Does riding on Jan 23rd make you a jackball?

[Rod Smith]

YAY! I won the jackball award! 34 miles!

I got in the way of plows many times. I don’t think the drivers cared. It didn’t stop them from keeping every street in Brentwood rideable all night and all day long. No one else was using the roads so I assumed they were doing it for me. Hey if the plow drivers got an extra 10 minutes of overtime pay because of me that’s my way of rewarding them for the awesome job they did!

[cvcalhoun]

@PotomacCyclist 133139 wrote:

It wouldn’t have been possible to drag a bike onto the sidewalk yesterday, at least on the roads in Pentagon City and Crystal City. As I mentioned earlier, the initial snowplow runs pushed the early snow onto the sides of the streets, creating snowbanks from 2 to 7 feet high. Even where there weren’t any artificial snowbanks, the rest of the curbs were buried under 10-20 inches of snow. There’s no way any cyclist is going to be able to move onto the sidewalk quickly in those conditions.

In the mid-afternoon, when a new storm wave rolled in, the wind was whipping around the snow. Visibility was extremely poor. I was walking on the sidewalk for a couple brief periods. I don’t think I would have heard a snowplow with all that wind hitting my face and creating a roar. All the sounds would have blended together. If I would have been riding, I would have been focused on maintaining my balance and I would have been distracted by the sound of the wind and all those ice pellets hitting my face.

These are a few photos of the conditions, taken while I was walking around on the nearby sidewalks (not in the street). I really don’t think it would have been safe for anyone to have been biking or driving yesterday. When I was walking around, I only saw one driver (other than the snowplows) and one cyclist (who later returned down the street with his dog on a leash).

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Perhaps my view was skewed by the fact the plows never came at all yesterday. So if one had come, there wouldn’t have been a lot of extra snow on the curb to prevent dragging a bicycle up there. (The snow that fell was soft and light enough that it have been possible to drag a bike through it.)

[PotomacCyclist]

@Rod Smith 133148 wrote:

YAY! I won the jackball award! 34 miles!

I got in the way of plows many times. I don’t think the drivers cared. It didn’t stop them from keeping every street in Brentwood rideable all night and all day long. No one else was using the roads so I assumed they were doing it for me. Hey if the plow drivers got an extra 10 minutes of overtime pay because of me that’s my way of rewarding them for the awesome job they did!

I think it would have been a different story if there were a lot of cyclists or car drivers out there though. If they had to slow down 10 minutes each time for dozens of drivers or riders, that would have been a problem. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be too many on the roads during the worst of the storm.

I know this is probably not the most popular sentiment here, but there are still a lot of streets for the snowplow drivers to cover. If there had been a lot of minor delays, that could have combined into significant delays for the overall snow removal operation.

[Rod Smith]

Brentwood is a special case. Blizzards are not emergencies here.

[dkel]

@Rod Smith 133212 wrote:

Brentwood is a special case. Blizzards are not emergencies here.

Neither in Falls Church City, where our street (a small side street) was plowed many times during the storm. Some side streets and cross streets were left unplowed for longer periods, but generally speaking, the streets in the neighborhood were maintained well, and the many pedestrians out during the storm seemed not to impact the plowing effort at all. A blanket statement that venturing from one’s house was an irresponsible thing to do is unwarranted.

[PotomacCyclist]

If people in every neighborhood were walking in the street during the storm, then yes, that would have slowed down plowing operations significantly. Even if a blanket statement doesn’t quite fit every particular situation, the general statement and recommendations from officials were the smart choice. (As for the anti-gov’t folks, there were no official bans so the “nanny state” complaints are not relevant here.) A blanket statement that walking/driving/biking in the streets during the storm was not wise or helpful was warranted. People could decide if they felt the recommendation didn’t apply to their particular neighborhood. But if that happened in most neighborhoods, then the plows would have been slowed down a lot.

Pentagon City has major commuter/arterial streets as well as a large residential population. If a lot of people were walking in the streets, that would have hampered the snowplow drivers. The high snowbanks would have also made intersections hazardous, especially during the many hours when the snow was blowing around at 20-25 mph. I didn’t see the Orange Line corridor or Columbia Pike this weekend, but those are similar situations: arterial and important commuter roads and large numbers of residents nearby. Same thing in other areas in Arlington, DC and other suburbs. Perhaps not in every neighborhood of every suburb or in DC, but enough where a general recommendation to stay off the streets made a lot of sense. It still makes sense today when so many roads, bikeshare stations and parking lots are still covered in snow.

The situation has improved. Some of the road lanes and sidewalks here now appear to be completely clear of snow, although not all road lanes are cleared. But the bikeshare stations are still buried and unusable. I suspect that is the case for most of the bike stations in the region. It’s sunny out but I see relatively few people walking or driving. (Maybe there are more on some other blocks.)

I might head out again today but I will stay on the sidewalks except when I’m crossing in crosswalks. I don’t think I’ll bike today because I don’t want all that snow, slush and salt to cover up the bike, and CaBi is still out of service. Plus there are still snowplows passing by and there’s no way to get out of their way, not with the 2 to 7-ft high snowbanks lining most of the roads here.

I’m not confident that CaBi will be available tomorrow either, because many of the stations will still be buried in snow. CaBi doesn’t have that many employees. Unless they get help from local transportation and snow-clearing departments or volunteers, I don’t see how they can get all of the stations clear by tomorrow. Maybe not even on Wednesday. I’ve thought about helping to clear a nearby station but that’s not practical. I don’t have a shovel. (I live in a building, so I’m not individually responsible for clearing the sidewalk. All of the nearby sidewalks already seem to be cleared down to the concrete anyway. They were running snowblowers throughout the weekend.) There’s also a horizontal stretch of snow out to five feet away from the bike station. So I would have to shovel a 50 or 60 square foot area to make the station usable. And I would have to carry that snow about 20 feet if I don’t want to dump all that snow onto the road lane. Plus that entire bank appears to be at least 2 feet high because of the snowplow runs. And I would have to dodge the passing snowplows to do any of this. As much as I’d like to help, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea at this point. (But maybe if I work from the sidewalk side. I can’t clear that entire area, but maybe I could clear a bit from the area immediately next to the station.)

NOTE – The word used in the thread title was not mine, nor would it be my choice. I don’t think people who rode were “jackballs” or even “jerks.” But I do think it was best to recommend that people not ride or drive or walk in the streets over the weekend. I think that recommendation still applies today.

[DismalScientist]

I could lie down and take a nap in the middle of the street in fonnt of my house and can feel quite confident that I won’t get run over until February.

[mstone]

In my mind the question would be, “if I got into trouble, would I end up needing to call the overloaded emergency services for assistance?”

[dkel]

@PotomacCyclist 133217 wrote:

People could decide if they felt the recommendation didn’t apply to their particular neighborhood.

But not without lots of admonitions and finger-wagging from some. :rolleyes:

[Author]

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