Friday Morning Commute - Taking the lane

I saw Captain America last night so I didn't have time to check the news. I assume the whole debt cap thing is fixed, right?

• Lydia DePillis turns her spotlight on the Tourmobile contract - the one that supposedly prevents Capital Bikeshare from going on the Mall. You're going to be shocked to hear this, but it may be illegal. And it doesn't actually preclude BikeSharing "Nothing in the language of the contract actually precludes the Park Service from allowing different forms of transportation on the Mall, interpretive or otherwise. Tourmobile has the right of first refusal there, but doesn’t get to block others." What are we going to do when DePillis gets scooped up by someone bigger?
• MPD coudl take a lesson from the Mount Ranier Police Department. Here is a story for which they should be commended. A cyclist was bumped by a passing car..."Conveniently the police were out monitoring traffic so I told the officer what happened. He jumped into his car and raced after the guy. The guy came back to the police station and we talked about what happened. He said he saw me riding in the street but he didn’t see me as he was passing. That’s a little hard to understand since I’m on a day-glo orange bike wearing a orange safety vest with a super blinky light in back. The officer thought he was telling the truth though so after discussing it with me I decided to have him give the guy a ticket for ‘failing to yield’ which is a $120 hit." This despite there not be $2000 worth of damage or any injuries. You can see a video here of how closely he was passed or the photo at top.
• The Examiner blames Montgomery County for "dropping the ball on BRAC." Now I've been following this since the beginning, so I'm not sure that's a fair characterization - the Pentagon should have come forward with more money, and five years is a short time span for a large project like this - but more importantly this sounds like an insult: "Montgomery County's hopelessly inadequate immediate solution consists largely of building pedestrian and bike trails and urging commuters to car pool." Bike trails are a fantastic solution if the roads are already congested. And perhaps the Examiner should actually wait to see what happens before they call it a complete failure. Do they not even read their own paper?
• Laurel, MD is getting more bike-friendly. "Connecting newer parts of the city to downtown through safer bike and pedestrian routes will help draw more people to struggling Main Street shops, Brendle said."
• A Bikes for the World photo slideshow. It shows bikes, their previous owners and where they end up. 
• Finally a Fox news story somehow ties together the CaBi expansion, Tregoning's crash and Tommy Wells' Frederick Douglass bike ride - and it doesn't feel too forced. I went on the bike ride, the highlight of which was crossing the bridge in the road (which I've never done, and is legal. The speed limit there is 30mph if you'll believe it) instead of on the sidepath. But most of the information given out is well known to readers here. No one honked at us either.

DC Council Member Tommy Wells Bringing Attention To Bike Safety in DC: MyFoxDC.com

Comments

[Brendan]

The Mt. Rainier cyclist had video proof. That's a big difference from the "he said she said" situations we've talked about recently. Still, good for the Mt. Rainier officer. Thank you.

[Brendan]

re: Wells and the South Capitol Street bridge. No one should forget that the original key bridge did not have separate sidewalks. What we now think of bike lanes on Key Bridge were added to the bridge when it was rehabbed in the 70s. Look at the bike lanes from below and you'll see that the lanes cantilever out from the original road deck.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/3444?size=_original

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/14773874

[Shawn G]

The Mt. Ranier incident seems like it could have been avoided by waiting for the truck to pass, or taking the full lane. I think staying too close to the curb is what got him in trouble.

[JeffB]

Agree with Shawn G that the cyclist would have been safer taking and controlling the lane as there was clearly insufficient room for a vehicle to safely pass.

The driver of the truck should have been issued a $500 fine for violating the 3 foot law as well!!!!!!!!!!

[Michael H.]

But Tourmobile puts so much into modernizing and upgrading their equipment and facilities. They have cutting-edge 1974 design at their kiosk in West Potomac Park.

[oboe]

The speed limit there is 30mph if you'll believe it

Did you see any sign of anyone obeying that law? :)

Anyway, the speed limit's obviously artificially low: if you dadburned cyclists hadn't been clogging up the bridge, it would have been perfectly safe for everyone to drive at 50 mph.

And at 50 mph, you cyclists would've been suicidal to even attempt riding there.

Funny how the logic rationalizing "natural speed limits" is a perfectly closed system.

[Ted]

I will cry when Lydia DePillis inevitably is snatched away.

[Brendan]

Lydia reports on my field often. She regularly researches half the story until she gets to her desired position, stops researching, and then writes a bratty know-it-all article that's not quite the full story.

Her Tourmobile article is good, but it's not a scoop, and I suspect she's missed something. In a town full of lawyers, it can't be as simple as she makes it out to be.

[oboe]

Lydia reports on my field often. She regularly researches half the story until she gets to her desired position, stops researching, and then writes a bratty know-it-all article that's not quite the full story.

You've just described "journalist". ;)

DePillis is generally better than most, though. Love the beat she covers, too.

[Brendan]

@Oboe, sadly yes: "journalist." The brat quotient is strong with this one, hmmmm.