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@Raymo853 127332 wrote:

Your scenario is so highly restrictive. Let me give another two:

Yea, any real-life fact pattern is likely to be way messier. The reason I called it my nightmare is that I can know I did everything correctly (and maybe between Strava and witnesses could even prove it) but could still face potentially massive exposure because the ebike’s illegality.

One thing that just occurred to me–and that I’m frankly a bit afraid to go look into–is whether or not my illegally riding the ebike on the trail means that I’m no longer covered by my homeowners insurance’s personal liability coverage. That at least protects me up to a reasonably high threshold and provides “free” access to the insurance company’s ID lawyers. Frankly I’ve always counted on that part of my policy to protect against the nuisance settlement problem your hypos note. Going further down this depressing rabbit hole, my quick google research suggests that most health insurance policies won’t cover an insured person’s intentional illegal acts.

I guess I’m off to review both sets of policies after all to see if, despite being insured to the hilt, getting into an accident on an ebike on a MUP might mean that I’m on my own for both my own injuries and the injuries of the person who actually caused the accident. I really don’t want to believe that, if I pulled a typical “But I was confused officer!”, I’d enjoy more insurance protection when driving my Nissan down the MVT.

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@jabberwocky 127315 wrote:

Seems easiest to just flat out ban motorized vehicles. Anything subtle enough to not draw attention to itself (like, what you and most other people on this forum ride) will be fine. People riding electric motorcycles and e-cars and stuff can be dealt with much more easily.

As one of the ebike rule breakers, I’d be okay with this being our preferred approach if it weren’t for the issue of liability in the event of a crash. Here’s my nightmare hypo: I’m riding my ebike from DC over to Crystal City at ~15mph to go to the dentist. Near Gravelly Point I’m approaching a runner and the opposite lane is clear for me to pass. I move over and ring my bell at ~30 feet back and then again at ~10 feet. The runner is wearing headphones, does not hear me, Crazy Ivans, and we collide. We both fall and suffer significant injuries or, worse, one or both of us is killed by a head injury.

Despite the runner having been the proximate cause of the crash, what effect does my being on a (technically) illegal vehicle on the trail have on my potential liability and my ability to recover for my own injuries? The current rules give a motivated insurance defense or plaintiff’s attorney lots of arguments to make against me. E.g., (1) I was on an illegal vehicle and so should be fully/partially faulted; (2) my illegal bike surely moves faster than is safe, making me fully/partially at fault; (2) my illegal ebike is heavier than a normal bike, making everyone’s injuries more severe.

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@kcb203 127261 wrote:

and the guy drives it like a maniac.

I think that’s where I consider the line to be. I ride my ebike on the MVT when I have to go somewhere in Crystal City/Alexandria, but I know that I’m breaking a rule to do it and so try to be extra conscientious. If this dude was riding conservatively and as politely as possible, I doubt we’d think twice about him beyond, “That’s nifty looking. Bet it’s nice in the rain and a pain in high winds.”

[strike]As someone else noted, the ELF isn’t much wider than a fully pedal-powered bakfiets or recumbent. While I wouldn’t want to come across any of those on the really narrow bridges/underpasses on the MVT, they should still be able to use a mixed use network safely.[/strike]EDIT: Someone else noted I’m wrong about the relative width.

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To be clear, I have no animosity towards religion or churches generally. And, in fact, have been a member of my fair share of congregations.

I do have considerable, longstanding, negative feelings toward the specific group of DC churches—a considerable number of which surround my home—that, solely with respect to problems caused by their driving habits:
• Disregarded a disabled man’s pleas not to immobilize him for half of his weekend;
• Park illegally en masse on Sundays, especially around the entire perimeter of the park across the street from my house, which impedes sight lanes greatly and makes it dangerous for neighbors trying to cross the street to use the park (especially given the uptick in speeding at that time);
• Yelled at marathon runners, made grossly offensive statements directed at neighborhood residents, and double parked to block in scores of neighbors cars, when a highly-popular race prevented them from illegally parking around the park;
• Block off parking spots and bike lanes illegally using orange safety cones to create unpermitted loading zones (this occurs frequently, especially for funerals) and make frequent illegal U turns out of those zones;
• Double park in bike lanes, blocking in neighborhood resident’s cars (this also occurs frequently, especially for funerals);
• Honk at cyclists and pass us aggressively for not riding in those blocked bike lanes;
• Deploy uniformed security/parking attendants or parishioners in safety vests to intimidate neighborhood residents to stay out of legal parking spots;
• Convinced DDOT to grant angled parking on certain blocks on Sunday mornings, requiring local residents to adjust their own cars twice, first very early in the morning and again in the evenings; and
• Have succeeded in, or are attempting to, force the city to scuttle the building of, or to compromise the design of, cycling infrastructure that would make city residents safer.

If people feel that coming onto a message board of fellow cyclists to vent my frustrations about these groups—given their driving habits and having just put on a show of force at a public meeting where they vocally threatened to murder or maim us and made clear they regard us as unwelcome in our own city—is shameful, then so be it; but I respectfully disagree about who it is that should be ashamed of themselves.

Despite all our bluster about the things we could do to annoy, provoke, inconvenience, or even vandalize them, no one is actually going to go out and do those things. In contrast, based on my experiences riding on Sunday mornings, some of those parishioners are not at all kidding about their willingness to casually endanger our lives.

Obviously WABA’s approach of community outreach and compromise (without compromising on our safety) is best. In addition to supporting them, I applaud them for having the patience and restraint to stay on message. And I wrote the emails that I sent to the Mayor and DDOT through their system with their approach in mind. WABA’s staff deserves just piles of praise and all of the beer.

But right now my patience and empathy are just tapped out. This bike lane fight and all of its negativity has blown up at exactly the same time as neighborhood attempts to address the massive swell of violence on Capitol Hill have had to deal with a vocal group that refuses let there be a conversation about the problems of DC’s police and justice system, and instead wants to limit us to talking about social issues like income inequality, racial discrimination, education, job training, and low income housing. My polite liberal bona fides are in serious jeopardy, because after weeks like these—where being endangered by drivers is a regular occurrence and my wife is afraid to walk three blocks to the grocery store and even mentioned wanting to move—I just can’t bring myself to care about those issues anymore.

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@jrenaut 126717 wrote:

It won’t win over any support.

After the friends who told me about churchgoers looking them dead in the eye and threatening to run cyclists over, I’m still at the sputtering rage, unnecessary escalation, and petty revenge fantasies stage.

If past is prologue, before doing anything actively unhelpful I’ll calm down and revert to passive aggressive type. I’ll put some more time into drafting that property tax/tax credit ballot initiative. Might even sign up for another monthly WABA donation in tribute to Bishop C.M. Bailey so UHOP gets the newsletters. I know John Townsend appreciates his.

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@jrenaut 126714 wrote:

If you manage to park an airplane ….

It costs ~50 bucks a day to rent a 24 foot trailer truck. Pencil me in for 48 feet of protest whenever and wherever.

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An aside, what is this “perfectly nice bike path off of K Street”? I’ve always just ridden on K Street, which is usually a terrible mess when I’m passing through on weekends. Is there a better connection from the CCT up to Penn Ave and parts headed east? I particularly dislike the highway style intersection where K St, Whitehurst, and Rock Creek all come together. It’s usually a bit of a mad sprint to get up and over to Washington Circle without getting tailgated or passed aggressively. I hate bringing less experienced riders through there.

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I’m beyond livid at this point. This all started for me with a friend in wheelchair who moved onto a block with a church and the church rebuffed his requests to ask people to stop parking in crosswalks on Sundays, which blocks the curb cuts and traps him on his street. It blew my mind they wouldn’t stop and MPD and local ANC reps were useless in trying to get a resolution. Compound that by (i) the actions of AME Zion with respect to the M Street facility, (ii) the actions now of UHOP over this 6th St facility, and (iii) an absolute horde of MD-tagged cars that descend on my neighborhood and illegally park and generally drive like maniacs while I’m out for Sunday morning rides. So yea, when I see one of these bad neighbors converting into an actual productive use in the neighborhood, I’m glad.

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The open house last night went as badly as could be expected. They can’t turn these worthless neighbors into condos fast enough.

Can some big D.C. churches fight off a bike lane? They are bringing large crowds to try.

Opponents of 6th Street bike lane overwhelm meeting, called early due to crowding

Edit to add best article so far: DC’s Latest Bike Lane Fight Is Not About Bikes

(I couldn’t attend because I was instead at a different community meeting about the dramatic rise in violent crime on Capitol Hill.)

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@Rockford10 126248 wrote:

If only it was that easy; the lawyer who signed the letter is a Harvard grad.

If it was handled anything like the pro bono issues I staffed while at a law firm, I’d be impressed if she even skimmed it. The way this is blowing up online, I really pity the poor first year who got paroled from doc review to write some little pro bono letter and thought they’d use it as their chance to show their quality.

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Heh. They can’t fight the demographic tides. Another church on H Street NE just announced this week that it’s being razed for condo development. We’ve got to be pretty close to the tipping point where the cycling community can make at least as much political ruckus as a church, which hopefully will be enough to see that our needs are addressed without unnecessary compromises to any facilities design.

As an aside, my neighborhood contains a large number of similar churches that serve predominantly non-resident congregations. And I have very strong opinions about what terrible neighbors they are.

Edit to add a followup thought: The church is apparently being represented pro bono by DLA Piper. I genuinely can’t believe that the firm allowed a letter this objectively terrible to go out on their letterhead.

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I tried 30+mm Challenge Strada Bianca’s, but had sidewall tears with three of them over as many months.

But then I switched to 33mm Compass Stampede Pass Extralites this season and have been very pleased. They were fast enough for sporty road rides but still had enough loft to get out on the C&O Canal. If I had a schmancy new Warbird I’d put on a set of those or the 35mm or 38mm variants (they also have 26mm and 28mm versions, but I’m a bigger dude and didn’t really consider those).

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@KLizotte 125849 wrote:

In a nutshell, there is an inner and outer lane. If you move into the outer lane you *must* take the next exit; this is reinforced via curbs or lane markings. This means that if you are approaching a roundabout you only have to worry about the cars in the inner lane approaching from the left because cars in the outer lane will be turning into your street since that is their required exit. [/IMG]

Pinehurst NC has a roundabout like this that works quite well.

The biggest issue is that the circle’s diameter is big enough that cars in the inner lane can maintain too much speed. To combat speeding they patrol it regularly. And during big golf events, to prevent back ups, they have a local police cruiser circle it at 35mph so that cars have a gap to enter.

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@KLizotte 125849 wrote:

In a nutshell, there is an inner and outer lane. If you move into the outer lane you *must* take the next exit; this is reinforced via curbs or lane markings. This means that if you are approaching a roundabout you only have to worry about the cars in the inner lane approaching from the left because cars in the outer lane will be turning into your street since that is their required exit. [/IMG]

Pinehurst NC has a roundabout like this that works quite well.

The biggest issue is that the circle’s diameter is big enough that cars in the inner lane can maintain too much speed. To combat speeding they patrol it regularly. And during big golf events, to prevent back ups, they have a local police cruiser circle it at 35mph so that cars have a gap to enter.

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I hereby invoke an “I Hate People Day” whereby I will do all of the assorted stuff I’ve been putting off because it will require me to be at least mildly unpleasant. Let the naggings, pesterings, and justified upbraidings commence!

It was that kind of commute this morning.

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