(Clarendon) Orange is the New Black

[dasgeh]

I have no idea, but have you tried Virginia Square? Seems like it would be easier and can’t be too far out of your way.

You could also probably bike to bus, bike on bus, then bike to work.

[PotomacCyclist]

I don’t know about Clarendon but I’m all too familiar with the empty downtown/Dupont Circle stations in the evenings.

Motivate/CaBi has started operating morning bike corrals at 13th & NY Ave and in Foggy Bottom, to handle the issue of full stations in the AM. Many people have been asking for a reverse corral, where they manage to bring extra bikes to the downtown stations before the PM peak. This hasn’t happened yet but it’s on the radar.

Until it happens, the only thing you can do is check bike availability before heading out. Check the Capital Bikeshare website and/or the Spotcycle app. At least you’ll get a sense for where you can find bikes as dasgeh suggested. Some of the other Orange Line stations might have more bikes in the evenings. You could check the website/Spotcycle for a few days before and see what the bike/station patterns are like each day at 5:30 pm or whenever you leave work.

[elbows]

I have been riding this pattern route 1 or 2 nights a week for 1.5 years and it is only lately that I see Clarendon emptying and I make alternate plans. I do check spotcycle (ridiculously often). I’m mentioning it because I’m worried that Clarendon is going to become like width swath of DC stations which are regularly empty in the evening.

[S. Arlington Observer]

@elbows 120668 wrote:

I searched for a discussion of this and missed it so apologies if I am restarting something that has been completely dissected. I ride CaBi but am an ignoramus. Anyway, I’m finding that Clarendon is starting to be the new area where I can’t count on a bicycle in the evening. I used to easily get a bike there when I took the Orange line and now I often don’t. Or I see that there is one bike, which often means the bike is unrideable but still on spotcycle. I’m often coming from the Dupont-Logan area or DC where obtaining a bicycle already requires a couple of blocks walking in the wrong direction due to many empty stations.

(My pattern, if you care, is one or two nights a week I CaBi to Orange line, metro, and then CaBi home. I already have to walk several blocks from the CaBi station, so walking several blocks to get a bike twice is pushing my time to get home to annoyingly inefficient levels.)

Is a lack of bikes around the Orange line in Clarendon a pattern others have observed or discussed?

Not sure if it will help you, but it is only about .7 of a mile between Courthouse Metro and Clarendon Metro. There are usually bikes at Courthouse and at at least three racks very close to the Metro station. If heading outbound, getting on a bike at Courthouse instead of Clarendon will only add about 4 or 5 minutes to one’s commute. (And using Key Boulevard allows one to avoid Wilson Boulevard, though I don’t find the ride – with its dedicated bike lane – to be particularly dangerous.)

[Author]

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