Friday afternoon commute - Pavilion ADA

Happy Pearl Harbor Day (although Happy seems like the wrong adjective)

• Used bike sale tomorrow.
• In early January, the Kennedy Center will close the bike path that connects the Roosevelt bridge to Kennedy Center property for a few weeks of concrete repair and maintenance.  There will be a clear and easy detour on their property that they will provide and post signs for, and it won’t take cyclists out of their way very far.
• More on making the Custis Trail safer, in case you missed it in the comments of this morning's post. "The Lee Highway and Custis Trail improvements include bicycle and pedestrian facility upgrades along westbound Lee Highway (Route 29) between N. Oak Street and N. Lynn Street. Intersection improvements, lane reconfiguration, trail widening, curb extensions, wider curb ramps, signal modifications and increased trail separation are proposed."
• This is not the way to handle bad drivers. Also, gun control is working. 
• Getting people to donate bikes is easy. Shipping them to Africa is expensive. I admire these programs, but I wonder if it's really the best use of resources. I wonder how the cost benefit of this program would compare with giving bikes to America's poor and/or homeless - programs like this. The cost savings could then be invested in somthing like this (which as much as I love bikes, is probably a better dollar for dollar use of money if you want to improve conditions in the developing world). The most eye-opening thing I've learned from Warren Buffet is that starting your own charity is inefficient. The best way to invest your money in charity is to find one that is doing good work and give your money to them. 
• "A Mount Airy trail plan that has been in the works for about 20 years has been delayed again after the town council this week postponed a vote that would have reallocated funds to be used for further land purchases needed for the project"

Comments

[SJE]

Warren Buffett's lesson re charity only applies if you are giving to a charity that (a) does what you want it to do and (b) is efficient. In his case, it was better for him to give billions to the Gates foundation to achieve the same goals.

Regarding bikes to Africa: there is a lot of evidence that it is better to give money than in kind where the recipient is far away. Giving money to local people to buy food would be far cheaper than food aid, and would stimulate the local economy to produce more food, minimizing the long term problems. Similarly, giving whole bikes to Africa undercuts local entrepreneurs.

But if you found that Africans have a good industry for frames and wheels, but not so much for drive trains, then send THOSE to Africa....and start your own charity for it.

[Henry]

Indeed, Keith Oberg and Bikes for the Worl have been collecting and shipping bikes and parts to developing nations for years. Seems this young's effort would be more useful--and less frustrating-- if he just fed into the existing supply chain.

[david]

Is this why It's so hard to find used bikes here? The last thing Americans think America's own poor.

[Michael H.]

Here's a brief news item from Cleveland TV:

http://www.wkyc.com/video/2021819979001/1/See-the-Possible-Slavic-Village-revamps-vacant-lots

What was once the "epicenter of the foreclosure crisis" is starting to recover. That recovery includes a new walking and cycling trail through the neighborhood. Good way to put vacant land to use.

[Asuka]

Gun control is working in favor of violent criminals who damage your property and then try to murder you with a knife. Of course, some people would consider any policy that would facilitate such behavior to be a complete failure, but those people tend to exist outside echo chambers.

[washcycle]

Lighten up Asuka, it was a joke. One only needs to look back at the Aurora shooting to know that gun control isn't working.

[Asuka]

I agree - one only needs to look to Chicago, New York City, and DC to know that gun control isn't working. It certainly didn't work in the case of the poor guy who got stabbed. Way to gloss over that, by the way; I'm sure it would have garnered a significantly different response had the driver been the one to do the stabbing.

[tifat]

"[The stabbing] would have garnered a significantly different response had the driver been the one to do the stabbing"

This is very true, for two reasons.

No driver would bother getting out of the car to stab someone, when drivers are keenly aware of how easy and effective it is to use their car as a weapon instead. A driver who stabs a cyclist would be like someone dropping their gun to punch someone, and really extraordinary.

Another reason this was noteworthy is because, while drivers assault cyclists and pedestrians constantly, daily and throughout the city, pedestrians and cyclists rarely return the favor. Kind of like when a cyclist runs into a pedestrian and kills them -- while drivers do this all the time (to the point that David Alpert is some kind of radical for remarking upon it), it's real news when a cyclist does it. News reporters call this a "man bites dog" story.

[Washcycle]

Asuka, I'm not so sure it would be differnt. In my opinion this isnt really a story about cycling it's a story that involves a cyclist. But if you're going to call me a hypocrite perhaps you should have some evidence, maybe find a example.

[oboe]

one only needs to look to Chicago, New York City, and DC to know that gun control isn't working.

Obviously this is silly, given that there's effectively no gun control whatsoever in the Confederate States of America.

Calling this a failure of "gun control" is like saying Takoma Park's "no nukes" policy is a failure.

[Michael H.]

In bike news, Revolution Cycles announced that the City Hub bike rental store in Crystal City will close by the end of the year.

http://revolutioncycles.com/merchant/471/files/RevCityHubClosingRelease.pdf

Some will say that City Hub shows that Capital Bikeshare crowds out the bike rental business, but I don't think that's the case here. CaBi precludes limited bikeshare operations like City Hub, which was designed to help promote local bike access and bike rentals from one location.

With the success of CaBi, we probably don't need smaller bike access programs like this. But there is still a market for different types of private bike rentals, like the services provided by Bike and Roll. They have multiple locations and better pricing for longer bike rentals than CaBi does. I see people riding on Bike and Roll bikes often, especially on the Mall.

I hope Revolution Cycles returns to Crystal City with a larger, traditional bike store. If not Revolution, then someone else. There's a good-sized market of cyclists in the area who could use a local bike store. There are at least a few viable locations with enough space for a medium-sized bike store, similar to Revolution's Clarendon store. Maybe Century Center on Crystal Drive?