TheWashCycle

Montgomery County's Open Parkways Program should extend after the pandemic

Starting last year, Montgomery Parks started closing (or opening, from a certain point of view) sections of parkways to give people more room to get out an exercise during the pandemic, since Covid closed many of the indoor spaces people used in the Beforetimes. When we get through this, they should consider expanding the closures in the Aftertimes as well. 

In the Beforetimes, part of Sligo Creek was recreationalized from dawn to dusk on Sundays to create more recreational space. But in April they closed Sligo Creek Parkway from New Hampshire Avenue to Piney Branch Road Friday through Sunday. It was so popular that they expanded to the recreationalization to the portion between Forest Glen Road and University Boulevard. The next week, it was expanded again

• Little Falls Parkway from Massachusetts Ave. to Arlington Rd. (1.3 miles)
• Beach Drive from Connecticut Avenue to Knowles Avenue (2.7 miles)

They also kept them "open" for Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the closures were popular.

sensors detected about 147,000 visits to Little Falls Parkway since April, but that was only an approximate number. The number of people peaked in May. Now, 10,000 to 15,000 people go to Little Falls Parkway each month.

The began to roll that back in December, specifically on Little Falls Parkway. And the rollback was also attributed to Covid

Trails Master Planner and Trails Program Supervisor Darren Flusche said the change was largely due to logistics and staff capacity. With county COVID-19 numbers on the rise, the Operations Crew and Park Police now only have two-thirds of the usual number of people working at once to allow for social distancing.

The department decided that closing Little Falls Parkway to motor vehicles made too many demands on the staff, he said.

“It’s not something that we want to do,” he said about the decision to reopen Little Falls Parkway to motor vehicles. 

Part of the problem with Little Falls Parkway is the lack of gates which makes closure harder. The solution here is just to add some gates to LFP. 

The Open Spaces program has been wildly popular. It's gotten people outside exercising and socializing and even made active transportation easier. The County should take a good hard look at it before they roll it all the way back. Weekend closures of these parkways - even without a pandemic - would put more park into the parkways. 

Biking on the 237th Birthday

Tomorrow, DC will close several streets around the Mall to car traffic, but you can bring your bike in and enjoy DC's unofficial ciclovia.

I really think they should make this an official ciclovia with events and programming. They close two major streets along the mall and all the cross streets for almost the entire day - something that seems to be impossible to do for even a few hours on a smaller section of road. Why not make this "Feet in the Street" and do the kinds of things New York does during Summer Streets? The hard part is already done. Sure, there will be security concerns to be dealt with, but I don't think it would be undoable.

Also re-read my still relevant post on why Metro should stop banning bikes on the 4th of July. 

Monday Morning Commute - Nothing more than an accident

Good morning

• Work is wrapping on the new MVT trail crossing of the GW Parkway. But it makes it clear who has the right of way (even though it's a crosswalk).
• All about the 50 States Ride.
• The Times has a lengthy story on Ciclovias, covering everything from their origin in Bogota, to DC's semi-ciclovia Feet in the Street. 
• According to BikeGuard, a free online bike registry, Maryland is dead last in per-capita bicycle commuter spending. 
• George Mason Univeristy now has bike sharing in the form of viaCycle.
• The director of the Transportation Department for the City of Annapolis wrote an editorial on how to facilitate all forms of transportation in a city designed for horse and buggy. He writes about the problems of parking and how to move people short distances from parking garages to commercial areas. He only mentions cyclists once, and only in passing. It would seem like bike-sharing could help a lot - especially in a college town with military retirees who are probably fitter than your average citizen. 
• VBF wants to know what you think of the Idaho Stop.
• Disturbing news out of interbike. Even though cycling is up as a means of transportation, "the bicycle market in the US has been relatively flat (in terms of revenues) since 2004 and that trend continued in 2011. The number of bicycle shops in the US has declined by over 22% in the last 9 years (over 1,000 shop locations have closed their doors during this time)." [Thanks to the Arlington BAC for the data]. Perhaps the Lance Armstrong effect is wearing off, and there are now fewer people buying high end bikes even as more bikes are being sold. And/or perhaps the internet is cutting into LBS sales.
• NYC launches it's new LOOK campaign. [Despite angering advocates for the blind, it's likely to be much more successful than the previous TASTE campaign]
• REI gave millions to 260 non-profits, though I don't see any local ones that jump out at me. 
• Iris Stagner, a member of the BikeTexas Board of Directors and a longtime promoter of bike safety and education, was killed on Monday after being hit from behind by a pickup truck while riding on U.S. Route 180 outside Mineral Wells, Texas. "Sheriff Ira Mercer said the driver of a white pickup involved stopped. Mercer said indications were the incident was nothing more than an accident and that the setting sun likely played a factor."
• In Los Altos, CA, cyclists were found to blame in crashes 74% of the time. The most common violation was "unsafe speed." 16 cyclists were blamed for this, but only 1 driver was.

Monday Morning Commute - Autobahn

Good morning

• BicycleSpace, the one and half year old bike shop in "the Triangle" area has settled on a new location only a few blocks away. [You may recall that the building they're in now is being knocked down to make way for fancy apartments]. The new location at 1019 7th Street NW has "been both an art gallery and hardware store, [and] it now occupies a lively spot next to the Passenger bar and the coming Living Social headquarters." They plan to move back into the Triangle - the geographic center of DC - once construction is done
• Have you heard of this bike commuting thing?
• VOA covers Capital Bikeshare. According to CaBi project director Chris Holben, the 1 million first year CaBi trips resulted in "fifty thousand fewer automobile trips. A survey showed that five percent of members would have used cars had bikes not been available."
• Another place to look for a stolen bike. I really hope they check recovered bikes for registration. [Also: hello reality show]
• Biking on the Autobahn.

Saturday Morning Ride - Eve

Happy Christmas Eve

• Motgomery County has formally applied for state money for bikesharing. "[The $1 million dollar grant from the Maryland Department of Transportation] would pay for 29 stations with 204 bikes situated between the Beltway and the Maryland-D.C. border. Stations would be located in Bethesda, Silver Spring, the Medical Center area, Friendship Heights/Chevy Chase and Takoma Park.... The state grants are expected to be announced early next year, according to the county."
• BeyondDC asks why we need another bike lane study before putting the cycletracks in on L & M. That's an excellent question, what is it they're hoping to learn?
• The official numbers for Capital Bikeshare are out for November. Ridership was lower than reported in their newsletter - with only 99,552 trips taken. That's down 19% from October but a little more than double last year. The addition of new bikes is starting to show up with available bikes increasing by about 70. TPBPD is down to 3.5 from it's summer peak of 5. The upside is that dockblocking is down again too. The reason for the drop in ridership, more than weather, is like the loss of tourists. The were only 5,781 24-hour memberships bought in November compared to 13,000+ in July.
• New WABA Board President Mark Blacknell introduces himself.
• Connecting the ICC Trail to the Shady Grove Metro will take at least 5 years.
• "A careful cost-benefit analysis of Ciclovia-style events in four different countries found that the health benefits of these type of events far exceed the costs."