Thursday Afternoon Commute - Capital Bikeshare Day

Good afternoon

• BAC reviews the M St SE/SW alternatives.
• More images of the Eye Street SE/SW green bike lane. It looks like it is in between a right turn only lane and a traffic lane. 
• "The "Gimme 5!" ride will travel to some of Ward 5's well-known and best-kept-secret sites.  This ride is in partnership with Cultural Tourism - a nonprofit organization helping DC residents and visitors discover, experience and celebrate the city’s art, culture, and heritage." 
• This Saturday: Car Free Day and the 50 States Ride. 
• BART is experimenting with allowing bikes - regular non-folding bikes - on during rush hour. "The experiment was a test of the feasibility of relaxing the existing rush-hour bike blackout, and by all accounts it went smoothly, aided by the generally low ridership of Fridays in August."...“It looks promising,” said Steve Beroldo, BART’s bike program manager, of the bike pilot program. “There haven’t been any disasters.”
• CaBi has thoughts on their birthday. "To bring you up to speed, we added an additional 40 stations in DC, and expanded 26 stations. We also added 26 new stations in Arlington and welcomed Alexandria into the fold with eight stations in Old Town. Overall, the system added 74 stations, expanded 26 and added a new jurisdiction to the mix for a current grand total of 189 stations system-wide."
• MAP-21, the new federal transportation bill, includes a provision that would require all major arterial roads to be folded into the national highway system. "this designation basically forces state and local governments to treat arterials like major highways... Speed will increase, certain designs, like bulb outs, won't be allowed without an exception. So on and so on."
• LAB adds a new Bicycle Friendly City category past Platinum: Diamond. Next stop: Unobtainium
• Albany is looking to add bike sharing. Yes, Albany. 

Comments

[MM]

I rode over the Eye St. green lane tonight and was disappointed. It's so short that drivers probably won't even notice it until they've pretty much parked their cars right on it. It really should start at the point where the sharrows turn into the bike lane, which is probably 50 feet back from where the paint is now. Also, it's almost impossible to see at night, which is kind of an issue going into autumn. Even if DDOT just put a "bike lane" sign, that would help draw attention to it.

[MM]

Also, I think vibranium comes after diamond. Then adamantium, THEN unobtanium.

[Jon]

I ride that section of I SW once or twice a week. I love that they're trying out stuff like this, but what I'd really rather see is the previous block get a real bike lane instead of sharrows. There is a bike lane for a while, then the road goes from one lane to one straight plus one right turn only, and the bike lane disappears. There are sharrows in the lane that goes straight, but as you all probably know, merging from a bike lane into a traffic lane with sharrows is no fun. And the fact that the right turn lane is probably only necessary for cars lined up to get into the inspection station just adds insult to injury.

[Bossi]

Albany! Sweet, now I can ride to get some steamed hams.