success.

In a few months, I went from never having ridden in DC since 2004, to buying my own bike two weeks ago, totally because the bikeshare experience showed me how accessible it is.

[jj]

I agree that people in the US dont walk enough, and are 'taught' that they cant walk anywhere etc etc. However, in the specific case of the zoo, the walk from woodley is a long walk for small children, especially when it is hot, and given that they will be walking a lot at the zoo. Same for adults pushing strollers. And of course, it;s a long way for anyone who is not able-bodied.

[Catherine]

I'm not so sure jj. Yes, it's not as easy for an adult with a stroller or for children etc, but nothing's as easy for those populations as it is for unencumbered, able-bodied adults. That distance is *really* not unreasonable at all--particularly not unreasonable when you consider that the point in question is basically "should Metro change station names", and the Woodley Park/Zoo stop was brought up because it's a "long walk" from the Metro.

Not only is it not a long walk by almost any measure, it's certainly not long when you consider the question is about Metro proximity. That is the closest Metro stop, and the zoo is within a reasonable distance from the stop and thus the station incorporates the name.