Saturday Evening Ride - We'll leave the light on for you

Hello

• DDOT has installed 4 miles of bike lane and 1 mile of shared lanes so far this year. That makes up for 2011. Now they only have 10 miles to do in 2012. "The new bike lanes are on 4th Street, SW; I Street, SW and SE; Columbia Road, NW, New York Avenue, NW; Tilden Street, NW; and Upshur Street, NW....In addition there is a combination of new bike lanes and sharrows on R Street from Florida Avenue, NW to the Metropolitan Branch Trail in NE; and there are new sharrows on Oklahoma Avenue, SE."
• There were 164,911 trips on Capital Bikeshare in March. That's a one-month record (though is won't last long) as well as a 60% increase from February and a 157% increase from last year.
• The High Bridge is open. But based on the name, they really should have waited until April 20th. "It is the final link in connecting 31 miles of linear state park. It is the most prominent of numerous cultural and historic areas connected by the park. Efforts are still ongoing to extend the park into Burkeville on its eastern end and Pamplin to the west."
• What you, and I, missed on the Down the Tubes ride hosted by WABA and DC Water. Seriously, this is the kind of thing I could've really geeked out on. 
• "Virginia’s state parks will designate areas for cyclists to camp even when campgrounds are full, to ensure that long-distance touring cyclists will always have a place to stay."
• According to a new report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group "In 2009, 16- to 34-year-olds as a whole took 24 percent more bike trips than they took in 2001, despite the age group actually shrinking in size by 2 percent.” And that's only going to go up when they hear about High Bridge.
• The covered bike parking at the University of Michigan is really nice. 
• In Seattle, a coffee shop asked the city to install a bike rack and the city declined. So they asked a local art group to build one, which they have installed and gets used all year long. But now the city is complaining that it isn't permitted and is too big for the space where it has been placed. They've offered to move the site up their list for installation.

Comments

[g. t. paine]

"In addition there is a combination of new bike lanes and sharrows on R Street from Florida Avenue, NW to the Metropolitan Branch Trail in NE"

And it's already been multipurposed:

[Christopher Fotos]

Why oh why oh why on the artisanal bike racks? They're either ugly, dysfunctional, or both. I mean props to the arts group for contributing time and materials to respond to a local need, but Lord have mercy that thing is ugly. And somewhat dysfunctional. There must be a best-practices manual out there on how to build whimsical dysfunctional bike racks.

[Mike Doan]

I rode three segments of the High Bridge bike trail in the past few years before the bridge opened. It is a major push forward for biking in Southside Virginia.