Tuesday Afternoon Commute - installing bike paths like mad

Good afternoon

• "the Tour de Tysons Grand Prix bicycle races are coming Sunday. The Tysons Partnership, a group organized by developers, got approval from Fairfax County to close some lanes of traffic on a one-mile loop comprised of Westpark Drive, Westbranch Drive and Jones Branch Drive, just south of the Gannett headquarters and the Dulles Toll Road.  The group plans a day full of races beginning at 8 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m., including those for kids, seniors and experienced riders. Michael Caplin, executive director of the Tysons Partnership, said the purpose of the event was to “celebrate the fact that Tysons is bicycle-friendly” and “to demonstrate alternative modes of transportation to the automobile.”
• "A 50-year-old man was seriously injured June 17 when he was struck by a 2003 Ford Escape while bicycling on Lewinsville Road near Titania Lane in McLean, Fairfax County police said....The vehicle turned left in front of the bicyclist, causing the bike to hit the vehicle, police said. The bicyclist received life-threatening injuries during the accident, police said."
• "Capital Bikeshare stations could be up and running in Montgomery County as early as the end of the summer, and residents of Rockville and areas to the north can find out about the stations planned near their homes at a public meeting June 26."
• The editors of the Sun Gazette are glad to hear that a cyclist in California was prosecuted for injuring a pedestrian. "Hearing that their counterparts in California are being charged with felonies might just wake a few people up."

Comments

[antibozo]

washcycle, i've emailed you a few links over the past week. You haven't posted them or responded, so just wanted to check whether you're receiving them.

[dynaryder]

Srsy? In the past 10yrs,there's been what,2 people killed by cyclists in the DC area? And one was an encounter between two senior citizens. How many cyclists,peds,and other drivers have been killed in that same time span? GMAFB

[Cinnamon Spice]

"Michael Caplin, executive director of the Tysons Partnership, said the purpose of the event was to “celebrate the fact that Tysons is bicycle-friendly” and “to demonstrate alternative modes of transportation to the automobile.”

So, the cultural meltdown is complete: elephants have pink polka dots, F does not always equal MA...and Tysons is bike friendly. Well. Simple descriptive facts dont exist anymore.

I'd be happy to take Mr Caplin on a bike friendly ride of Tysons ANY TIME he wants to go...

What a moron...

[Nancy]

re the collision on Lewinsville Rd: the article says the cyclist and driver were heading northbound and southbound respectively, but Lewinsville Rd is an east-west road. I try to learn something about crashes by looking at street views of the area, but when the description isn't accurate, that's hard to do. (Oh, the driver was 21. That explains everything.)

[SJE]

I hope the editors of the Sun Gazette will also advocate for prosecution of the driver of the VA vehicle that seriously injured a cyclist.

[contrarian]

Srsy? In the past 10yrs,there's been what,2 people killed by cyclists in the DC area? And one was an encounter between two senior citizens. How many cyclists,peds,and other drivers have been killed in that same time span? GMAFB

We average over 300 automobile-related fatalities a year in the region, around one a day.

[washcycle]

antibozo, you emailed them? I haven't gotten anything from you and I looked in both my trash and my spam. Or were they comments on the blog?

[antibozo]

Emailed to the gmail address on your "Email Me" link. Thanks for letting me know; will try resending from a different address.

[antibozo]

Okay, i've resent some items via my gmail account. Let me know if they still don't show. Thanks!

[Tom]

Tyson's bike friendly? Well, it is when you restrict traffic by closing lanes to automobiles on a weekend.

Do it permanently and now you're talking.

[NeilB]

Note that the Santa Monica cyclist was prosecuted for felony assault with a deadly weapon. How often does that happen to drivers who hit pedestrians or cyclists?

[Jonathan Krall]

The prosecution of a cyclist for felony assault is a stunning case of anti-cyclist discrimination.

[Michael H.]

Car and truck drivers kill 32,000 to 36,000 people in the U.S. each year. (And that's an improvement from a decade ago, when drivers were killing 40,000 people in the U.S. annually.) Those numbers include driver fatalities.

How many people do cyclists kill every year in the U.S.? The numbers are so low that no one seems to keep track of them. Every time there is a rare cyclist-caused death, there is a firestorm of reporting, such as the case in Arlington last year or the case in San Francisco a couple years ago. So it's safe to say that there probably isn't a rash of unreported bike-caused fatalities occurring. Bike haters wouldn't be sitting on that story.

The only stat I found was from an official multi-year traffic safety report for New York State. Over the 4 or 5-year period in the survey, cyclists killed something like 2 or 3 people total (not per year). And that's for one of the largest states in the country, including both very dense urban communities and open rural areas outside of NYC.

My best guess is that cyclists kill perhaps a couple people nationwide each year, compared to the tens of thousands of deaths caused by car drivers. Plus there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of serious injuries caused by drivers, and as many as a few million less serious injuries caused by drivers every year.

Grim statistics.