TheWashCycle

City reopens 200 block of O Street for first time since 1977, as "green" street

Mayor Bowser is having a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the reopened 200 block of O Street NW which was closed back in 1977.

The section of road is a “green street” that will capture thousands of gallons of stormwater and help protect area streams and rivers. 

I've not seen it, other than the Google Streetview which makes it look like it has actually been open for some time, but it does look to have a lot of raingardens alongside it. The street was paid for in part by a $95,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to support stormwater management and green street development along a new section of O Street NW, adjacent to the site of the brand-new Dunbar Senior High School.

The project along O Street will include the installation of 6,125 square feet of bioretention cells that will collect stormwater from the school and surrounding area.

With construction of the new Dunbar Senior High School, the District’s Department of General Services (DGS) realized there was a unique opportunity to reopen O Street NW with the addition of aggressive stormwater management.

The O Street project will also involve newly planted trees in large tree boxes, built on a neighborhood street, where the stormwater will be collected and will help to avoid sewer backups. 

Too bad they chose to add curbside parking istead of a protected bike lane. I think that would have made for a greener street.

County Board asked to authorize Carlin Springs Connector Trail, but not without opposition

At the June 13th Arlington County Board meeting, the County Manager is recommending that the Board approve agreements between the County, the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NVRPA)  and Dominion Power that would allow the County to construct and maintain a connector trail from the W&OD Trail to South Carlin Springs Road along an existing desire line to the south of Carlin Springs road and the north of the W&OD (seen here). 

While cyclists and pedestrians can currently access the W&OD and FMR trails via the disc golf course and parking lots on the south side of Four Mile Run and via dirt paths on the north side, this 8-foot wide connector would create a more direct, and better quality connection to the W&OD Trail. The connection would include a stop sign giving priority to those already on the W&OD and presumably signage to direct users. 

Despite the diminuative size of this project, it has nonetheless attracted some opposition. Namely from Bernie Berne, President of the Buckingham Community Civic Association.

Mr. Berne's primary concern is that the trail will negatively impact what is now a field located along a stream, by replacing a natural billy-goat path with an 8-foot wide swath of pavement and shoulders. He wrote in an email to a parks list serve:

This project would destroy a meadow area in the W&OD Regional Park to construct a needless paved bike trail that would duplicate a nearby connector trail. 

The meadow area that the Connector Trail would destroy has developed since the County’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) placed chains along the W&OD Trail and the N. Carlin Springs sidewalk about five years ago at Walter Tejada's request.  These chains stopped the frequent mowing of the area and permitted the meadow to develop.  The meadow area presently has wildflowers and is providing habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.  

 

Further, the meadow area is reducing storm water runoff into Four Mile Run. 

The Connector Trail is an initiative of DES and the County's Bicycle Advisory Committee that has not [undergone] any public review.  The Bicycle Element of the County's Master Transportation Plan does not describe this Connector Trail.  Construction of the trail would [contradict] recommendations in the Public Spaces Master Plan that are intended to preserve natural areas in County parks and open spaces. 

 

The Connector Trail is clearly not needed. The W&OD Trail presently connects to the east side of N. Carlin Springs Road via an 8-10 feet wide paved trail on the south side of Four Mile Run.  The proposed Connector Trail, which would travel on the north side of Four Mile Run, would duplicate the existing trail. 

 

The proposed Connector Trail would meet N. Carlin Springs Road only 300 feet (0.06 miles) from the existing paved connecting route.  Further, pedestrians and runners presently use an informal footpath that travels along the Connector's route; therefore, they would not significantly benefit from the proposed Connector Trail.

 

Construction of the Connector Trail would place an impervious 8-feet wide strip of asphalt through a natural area.  Further, frequent mowing along the sides of the Connector would destroy even more of the natural area and meadow habitat.  The total width of the disruption would likely exceed 18 feet.

 

The Connector Trail would therefore disrupt a planned natural area and destroy a meadow habitat without creating a significant benefit for pedestrians, cyclists or other users of the W&OD Trail. In addition, construction and maintenance of the Connector Trail would waste County funds and resources.

I'm not unsympathetic to the concerns he's raised (and so glad to not have to argue about parking for once), but I disagree about the trail being needless. It clearly has added utility, and the presence of a desire line proves that. While there are a lot of people who can use the current trail, it's not exactly ADA compliant. Nor do I agree that the effective width of this trail will be 18 feet.

 

I think the benefits in this case likely outweigh the costs (see below), as the meadow is likely to be impacted, but not destroyed. And encouraging more active transportation has environmental (and health and mobility) benefits that may partially or completing compensate for what is lost. 

 

But perhaps a compromise would involve some mitigation. Perhaps the County could use porous pavement, or add in a bioswale, or pay to remove and rehabilitate an equivalent amount of space from the substation access road across Carlin Springs. it appears that more of that has gravel/pavement than is needed. 

 

Those who wish to speak up on this can write the board or speak on this project at the County Board's Recessed Meeting next Tuesday, June 16 at 6:30 PM.

 

Just a quick and very sloppy cost-benefit analysis.

 

Well, what's the harm to the environment? We're talking about a 200 foot long, 8 foot wide trail or 1600 sq. ft. of pavement. The Center for Neighborhood Technology (a green infrastructure advocacy group) puts the annual cost of runoff from 1 foot of pavement at about $1 a year. So $1600 a year is the annual environmental cost. 

 

The benefit is greater cycling and walking utility. Yes, you can get to all the same places without it, just as one could get from Alexandria to National Harbor before the Wilson bike path opened, but you can do it faster, easier and more intuitively with the connection. 

 

The best available alternative is a 300 foot detour. The average person will is willing to spend 30 minutes commuting, which makes for a 6 mile bike commute. A 300 foot detour reduces the number of people willing to bike commute (or other transportation) via that route by ~1%. How much would you the County be willing to pay per additional bike commuter? Or to make it more accessible to someone in a wheelchair? $1600 is a pretty small threshold.

 

Update: In a recent email from a more careful reader than me, in the documentation for this that I linked to above, the county notes that there is 0.49 acres of runoff catchment area for the 0.01 acres of pavement and that they are building a "permanent settling basin..to prevent runoff from reaching Four Mile Run." Here's more relevant facts:

THE PROJECT WILL RESULT IN AN ADDITION OF 1,840 SQUARE FEET (0.04 ACRES) OF NEW IMPERVIOUS SURFACE. THE PROJECT WILL DISTURB 3,320 SQUARE FEET OF LAND.

 

A DITCH WILL BE CONSTRUCTED ALONG THE UPSLOPE SIDE OF THE TRAIL BEGINNING AT THE WEST END WHERE IT CONNECTS TO THE EXISTING SIDEWALK. THE DITCH WILL FOLLOW THE TRAIL ALIGNMENT TO THE EAST. THE DITCH WILL BE DIRECTED TOWARDS A NATURAL DEPRESSION TO THE NORTHEAST. THE DITCH WILL BE LINED WITH NO. 57 STONE.

 

CALCULATIONS WERE PERFORMED USING THE VIRGINIA RUNOFF REDUCTION METHOD (VRRM) AND TR-55.

 

THE PRE-DEVELOPMENT HYDROLOGY WAS BASED ON A GOOD FORESTED CONDITION AND THE POST DEVELOPMENT HYDROLOGY WAS BASED ON THE PROPOSED CONDITIONS.

 

BASED ON THE VRRM THE PROJECT GENERATES 0.13LB/YEAR OF PHOSPHORUS. BASED ON A SITE ARE OF 0.13 ACRES, THIS RESULTS IN REQUIRED TREATMENT VOLUME OF 203 CUBIC FEET.

 

BASED ON THE ENERGY BALANCE EQUATION  OF THE VRRM, APPROXIMATELY 238 CF OF STORAGE ARE REQUIRED FOR CHANNEL PROTECTION AND 391 CF ARE REQUIRED FOR THE FLOOD PROTECTION.

 

DUE TO THE SMALL SIZE OF THE DETENTION FACILITY REQUIRED AND MAINTENANCE CONCERNS, A SWM DETENTION FACILITY IS NOT BEING PROPOSED WITH THESE PLANS. HOWEVER, IN ORDER TO OFFSET THE STORAGE REQUIRED, A LARGER FACILITY FOR THIS AND OTHER PROJECTS WILL BE PROPOSED AT A LATER TIME.

The trail with the ditch for stormwater control. 

Biking in the 2015 Sustainable DC Progress Report

DC has published the Sustainable DC Second Year Progress Report which highlights key projects and initiatives and summarizes basic progress on all  the actions in the Sustainable DC Plan. Most of the updates for cycling, under the transportation category, have been previously reported. They include

With new pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure being built, the District’s already high walking and biking rates are increasing, and our transit ridership remains second only to New York City. The District Department of Transportation released its ambitious MoveDC plan and announced its commitment to Vision Zero, a plan to eliminate traffic fatalities. Ongoing partnerships with the Washington Area Bicycle Association and Black Women Bike are further helping to keep us all safe.

• 3 new devices to count passing bicyclists were installed to provide new data, and a performance parking pilot in Chinatown will use data to match parking costs with demand.
• The District Department of Transportation has installed a record 9 miles of new bike lanes, including the beautiful Rhode Island Avenue Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge, and protected cycle tracks on 1st Street NE and M Street NW.
• 10 new Capital Bikeshare stations were installed and a record of 17,286 users in one day was set during the Cherry Blossom Festival. [WC: later the report claims this is 3/4 of the way to their goal of expanding the program by 200 stations, but I would count that if they had added a total of 150, and I don't think they have]
• A 15% increase in biking [WC: not sure what this is measured against]
• The District Department of Transportation started construction on four more miles of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, which will provide a link for almost 70 miles of trails providing greater access to nature in the District.

OT: Turn your old garbage can into a composter

If, like me, you just got some new DC garbage cans, you may be trying to decide if you want the extra space for trash and recycling or if you're goint to toss them out. The other option is to turn one (or both) of them into a composter. Here is but one website that shows you how to do this. If you have two, then you can fill A while the magic happens in B. When A is full, empty B and switch them. 

Leaders to Highlight Air Quality Progress, Future Challenges in D.C. Region

The most confusing thing about this is the Lon Anderson of AAA is involved, but Shane Farthing of WABA is not.

WHAT:  Meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee (MWAQC)

WHO: Phil Mendelson, MWAQC Vice Chairman and D.C. Council Chairman;

Lon Anderson, Clean Air Partners Chair and Managing Director Public and Government Relations for AAA Mid-Atlantic;

Sunil Kumar, COG Principal Planner;

Janice Nolen, American Lung Association Assistant Vice President for National Policy and Advocacy;

MWQAC Members

WHEN:  Wednesday, September 25, 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: COG Board Room, 3rd Floor, 777 North Capitol Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002

BACKGROUND:

In 2013, the region was tied for the fewest number of unhealthy air quality days since new, tougher U.S. EPA standards were introduced in 1997 for ozone and particle pollution. Council of Governments staff will present new data showing the region’s progress in improving air quality. Clean Air Partners will discuss how its outreach and voluntary actions by area residents have contributed to healthier air. Experts will also discuss challenges to further improving air quality, including growth and development, climate change, and new federal standards.

 

Trying to reduce oil consumption? NAS shouldn't dismiss biking

The National Academy of Sciences recently put out lengthy report on how the US can cut gasoline consumption in half by 2030. They come out with a whole host of strategies, none of which can accomplish the goal on it's own, and those are covered by Brad Plumer here. He notes about one of the strategies

Public transit and changes in urban planning: Oddly, there’s not much here. The NAS report only makes one passing mention of things like telecommuting, public transportation, better traffic management, and compact land use. Which seems surprisingly brief. Surely one way to curtail gasoline use and cut greenhouse-gas emissions would be to make it easier for people to drive less.

In fact, in nearly 400 pages, they mention biking twice. Once about reducing VMT:

A range of policy options exists that have the potential to reduce VMT growth, but they differ widely in their likely impact. For example, policies to increase residential density are likely to produce limited results on a national scale. As discussed in Chapter 6, a previous National Research Council (NRC) report has found that a doubling in density of 75 percent of the new development by 2050, something that the report characterizes as “require[ing] such a significant departure from current housing trends, land use policies of jurisdictions on the urban fringe, and public preferences that they would be unrealistic absent a strong state or regional role in growth management,” would reduce VMT by only 8 to 11 percent below what it otherwise would be in 2050 (NRC, 2009). And even this extremely optimistic degree of doubling of the density of new residential development would have to be accompanied by large increases in the amount of mixed-use development and in the quality and accessibility of transit. A major study of the potential impact of other much-discussed factors, such as pedestrian and bicycle strategies, has shown them to have only a small impact on national VMT (NRC, 2009).

And once about Transportation Policy (which is really about paths, not bikes).

Transportation policies center on the provision and operation of the infrastructure needed for mobility. For the automobile, they have focused on building, maintaining, and supporting roadways. In urban areas, transportation policy also supports mass transit, as well as sidewalks and bike paths, and so affects the availability and affordability of alternatives to auto travel. There is a clear emphasis in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) official mission statement on ensuring speed of conveyance as well as safety and efficiency. With the automobile being by far the dominant mode of transportation for most Americans, facilitating auto travel has been a major part of DOT’s mission. Much of the necessary investment for highways and major roads is accomplished through a federal-state partnership approach, while most local roads are handled by municipalities with varying degrees of state involvement. A key financial reason for the success of automobiles is that the vehicles themselves are purchased by individual consumers, who also pay for operating costs, notably fuel. That leaves to government the provision and maintenance of infrastructure. This contrasts with public transit modes, which require a public or public-private partnership to acquire and operate the vehicles and their supporting infrastructure. Consumers ultimately pay for all aspects of any transport system, with taxes or other user fees supporting the publicly provided elements.

But growth in biking has been pretty substantial, even if actual numbers are small, over the last 17 years. And that is, frankly, without making much of a concerted effort. In Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons From the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany" by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, the authors point out that while only 1% of trips in the US are made by bicycle, 10% of trips in Germany and 18% of trips in the Netherlands are. They made that happen by investing in cycling (and making driving more expensive).

Biking in Germany quadrupled in a 25 year period from 1975-2000. A similar change would see a doubling in the United States over the same period, and with bike-sharing taking off, that may be conservative. Admittedly going from 1% of trips to 3-4% would not cause a dramatic reduction of VMT, but it seems to be dismissed by this report as a rounding error, when in fact it's a critical part of the puzzle. After all, if you add in congestion pricing, people are going to need other options.

Finally, one problem with an analysis like this is the focus on one problem. Biking may not be a massive solution to that problem. Or to global warming. Or to obesity. Or to congestion. So, looking at each of those problems individually means that biking can get dismissed as trivial. But active transportation has the unique quality of being able to help solve a lot of problems, and so an holistic approach should consider all of that when deciding how to solve problems.  Biking may not bring a lot of firepower to reduce VMT, but policies that could help it grow have almost no cost when you consider the other benefits. 

Monday Morning Commute - I Chu Chu Choose You

I sold my folding bike to someone in Philadelphia, but they sent it back because when they took it in to get the shifter adjusted the guys told them that they needed a new hub and it would cost $250 to fix. After I got it back I took it back to Bikes at Vienna to have it fixed. The staff at Bikes at Vienna fixed it for $47 [The Philadelphia shop installed the shifter wrong] Admittedly I didn't have to pay for labor because I bought the bike there, but even then it wouldn't have been $250. 

Also, the Super Bowl was last night. The lights went out and the Ravens won. I'm annoyed that Justin Tucker was not named the MVP. 

• "Interested in naming rights for the coming street cars? The D.C. Circulator buses? The popular Capital Bikeshare program? Pick up the phone. That could happen, said District Department of Transportation spokesman John Lisle."
• A meeting with NPs on various biking issues around the Jefferson Memorial. 
• Instead of walking, she should have grabbed a CaBi. 
• "Darren Buck of Bikepedantic recently published his analysis on “Encouraging Equitable Access to Public Bikesharing Systems.” More here
• Bike commuting Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is stepping down. 
• Despite widening doping scandal, the International Cycling Union wants the IOC to add six medal events to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics program, including the restoration of track points races.
• I wonder if the same legislators demanding mandatory bike helmets will also push for mandatory external air bags. It might actually be worth it then.

Wednesday Morning Commute - Secret

Good morning

• The Secret Service has policy changes that they hope to implement in the coming weeks, after inauguration, that will smooth the way for cyclists using Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House. "they will have consistent areas where they will store temporary barriers when not in use, they will attempt to have fewer vehicles parked near the bollards and park them nose to tail, they will attempt to have more obvious directions for cyclists when the area will be closed or access limited to narrow lanes, and they will try to prevent, to the extent possible, red light running by cars at the corner of Penn. and 17th Street."
• Summer biking gets shadier in DC. 
• Why the hold up on the Anacostia Riverwalk's "Osprey Bridge"? No, it's not nesting Caribou, it's "According to the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, the contractor for the project struck an underground object and needs to move or redesign the final few supporting structures. The project is stalled while DDOT and the contractor hash out who pays for the changes. The AWI team says a completed bridge is months away, if not longer." I hope the object isn't the "Hatch" from Lost. Because that just leads to time travel, confusing plots and an ungodly mess in the end.
• Maryland-National Capital Park Police Chief Antonio DeVaul tries to clear up confusion about sexual assaults along Sligo Creek Trail. 
• Delays in the Purple Line impact everything that goes with it - including the completed Capital Crescent Trail.

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Distorted

Good afternoon

• 6 CaBi bike stations will have to be temporarily removed for the inauguration. "There were 199,127 trips and 221,809 miles traveled in October 2012. The number of trips decreased by 9.0% from September" But that's up from 123,497 trips and 140,402 miles a month in October 2011 - ~60% year-to-year increase in both.
• The DC Council Committee meeting on bicycle and pedestrian safety mentioned this morning has been postponed into the next year. No word on the topless bars hearing. 
• A utility pole was recently installed on the MacArthur Boulevard Trail in Montgomery County - and also, continuing coverage of the war on everyone else. (Photo by John Kelly)
• "Advocates for Holmes Run Park Trail are pushing to install mile markers along the West End greenway to quicken emergency response times." Rather than using posts, they might just paint the markers on the trail. It could help with emergency response or responding to assaults on the trail - of which there have been two this year. 
• Using recycled tires to make water pervious trails. Win win win.
• According to a recent study the risks of walking, biking and driving are about the same for men - except for young men. "risks were similar for men aged between 21 and 49 for all three modes of transport and for female pedestrians and drivers aged 21 and 69 years," said lead author Dr Jennifer Mindell (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health). "However, we found that for young male cyclists between 17 and 20 years of age, cycling was markedly safer than travelling by car....research regarding the safety of cycling tends to be distorted by a number of errors which are found repeatedly in published papers and policy documents, with many substantially overstating cycling injuries and under-reporting pedestrian injuries." I can't tell if cycling is safer for women than walking and driving or less safe. But my boys are not getting cars until they're 20 (at which point, they'll just get jetpacks instead). 
• Bike bays.

Related articles

Cycling is far safer than driving for men under 21

Wednesday Morning Commute - Parking meter conversion

Good morning

• DC Bike Party is tonight at 8pm at Wonderland Ballroom. 
• Brazen bicycle thief runs along side a moving bus, and tries to take a bike off the front rack while it's moving. 
• "A study conducted as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Greening America's Capitals program recommends making the [Anacostia Metro] station area more environmentally friendly by replacing much of the pavement with porous pavement, which absorbs much more water...."[The concepts] could also be applied to other sites in the District and elsewhere to incorporate environmentally sustainable practices into pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements," the report released this week said.....Many of the system's suburban stations are also bastions of concrete, and some are being redeveloped to better serve pedestrians and cyclists....Researchers found the Anacostia station was particularly dangerous because surrounding streets and intersections had poorly maintained crosswalks, nearby sidewalks and bicycle lanes were incomplete and wide curbs allowed cars to zip around at high speeds."
• One of the US DOT grants mentioned earlier - the one that "will allow the city to roll out a pilot parking management system in the Chinatown and Penn Quarter neighborhoods" will bring something for cyclists too. The program will replace "200 standard parking meters with new “smart meters” whose prices can be adjusted on the fly." Except those parking meters won't be removed - they'll be converted into bike parking.
• The Maryland Department of Transportation Bikeways Program Grant that was awarded to the Anacostia Trail connector will help people in Cheverly who are clamoring for a way to bike to work in the District. 'Cheverly Councilman R.J. Eldridge (Ward 3) said Cheverly residents are looking forward to a connection they can use to commute to the District. He added it could increase home values in towns such as Bladensburg, where residences line the trail. “It’s something people have been clamoring for for years,” Eldridge said. “I would agree that there still remain several challenges connecting a lot of the communities to this new trail. It runs along the Anacostia River, but it’s hard for many of these places — Cheverly included — for those people to get over there.”'
• One fewer bollard in the world. 
• The portion of the Custis Trail under I-66 at Bon Air Park (Kennebec St) will be detoured next week for service of the bridge by VDOT. Their work is expected to last for 2 days. The exact date is not yet known
• The World Anti-Doping Agency has urged cycling’s governing body to support United States anti-doping officials and provide documents to help their case against Lance Armstrong.