[bArlington]

YIKES! Other lessons: Encrypt your hard drive.

[bArlington]

Yeah, except Scott St isnt a dangerous intersection – at least not as the light is designed. 95% of the time a bike will be stopped at a red light for no cause; there will be no crossing South Bound car traffic. That North / South traffic light goes green for Scott Street so that North Bound Scott Street car traffic can turn left on Lee Hwy. 95% of the time bikes are stopped at the traffic light; there is no south bound traffic. Useless traffic signals trains humans to ignore the traffic signals (whether they are bikers or car drivers). And ticketing bikers for pointless traffic signals will breed frustration, drive bikers into the street, or other problems.

But here is my bigger problem. The ticket says “Cycle on the right.” Please quote me from the “fine print” where it says bikes must cycle on the right. As I recall, a cyclist in Clarendon had a real run in with police because of this a few years ago. She got ticketed. She went to court. The police were unable to show any law she had violated. Charges were dismissed.

The problem with this educational campaign is that its wrong.

[bArlington]

It’s kind of ironic I think that yesterday I received a survey from BIKEARLINGTON asking how to promote biking in arlington, and today the popo is out issuing tickets to bikers at a traffic light that by designed is flawed and unnecessary. As I stated in my response to the survey, the number one way to promote biking in Arlington is good bike infrastructure. Bike traffic lights that unnecessarily turn red, stopping bikes on a tough uphill climb, at an intersection where there is all but no car traffic – this does not promote biking in Arlington.

[bArlington]

CUSTIS TRAIL ALERT Police out enforcing new (stupid, idiotic, moronic) bike traffic lights this morn @BikeArlington @DCTrails @Wash_cycle

[bArlington]

This is one of the reasons I deeply dislike bike lanes – and particularly sharrows. Those Sharrows signs that say “bikes may ride in lane” — well I CAN ALWAYS ride in the lane regardless of whether its a sharrow. But now drivers are confused, thinking I can only ride in the lane when the sign and the logo is present — giving drivers the invitation to act aggressively to bikers when sharrows and signs are not present.

And as for doored-traps, I mean bike lanes, forget about it. They are almost always within 3′ of parked cars. They are a recipe for injury. I tend to ride on the right side – but far enough away from parked cars so that I cant be doored – and that puts me outside of the bike lane in most of Arlington.

[bArlington]

Word against word gets you no where. That’s why you see a number of bikers with those sports cameras mounted on their helmets – getting video coverage of what is happening (and then the cops arrest you for video taping everything – go figure)

Even when there is harm, there is no foul. Two years ago I entered a cross walk as the fifth bike in a pack, with three lanes of stopped cars, with dayglo on and strobing headlights — one block away the light turns green so the car in the center lane decides she can go – and she hit me. No tickets were issued.

I took pictures of everything after the fact. Spokes game me a written estimate of damage. Her insurance company was very easy to work with.

My solution – I ride 95% on bike path. I have seen too many bikers hit; I have had too many near misses – and drivers in this town are getting worse. If my bike commute was mainly on the road, I probably wouldnt do it.

[bArlington]

Yeah last week I had the opportunity to use CABI for a lunch last week (I was going to do a day rental). I pulled up the interactive map. All four CABI stations surrounding the lunch destination were noted as full. I took the subway.

I signed up for the Living Social deal. When I got my coupon, I could not get the CABI website to register me. After a day of trying, I called CABI. The operator could barely take my information. I had to repeat it over and over again. I asked the operator, dont we need to set up an account. No, he said, account information will be with the key when it arrives. Key arrived; no account information. I tried to log in – nothing. I received a voice mail and email from someone claiming to be CABI saying I needed to call but would not say why. I generally dont have lots of free time during the day, so during the evening I emailed back asking what the problem was. Nope, I had to call. I looked at the phone number that the person gave me – it was not a listed CABI number. FTC advice when someone contacts you concerning an account is to call back a published number, not an unpublished number – in order to protect your identity. I emailed the person through out this trying to get them to work with me. No I had to call. So I called a published CABI number. After being on hold for 20 minutes I hung up. I sent an email to CABI’s help address asking what was going on. Some time later I got an email from the CABI help address indicating that I had canceled my account in April. No, I have never had an account with CABI so I could not have canceled it.

In the mean time I contacted Living Social which indicated that I will be refunded my money.

There is no way setting up an account should be this difficult.

[bArlington]

Oh wow do I really need to page attention to these forums. I fear this is all my fault!

Before the temp jersey barriers went up at the head of the Island bridge, I was involved in a near miss with construction traffic. One truck was parked in the curb cut at the south end of the parking lot, another truck was coming across the bridge which I could not see. I went around the parked truck in the curb cut, up on the path, and was almost hit by the truck coming across the bridge. I jammed on my brakes. He jammed on his brakes. We looked at each other. Then he continued on swinging wide, onto the bike path, over the curb and into the parking lot — “WAIT, dude! You still didnt yield to me.” I contacted the GW NPS and not long after that the barriers were erected. They are sub optimal – but at least they create physical separation between the trucks and the bikes – and at least the trucks can no longer drive on the bike path itself.

Last week I tweeted on BTWD that the Potomac had flooded its banks and there was water on the GW bike path. The NPS solution was to close the path. We are talking about 1″ of water and the busiest biking day of the year. Brain. Dead.

So now we have a speed bump. Had this speed bump been placed say 10 feet to the south, south of the cross walk, the impact on bikers would have been minimal. Those in the souther half of the lot could bike around it. Those in the norther half of the lot would not have to stop at it to hit the curb cut onto the path. Those on the path coming from the south would not have an additional tight 90 degree turn onto the sidewalk.

I talked to the park ranger about this, this morning. While I expressed my concern, we sat and watched a recumbent bike fail to navigate the 90 degree turn onto the sidewalk.

I am glad to see the post from the NPS and see that there has been some interaction. But todays events prove again that the GW NPS seem indifferent to the concerns of the major bike path that cuts through their park.

[bArlington]

The problem of these intersections is not solved by placing inane bike stop-lights on bike paths. The problem of these intersections needs to be solved by fixing the intersections.

* Asking a biker to stop on a hill climb… is asking for the biker not to stop. This is a challenging hill. Stopping makes it more difficult. The incentive of the biker is to keep going.
* The traffic lights are designed wrong – in that that at Lee Hwy and Scott Road, the light turns full red for all traffic going West, even though it is doing so simply for traffic on Scott turning left/west on Lee Hwy – there are no cars on Scott going South. This means there is no reason for the bikers to stop as there is no traffic in front of them. Confront this enough times and you train the bikers to not stop. The real solution here is to give Scott Rd a left-turn green arrow going West, while permitting the biker traffic to keep flowing.
* It is also bad design to have a bike path which has five road crossings is the space of what about a third of a mile. If you ask the bikers to stop, then the bike path has no value to them – and you just push them out into the road. Which would be dangerous.

This whole section of the Custis trail is in desperate need of redesign. The crossing at Lynn is almost like playing russian roulette. This morning when I was there with a pack of bikes, no bike wanted to take the lead across Lynn.

If this is “bike friendly” arlington, then we need real solutions and not silly ones. The bike traffic lights are silly solutions. The first day those lights are enforced, the bike traffic will be in the street and we will have a real mess. Not sure whose idea this was but it was stupid.

[bArlington]

Excellent work!

We are in the era of egovernment. There needs to be a way that we can show our support for you and your work without the 20th Century “Arlington Way” of physically showing up to the meeting.

[bArlington]

Word. Spring is when the Rookies come out.

I commute the Curtis trail and I find the people pretty great! It’s a heavily used trail – and I think that helps discipline folk on it. It is hard to casually (and stupidly) walk along it as you will be buzzed by multiple fast moving commuters.

Bells work great. I find that folk are very responsive to it. And I agree – the signal “left” usually causes the touron to step left – and get clobbered.

The other problem is crossing the GW; one lane of traffic stops; the second does not. It’s real dangerous.

But all-in-all I find the Curtis Trail to be pretty great and the etiquette is pretty high.

[Author]

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