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I openly invite any MD SHA employee--including David Buck--to bike with me! Let's see idiotic and inconvenient it is to dismount at every street crossing. Let's make our roads safer. It's not the pedestrians silly SHA, it's the crossings!! Getting off my bike doesn't magically make me safer--if anything I would say it makes me MORE vulnerable. Another trail crossing that I haven't heard much about: Sligo Creek @ East-West Highway.

SHA not only thwarts walkability and community development, they flaunt it. That agency needs to have every single employee fired and forced to reapply for their jobs in open competition. It's time to get some human beings in there.

Of course, removing the noise barrier gets the local residents pissed at cyclists. Great!

If only there were some technology that blocks sound while providing visibility . . .

http://www.noisebarriers.org/noisebarrier/transparent-sound-barrier.html

The sound barrier isn't loved by the locals at all. You could find some people supporting it I'm sure, but not very widespread.

There'd be no need for a sound barrier if speed limits were enforced or traffic calmed to 30mph or less. Decibel levels go up exponentially with speed.

Sound barriers are for freeways like the beltway, not neighborhood streets.

Can someone explain the idea that it's safer to walk with a bike through an intersection? It seems like you'd move more slowly through the intersection, stopping cars for longer.

You're not really more visible walking, just a bit taller for certain bike styles.

Is the idea just that if you get off and walk, you have to stop for a moment to get a good look at oncoming traffic? Seems pretty patronizing if so, might be better to come up with a slogan to the effect of "heads up, look both ways before crossing"

SHA totally does not get how to design for cycling. Even when they do things like put in bike lanes, they do it so badly you're usually no safer than before.

If that's SHA position, they should put up signs that read "No biking" and take the dings that come with that. Because that's what dismount and walk means.

Lawsuits against SHA in Maryland might get their attention. Lawsuit in NY state DOT for failing to correct known unsafe condition succeeded:

http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/01/05/states-highest-court-holds-nyc-liable-for-injuries-on-streets-without-traffic-calming/#

Crickey, do a Google streetview of the "bike lanes" along Greenbelt Road between the beltway and the CSX/metro bridge sometime.

Those aren't bike lanes, they're deathtraps, painted only to pad SHA stats, not to provide any sort of meaningful bike access or safety. Quite the reverse. Similar on Route 1 between Beltsville and Laurel.

Noticed on the commute home last night and corroborated by my commute inbound this morning (always presuming I'm stupid-tired coming away from work), the corner of Little Falls and Capital Crescent is now narrower in both directions on Little Falls. The state added flex-posts to narrow to one lane. The reflective signs informing motorists to yield remains in the middle of both directions along the dashed white line, in between the flex-posts, where it has been, more or less since the fatal collision. The crossing seems somewhat bewildering in that as you stop at the stop sign it appears to be two lanes separated by a line of posts, confusing which is the travel lane and which is blocked in either direction. It is momentary. The inner lane in each direction is the travel lane.

A road change I've not seen mentioned is that sometime in the summer, the intersection of Capital Crescent and Dorset is now a four-way stop. It had been stop only on Capital Crescent. Most motorists don't stop at the sign, but many do stop for the speed humps which have been there even before the change in signage.

I nearly got smacked at that intersection of the CCT and Dorset a few months ago by a car that totally failed to stop. Missed me by about an inch.

The CCT-Little Falls intersection has certainly gotten more interesting for a cyclist on the parkway. Southbound it's great because you can ride down the closed-off lane and ignore the traffic signal at Arlington without a shred of guilt. Going north, however, you have to take the traffic lane or get fouled by cars turning right at the Arlington light.

@Ben: dismounting at every intersection makes people stop biking, solving all bike safety issues.

Haha the biker is totally biking on the wrong side of the trail and looks like he isn't going to yield right of way to the pedestrians.

What an accurate depiction.

From a still image, how can you tell what someone is going to do? But yes, let's use a rendering as some sort of statement on cycling behavior

@washcycle it just obvious that whoever put that still together knows how the majority bicyclists cant be bothered to follow rules.

http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2008/07/the-myth-of-the.html

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