Tour du Parks Baltimore

p>You could, if so interested, probably spend every Saturday and Sunday riding your bike in some official or semi-official ride in the DC area without repeating yourself all year. Between club rides, charity rides, races, WABA rides, and community rides we're almost drowning in organized rides. Still, there is no signature ride in the area like the Five Boro Bike Tour in New York City (which I haven't done, but want to do) or RAGBRAI in Iowa (which I have done, and is great fun).

WABA used to sponsor BikeDC, which served that purpose, the one can't miss bike ride in the area.  But it has been a victim of hurricanes and the post-9-11 security push.

Because of the unique security challenges we now face in DC, the number of agencies and jurisdictions involved in the permitting process for the event has increased dramatically.  Accordingly, WABA needs to take time out in 2005 to evaluate whether to continue the event in the future or to achieve our goals in other ways.

Sure, there's the 50 States Ride (Aug 26), Bike-In Movie (Aug 5), and Booth's Escape Ride (Oct 21 - You'll bike right by my house, isn't that exciting?) but those are, by nature, limited to experienced riders, people who can get dates, or people who shot Lincoln.

Baltimore, on the other hand, has a ride called the Tour du Parks. Now I for one, am not a fan of bike rides (or races) that use a variation of the Tour du France name - lacks creativity, but still the ride sounds like fun and I'll look at doing it next year.

“If I had friends coming into town, this is what I’d do to show them the city,” said Michael Abrams. “It’s the full spectrum of nature and urban landscape.”  About 350 amateur bicyclists — from grade-schoolers to Social Security recipients, but mostly 20- to 50-somethings — came with small groups of friends Sunday for the Tour du Parks, a social morning of exercise.

The big selling point of BikeDC was the street closures, and on the 4th it was nice riding around the Mall without any traffic.  It sounds like the Baltimore ride stayed off the roads, but I have to think that a ride could be put together that would close a few roads early on a Saturday morning. They seemed to be able to close the streets for Marathons.

I wonder, if I wanted one ride that would show out-of-towners the city, what would it include. The Mall, the Capitol and the White House obviously. Georgetown. Capitol Hill and Eastern Market Neighborhoods. The Anacostia Waterfront. Rock Creek. DuPont Circle, Adams Morgan and U Street. Old town Anacostia. I think that's doable.

Ten for Tuesday - 230th birthday edition

1. Here's a great photo from the Silver Spring (singular) criterium a few weeks ago and more can be found here.

The Gazette covered the race.

Also happy were the event’s organizers, including Susan Hoffman, marketing and special events manager for downtown Silver Spring. The second year of the event drew larger crowds than the year before, and the hope exists that the Grand Prix of Silver Spring will become a permanent fixture of the summer.

‘‘It brings people downtown, which is exactly what we want to do,” Hoffman said. ‘‘We’re ready for primetime, and we want people from outside the area to come here.”

2. Here's the photo of the 10 foot long bike lane on Massachusetts just north of Thomas Circle. The sign reads "Bike Land Ends" (though Bike is a picture of a bike).

3. Another product recall, this time for Specialized bicycle stems

The bicycle stem is black with the words "S-Works" and "Magnesium Faceplate" printed on it.

4. Reconstruction of the Marvin Gaye Park Trail began June 24th.

the city began work on a 1.6-mile walking and bicycling trail that will connect the northeast corner of the District with a network of regional trails. The $3.1 million project will include lighting, emergency call buttons and other safety measures. The trail was first constructed in 1978, but it was long neglected and became polluted and dangerous.

In time, the paved path will be lighted and widened for walkers, cyclists and skaters and better marked where it crosses streets.

The city has been aggressively encouraging cycling and commuting by bike. In addition to the Marvin Gaye path, the city will break ground next month on a section of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail from the Navy Yard to Benning Road in Southeast. The city is also planning work on the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which follows Metro's Red Line from Union Station to Silver Spring, said Jim Sebastian, the Transportation Department's bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

5. Here's a photo of the "mystery bridge" along the NE Branch Trail. It's been sitting there for four months if not longer and I haven't any idea where it's to end up. If you know, leave it in the comments. On the left side of the photo is a wooden bridge. The new bridge seems way too big to replace the wooden one.

6. San Francisco is having trouble implementing their bike plan.

Superior Court Judge James Warren issued a preliminary injunction this week at the request of two groups, Coalition for Adequate Review and 99 Percent, which are seeking greater public review of the bicycle plan. The plan, approved last year by the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom, is designed to make the streets of San Francisco more bicycle-friendly by creating more dedicated bike lanes and places to securely stow bikes.

The injunction bars the city  --  at least temporarily  --  from creating new bike lanes, changing the timing of traffic signals to accommodate cyclists, and restricting or removing on-street parking to benefit bike

7. Also along the NE branch trail, the town of Edmonston built a park sign dedicating the park to the town's veterans (see left) and moved the gazeebo (see right) at Decatur Street.

8. I only use it for racing .

Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center believe that Viagra improves cardiovascular and exercise performance measures of trained cyclists at high altitude.

9. The Virginia transportation board approved funding for path improvements in Northern Virginia.

Fairfax County Park Authority’s Cross County Trail received the highest allocation of $435,000 toward a $2.2 million trail rerouting project between Lake Accotink to Hunter Village Drive.

Arlington: Child and Adult Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Classes and Brochure

Fairfax: Mason Neck Trail extended between Gunston Hall Plantation to Pohick Bay Regional Park

10. And finally, Lance Armstrong is planning to ride RAGBRAI at the end of the month. Makes me wish I could go this year. That and my need for delicious pork chops.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will not be biking across the hills of France this summer, but instead riding a couple days across Iowa highways and county roads.

Armstrong decided to ride in the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, one of the largest bike rides in the world.

Measles or Mumps?

I went to the DC environmental network mayoral candidate forum last week, and the only word to describe it was "disappointing."

Of the five major Democratic Party candidates, only one - Michael Brown - showed up; and he was an hour late. The other two candidates to show up were DC Statehood/Green Party candidate Chris Otten and Republican Dennis Moore who isn't considered serious enough by the Post to put him on their mayor's race page. And Otten, I've heard, isn't even the Green Party front runner. Brown it seems is also destined to be an "also ran." So a poor sampling of candidates.

Right off the bat, Linda Cropp and Adrian Fenty get "F"s in my book. Both had committed to coming. Neither showed up. If you can't keep promises while in a campaign, there's nothing to make me think you'll do so afterward.

In general, the candidates who did show up seemed like 8th graders giving reports on books they only read the back cover of. The environmental network produced a book of 140 recommendations to protect DC's environment. Clearly, none of them took the time to look it over. They didn't mention the items they agreed with. They didn't state the recommendations they thought were flawed and why. They didn't even really address the concerns stated in the questions they were asked to answer.

Instead they talked about switching all of DC's buses to "Veggie Buses" (Chris Otten), planting invasion species on the "sea floor" of the Anacostia to clean up the river (Michael Brown) and other such ill-thought-out ideas.

When the question of what each candidate would do to promote cycling in the district came up their responses were not good.

Otten: Police officers need to give cyclists more respect and the default in a car/bike accident should be that the car is at fault. We need more bike paths. The Mayor needs to listen to ideas from the public. We should close the Rock Creek Parkway to automobile traffic and make it bikes only. (My grade D)

Moore: We need bike paths throughout the city. We need more parking facilities. Cycling is a health related issue and we need more education  (My grade C-).

Brown: Police need to enforce traffic laws as they apply to bike messengers. We need to create an environment of cycling acceptance - we need bike racks at work places and people on Metro shouldn't roll their eyes at passengers with bikes. He then reemphasized that couriers need to be made to obey the law. Then he talked about how he told his sons it was OK to bike in Rock Creek Park, but when they left the park they need to walk their bikes.  (My grade D-, and that's really only for showing up).

I give Marie Johns and Vincent Orange incompletes, but at least Johns showed up to Bike to Work Day.

One last unfortunate point, is that the crowd was overwhelmingly white. In a city as diverse as DC that's indicative of a failure somewhere.

As I was leaving someone said, "The most positive thing is that none of these candidates has a snowball's chance in hell of winning." Sad, but true.

Metropolitan Branch Fail

Despite the good news out of Montgomery County there is still much about the future of the Metropolitan Branch Trail (MBT) to worry about. Not that it won't be built, I believe it will; but that it will be less than what it could be, should be or was promised to be. I'm talking specifically about the New York Avenue to Franklin Street section - arguable the signature section of the trail.

As originally designed this section - built on old railroad right of way that consisted of sidelings and the Eckington rail yard - was to be a park-like facility with a trail running down the middle. A picture of what it would look like even graced the cover of the concept plan (at right). It shows a trail passing directly through a green space with waysides and an open air cafe opening up to the trail and park. This is not what will be built.

Despite the stated objective of "providing a visually attractive setting for the trail in the open space between CSX tracks and current development," what is instead planned is a trail shoehorned in between office buildings and sprawling parking lots. Due to a Z-shaped turn, it won't even provide a direct route as originally designed.

Let's move south to north starting from the NY Ave metro station trail. A building is to be built on the triangle between NY Ave, Florida Ave and the trail. When I talked with DDOT they had no idea what this building would look like. Will it open up to the trail? Will there be a green buffer? Will it just be a big brick wall? They didn't know. Why isn't building a structure that integrates the trail a requirement?

Next the trail will pass between the PEPCO facility and the tracks, through the "Capital Commerce Center." As originally planned there would be a connection here between Harry Thomas Way and the trail (see below, right hand side), but not any more. Then the trail was to bend to the west with a connection to R St. But now the trail instead follows the connection to R St and then turns more than 90 degrees to continue north on the west side of the property (see this for a map of what it will look like). This requires a user to make two greater than 90 degree turns (the Z-turn I mentioned). Besides being dangerous it's slow. This was to be a "bicycle beltway." I've never seen a 95 degree turn on the beltway. And what will go where the trail was supposed to? A parking lot (not sure how cars will get to it, but I suspect they would cross the trail).

The plan calls for waysides, green space, art gardens and performance space. It talks about place making. But I fear this project will become a 12 foot wide strip of asphalt surrounded by whatever developers decide will make the most money. I'm not anti-growth, but it's too bad that an opportunity to create a green space in the center of the city is being squandered for the growth machine.

Someday on MARC, Amtrak, VRE and Metro

Here's something interesting

MBTA officials unveiled yesterday a commuter rail coach equipped with 39 bike racks that will make two round trips from Boston to Rockport on Saturdays, Sundays, and some holidays.

Half of the coach's seats were removed to make way for the racks, leaving 42 seats.

The new coach will begin running Sunday during the 47th Annual Fitchburg Longsjo Classic race, hosted by the Fitchburg Cycling Club.

``We wanted something to serve the bike community," said Will Shannon , deputy chief mechanical officer for the T.

T General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said that while bikes are allowed on the commuter rail, riders often have trouble getting them on and off.

So they already allow bikes on board, they're just trying to accommodate cyclists. What a crazy idea.

It's never too early to learn safe biking

The Gazette ran a story a while ago about bicycle safety training at Berwyn Heights Elementary School.

The Berwyn Heights Police Department and the Washington Area Bike Association helped to organize the event.

‘‘It’s a good idea because some people crash their bikes,” Joshua Hamilton said. ‘‘My brother crashed his bike once and he got a concussion so this will make sure I am safe.”

Kids were taught the basics of bicycle maintenance, hand signals and aware cycling. These types of programs, in conjunction to Safe Routes to School, have the potential to really turn back the clock on kids biking to school (as in they used to a lot and now they do it rarely). And it has real benefits. According to the League of American Cyclists

 

There are more than three times as many overweight kids today as there were 25 years ago.

More than 1 in 3 young people in grades 9–12 do not regularly engage in vigorous physical activity.

As much as 20% of morning rush hour traffic can be parents driving kids to school

School bus transportation is frequently the second largest budget item for school districts after salaries

Option 1 Chosen for Met Branch

From the Silver Springs Trails website:

The Montgomery County Council Transportation and Environment (T&E) Committee finished its review of the DPWT Phase I Metropolitan Branch Trail conceptual design. The Committee voted 2-0 (Floreen and Leventhal for, Perez absent) to direct DPWT to carry the MetBranch Trail Option 1 into Phase II facility design. The Option 1 alignment will follow closely along the CSX right-of-way from the Silver Spring Transit Center to the Takoma Campus of Montgomery College and will have a trail bridge over Georgia Avenue and a trail underpass under East-West Highway.

This is good news. This is the trail (in Maryland - more about DC next week) that cyclists wanted.  Phase II takes about 18 months. Funding could begin in the FY09 budget.

Also, when I was out on the MBT last week, I saw the construction of a fence going on along Fenton Street (see photo). I'm not sure what the purpose of it is. Is it a safety feature? Even if it is, I don't like it. Why block the view from the trail and of the trail. One goal of trail development is place-making. Fences do not make places. They divide people. This is unfortunate.