My Other Bike Is A….

[rcannon100]

WMATA had a terrible night tonite. And it got me thinking….

Assuming that cycling is your primary way to commute, what is your secondary means of commuting. If you did not cycle to work – how would you get to work?

goDCgo recently tweeted that the number one reason people dont use public transportation is reliability. That pretty much nails it for me. I have to do a rail to bus transfer in Rosslyn, and that transfer is HORRIBLE. The bus service is entirely unreliable. And – it pretty much takes twice as long to get home by public transportation than by driving home. Forget about it if it is raining in the slightest.

I am “car free” because of my bike. But if it werent for my bike, I would be in a car (the dark side).

What would you “other” way home be?

Topic

[rcannon100]

@Steve 43175 wrote:

My point is if Metro (or WMATA) sucked so bad, then the smart growth around its infrastructure would not continue to thrive. But it has, and it continues to grow, because people continue to want to use it.

I guess it depends on the definition of accessible. I would say under a mile is accessable,

Actually, I believe the literature considers “accessible” to be about 0.3 mile. We did some mapping of CABI stations, and our map guys found that research that said outside of .3 miles, and people wont walk it.

As for sucking, we come back to that point. Historical trends. Just because WMATA did not suck 20 years ago doesnt mean it doesnt suck today. Again, buses. When we moved in, our bus line was great and reliable. Now – its infuriating and really not an option. Unfortunately the reality of WMATA is that the system has been mismanaged (and Arlington lost its seat and its say on WMATA management??). If you look closely at a lot of the things that have gone wrong, including the bad accidents – the cause is mismangement. In some of the accidents, WMATA had clear warnings from safety experts that there were faults in the system – and they did not act on it. Now we are facing a brand new silver line, and we wont have cars for it.

It’s like those investment disclaimers. Past Performance is no guarantee of future performance. I think many of us geezers have said it. WMATA was great in its day. But for me, the bus system has degraded to the point of simple math. If I did not bike, if I had to chose between a car and the bus – there is no choice. 15 years ago, sure, I would take the bus that was coming every 12 minutes. Now, where I could stand at the bus stop for 30 minutes for a bus that is over crowded? Forget it.

And as things change, Arlco needs to be considered that this impairs their smart growth strategy. The public transportation in the urban corridors is brilliant. And this is one of my critiques of the CABI in Arlington. The rich public transportation corridors get richer; the other areas just get relegated to car dependency. I think Lee Hwy, which does not have access to the subway – is prime territory for CABI bc it would be so great to grab a CABI and jump to the subway corridor. But of course Lee Hwy wont get CABI until…. well until we are all going around on hover bikes.

[rcannon100]

Okay probably exhausting an exhausted subject, but this thread has me thinking.

I am sort of surprised by some of the tone – almost, “if you dont support WMATA, you must be against Smart Growth” And has me thinking that we are confusing two things: Micro and Macro policy.

Micro policy is the decision making that I as an individual am going to make. As an individual, here is my data (again this assumes I cant ride a bike for some reason, not an option). And let me repeat it – this is not the experience of the general commuter, this is MY experience leading to my decision.

Factor || Public Transportation || Car
Time || 1 Hr 5 min || 15 min

Reliability || Consistently unreliable || Mostly Reliable

Cost || Subsidized || Parking Subsidized

Conditions || Crowded; dont fit in seats || Comfortable

Lunch Use || Avail but takes too long || Can hop across river to lunch spots

Multitask || Can do podcasts and email || Can do podcasts

Weather || Will be exposed significant parts of trip || Not exposed

So for me that’s simple.

Now there is a Macro policy of what should ArlCo’s or WDC or who ever’s policy be? Should we promote “drive till you can afford” or should we promote smart growth with support for WMATA and CABI and Bike Arlington etc? Well again, from an Arlington perspective, this also seems simple to me. The choice is either an aggressive smart growth program, or they will pave arlington. They will turn 66 into 395 and just destroy N Arlington. They will widen 50. And they will do anything else they can to support “drive till you can afford.”

The two different outcomes for micro and macro and not contradictions. They are different equations. One is what would I as an individual do (well, I’m not an idiot – I am not going to do something strongly against my own self interest) and the other is what should we do as a collective (well, we are not idiots – we are not going to do something strongly against our own self interest).

People keep saying this thread is full of WMATA haters. That really rubs me the wrong way and makes me wonder that people are not listening. When an individual says “I dont ride WMATA because the buses are unreliable” – that’s not being a hater, that’s living in a mundane world of just trying to get to work in the morning or home in the evening – and if the transportation system doesnt work – then I have to look for other options. These are practical mundane logistical decisions. These are not fan boys or haters or policy positions. This is getting home.

And if the policy people arent listening to the mundane people who are just trying to get home, then we have a concern.

Okay, enough. What started I thought as a simply curious question unraveled.

[dasgeh]

@rcannon100 43181 wrote:

And as things change, Arlco needs to be considered that this impairs their smart growth strategy. The public transportation in the urban corridors is brilliant. And this is one of my critiques of the CABI in Arlington. The rich public transportation corridors get richer; the other areas just get relegated to car dependency. I think Lee Hwy, which does not have access to the subway – is prime territory for CABI bc it would be so great to grab a CABI and jump to the subway corridor. But of course Lee Hwy wont get CABI until…. well until we are all going around on hover bikes.

Actually, CaBi is coming to Lee Highway — it started in Rosslyn, then made it to the “Courthouse” part of Lee Hwy (Vietch/Adams — ever notice how many of the buildings there have Courthouse in their names?). They’re trying for Lyon Village Shopping Center, and have plans for Cherrydale. I understand why it wasn’t the priority, but appreciate that it’s coming up on the list now.

My understanding is that part of the reason Lee Hwy hasn’t gotten more attention is that there isn’t a long term plan for the area. Part of the reason there isn’t a long term plan is that the neighborhoods along the Hwy haven’t kept up to date with their plans. Cherrydale is updating their plan. Do you know people that live in these other neighborhoods? Can we nudge them along? (And please correct me if I’m wrong or if you know of other issues. As someone who just built the house we hope to raise our kids in one block off of Lee, I really, really want to see a rational plan for the Hwy).

As far as ArlCo’s smartgrowth – I do think MetroRail is a big piece of it historically, but I also think ArlCo is looking beyond MetroRail for multiple reasons: the economic equity (living near MetroRail is expensive, so we need to expand transit in lower income areas, i.e. the Pike); the mismanagement of WMATA; the limitations of a fixed system. I consider things like complete streets and expansion of MUPs to be part of the Smart Growth strategy, and those aren’t related to Metro.

[Terpfan]

Bus>Metro>Car (finacee’s, I got rid of mine in 2011).

The time difference is neglible between biking and any of those options.

[Author]

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