Tuesday Morning Commute - bright orange stickers

Good Morning and congratulations to one of our frequent commenter who had a baby yesterday (or at least his wife did). You know who you are.

• Bike thefts are down at metro stations from last year. There were 95 bikes stolen last year from April to June, and 72 this year (a 24% drop if I'm reading it right). Meanwhile, Metro is rounding up abandoned bikes at its stations and destroying them. Before anyone starts crying, it sounds like it has only happened a dozen times, and only when the bike is pretty picked over. "Police mark the left-behind bikes with bright orange stickers warning the owner. If the bike has not been removed within 10 days, Stessel said, police call maintenance crews to remove the bike. Then, Taborn said, if the agency has no way to contact the owner, officials destroy the bikes." A Metro board member asked them to consider donating them to local groups that refurbish bikes. "The transit agency is considering adding more video cameras in areas where bikes are parked and looking at where it places bike racks, Taborn said. It is also talking to D.C. officials because the city has very few thefts from its public bike racks."

• DDOT is also having a bike rack installation event- the Rack Attack - in the Ballpark district. They're installing 36 bike racks in the SE neighborhood at 3rd and K SE starting at 10am. DC's installed 2000 bike parking spaces in the public space. In a related story, the new GWU School of Public Health and Health Services’ academic building will include 81 bicycle parking spaces (81? That's an unusual number, no?)
• In testing on the name for Capital Bikeshare "people liked the one with 'share' in the title. Holben also says that names like WeBike tested better than names like UBike: 'Most people seemed to like the more inclusive name.'”

• DDOT seeks input on the R Street cycletrack.
• Courtalnd Milloy says "Tell these folks that if they want more Bike Share they could at least learn how to ride the damn bike, stop weaving in and out of traffic. Car bumpers are harder than their butts if not their helmetless heads. Hey, I just want them to live to see another birthday." I think the average bike share rider knows more about riding their bike than the average DC driver does about driving their car.
• It's been one year since Natasha Pettigrew was killed in a traffic crash. "Without an eyewitness to the crash, it's not clear that a charge of manslaughter by motor vehicle could be filed--there are laws against leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and failing to render aid in an accident resulting in death."
• A post article on fighting noncommunicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes discusses the larger role government has in the effort. "Prevention of infectious and noncommunicable diseases both require two kinds of interventions. The first target individuals and are usually delivered by doctors and nurses. The second target populations and are delivered by government, or the things that government can influence." It sounds like making it easier to bike and walk falls under the second type. 
• Streetsblog covers the new ACS commuting data. They include a graph showing Population density vs. Commute rate (spoiler: they appear to be related). If I had the time, I'd compare the bike commute rate to the college-student-population percentage. I predict they're related.
• Rails to Trails release a report on different types of bike facilities.

Comments

[read scott martin]

Re cameras at metro station racks: Bait bikes, please, and catch the lock cutters.

[oboe]

Courtalnd Milloy says "Tell these folks that if they want more Bike Share they could at least learn how to ride the damn bike, stop weaving in and out of traffic. Car bumpers are harder than their butts if not their helmetless heads. Hey, I just want them to live to see another birthday." I think the average bike share rider knows more about riding their bike than the average DC driver does about driving their car.

Courtland Milloy is like the naked Id of the suburban black middle-class. Think Archie Bunker behind the wheel of a "fully loaded" Navigator festooned with Redskins flags and a personalized MD license plate asserting that the over-sized luxury vehicle is confirmation of Jesus' grace.

They don't give a shit about the city of Washington--they left a decade or two ago--other than to slag off anyone who currently lives here.

[Greenbelt]

Yep, oboe nailed it. I don't know where Courtland Milloy lives, but his "bikes are getting in the way of my bumpers, where did all these people come from, why can't I go 60mph from my suburban subdivision to whereever I want to go whenever I want to (and get free parking right in front)" mentality is pretty common out here in the heart of the black middle class suburbs. PG county has been slow to adjust to non-car, non-Metro travel I think because our roads have historically been less jammed up than in Northern VA or Montgomery County or NW DC. You really could get around be car pretty well in northern and central PG in prior decades. As a result of that, there's a drive-to mentality for pretty much everything, which is only gradually starting to change. On the one hand, it is nice to be able to drive places without undue delay -- I really appreciated that a lot, especially when my kids were in their activities years. But it has also delayed our area in adapting to higher densities and getting Metro-oriented, bike- and pedestrian-friendly local development. Lots of middle class folks invested in massive vehicles for drive-to-everything lifestyles that they now can't afford to fuel or make payments on. And with worsened congestion on top of that, it's really rattling the nerves of our Archie Bunker types. Plus the Redskins lost last night...

[Crickey7]

Funny how no one complaining about BikeShare has any inkling that their drive through downtown and getting a parking space is easier because of it.

And how can you hate anything as cute as those red bikes? It's impossible.

[Jim T]

Why the racial component to this? I sure don't see any difference between the black and white middle class.

[Greenbelt]

Jim is right. Apologies for my part. It's really more of a mindset thing -- we thought everything was supposed to be about cars all the time, and then the world changed and gas went up and cheap credit dried up and there's no more room to expand roads, and now we're cranky because folks are riding their bikes instead.

[Dave]

Courtland Milloy lives in Ward 9 (PG County). He should really just cut out the BS and replace "myopic little twits" with "white people".

Oboe is dead on.

[oboe]

@Jim T:

Why the racial component to this?

The phenomenon of "Courtland Milloy" makes no sense unless one understands the suburbanization DC's black middle-class. It's like talking about David Brooks without mentioning broader suburban culture.

I know a lot of older, reactionary white guys who live in the suburbs who probably hate Milloy (if they've ever heard of him) but they've got more in common than they do differences.

[Crickey7]

Hey, I saw David Brooks in the suburbs just last week!

[oboe]

@Crickey7:

Was he taking notes at PF Chang's? He was probably researching another book.

[Jim Titus]

@oboe: I basically agree with your characterization of Courtland Milloy, but once the discussion started drifting to "they" it began to make be a bit uncomfortable. The white folk who fled PG because black folk moved in were not more friendly to bicycles than the newer residents. Nor are those who drive an hour to work from the Virginia exurbs.

[JeffB]

Re: Courtland Milloy:

I love the irony of advice coming from a man who has not only been shown to be a careless and dangerous motorist, having lost his driving privileges at least once, but who, upon trying to ride a bicycle instead proved to be so clueless on how to operate it that he was stopped multiple times by the police and given warnings.

As my grandmother would have said - "The man doesn't have a lick of sense!".