Thursday Morning Commute - ACA

Good morning

• Washingtonian asks "How truly bike-friendly is DC?" Which is sort of a tough question to answer. Less than Portland they say, but more than most other cities in the US. Which sounds about right. It could be better, but it could be worse. The UK transportation department once esitmated that if everything possible were done (short of banning the car) that bicycle mode share would saturate at 40%. Copenhagen is at 36%. If that becomes the scale  - 0-40% - then let's say above 20% is an A, 10-20% is a B, 5-10% is a C, 2.5-5% is a D and below 2.5% is an F. DC is at 2%, so the answer is "not very," just like almost every other city in the world.
• It looks like there will be a new transportation bill, but it won't be very good for cyclists. The money for bike/ped projects will now be inlcuded under “Additional Activities," which will get less money that Transportation Enhancements. TE was only one program that provided money to cycling in the old law, along with CMAQ and Safe Routes to Schools - both of which are also rolled into AA, so it's even more of a reduction than it looks like. Furthermore, some road projects will qualify fot the AA money, so it won't even all go to biking and walking.  And finally the money will be split 50-50 between states and cities and states will be able to "opt-out" and spend that money on roads it they want (dont tell anyone, but they want). So all in all, it will be a massive reduction in the amount of money given to cycling. 
• The town of Vienna, VA will sponsor a Summer Safety Campaign. 'Bicycle Advisory Committee Co-Chair Cris Janoski said, "We're seeing more and more people use the trail. Thus, there's this quote-on-quote 'overcrowding',' I think safety education is a good idea, but what is clearly needed is more trails to reduce overcrowding. Perhaps Congress will provide more funding.

Comments

[Tom]

Yeah, I wonder if we can get some service level ratings on the local trails because of the overcrowding. Nothing gets people building more lanes an "F" service level from FCDOT.

[JeffB]

@Tom
+1

Re: bike friendly measure,
I would measure a city more broadly on how "non-car" friendly it is. So what percentage of commutes involve at least a leg of the trip done by walking, cycling, mass transportation and so on.

Just to throw some number out there (totally without any justification):
A - if 80% or greater of the trips don't use a car for a lest one leg of the journey.

[charlie]

I'd go one step further than Jeff and just say how friendly a transport system is to people. That is why street parking is so important, as opposed to throwing cars into garages.

In terms of the funding issue, it looks as if just shifting cards around. However, calling "TE" as CMAQ-AA is incredibly stupid and a sign a bad things coming. CMAQ should be really about cleaning up the air, and not the TE type programs.

Trying to link my two argumetns, think of things like highway rest stops and what not. If we had REAL resst stops, we could remove 75% of the 7-11 and gas stations that cluster on every highway exit.

[Greenbelt]

The road congestion scale of A to F or (E or whatever) is a complete joke. For example, the "failed intersection" concept is based on whether there was EVER any waiting more than one cycle at a light, any time of day. But any road that has no waiting at all, ever, in a densely populated area is by definition grossly overbuilt most of the time, and thus a hugely nonoptimal waste of asphalt. The road congestion scale reminds me of the parking requirements -- they don't "pass" unless they're hugely overbuilt virtually all the time. It's an idiotic system, designed to benefit road and parking lot pavers, I presume -- the system has certainly had a horrifying impact on most suburbs.

[charlie]

@Greenbelt; yep. Our sytem is desigend to make road contractor rich and truckers moving.

Drivers of personal cars -- not so much.

[MM]

This is my bike-friendliness scale.

A = you'd be crazy NOT to ride a bike in the city
B = riding a bike is generally the best way to get around
C = riding is a good way to get around, some of the time
D = you can ride, but it's not optimal
F = you're batshit crazy for trying to ride there!

I give DC a B- on this scale.

[Jonathan Krall]

@charlie I don't know where you live, but in Alexandria nearly all of the roads are designed so that 100 percent of the roadway is available to be used by cars, either for driving or parking. There are very few bike lanes.

If our political leaders actually mean what they say when they talk about getting people out of cars and onto bikes, sidewalks and buses, they should take steps to reduce this percentage to some number less than 100 for some significant percentage of our streets. One way to do this would be to re-allocate on-street parking to make bike lanes and bike parking, to improve signage so that garage parking is easier to find, and to price public garage-parking to make it more attractive. If you actually want a solution that improves things for everyone there is an example of one.

[oboe]

"We're seeing more and more people use the trail. Thus, there's this quote-on-quote 'overcrowding',' I think safety education is a good idea, but what is clearly needed is more trails to reduce overcrowding.

I was pondering this as I rode up the glorified sidewalk that is the Custis Trail west out of Rosslyn.

A congested, rush-hour stream of cyclists and pedestrians all fighting over scraps (including a maintenance guy trimming shrubs), it sits about 6" from three lanes of sparsely-populated tarmac called Lee Hwy.

I wonder what the traffic impact would be if one of those three lanes were reserved for a segregated contraflow cycle-track.

[oboe]

Sorry, by "glorified" or course I mean "degraded"...

[charlie]

@oboe, since I ride and walk that every day as well, I've wondered the same.

Lee Highway could lost a lane there. (bascially, it gets backed up if 66 is backed up at Scott.) contraflow - no, absolutely not.

The nicest part of that strech is the shade the sound barrier provides.

What is very annoying is commuters who just blow through on their bikes, so much so that local residents can't use the path.

[MM]

@oboe

Zero. It's three lanes with additional right and left turn lanes. That's basically more capacity than I-66 has from Rosslyn to the Beltway.

[SJE]

Looking on the bright side, the crowding on the trails is largely because cycling and walking is now so popular.

[JeffB]

I'd go one step further than Jeff and just say how friendly a transport system is to people. That is why street parking is so important, as opposed to throwing cars into garages.

Well I'd go the opposite way. At some point you need both a carrot and a stick. If we want to increase non-car use of our streets we necessarily will have to decrease car use somehow.

Starting by removing parking from surface streets would be the first step since a single parked car effectively removes an entire lane from use.

[Greenbelt]

I don't ride the Custis trail very often, but when I have, it's very notable how few cars were on the three traffic lanes. If you took the rightmost (uphill) lane for a cycletrack, could you also get rid of one of the two right turn lanes at Lynn Street? The two-lane turns are very dangerous.

[oboe]

What is very annoying is commuters who just blow through on their bikes, so much so that local residents can't use the path.

Right, but this is inevitable consequence of routing the major e-w bike commuting artery through a freeking sidewalk.

If they decided to route I-66 through the parking lot of that little shopette on the corner of Spout Run and Lee Hwy, you'd probably see a few user conflicts as well.

People should slow down and be courteous...but the fundamental problem is--as usual--cars are given the lion's share and everyone else is left to fight over the scraps.