Saturday Morning Ride - Infamy

Good morning

• Columbia, MD is now looking into bikesharing, but will it be CaBi? The article has this incredible fact from Denver "In Denver, officials report that the year-old program has led to 43 percent of downtown car trips being replaced with bike trips."
  
  • "We would like to see other jurisdictions join in," he said, saying the Baltimore program will hopefully encourage more MARC train riders who might cycle the rest of their journey to the office. He pointed out that the city program will use a different vendor than Washington uses, which would require riders to sign up for both programs
• Why SilverSpringTrails thinks building a grade-separated crossing for Wisconsin avenue isn't worth looking into.
• TBD discusses a cyclist who, egads, runs red lights. And she's not even going to a shooting. 
• Not really about riding a bike, except that in some ways it is. "For the past year and a half, I’ve ridden my bike to work a couple of times per week. The first three miles aren’t much to write about, but the last five are special — through Arlington National Cemetery, over the Memorial Bridge, past the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument, then along the Mall to Capitol Hill."

Comments

[Wayne Phyillaier]

"Why SilverSpringTrails thinks building a grade-separated crossing for Wisconsin avenue isn't worth looking into."

It's not that I don't want a good grade-separated crossing. You can see in my blog post that I've put some effort into searching for a good concept. But rather I've become convinced that it is a search that will only lead to more dead ends.

[antibozo]

I think a Wisconsin Avenue overpass with an elevator at each end could be built with much shorter, steeper ramps, and still be ADA-compliant. Cf the MARC platform overpass at the Silver Spring Metro Center.

[antibozo]

(...which uses stairways.)

[Kathy]

It's a real shame that Baltimore won't be using CaBi given the number of commuters to/from DC. As a Washingtonian, I would love the ability to use my CaBi key fob when I visit Charm City. The higher cost/annoyance factor of having to purchase a day pass when I do go to Baltimore to use their system is a disincentive to using it.

[Michael H.]

But first Baltimore needs to get a bikeshare system before we can even worry about compatibility. I'm still not confident that Baltimore's plan to get bikeshare without paying a single dollar (from gov't agencies) is going to work.

[washcycle]

Wayne, I guess this is the hazard I run when I try to summarize something in one sentence. I guess the sentence I wrote could be read either way.

[JeffB]

Thanks Wayne! I think your article does well identifying the issues with other non-grade crossings for the CCT.

To be more complete you could have added a section covering Evil Knieval style rocket assisted ramp launchings :)

Routing the trail through the existing tunnel is probably a once in a multi-generational opportunity to provide critical infrastructure. Once the trolley is in there is no going back to retrofit.

I think back to when the beltway was being constructed in the late 50's. Many of the bridges built over the new highway only accommodated automobile traffic. We had to wait 50 years before beltway widening efforts got us some bridges with room for pedestrians and bicycles.

But if, in the end, austerity measures prevail and the trail has to cross Wisconsin at grade perhaps we can make lemonade out of lemons.

While a non-grade crossing is the best thing for the CCT itself perhaps a grade crossing might be the best thing for cycling overall!

In return for ceding the train in the tunnel cycling advocates, such as yourself, should demand that MCDOT go the extra mile to tame the snarling traffic mess that is downtown Bethesda.

Montgomery County wants to throw down a set of CaBI stations and call themselves bike friendly. My view is that that alone is not enough. CaBi REQUIRES bike friendly streets and infrastructure. That is not what I see in Montgomery County. What I see is typical arterial suburban road development with little or no facilitation.

What I'd like to see is a cycle track running the length of Wisconsin from Friendship Heights all the way to Montgomery Community College, both sides of the road. And along Old Georgetown to Montgomery Mall.

[Wayne Phyillaier]

@JeffB

I agree Montgomery County wants to call itself bicycle friendly without doing the hard work to make it so.

I think Mont. Co. made it clear that moving automobile traffic fast was going to take priority over all else in Bethesda when it made Woodmont Avenue one-way. There is no decent bike route from the CCT trailhead at Bethesda Ave. to the Metro Station. Restoring Woodmont Ave. to a two way street, with bike lanes on BOTH sides, would do more to create a bike friendly street grid in Bethesda than anything else MCDOT can do.

[Westnorth]

That Denver stat seems backwards to me, especially since the system has only logged 200K rides this year (at most a few thousand trips a day). I think they meant that 43% of B-Cycle trips replaced what would have been car trips.