Tuesday Afternoon Commute - Free High Fives

Good afternoon

• Support a trail connection between Carlin Springs Road and the W&OD Trail. 
• WABA is awarded an REI/Bikes Belong grant.
• A well-reasoned argument in support of expanding CaBi in Alexandria versus the one woman who opposes it. 
• I hate it when this happens.
• DC has installed 18 of the planned 54 CaBi expansion stations. 
• The new Bike to Work Day T-shirt. And Bike Month starts tomorrow.
• The Landmark Mall redevelopment in Alexandria isn't as friendly to cyclists and pedestrians as some might want. With Holmes Run Trail just north of the property, they're missing a real opportunity by not building a connection to it. A connection from the Trail alont Shirley Highway and the ramp to Walker street (with a small path to a bike parking facility at the Mall) seems like a no brainer. 
• Sigh..."The American Association of Neurological Surgeons reports that more sports-related head injuries in 2009 occurred on bicycles than on football, baseball, and softball fields combined." Which would be relevant if I knew how much time people spent on the activities. There are probably more gun deaths related to hunting accidents than to gunslinger elimination tournaments, but that doesn't tell me much about which is safer.  
• "A volunteer who often pedals more than 30 miles a day assisting hikers along a popular southwest Virginia trail is being recognized by the U.S. Forest Service."
• London's low-line.

Comments

[dynaryder]

That BtWD shirt looks like the same blue as the '09 I'm wearing right now. They should do a white one.

At least it's not purple.

[Kolohe]

I don't hate the Carlyn Springs W&OD proposal, but I would give it a very low priority.

You can always just hop on the 4 mile run trail on the opposite side of the creek (which used to be the W&OD trail until about 2000 or so).

[Jonathan Krall]

I like the purple B2WD shirt! It's one of my favorites.

[dbb]

With respect to the ramp over the pipe. The trails we love often exist because of some infrastructure that kept the area from developing. We share those spaces with these other uses and need to recognize the occasional need to fix/upgrade those systems. I thought the ramp was pretty well done. We've seen far too many cases where a trail user (cyclist, ped, dog walker, maintenance crew) is completely insensitive to the needs of the others. These folks gave it some thought and offered a workable alternative.

[oboe]

There are probably more gun deaths related to hunting accidents than to gunslinger elimination tournaments, but that doesn't tell me much about which is safer.

All I know is that I was nearly killed in a gunslinger elimination tournament just last week, but fortunately I was wearing my "Good JuJu Ballistic Protection Sunglasses (tm)". I was saved, and am here to tell you about it.

You can be an idiot and not wear magic sunglasses when engaging in a duel with handguns--after all it's your life--but I learned my lesson! Idiots.