My Evening Commute

[scoot]

@Guus 123817 wrote:

Quincy/Washington crossing, going north

This is a badly designed road, and the markings are misleading and dangerous. The bike lane should either completely end before the Wash Blvd intersection (with merging and sharrows markings), or at the very least it should be a right-turn only bike lane at the intersection (with all bikes going straight or left merging before the intersection). Then it should be marked as a sharrows from the WashBlvd intersection all the way up to 14th St N; the marked bike lanes are in the door zones and are therefore useless.

I recommend merging into the northbound vehicle traffic ahead of the intersection, and then taking the center of the lane until you pass the last parked car. That way you won’t lure impatient drivers into attempting dangerous passes. If anyone honks, blame the traffic engineers.

[Guus]

@scoot 123826 wrote:

I recommend merging into the northbound vehicle traffic ahead of the intersection, and then taking the center of the lane until you pass the last parked car. That way you won’t lure impatient drivers into attempting dangerous passes. If anyone honks, blame the traffic engineers.

I know, I know, that would be the safest. But I feel it’s unfair — because I’m not fast by any means. I know that two cars can safely cross the intersection before the point that I need to merge into traffic. If I merge into the northbound lane before crossing that means everybody will have to wait for me.

Personally, I would like to see the bike lane on the northside extended to the crossing so no merging of bicycles and cars is needed at all. It would require eliminating three parking spaces on the street.

[scoot]

@Guus 123831 wrote:

I know that two cars can safely cross the intersection before the point that I need to merge into traffic. If I merge into the northbound lane before crossing that means everybody will have to wait for me.

I know exactly what you’re talking about, because I’ve tried that before. The problem is that you might initially see two cars waiting, but then it can quickly become many more that are whipping past, and you’re stuck.

Personally, I would like to see the bike lane on the northside extended to the crossing so no merging of bicycles and cars is needed at all. It would require eliminating three parking spaces on the street.

Unless you remove ALL of the parking spaces, you’d still have the door zone problem and need to merge into the lane at some point anyway.

[bobco85]

Considering the conversion from bike lane to sharrows on the north end of the Quincy St/Washington Blvd, the south side of this intersection would be a great candidate for the addition of a bike box.

@Guus 123831 wrote:

I know, I know, that would be the safest. But I feel it’s unfair — because I’m not fast by any means. I know that two cars can safely cross the intersection before the point that I need to merge into traffic. If I merge into the northbound lane before crossing that means everybody will have to wait for me.

I experience the same, too, with about 2 cars passing before I am in a position to take the lane. I understand the empathy to not want to slow others down, but I always remember to repeat the following mantra in these types of discussions involving the issue of “Cyclists are slowing down traffic!”:

Safety > Convenience

Also, I keep the following subtext in mind as well: “Ugh, that jerk’s in my way!” > “I didn’t even see him.”

[dasgeh]

@Guus 123817 wrote:

Was a little scary… a car only left 2 inches of space between us when passing me at the Quincy/Washington crossing, going north.

Often I can bicycle in the parking spaces there but now they were in use, by cars and a big pile of garden waste.

Please report this to the non-emergency number in Arlington, or via twitter @arlingtonvapd. I’ve been trying to get enforcement of the 3-foot rule there, and more voices asking for it would help.

[dasgeh]

@scoot 123839 wrote:

Unless you remove ALL of the parking spaces, you’d still have the door zone problem and need to merge into the lane at some point anyway.

ALL of the bike lanes in Quincy have the door zone problem (ok, most. There are some, like on the bridge, that are not beside parked cars)

[scoot]

@dasgeh 123857 wrote:

ALL of the bike lanes in Quincy have the door zone problem (ok, most. There are some, like on the bridge, that are not beside parked cars)

Yes, it’s the exact same problem both south of there (through Ballston) and north (on the other side of 66). The whole thing should be marked with sharrows wherever there is parallel parking. The road is not wide enough for a parked car, a bicycle, and a moving motor vehicle to safely coexist all to the right of the center line.

[Crickey7]

Per the genial purveyors of weather forecasting over at WaPo’s Capitol Weather Gang, “A cold front cutting across the eastern U.S. is likely to set off scattered showers and storms Thursday. Rain may be locally heavy, with the best chance of soaking downpours in the afternoon to early evening hours.”

But–and here’s the clincher–the National Weather Service says the flood threat is “non-zero”. Cue WTOP firing up the breathless predictions of catastrophe, complete with stock footage of people being plucked off the roofs of homes.

[dbb]

Rolling along the mall the other night I saw this motorcycle with a solar bimini. Go figure. I’d expect it would work only a low speeds. The shade might be nice.

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[bentbike33]

I did not enjoy the fantastic array of nauseating odors wafting over the Custis from the garbage containers and other sources at the Lyon Village strip mall yesterday afternoon:p. Hoping the wind and lower humidity provides some relief today.

[Guus]

@dasgeh 123856 wrote:

Please report this to the non-emergency number in Arlington, or via twitter @arlingtonvapd. I’ve been trying to get enforcement of the 3-foot rule there, and more voices asking for it would help.

I don’t mind calling them — but last time I did that (for an near-miss on that same intersection) they told me they only will take note of it if I have a license plate to report…

[dasgeh]

@Guus 124049 wrote:

I don’t mind calling them — but last time I did that (for an near-miss on that same intersection) they told me they only will take note of it if I have a license plate to report…

Ugh. I’ve called in and been told they can’t do anything without a license plate. Then I point out we’ve been told that ACPD looks at reports based on intersection, and gotten a “oh, really” and they’ve taken the report. We’ll have to bring this up with ACPD again.

[deleted because I was misremembering the original incident]

[dbb]

Seen on a Kawasaki 750 on Madison near the Natural History Museum. Hmm.

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[Terpfan]

I didn’t do the video clip of it yet, but people (and I’m willing to bet they’re not the foks here), we’ve got to work on calling and making safe passes. On Monday, I had a kitted out guy blow by me when I slowed on Trollheim for two joggers on my side as another jogger was approaching from the left. I won’t lie, I was impressed he pulled it off without skidding and/or hitting one of them, but it was needlessly reckless and just a plain crappy move.

Then yesterday evening, I slow because I have two bikes in front of me and an approaching bike coming down the hill at MVT (section past Crystal City turnoff heading south, but before you go under the overpass where the woods are). A woman decides to pass me on this uphill stretch. Surpise, surprise, she doesn’t have the gas to make a double pass and so cuts in front of me so I have to slam my breaks and ride with overlapping tires to her right to avoid a collision. And did I mention this was right on top of that nice little sand pit on the trail? I would brush it off as we all make a dumb move until I saw another stupid pass half a mile later adjacent to the DCA parking lot where she had a jogger on our side and an oncoming cyclist. So slow a mile or two per hour and then pass? Nah, she just tries to slice the middle right between them. And of course, she wasn’t that fast, just impatient, so after her overtake of me, I spent a few minutes behind her until I had a safe passing moment.

One of these days, my luck of avoiding people attempting idiotic passes is going to run out. I just hope it’s a soft fall.

[consularrider]

@dbb 124036 wrote:

Rolling along the mall the other night I saw this motorcycle with a solar bimini. Go figure. I’d expect it would work only a low speeds. The shade might be nice.

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My wife wanted to get a BMW C1 when we lived in Madrid, but we only lived a kilometer from work and just walked. It’s no longer in production, but there is an electric concept version. Looks like they need a way to incorporate the solar panels.

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[Author]

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