President Obama’s Bike Lanes
By spokesman | March 11, 2010
Dedicated bicycle lanes are going to be created on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. between the White House and the Capitol Building. These new lanes, as reported in the Washington Post, will run down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue. The lanes will be separated from car lanes by removable posts and traffic signals will be modified so that bicyclists will be able to enter and exit the lanes safely. These new lanes will be part of a network of dedicated lanes in the downtown area. Additional bike lanes will be established on two one ways streets (I St and L St) by dedicating the left most lane for cyclists. An existing dedicated lane on 15th street will be extended to reach the new lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue. The 15th street lane is separated from traffic by plastic posts. The I street and L street lanes will be painted lanes but may eventually have permanent barriers. This dedicated network of bicycle lanes will significantly improve bicycle commuting. I believe that they will also be popular with tourists and weekend cyclists. These lanes are in addition to the 44 miles of painted bike lanes in the District. The bike lanes on Pennsylvania Ave use lanes that were once used for street cars as can be seen in photos below.
View of Pennsylvania Ave From 9th Street with street cars - 1909
President Coolidge Inaugural Parade on Pennsylvania Ave - 1925 (Notice the street car tracks)
Street Car on Pennsylvania Ave - 1959
Obama Inaugural Parade on Pennsylvania Ave - 2009 - (Note: the street car tracks are gone)
These dedicated bicycle lanes are extremely important. While bicyclists have the right to use the road, safety concerns prevent many people from bike commuting. The addition of dedicated bike lanes; ones where cars can’t double park and cyclists don’t have to worry about car doors of parked cars opening in their path; will greatly increase the number of commuters. Washington D.C. has the potential to be a city with a large number of bicycle commuters. The population downtown has grown and many people lives within a close ride of their office. The weather is mild most of the year. Traffic is terrible, so bike commuting would save time for many people.
These lanes will be seen by visitors from all over the country. Hopefully, it will spur some of them to ask why there aren’t similar lanes in their cities and get involved as advocates for better biking facilities.
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Topics: Trails/Bike Routes, Washington DC | 1 Comment »
Google Maps Adds Directions For Bicyclists
By spokesman | March 10, 2010
Google Maps has added a new feature that give directions for bicyclists in the United States. The new feature is described in this video. I tried it out for several routes in my neighborhood. It was pretty good, but had a tendency to include some roads with heavy traffic when there were parallel roads with less traffic. Never-the-less, this will be a great feature to use when biking in a new town or planning a tour. The map highlights bike paths and route in green so that you can see other options in the area.
I tried to map a route from Washington D.C. to San Francisco CA. The suggested bike route had 1549 turns and is 3163 miles. Google estimated that you could complete the ride in 11 days and 12 hours. They did not assume a casual tour for this trip with an average daily mileage of over 250 miles per day. If you drive, the suggested route is 2826 miles and you can complete it in 1 day and 20 hours. If you walk, the route is 2850 miles and you can complete it in 37 days and 15 hours.
Adding biking directions to Google Maps had been a requested feature for quite some time. I guess now that the Google employees don’t feel as safe driving their fleet of Toyota Priuses, they are starting to bike more.
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Topics: Bicycle Websites | No Comments »
National Bike Summit
By spokesman | March 8, 2010
The 10th annual National Bike Summit will be held in Washington D.C. from March 9-11. The summit is sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists. The two day event focuses on bike advocacy and includes education workshops to train people to advocate on behalf of bicycle related issues. We live in a car-centric country and it takes strong advocacy to get bike trails, lanes, paths and facilities. (see my blog post entitled “An Absurd Ending To The ICC Bike Path” as an example of what can go wrong when there isn’t enough bicycle advocacy around an issue). The event includes meetings on Capitol Hill with members of Congress to lobby for bicycle related legislation. There will be a Congressional bike ride on Friday morning March 12. Information about the bike ride is on the Bike Summit website.
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Topics: Bicycle Event, Bikes and Politics | No Comments »
Vanilla Bicycles Follow-up
By spokesman | March 7, 2010
Last week, at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Richmond, I had the opportunity to speak with Sacha White of Vanilla Bicycles. I had written about Vanilla Bicycles last April after reading an article in Forbes magazine about the company.
I asked Sacha about the Forbes article and the response to it. He was happy with the article. In particular, he was pleased with how the article portrayed his business. It used a different definition of success than the typical measures (revenues, profit, growth) used in most Forbes articles. Not that Vanilla isn’t successful, but Forbes usually focuses on much larger businesses. The article recognized that Vanilla is a business and not just an artistic endeavour, but growth at all costs or growth by sacrificing quality is not an option. Sacha wants to be successful building beautiful bikes for a limited number of customers. And on the subject of beautiful bicycles, as I looked at the bicycles that Sacha had at the show, I commented that some of the commuter bikes were my favorites. They had classic styling but modern features. I live about 1 mile from both a train station and a new Whole Foods so I am in the market for a commuter/errand bicycle. One of those commuters would be the perfect for me except they are far to nice to leave locked up. I think that I am going to stick with a Craigslist beater bike.
Here is a link to a video of Sacha discussing a bicycle that he built for his daughter. It won the Bicycle Of The Day Award on the last day of the Handmade Bicycle Show in Richmond.
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Topics: Bicycles | No Comments »
Vasa Ride at the Swedish Embassy on Sunday
By spokesman | March 5, 2010
The Embassy Of Sweden will sponsor a bicycle ride this Sunday (3/7/10) as part of their celebration of Vasaloppet, Sweden’s famous ski race and festival. The ride is co-sponsored with the Washington Area Bicycle Association (WABA). There are 3 different ride options - 14,28 or 56 miles. There will be Blueberry Soup at the end of the ride. Full details are provided on the WABA website.
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Topics: Washington DC | 1 Comment »