TheWashCycle

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Gripes

Good afternoon

• FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez and Lauren Marchetti of the National Center for Safe Routes to School attended a Bike to School Day event at Lincoln Park, part of the 2nd Annual Bike to School Day. Next on the Agenda: Bike to Work Day and then National Bike to Church Day. 
• The Gripe is still asking about the R Street bike lane at Rhode Island Avenue. 
• FindtheBest, a shopping website, also compares bikes.
• Mayor Rahm Emmanuel proposes raising fines for bicycle violations - while also raising fines for drivers for things like dooring. But this probably isn't the beginning of bicyle tolling and registration. The new ordinance would also "allow cyclists to ride on sidewalks to get to roads and paths or new bicycle sharing stations; leave the curbside edge of the right line when passing another bicycle or preparing to turn; and ride side-by-side, provided they stay in one lane and do not impede traffic." And "The proposal also would eliminate the requirement for cyclists to hug the right shoulder if they are keeping up with other traffic, while also allowing cyclists to ride in the road even when there's an adjacent bike path. Buses in shared bus-and-bike lines, like those on Clark Street, would be permitted to leave the designated lane to get around a bike."
• We can stop arguing, NYC has proven that separated bike facilities are safer than vehicular cycling. Glad that's over. "bike infrastructure did more than make cycling safer: The study found a 35% decrease in traffic crash related injuries to all street users on the 8th Ave path, and a whopping 58% on its 9th Ave counterpart."
• How LAB calculates Bicycle Friendliness.

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - the Wall

Good afternoon

• DDOT has several options for improving G and I Streets NE to help keep cyclists away from the streetcar tracks. The best one for cyclists, IMHO, puts contraflow bike lanes on G and Eye streets with back in parking. 
• A "pie in the sky" redesign of SW DC would turn the SE/SW Freeway into a park with a trail and add bridges across the Washington Channel. 
• There's a story in the NW Current about the Illinois Avenue bike lanes. Not available online so I added it as an image below
• Bike House will be doing Farmer's Market Bike Clinics again. 
• "The Land-Use Committee of the Del Ray Citizens Association is reaching out to residents and business owners for feedback as Alexandria investigates potential on-street carsharing spaces and Capital Bikeshare stations on and around Mount Vernon Avenue.The committee is hosting an open meeting to discuss both projects at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 9 at Mount Vernon Recreation Center.
• "Runners, walkers and cyclists on the Capital Crescent Trail may have noticed a wall being constructed near the overpass that crosses River Road....The low, freestanding wall, called the River Road Safety Wallproject, will run for 350 feet from the south end of the bridge near River Road to just past the property of a nearby business, Landscape Projects, said Abbi Irelan, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Parks. There will be a pedestrian break in the wall, where users will be able to access River Road. Once the wall is complete it will be faced with natural stone, Irelan said."
• "The run was one of three events at Safe Routes to School’s fifth annual Takoma Park 5K Challenge...The funds the event raises will be split evenly among the five area schools that work with Safe Routes to School and go toward pedestrian and bike safety education and health and fitness programs."
• "Installing bicycle lanes on wide roads like Route 123 typically costs VDOT $5,000 per mile. The 35-mile span of Route 123 between Interstate 95 to the W&OD Trail in Vienna is the part most in need; installing a bicycle lane here would be a minuscule fraction of VDOT’s budget for 2013."
• Coverage of Bike to School day in Arlington and in Vienna.
• Olney will have a Ride of Silence which is on May 15th.
• Yikes!

Friday Morning Commute - K Street Trolley

Good morning

• Who's parking in the L Street Cycle-track? Mostly delivery vehicles. Other than enforcement how can we get them to park elsewhere? "the city could convert existing metered parking along L Street to loading-only lanes, giving delivery drivers more legal options to park."
• Bike to School Day is next week. 

Old 5th Street NW trolley tracks popped up in the midst of the K Street streetscape work by jacquesofalltrades

Monday Afternoon Commute - New York is too mean for this

Good afternoon

• Regional Bike to School Day Press Release. 
• "Very few TIGER programs were exclusively for biking and walking, but many road or bridge projects incorporated transit or bike/ped into them"
• BikePortland on the new SecDOT: "As for bicycling, Foxx has actively supported it. He's held an annual "Bike to Breakfast" event and he hops on a road bike to help launch "Bike Charlotte," an annual cycling promotional campaign. When Charlotte launched their bike share system last summer,Foxx grinned for the local media during the inaugural ride."
• Georgia Republican Congress-member Rob Woodall, on Safe Routes to schools: “I walked to school every day of my elementary school life — unless I was riding my new Huffy bike that Santa Claus brought one of those years — and when an intersection got to be too busy, the community got together and we put in a traffic light there, and crosswalks,” Woodall said. “And when it still was too busy, we put in a crossing guard. The community had this need and this concern, and the community solved these things.”
  
  • Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) responds “You may not think SRTS is a high national priority… [but people around the country] look at the disproportionate number of people who are killed in pedestrian and bike accidents, and look at how little federal money flows in terms of that allocation and they think maybe there is a national priority...Choices went away because we put almost everything into the highway and into the individual automobile,” 
  • Janet Kavinoky of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on user fees for transportation "“I can certainly say that in the discussions we’ve started having with our members, we’ve begun saying, ‘Well, if you’re using a road, or you’re using a bike path, or you’re using the rails for transit, we ought to consider the different forms of revenue that may come to that to support investment,’” she said. “I think that’s an open question for us.” [WC: What's wrong with taxing pollution and income?]
• This story about bike share coming to NYC and about the conflicts that are already taking hold is very good. "On Wednesday night, a litany of grievances were heard at a town-hall meeting in Clinton Hill, in Brooklyn, which had been organized by Councilwoman Letitia James to address concerns about the way in which the bike program was unfolding. The undercurrent was the contest between young and old, between churchgoer and heathen, between the preservationist and the futurist, the realist and the skeptic. The bike stations were usurping parking spots — churches depend on street parking. Older people who are more car-reliant than Bianchi-reliant worried about parking as well; they also worried that bike stations positioned in the wrong places could make it harder to navigate sidewalks and cross the streets." Remember this? That station is now one of CaBi's busiest and I bet people who live on the SE side of the park wish they didn't have to walk two extra blocks to get to it. 

Monday Morning Commute - Schedule is uncertain

First time event for me. A pedestrian yelled at me to get off the sidewalk and into the bike lane. Not shocking? Did I mention I was running?

• "The prospective buyers weren’t interested in the ­three-bedroom, 1,092-square-foot ­house, which Cloud and her husband purchased for $5,000 in the 1940s. They wanted her lot, which sits next to a bike trail on a street within walking distance of the Metro and great public schools."
• "Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the No. 3 Democrat in the House, counters that there are many reasons beyond "equity" that the FBI should move to Prince George's County, including "ample, underdeveloped land near the Metro, the MARC commuter rail, the Capital Beltway, a variety of Metro and county transit bus lines and regional bike trail networks." "
• Richard Layman wants a cycle-track on Military Road. 
• "Oak Street this month is losing two of its four through lanes. “By taking away the second travel lane in each direction, we make room for left-turn lanes, dedicated bike lanes, and on-street parking,” VDOT traffic engineer Randy Dittberner said in a statement. “All these features will help eliminate the most extreme speeders and improve safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.”"
• Several Virginia Univeristies are now Bike Friendly Universities. The new entries are James Madison University, Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech. No DC schools make the list - same as Texas. 

DC BAC has the transcript from the WeMoveDC web-based chat. Below are the bie related Q&As

 

Q: When will bicycle lanes be placed on Connecticut and Wisconsin avenuess?

A: We will look to this plan to help identify the future networks for all modes, together. Streets like those that you mention are especially complicated because of competing demands. This planning effort will help to resolve those conflicts.

 

 

Q: Aside from the 15th Street Cycle track, there are few north-south  or east-west corridors that are safe for cyclists. are you planning more protected cycle tracks to make cycling safer for everyone?

A: This plan will look comprehensively at the bicycle network.

 

 

Q: Can we have a coprehensive bicycle parking program, especially in the CBD? Now, the installation process is dictated by the "squeakly-wheel" method. Could we work with BIDs, businesses and communities to better allocate spaces, even if it removes some car street parking?

A: We will be looking at bicycle parking on and off-street as a part of this plan.

 

 

Q: Where did the end-of-block bollards on the L Street cycletrack go (the ones that keep cars out of the cycle track), and when will they be back?

A: They went away for snow removal and will be back in the coming weeks. [WC: They are now back]

Q: FYI valet drivers also pull U-Turns through the PA Ave cycletrack. Some outreach to the valet companies and restaurants would help.

A: DDOT is working with many partners for better enforcement and education to reduce instances of this sort of behavior.

Q: Just to note, police officers are often in that same category.  They park in bike lanes all the time

A: Thanks.

Q: We also need to have some regulations in place to ensure bicylces are on the street and not the sidewalks.  Is this going to be looked into?

Q: There are cycle paths (particularly Rock Creek Pkwy) that are in serious need of repair and revision.  Is the National Park Service party to this planning process?

A: Yes.

Q: Are there any plans to repave the 15th St. bike lane?

A: Yes. Schedule is uncertain.

 

Thursday Morning Commute - Taboo

Good morning

• "What started as a parent’s request to add a bicycle rack outside Wolftrap Elementary School in Vienna has become a community-wide effort to increase the number of students walking or biking to school."'
• More about Fairfax (what is this FABB?) - "The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted April 9 to re-allocate $11.2 million to complete about a dozen planned pedestrian and road improvement projects." Projects include bike lanes on Walney Road Bridge and the Soapstone "Trail."
• At last night's MWCOG meeting they voted on a Bike to Work Day 2013 Proclamation
• Baltimore cyclists will ride from their Washington Monument to ours and back. Or you could ride the B&A Trail.
• B-Cycle is testing an adult tricycle. 
• "But one afternoon a barista at a local cafe who happened to be an amateur cyclist told Galpin that not only were Afghan women riding bikes, but that they had formed their own national cycling team."

Tuesday Afternoon Commute - East Street

Good afternoon

• A proposed apartment at Barney Circle requests a variance to provide less car parking (11 fewer spaces). More interesting (to me at least) is that they're offering 28 bike parking spaces for 81 units, which sounds good - if you don't realize that under current zoning regulations they’re supposed to provide 60 long term bike parking spaces and 4 short term spaces (and under proposed rules that would go up to 81 long term). 
• StreetSmart Campaign kicked off today. 
• A neighborhood so nice, you can bike in it (without a helmet). 
• The Maryland General Assembly passed a measure on Monday to make talking on a handheld cellphone while driving a vehicle a primary offense. Under the bill, a police officer could pull over a driver for talking on a handheld while the vehicle is in motion.
• Frederick,MD officials are hosting an open house tonight where they will unveil plans for a new rail-trail - the East Street Rail with Trails. "The planning for this project goes back as far as 2000 when this link was placed in draft form on the Official Shared Use Path Plan. In 2002, the Plan was officially adopted. The design project began in November and is scheduled to run through May when a final public presentation will be held with the Mayor and Board of Aldermen. Once completed, the project will be eligible for final design and construction funding." The MARC train station is the current terminus of the rail line to Frederick, but it used to continue along East Street (and the tracks are still there) through town. 
• Bike to School day is May 8th 5th.
• Bikeshare station installation has started in NYC. Check out their solar tower instead of a panel. Cool innovation. 
• Toronto voted to turn 24 car parking spaces below city hall into a bike station which "will include 380 secure bike spaces, free air tools, change rooms but only four showers." The $1.2 million station has at least one detractor on city council. 
  • “We’re taking away parking space down here at City Hall that is creating $70,000 worth of revenue, and — ready for this, folks? — they’re putting in showers for the bike riders to come down here, to a tune of $1.2 million,” said Ford after the meeting. “That’s the gravy train. That is reckless spending — to put showers here at City Hall at $1.2 million. It’s disgusting.”
  • I will note that the space only "potentially" create $70,000 a year - if they're all being used. 
  • "Jared Kolb, executive director of Cycle Toronto, said he went to the parking garage at various times of the day and took photos to show that many of the spaces were empty. He included the photos in a report to the government management committee on Monday.'It raises the question how the TPA is making money on 24 spaces that are sitting empty all day,' Kolb said."

Photo by Transportation Alternatives

Alexandria 2014 Capital Improvement Program includes funds for Capital Bikeshare, area trails and more

Alexandria City Manager Rashad Young has proposed a FY 2014 budget that includes $600,000 for Capital Bikeshare expansion in 2014 and another $1,395,000 worth of expansion planned through 2022.

In 2013, work to identify station locations beyond the initial eight stations will be completed. The program will expand to Carlyle and Del Ray over the next several years through a combination of funding sources include CMAQ/RSTP funding, private (development) capital contributions, and Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) funding.

In addition, there is

• $500,000 for an update to the 2008 Bicycle Master Plan
• $0 for the Wilkes Street Bikeway, because no more local funding is needed. The project should go out to bid this year
• $1,317,602 for the Holmes Run Bike Trail upgrade, with work to begin in mid to late 2014.
• $500,000 in 2015 for a study of the feasibility of building a tunnel connection under the freight rail tracks from the Braddock Road station itself as recommended in the Braddock Metro Neighborhood Plan. Completion of the tunnel would provide a new station entry from the west, minimizing the distance pedestrians must walk to access the station from the west. Currently, pedestrians must walk south to the Braddock Road underpass to reach the station. In addition, the plan recommends studying a potential future pedestrian-bike connection and a potential walking route connection to the northern gateway
• $3,500,000 over the next four years for the Old Cameron Run Trail. This project will construct a shared-use path between Eisenhower Avenue near Telegraph Road to on-oad bicycle facilities that link to the Mt. Vernon Trail, addressing a major gap in the city’s proposed “Green Crescent‟ trail system and ultimately providing a key link in the bicycle and pedestrian multimodal transportation system.
• $3,200,00 for FY 2017-18 for a shared-use path along Backlick Run from Boothe Park west to the Fairfax County line. Once complete, the trail will help better connect the far west side of the City with the Mount Vernon Trail, and the existing trail network in the Ben Brennan Park and Eisenhower Valley. 
• $1,000,000 for the construction of safety improvements at the Mt Vernon Avenue/Russell Road Intersection in 2015-16. 
• $500,000 in FY 2023 for design and engineering funding for the construction of a multimodal bridge from the Van Dorn Metro Station to Pickett Street.
• $275,000 in FY 2014 for Safe Routes to Schools. 
• $7,870,000 for complete streets over the next 10 years. 
• $180,000 a year for shared-use path improvements and $10,000 a year for trail maintenance.
• $350,000 spread over 3 out-years for bicycle parking at the city's Metrorail and transit stations.
• $450,000 this year to construct safety improvements on the Mount Vernon Trail where trail width and conflicts with vehicles make non-motorized travel unsafe. Preliminary engineering for this project began in 2011. A property survey has been completed, and the next step will be to move the project to the 30% design phase. Right-of-ways may be needed and the plans for the Gen-On property may affect the project. Construction is not expected to begin until at least FY 2015. 

MBPAC commends MDOT for WB&A Patuxent River Study

At the December 2012, Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee(MBPAC) meeting, the MBPAC unanimously voted to

commend MDOT for agreeing to use Maryland Bikeways program dollars to fund an analysis of the alignment choices for a planned extension of the WB&A Trail across the Patuxent River between Anne Arundel and Prince George’s County. The motion was unanimously approved.

In other area biking news, 

• The University of Maryland at College Park is planning to develop a GIS system for bicycle racks in order to ensure sufficient provision of bike parking facilities, getting quotes for the installation of shared lane pavement markings (sharrows) along campus roadways, and working on bicycle helmet giveaways. Two non-credit bicycle safety classes have been approved by the school administration and a bike lease program for students has being developed. The lease program included bike lights-with a slogan “Bikes Be Bright” - and air pumps. Their various bicycling initiatives are branded as “Bike UMD”.
• A bicycle rider was ticketed by a law enforcement officer in Southern Maryland for riding two abreast on the roadway after receiving complaints that bicyclists were riding two abreast and blocking motor vehicles from passing them. The ticketed bike rider stated that at the time she received the ticket, no motor vehicles were behind her. She went to court and the judge dismissed the ticket. However the MBPAC discussed whether bicyclists may ride two abreast in locations where a single bicyclist may ride in the middle of the lane, thus effectively blocking approaching motorists from passing in that lane

Arlington CaBi expansion could begin this month

Previously unreported items from the February Arlington BAC Meeting:

Capital Bikeshare Expansion - Currently, final station location selections are being made and permits are being applied for. 32 stations are planned for installation in 2013, mostly in the Columbia Pike and Shirlington areas. Most stations are expected to be installed in March and April, although this schedule is tentative due to the large number of moving parts (permits, equipment delivery, Alta’s schedule, etc..). A few stations may even be installed as early as February

Bike and Walk to School Day - Wednesday, May 8th - Bike and Walk to School Day is currently in the planning stages and will be a county wide event.

Bike to Work Day - The one major change will be the official addition of an afternoon stop at East Falls Church, put on by Tri360 at the crossing of the W&OD at Lee/Washington

The BAC also discussed the cost and strategy for snow removal from trails and a letter to Congressman Moran asking for his help with CaBi station placement at the Pentagon and the Arlington National Cemetery Metro Station (among other items).