Rock Creek Park Comment Period

The comment period for the Rock Creek Park General Management Plan (GMP) runs through February 28 of this year. I've poked through the report and I have trouble determining why the Park Service chose Alternative A over Alternative D. The difference between the two is that Alt D would eliminate automobile traffic along three segments of Beach Drive from 9:30 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. each weekday. By the admission of its own report, it's the environmentally preferred solution. For Alternative A they give a very non-specific argument that it will

most effectively balance the recreational, environmental and traffic consideration for the short- and long-term future of the park.

So, the WABA preferred alternative gives too much consideration to recreation and the environment over traffic. One would think that a park would err on the side of recreation and the environment.

That is until you read these choice words from local elected officials:

Further restricting the permissible uses of Beach Drive during the week strikes me as unfair to those citizens wishing to enjoy the park whose mobility requires a car. The new proposal would eliminate use of Beach Drive during the one segment of time when individuals with disabilities, and others who require a car for mobility, can enjoy the park without having to compete with rush-hour traffic. (U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen)

I write to express my concern about Alternative D in the absence of information that significant numbers of residents would benefit. The Park Service has conducted no survey or offered any information regarding how many people might use the park during the proposed closure, and who they might be.(U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton)

These residents already contend with cut-through traffic on the weekends, due to the closure of Beach Drive. (Senator Barbara A. Mikulski)

Van Hollen, Norton and Senator Paul Sarbanes also promised (amid some nice self-aggrandizing) that they could provide money for a complete and improved  trail (ostensibly to get cyclists off the road).

Western Maryland Rail Trail Extention

In October, Gov. Robert Ehrlich announced that Maryland would spend $5 million on a 4.5 mile extension of the Western Maryland Rail Trail. The new section will run from Pearre Station to Little Orleans, MD with access through a 4400 foot tunnel. The Western Maryland Railway ran all the way to Cumberland and the trail may eventually go that far - then it could connect with the Allegheny Highlands Trail. The AHTM is part of the Great Allegheny Passage, a combination of rail trails running from Cumberland to Pittsburgh. Connecting with the C&O canal tow path, they create a continuous trail from DC to Pittsburgh. I've ridden both the AHTM and the WMRT and they're both great. The latter is paved. On the former I saw a bear.  

9th annual Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Symposium

One Less Car is hosting the 9th annual Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Symposium in the Miller Office Building in Annapolis on Wednesday, February 8 2008.

Learn about the recently passed federal transportation bill SAFETU-LU and how it will affect transportation funding for Maryland, Safe Routes to School, bike-ped friendly roads, trails being planned and built, and legislation that will affect you as a bicyclist and pedestrian. Network with others who are working to make Maryland a better place for bicycling and walking. 

The day will also feature lobby visits with state legislators. Just let us know which district you live in and we will make an appointment for you to meet with your representatives.

You can sign up for it at their website.

Bicycle Transit System

I don't have a "crazy idea" category, so this one - which I got from Live from the Third Rail - will just have to be categoryless. The idea, from a company called Bicycle Transportation Systems, is to remove air resistance for cyclists and replace it with perpetual tailwinds using tunnels and fans powered by 150hp electric motors. They call it Transglide 2000.

They promise that the system

increases urban mobility while lowering every aspect of transportation costs. People and freight will be transported at speeds faster than light rail, buses, or motor vehicles at a fraction of current cost levels. This new strategy for mass transportation will make it possible to match the carrying capacities of rail systems at an affordable cost level. By lowering capital and operating costs this transit system will generate large profits and will not require continuous subsidies.

Here's a good review of the technological aspects. As much as I'd enjoy riding in something like this - or on a grade-separated, bicycle-only system for that matter - I think we have a better chance of driving hover cars than something like this.  We can't even get lights put up. We'll have to settle for tunnels like this and  this.

Trail Safe 1-2-3

Trail Safe 1-2-3 is the name of a pathway safety program started in Reston after a woman was assaulted on the W&OD trail.  It's been in effect for three years and has gone relatively unused. Hmm, let's see if we can figure out why.  Well for starters a search on "Trail Safe" Reston on Google turns up basically nothing on it - except that it the name of the program was changed to Park Safe and then Park Watch. OK so bad branding.

So let's see what the program doesn't do:

“Some lighting can aid, but it's not going to give you a guarantee of safety,” said Jones. She added that putting call boxes on the pathways poses the same problem depending on their location.

Reston Association President Jennifer Blackwell has opposed putting up lighting around the pathways.

So no lights and no callboxes.

So what does it do:

individuals can register with the Reston police, describing where they typically run on the pathways. The information is kept confidential and used only in emergency situations.

“This feature is used to give people an awareness of where they are running,” said Jones, acknowledging that not many people have signed up yet because they think their information may not be kept confidential.

What the %$#%? What kind of "awareness" are people being given exactly? And you're saying that people are afraid the government might not keep their information confidential? That's a shocker.

As near as I can tell all Trail Safe 1-2-3 does is tell the police where to look for your dead body when you haven't shown up to work in 1-2-3 days. How about this for Trail safety, have a bicycle cop ride the trail several times a day at unpredictable times - oh yeah and the lights and call boxes. Those seem good too.

Metro Buses

Someone recently pointed out that Metro buses were the scariest vehicles out there, and I concur. They're big enough to take up an entire lane and because they're picking up and dropping off, they're always over in a cyclists lane on the right hand side. Add to that less than ideal driving (the closest I ever came to being hit was by a metro bus whose driver was on a cell phone) and an inexplicable hatred (that grows more mutual everyday) that often leaves me feeling a bit like Mr. Mann in Duel and you have a recipe for disaster.

Now as a bus rider, I find the drivers to be normally pleasant and courteous, it's just when I'm out on the road with them that they seem to view me through the cross-hairs.

Still, I recently saw this and I knew it could be worse:

A man claims a TriMet bus driver nearly hit him and then let off a passenger who assaulted him, only to then let the attacker back on the bus and drive away.

I'd like to think that even a Metro bus driver wouldn't do that. The other good line from the article is this:

On the day of the incident, Albright - a cycling and mass transit advocate who commutes to work by bicycle in all types of weather - claims he was riding in traffic lanes because ice and gravel made the sidewalks and bike lanes unsafe.

That sounds familiar.

 

Biking Across America

AP reporter Calvin Woodward recently biked across the United States on the TransAmerica Trail. Starting here in DC, he biked down to catch the trail in Charlottesville and from there rode it all the way to Pueblo, CO and then to the Pacific on the Western Express Trail. Both trails are part of the Adventure Cycling Association's route system.

Crossing the country at 12 mph to 15 mph, loaded down, takes about three months. It's hard. This is an enormous country. Who knew? One astonishing thing about this trip is that it can be done at all in this day and age. In this land of congested suburbs, clogged highways and city clatter, it's possible to go from Washington, D.C., to the Pacific on roads less traveled.

It's a good little travel story. Another DC resident, author and journalist David Lamb, rode his bike across country and wrote a book about it that's received mixed reviews.

Besides the routes on the ACA's page two other cross country trails/routes pass through the DC area. The American Discovery Trail - which differs from the TransAmerica because it tries to use only trails, crosses the Bay Bridge, connects to the Anacostia Trails, and then hooks up with the C&O via Rock Creek Park. The East Coast Greenway, the "urban Appalachian Trail", crosses Arlington Memorial Bridge and the mall before escaping DC on the Met Branch Trail.