Motor assisted commute

The Examiner has an article about a school teacher who rides a bike he rescued from the trash, attached with a motor and uses to ride the 17 miles from home to school. On the way home he rides it without the motor. It's a nice modification of the trick where you take your bike on the bus to work to avoid being sweaty, but then ride it home where a shower awaits.

Whitehurst Freeway II

The third and final open house on the Whitehurst Freeway was on Monday night, and the city is either trying to present every possible option or overwhelm people with choices. Here's what's of interest. One category on the massive charts comparing the options (considering cost, effects on traffic, environmental concerns etc...) considered the impact on bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Best, by the cities ranking, were the two tunnel options - also the most expensive. Worst was an option that pushed K street about two blocks further upstream, obliterating the trail-head of the CCT - the Park Service has already ixnayed this one I was told.

Though none of the drawings showed it, most assumed that cyclists would stop using K street and would instead ride a trail that would pass through the Waterfront Park and busy Waterfront area. That's unlikely, since there are too many pedestrians.

Some designs included bus only lanes along K street that might actually be bike and bus only lanes, like the new ones downtown.

The most interesting designs had pedestrian ramps from the canal to either a new sidewalk on the North side of the present day freeway or under the freeway to a platform built above the waterfront parking lots to create an elevated park.

Much to my surprise I'm now open to the idea that traffic in Georgetown would be better without the freeway, mostly because it would relieve M street and improve traffic trying to bypass Georgetown.  But they need a K Street that provides for cyclists and any connections to K street (via the Key Bridge or up to Canal) need to have an area for bikes.

MacArthur Boulevard Bikeway

 

MacArthur Boulevard, like Rock Creek Parkway, is a road that frustrates drivers. Cyclists love it, but when drivers get stuck behind a cyclist they get angry. They wonder why the cyclist is in front of them instead of using that "perfectly good" bike path. WABA at one point considered the MacArthur Boulevard Bikeway Improvement Project as one of it's top priorities, but it no longer shows up as one. Neither the Phase I report, nor the project status can be found on the Montgomery County DPWT Bikeways site. So what happened to it? The WABA preferred alternative included rebuilding the bikeway and adding bike lanes along the road. Which seems like a good idea. Another good idea, to run a path along the abandoned Glen Echo Trolley line, was tabled in a County Council meeting in January of 2005 where they 

Agreed that a provision not be added to the Master Plan to convert the former Glen Echo trolley right-of-way to a shared use path between Glen Echo Park and the Capital Crescent Trail through Brookmont and to revisit the issue in the future.

So it seems no changes are planned for one of the areas most popular bike routes and cyclists and drivers can continue to frustrate one another.

Should the Whitehurst Freeway Go?

The District Department of Transportation is in the process of holding three public open houses where city officials are discussing the preliminary results of their studies on possible replacements (or not) of the Whitehurst Freeway. The last of these is on on Monday:

-- Open House 3 - Monday, November 21, 2005, St. Mary Armenian Church, 4125 Fessenden Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037, 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.

There are several options which include (1) doing nothing, (2) removing it and connecting K Street to Canal Street, (3) removing it and connecting K Street to Canal Street and the Key Bridge (4) removing it and replacing it with a tunnel under K Street. DCist has a thorough analysis of the project and it's history.

This project could impact cycling in the district in many ways.

Pros: A rebuilt K Street might be made safer and/or nicer*. A ramp to Key Bridge could make for a more direct connection from the CCT and Rock Creek Park to the Key Bridge. Pushing 34th Street over the canal could make for a better connection from the CCT to M Street.

Cons: A connection from K street to Canal goes directly over the CCT trail head. A rebuilt K street will have more traffic and might be less safe and/or nice. Pushing 34th Street over the canal will remove a pedestrian bridge over the canal.

I personally like K Street the way it is and am unconvinced anyone but wealthy landowners in Georgetown will benefit from this. And I don't even drive on the Whitehurst. K Street, aka Water Street,  is a relatively safe street to bike on now so I'd hate to see that change. Also, Kevin Costner climbed off of the Whitehurst Freeway and into the Georgetown Metro (I know) in the movie No Way Out. Do you want Kevin Costner to die?

* They don't have to tear down Whitehurst to improve K street

Bike Lane Lines

This photo shows the soon to be painted bike lanes along 4th St. SE (on Capitol Hill). Besides being clearly in the door zone, these future bike lanes are interesting for something else. Right down the middle is a line cut into the asphalt. What is this line, you ask? It's where the contractor painted the lane line in the wrong place - for a normal one way street, not a street with a bike lane. Actually it isn't paint at all - it's thermoplastic pavement marking, and it can't be removed with paint thinner. It has to be ground out, leaving the nice trench you see here. The same thing was done on Rhode Island Avenue in College Park to make room for the College Park Trolley Line trail, but that wasn't due to an error. So why not make the contractor fix the surface - or pay a fine? Got me.

Converted cyclist turns to the road less-traveled

As traffic gets worse, more people will take up bike commuting.

Bicycle parking on the Mall

The National Park Service is in the process of adding bike parking around the Washington Monument - last week I saw where they had marked the spots for their installation. Reportedly, some will be of the inverted U variety and some the bollard style. If you've ever tried to park your bike on the mall, then you've probably found yourself trying to lock it to one of the park benches and that can be a frustrating endeavor (they should get some like the one pictured below).

In general NPS plans to add more parking all around the mall, but hasn't any hard plans - not even with the Lincoln Memorial Circle Project (Which promises safer pedestrian and cyclist crossings via 2 New Traffic Signals and to move the bicycle path on the south side to provide for safer sight-lines).

In addition to permanent parking, the mall needs some sort of temporary parking that NPS can move (or rent) for special events. Whether it's Screen on the Green or the 4th of July celebration/security demonstration, it's always hard to find parking. Maybe that can be part of the 3rd century mall.