King Street residents to ask City Council to overturn bike lane decision

The Post has a thorough run-down of the King Street bike lane story, with the fantastic and accurate title "King Street bike lanes bother residents who will lose street parking along busy route". A lot of it is a rehash of things that have been previously reported, but it picks up the most recent turn of events

residents intend to ask the City Council on Saturday to overturn [the director of the city’s transportation and environmental services department, Rich Baier's] decision.

Baier said he’s required by city policy to increase safety for all users whenever streets are resurfaced. The way to handle speeding vehicles, he said, is to narrow the lanes and install a variable speed sign. The way to improve pedestrian safety, he said, is to install dedicated lanes for bicycles to take bicycles off sidewalks.

And it includes some more quotes of opponents (and also a photo of sign that reads "bike lanes = congestion" which just isn't true. Even when lanes are reduced.)

Aaron Eastman, who lives near the Metrorail end of the street, said he’s not just upset at the loss of parking, but he’s also now worried about safety.

“We thought this was worse than the first [decision]. Why are bicyclists merging into traffic?” he said from his doorstep, his infant daughter on his hip. “Physically, there is literally no room for bikes here.”

So he prefers the old design with less parking? Great. I hope the city agrees. Baier, on the otherhand, sounds completely reasonable.

Baier, in an interview Friday, said that adding improvements such as “high-visibility” crosswalks, a flashing beacon and signs for alternative bike routes, as well as retaining some of the parking spots, addresses the residents’ concerns. He spent hours walking, driving and bicycling the street, he said, and hired a professional engineering firm to review the city plan.

“This is a main roadway, to main destinations in the city of Alexandria,” Baier said. “I am not trying to rush this thing. We’re trying to be sure the process is transparent. My main concern, throughout all this, has been safety.”

Thankfully, the proposed bike lane will not pass in front of an old church. 

Update: Oh, on the same subject, here is perhaps the dumbest article I've ever read on bicycling. Reading it may make you dumber. On Buckley:

Yet now comes a calm voice of reason, a full professor of law from a highly respected university, George Mason University. He is professor Frank Buckley, and he has viewed the pedaling indignados on his King Street thoroughfare in historic Alexandria humanely. Each day, 15,000 commuters pass his house headed to work on this ancient two-lane street. It is barely 30 feet wide. At rush hour, it is dangerous. Even in off-hours it is congested. Yet Mr. Buckley is glad to have the occasional pedalers with him and his neighbors on the sidewalk. He is resisting their demands to take away street-parking rights for dedicated bike lanes. He sees it as a national movement that is anti-automobile and anti-modernity.

Yes, he wrote the words "street-parking rights". He does get one thing right,

These are not cyclists in pursuit of scenery and good health. If they were, they would be riding along the 35 miles of bike trails that the community has maintained for them.

They are not in search of scenery (in most cases). They are trying to get from somewhere to somewhere else. This might just be a sign of the usual Washington Times low quality product, but the author is R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the editor in chief of the American Spectator, which I assume is not a magazine run by 9 year olds. 

Comments

[cyclistinthecity]

Thanks for warning me of the stupidity of the second article. I am glad I didn't lose 5 minutes of my life reading Tyrell's nonsense.

[MM]

I was oddly impressed by the R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. editorial...it takes effort to troll that hard and write something that incoherent. It comes off like a conservative, anti-bike Poe.

[Kolo Jezdec]

Just want to thank Mr. Buckley for viewing me "humanely." I will endeavor to do the same for him.

[Impertinent.wordpress.com]

Thank you for pointing towards that article. It was hilarious. Given that I refuse to believe that an adult can be so clueless, I prefer to imagine it as a satirical piece.

[Brendan]

Oooooh, American Spectator. Now I can categorize this silly King Street thing with the Colorado-U.N. bike conspriacy thing. Wing nuts iz weird.

[Michael H.]

Don't you know that no cyclist has ever worked a day in his life? Ever? (And yes, they are all men. Lycra-wearing, Lance-wannabe men in their 20s. And affluent too. Except for the unemployed guys. Or the construction workers who are too poor to own a car. But they are still affluent.)