Wednesday Afternoon Commute - 4 More Years (for LaHood?)

Good afternoon

• The new head of the Georgetown BID wants to make Georgetown easier to get to, which means congestion parking and "more bike racks, cabbie stations, and Circulator service. I think of transportation the same way DDOT does: considering all options, including cars, buses, bikeshare, pedestrians—it’s all a single system." Wouldn't it be great if they took out the on-street parking on M, widened the sidewalk, added bike lanes and paid some of the underground garages to stay open for the same cost of on-street parking?
• Richard Layman makes an excellent point about reducing parking minimums and that is that it should be coupled with more bike parking. 
• BAC on reducing speed camera fines "the BAC supports the expansion of automated enforcement and a fine structure that contributes to the existing trend of reducing traffic related injuries and fatalities. We believe that the goals of this legislation are to strengthen the automated enforcement program and improve safety, and those are goals that we support wholeheartedly. We ask for two key elements to ensure these goals are met: 1) the legislation should link an increase to the number of cameras in D.C. to the proposed fine reduction to ensure that the legislation as a whole is safety-enhancing, and 2) there should be a robust study of safety outcomes after the changes are made to ensure that the positive safety trend we have been experiencing continues."
• It looks as though attendence at the Tweed ride was high. And some rode CaBi.
• "Moving the churches to the suburbs would complete the design in making Washington, DC, a godless city and would designate it as a prime target for those who would want to see it as a city of bicycles like some Asian city. I hope they get their wish and that bicycles can be used as emergency vehicles to put out fires, transport the injured, and move heavy equipment."
• The NE Branch Trail has been repaved near the College Park Airport (see photo below)
• Montgomery County is looking for a bicycle coordinator. 
• Court case for motorist who allegedly struck cyclist intentionally was scheduled for Monday. No word yet on what happened. 
• "Only bicycles seemed to be rolling."
• San Francisco gets green lanes. 

Comments

[SJE]

Wow, hissy fit that the DC govt asked churches to provide their plans for parking. Apparently this is some war on religion and cars! Somehow, the writer forgot that Christians attended services for about one thousand, ninehundred and fifty years without cars, and that many DC churces were built before cars.

It seems that in his mind the Israelites were driving about the desert for 40 years looking for cheap parking.

[Westnorth]

In other election news, "not anti-bike" Grace Daughtridge lost ANC 6D05, and along the way assaulted someone in an alleged hate crime.

[Michael H.]

I like how some anti-bike people make the claim that bike infrastructure is part of a wish of people to make U.S. cities "more like China". Convenient to overlook the fact that many European cities are bike-friendly.

But it's not as effective in some circles to say that D.C. is becoming a city of bicycles like some European city. Doesn't have the same tinge of the yellow menace to it.

[Greenbelt]

PG parks repaved another section of the NE branch trail yesterday, this time between Riverdale Road and the underpass at East-West highway. Between the repaving done by the park guys and the repaving on top of the reconstructed levees, the Anacostia tributary trails are smooth as a baby's rear pretty much from DC to U of MD/Lake Artemesia.

[Westnorth]

That particular author might actually be more offended by saying that D.C. would be more like Paris or Copenhagen -- which brings with it the notion of a gentrified urban core and suburbanized, multiracial poverty. In a city and region that are majority non-white (but where a supermajority of cyclists are white), I wouldn't want to perpetuate the unfortunate stereotype that only white people bike.

I doubt that letter-writer can be persuaded of much, and obviously seems to prefer Manichean views on matters of both faith and state, but I'd respond with:
1. Churches should be good neighbors
2. Many people of faith don't drive to their places of worship
3. Nobody has ever proposed to ban all cars, much less emergency vehicles; "5% fewer" is very different from "none"
4. If you do want to talk about Asian cities, how about Tokyo? A global capital that's objectively more prosperous, safe, and clean than any U.S. city, headquarters to major automakers like Honda and Subaru, where countless trains run on time and yet 1/6 of trips are on bikes.

[ACyclistInTheSuburbs]

"It seems that in his mind the Israelites were driving about the desert for 40 years looking for cheap parking."

Have you ever tried to find a parking space in downtown Tel Aviv? Neither have I. Without a doubt the israelites were waiting for Tel-o-fun - the new bike sharing system in Tel Aviv. http://www.tel-o-fun.co.il/en/

note, Tel Aviv, by doing this, " joins other large European cities " making it without a doubt the most bike friendly European city that is located in Asia.