Thursday Early Afternoon Ride - Wells

At the BAC meeting last night, DDOT mentioned that they have 22 more CaBi stations in the warehouse ready to install by the end of the year. 

• A not-particularly flattering profile of bike-riding Councilmember Tommy Wells. "Wells’ campaign motto is “Building a Livable Walkable D.C.,” and he’s focused much of his energy as a councilmember on improving public transit and cycling infrastructure.... But ask for more examples, and he’ll launch into a catalog of his work during his half-year helming the transportation committee: doubling the Capital Bikeshare program...it’s clear that his heart isn’t in oversight of cops and firefighters as much as it was in buses, bikes, and trains. This is, after all, Mr. Livable-Walkable, who bikes to work and aims to give the whole city the car-free accessibility his Capitol Hill neighborhood enjoys."
• WABA wants your stories of police bias. 

Comments

[charlie]

if they have them in stock, what has been the delay?

[Corey H.]

At the end of 2012, DDOT announced they'd add 54 stations by the end of March. It's now July and they've added 30 of the 54. So now the goal is 52 by end of the year.

Yay?

[washcycle]

Corey, I might have the number wrong.

[Corey H.]

Regardless of the exact number, we're already three-plus months behind on the expansion despite the continued assurances of DDOT that they're are going to finish the expansion soon.

This gets back to Alta/DDOT's continued failure to communicate their plans effectively at every step of every expansion so far. It's not even about the when/where the stations are installed at this point. It's the constant over-promising and under-delivering.

[Michael H.]

I've just accepted that DDOT operates on a construction schedule. Add 6 to 18 months to every date. I'm not happy about it, but at least I won't be surprised by each delay.

I don't think of DDOT has having any sort of expansion schedule. I just think of each expansion round as an ongoing process, without a definite end date. I'd prefer that not to be the case, but that's the way it seems to be.

I do agree that they shouldn't overpromise so much. It's OK if they say in advance that the installation schedule is tentative. Or just release general and vague dates, instead of saying "end of the year," "this spring" and so on.