WABA Quick Release

Archive for November, 2010

A few weeks ago, bike enthusiasts and professionals from across the Washington region came together for the ThinkBike Workshops hosted by the Royal Netherlands Embassy, MWCOG and DDOT. Attendees included urban planners, engineers, bicycle and pedestrian coordinators, local and regional business owners as well as WABA and other bike advocates. The two-day workshops brought Dutch bicycle transportation experts to American cities to examine and encourage increased bike-ability in the US.  Other ThinkBike workshops have taken place this year in NYC, Chicago and Toronto.  Long known for its expertise and development of safe and practical urban bicycling, The Netherlands leads the world in bicycling-as-transportation (over 30% of trips are by bicycle) and has a lot to teach the US about promoting bicycling.

The workshops kicked off with a public session on Monday morning. Dutch Ambassador Mrs. Renee Jones-Bos and DDOT Director Gabe Klein each addressed the audience on the importance of increasing bike-ability in DC for advancing livability, reducing environmental impact, promoting healthy lifestyles and growing economic competitiveness.  The three Dutch transportation experts, Coor van der Klaauw (City of Groningen), Willem Bosch (City Zwolle) and Herbert Tiemens (Town of Houten) gave presentations on the general state of bicycling in The Netherlands.  A few impressive nuggets from the presentations included that bicyclists in The Netherlands live 3 years longer than non-cyclists, and work absenteeism rates are 10% – 15% less compared to non-bicyclists.  In addition, operating an automobile COSTS $.40 per mile whereas operating a bicycle GAINS $.19 per mile when you consider the economic, health and other impacts of each.

Following the opening session, workshop attendees where split into two teams of 12 members and assigned specific focus-areas of DC to study and make recommendations for possible improvements.  One team focused on the L St. NW and M St. NW corridors between Georgetown and Union Station.  The other team focused on the Southeast and Southwest waterfront areas bounded by the 395 freeway and the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.  Both teams took to their bikes and rode through the focus areas to get an on-street perspective for possible improvements. The first day ended with a short brainstorming session and general recommendations for the focus areas.

The second day, teams spent a majority of their time doing detailed renderings of redesigned intersections, street elevations and lane configurations, and other improvements such as wayfinding and “green wave” traffic light coordination. The Dutch transportation experts held a separate session about accompanying education, enforcement, communication, outreach and encouragement practices, as well as policy recommendations based on Dutch experience.  Recommendations included: enforcement effectiveness tools, parking and carpooling policies, required bicycle and pedestrian education in school, and better outreach to underserved communities.

The final closing session, held at the Columbus Club on Tuesday evening, focused on the final recommendations.    Congressional Representatives Tom Petry (R-Wisconsin) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) and DDOT Director Gabe Klein addressed the audience about the need to support bicycling in these difficult times of tight budgets, increasing rates of obesity and auto-dependence.

Overall, it was exciting and encouraging to bring the local bicycling community together with Dutch experts to dream big about increasing bicycling in the Washington region.  A huge thank you goes to the Royal Dutch Embassy, MWCOG and DDOT for hosting the event!

Read the Final Presentation (PDF – 10MB).

Please forward this posting to any personal injury or traffic attorneys in your network who might represent cyclists and want to be included on a referral sheet/directory compiled by WABA.  Find the survey for attorneys HERE.

One of the truly surprising things about working at WABA is the number of calls we get from cyclists in need of legal advice.  It’s not surprising that we get calls, but the number is shocking.

At WABA, we provide general advice on how to handle a crash, but we do not provide individual legal advice.  Rather, we want to refer those who call us to a qualified lawyer.  And we have a number of go-to folks who have served our members well.

But as we are increasing our presence on the internet and elsewhere, we are getting more and more calls from non-members who simply find us online and hope that we can help. So we need to have a better referral system, and we need to know what attorneys in the District, Maryland, and Virginia have expertise in cycling-related cases.

Alison, one of our dedicated office volunteers, is working the phones to law firms in the area and has created a simple survey to evaluate their bike law experience.  We hope to make the information provided available to our members and to cyclists in need of bike law advice.  But in addition to Alison’s calls,we’ve provided the survey here in hopes that our readers and members will forward this to attorneys they know.

The direct link to the survey can be found HERE.

(And of course it should go without saying that we provide the best advice we can to all who contact us, whether members or not.   But if you count on us to be your source of information in a pinch, we’d appreciate your becoming a member or donating.  It’s those dues and donations that ensure we’ll be here when you need us.)

WABA Holiday Party!

Thursday, December 9 , 6-9pm

Location: Dodge City Bar, 917 U St. NW Washington DC, 20001

Join WABA as we celebrate the holiday season with drinks and merriment at Dodge City. This members-only holiday party is your chance to meet other WABA members, catch up with your riding buddies, and celebrate WABA’s achievements in 2010! Dodge City has a delicious variety of microbrews on tap for your selection. Dodge City does not serve food, so please feel free to bring your favorite holiday treat to share!

WABA’s Holiday Party is for current WABA members only (please bring your card ready to present at the door). WABA memberships will be sold at the door making it the perfect holiday gift for your cycling friends. There will be a $5 suggested donation.

At yesterday’s Bike/Ped Subcommittee meeting, newly-elected chair Kristen Haldeman from WMATA announced the completion of a draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements study which is to be presented to the WMATA board in January. The most exciting element of this study is WMATA’s proposal to adopt a bicycling mode share goal which would triple the current share by 2020. As recently as 2007, only .7% of Metro riders arrive at the station system-wide by bike, compared to 33% by walking. Of course, some stations have a much higher bicycling arrival rate, like NIH/Medical Center, which tops the list. But, unfortunately, most other stations have almost no riders arriving by bike. Because building vehicle parking garages for the projected one million additional riders by 2030 is cost-prohibitive, Metro has to adopt more bicycle-friendly strategies. To achieve this goal, Metro has plans to provide more secure bicycling storage areas to encourage cyclists to leave their bike at the station all day. A lack of secure bike parking facilities was the number one complaint for passengers in the latest survey. Metro will be piloting different ideas for solutions to this ever-present problem including bike cages and additional security cameras in the coming months. WABA has offered to host a visioning session with WMATA bike parking staff to brainstorm on how best to accommodate more cyclists and their bikes safely and securely, and how WABA members can advocate and support WMATA’s increased bike share goal.

WABA staff and volunteers will be hitting the streets tonight from 4pm to 6:30pm to give out free bike lights!  Stop by on your commute home and get a new set of blinky red & white lights for your bike.  Staff and volunteers will only be putting lights on bikes without lights to ensure they go where they will do the most good.  If you have the means to purchase your own set, please do so and allow our lights to be used by those who cannot (Read this post for more about our change in strategy for giving away lights). Remember: a front white light and a red rear light (or a red reflector) are required by DC law!  Find the lights at the following places:

Locations (exact times and locations may vary)

• Columbia Heights (14th St NW north of DCUSA)
• Mt Pleasant (near 16th & Mt Pleasant St NW)
• 11th St NW (near Cardozo HS)
• Capital Hill (East Capital St & 4th St NE and Pennsylvania Ave & Potomac Ave SE)
• Mt. Vernon Convention Center & Northeast DC (near the Metropolitan Branch Trail & Brookland)

The free bike light giveaway is sponsored by DDOT with support from District Hardware!

When you bike at night /Cuando andas en bicicleta en la oscuridad…

Got Lights?/¿Tienen Luces?
FREE Lights for cyclists/Luces para bicicleta GRATIS

You must bring a bicycle to get a free set of lights./Tiene que traer bicicleta para obtener un par de luces gratis.

Mon/Lunes – November 22
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
St. Anthony’s
Catholic Church
3305 Glen Carlyn Road
Falls Church, VA 22041
View Larger Map

Sponsored by/patrocinado por: Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB), Transurban, and Fluor.

Sometimes you just need a little extra push in the right direction.   If you’ve ever been curious in an electric bike is right for you or are already thinking about purchasing one, join WABA today (if you haven’t already) to take advantage of this amazing deal.   E+ Electric Bikes in Reston now offer a FREE TUNE UP to WABA members and $400 off electronic bikes.  If that doesn’t get you revved up for the holidays, what will?

Here is the full text of WABA’s testimony to the Zoning Commission on the proposed bicycle parking regulations. To testify, hurry down to 441 4th Street, NW. The hearing begins at 6:30.

Bike Parking ZC Testimony (Final)

What do you get when you mix a sunny holiday, a cargo bike, and a couple hundred lights to give away?  At WABA, you get an 8-ward ride handing out lights to cyclists who don’t have them.

Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the holiday and just ride around the city installing lights for cyclists who didn’t have them.  To make it a bit more fun, I set a goal of installing a light in every ward.  It turned out to be less challenging and more fun than I had expected.

I left from the WABA office, headed north, then generally worked my way around the city in a counter-clockwise loop.

Highlights:

• Group of kids at King Greenleaf Rec Center who saw me give lights to one person, then ran to get everyone in the neighborhood who rode a bike at night without lights.  They drew a decent crowd.
• James, the veteran who bikes to and from work daily because he says the Metro costs too much and the bus is too slow.  He was riding his backup bike that didn’t have any lights because he needs a new rear derailleur for his main bike.
• Reggie, the handyman who’s expecting a slowdown in work this winter and is interested in helping WABA to install bike racks during his downtime.
• Keisha & Nelson, on their way to the zoo on the nice day.  Nelson’s bike has a Hot Wheels machine that makes engine noises as he goes.  Now he has front and rear lights as well.
• Al, who lives near Benning & Minnesota but works in a restaurant in Adams Morgan and bike commutes daily.
• Lowlight: The young mother with a toddler in a stroller outside the Anacostia Metro who had read about recent incidents where strollers were struck by cars asking if she could have a light for her stroller.

Thanks again to BicycleSPACE for providing the Kona Ute to carry everything around and to DDOT and District Hardware/The Bike Shop for the lights.

Wednesday night’s Bradley Boulevard Public Meeting was fundamentally about the potential configurations of 4 items in a redesign of Bradley Boulevard from Wilson to Goldsboro:

1. an 8′ shared-use trail;

2. a northern sidewalk; and

3. a southern sidewalk.

Roughly a year after the last presentation of design alternatives (numbered 1, 2, and 3) to the public, MCDOT presented 3 revisions (4a, 4b, and 4c).  These revisions were various combinations and/or moderations of the original 3 alternatives.  All variations  include bikeable shoulders and a vegetated bioswale to meet the County’s environmentally sensitive design requirements, as well as stormwater quality and quantity regulations.

• Alternative 4a:

Includes an 8′ shared-use path, bikeable shoulders on both sides of the roadway, and a sidewalk on both sides of the roadway.  The 12′ path from the original alternatives has been reduced to 8′.  And this is the only alternative containing any shared-use path.

• Alternative 4b:

Includes sidewalk on both sides of the roadway with bikeable shoulders, but no shared-use path.

• Alternative 4c:

Includes sidewalk on the north side of the boulevard only, with a bikeable shoulder on both sides.

After a brief introduction of the project team by project team leader Pat Shepherd, the community took a few moments to ask general questions before breaking up into smaller groups to review the individual cross-sections.  The primary concerns expressed during this period related motor vehicle volume and whether this project would increase traffic along the roadway.  Concerns were expressed about the roadway being widened.

Ms. Shepherd clarified that the roadway was not being widened, but that a left turn lane is proposed to be added at Wilson Lane, where the level of service is currently “F” and there are frequently rear-end collisions with drivers trying to turn left, as well as  increased maintenance needs and significant dangers to cyclists from motorists passing left-turning vehicles on the right shoulder.

Given the existing high volume of bicycle traffic along this stretch of Bradley Boulevard, as well as the potential that exists to link this neighborhood to the CCT, the Bethesda Trolley Trail, the C&O Towpath, and the retail and job opportunities in Bethesda, WABA supports the alternative that includes the shared-use path.  While all options are likely to improve conditions for cyclists, shared-use paths are more accessible for many.

Thus, WABA supports alternative 4a.  It provides the greatest improvement for bicyclists and pedestrians, and does the most to contribute to a truly multi-modal, walkable, bikeable neighborhood.

All are encouraged to send comments to Aruna Miller and Pat Shepherd.  (And they do count and consider them.  They noted that they received 140 comments after the last public meeting.)

You can send an email supporting Alternative 4a, which includes the shared-use path, HERE.

Further information about the project can be found HERE under “Bradley Boulevard Bikeway.”