Ten For Tuesday- We differ on the definition of "perfectly lovely"

1. I did recently write that WABA is not technically an environmental group and then they went and joined the DC environmental network and made me look like a liar. Anyway the network is sponsoring a mayoral candidate forum this Thursday, so if you're a DC voter it's your chance to meet Michael Brown, Linda Cropp and Adrian Fenty.

Thursday June 29, 6:30-9:00pm
Cramton Auditorium, Howard University
2455 6th St. NW

2. In other WABA news, WABA's providing valet bike parking on the mall during the 4th of July. This should be similar to the Cherry Blossom festival parking. I didn't go to that but it looked a bit like triathlon parking with a secure area for bikes. I've gone to the mall for the fireworks a half dozen times and I have to say that biking is really the only way to go. Traffic is insane. Certain gates become overwhelmed and others are unused. On a bike you can ride to one of the unused ones. Last year we were with some people who decided to take the bus and it was an hour difference both ways.

3. Dr. Gridlock has retired (or more accurately Ron Shaffer, who created the Dr. Gridlock column two decades ago - he will probably be replaced much like James Bond). I know many complained about his column; that it was anti-transit or anti-bike, but it was always thought provoking. Maybe they'll hire Richard Layman to write the column from now on.

Speaking of Dr. Gridlock here's an exchange where his explanation of biking behavior, and law, is right on. Still I would like a Dr. Gridlock who, at least occasionally, rides a bike on the major commuter routes - so that they don't have to rely on what "bikers have told" them. 

Rockville, Md.: I drive along Beach Drive, and I am always vigilant for bike riders (I used to bike to work at the National Zoo years ago). Someone, please! explain to me WHY in the WORLD bike riders are insisting upon riding in the road when there is a perfectly lovely bike path provided. I mean, when it's part of the road--I understand--but this is SCARY. At 4 p.m. there are VERY VERY FEW pedestrians--I can SEE the open bike path!

I just do NOT get it.

Dr. Gridlock: Bikers have told me in the past that the bike path is in poor shape, with craters, and walkers/joggers/dogs so that they feel safer in the roadway, which they are entitled to use.

4. Mark McCormack, 35, became the first American since 2003 to win the CSC Invitational, the region's most prestigious cycling race.

5. I'm embarassed to admit that I don't know who Bill Rice is, but I feel like I should. Rice is running for the Ward 3 Council seat. Here's an article about him from the Examiner.

I first met Rice when he was covering D.C. politics for local weekly papers. Back in the 1980s, two men would arrive at political events on funky bicycles: Dave Clarke and Bill Rice. Both were a bit, ummm, shall we say, quirky.

Sounds like my kind of guy (this is not an endorsement - like I said I don't know him) the post said this

You can see him riding around town on his bicycle but [he] should be taken seriously.

What the ...? I don't like what they're insinuating.

6. Construction on the Bethesda Avenue/Woodmont Avenue bumpout started on April 20th and from what I saw last week it's basically complete (see photo)

7. Baltimore isn't the only city promoting a new bike plan. As RPUS pointed out, Chicago is too. Chicago is really becoming one of the great cycling cities in America. Here's the Chicago Times article.

From Geneva, Switzerland, they got the idea of raised bike lanes, a layer of pavement above street level and below the curb that would help dissuade motorists from veering into cycling territory. By 2010, the city hopes to experiment with raised lanes in a few locations.

In Copenhagen, Cambridge and other places, planners saw bicycle lanes colored a startling shade of teal green, thermoplastic markings they hope to duplicate at some Chicago intersections to try to warn right-turning cars to watch for bikes.

Of course, he said, cars are not the only deterrent: "Try to get a girl to go on a date with you on a bike."

Chicago has the new Millennium Park Bike Station - that's my model for the Dupont Circle Bike Station.

8. Arlington is looking to add bike rentals.

The new staff members also will help to set up kiosks in Rosslyn, Clarendon and Ballston to enliven the streets with such ventures as bike rentals and flower and ice cream sales.

9. $250,000 was set aside in the federal fiscal 2007 Transportation Budget for the Four Mile Run pedestrian and bike trail between Alexandria and Arlington

10. An essay in the Post on fixies.

Fixed-gear bikes, aka fixies, are those clean-looking city steeds you often see messengers riding, the ones without multiple gears or even, in some cases, brakes. The gear is "fixed," meaning that if the wheels are turning, so are the pedals -- no coasting allowed.

11. And finally there is this. I knew something had happened because so many people were googling my site looking for this.

Paul Gerard Rossmeissl, 54, an experimental psychologist who became a quality control expert, died June 7 at Inova Fairfax Hospital of injuries suffered three days earlier in a bicycle accident on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.

A spokeswoman with the Fairfax County Police Department said Dr. Rossmeissl was biking near Hunter Mill Road when he hit a pedestrian, fell and struck his head.

There aren't any other details. It's unusual for a cyclist to die in a crash with a pedestrian. I'm curious as to how it happened. Was he wearing a helmet? How fast was he going? Regardless, I think this is the W&OD's fifth fatal accident.

Terrible Loss

Last Friday, I was biking home and I noticed that Soil Conservation Road - which runs through the Goddard Space Flight Center - was closed down, but I had no idea why and assumed it was part of the road construction for the realignment going on. It was only this week that I learned that one of my co-workers, Dr. Yoram Kaufman was hit while riding his bike just north of the guard gates. He was in a coma most of the week and on Wednesday he passed away.

Yoram was a brilliant senior scientist and a highly regarded and well-liked member of the Earth-Sun Exploration Division. A Senior Fellow, Yoram was the Project Scientist for Terra through its launch, worked on MODIS and other earth science projects, and developed methods for remote sensing of fires and aerosols.   He wrote or co-authored over 170 scientific papers.

His family set up a website for those concerned about his state and they have an accident description. The only real description of the accident comes from the driver who claims it wasn't her fault, but for an experienced cyclist - the accident sounds unusual.

According to the driver, as she moved her vehicle across the double yellow line to get around Dad, he turned his head, noticed the oncoming vehicle, was startled, and collided with it.

Soil Conservation Road is a two lane road with about 6 inches of shoulder. Drivers drive at high speed and at rush hour it can be very crowded. Back when NASA was working on it's facilities master plan (the report itself is not online - or at least I couldn't find it) I remember going to one of the meetings and listening to them talk about the plan. Right now Goddard has 97 parking spaces for every 100 employees. They have a mandate to get that down to 90. They were talking about how difficult it would be to get to 90. Someone suggested encouraging cycling. They complained that since Goddard was bordered on the north by the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center it would be difficult to get to 90, since few people would bike from the north. Someone pointed out that if Soil Conservation road had wider shoulders people would. The designer's response (this is all from memory from year's ago - so I want to point out I could be wrong) was basically that the county only required 1-foot shoulders and so that's what they would provide. With other roads they held the same “only what the county requires" attitude. So they were only going to do the minimum.

I'm not saying that this contributed to the accident last Friday, construction is just now going on so any changes made then would not be implemented yet, but I doubt the accident would have happened had there been wider shoulders (and I believe the road is a county designated bike route - so one can't say he shouldn't have been there).

If Goddard continues the realignment without improving cycling facilities, but expects to get 10% of employees out of their cars then I fear this is only going to be the first such accident.