[Brendan von Buckingham]

I’m on pins and needles. Where’d you end up?

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I really hope we hear that the cyclist is OK. I’m a little distressed from the vague reports.

But as a community we need to take responsibility too. Hindsight is 20/20, I would have looked at that gravel and not really thought much of it. But if I did think it was a dangerous hazard, I would have fixed it myself. It’s just gravel after all; I could clear it with my feet or bring a whisk broom on my next commute. No need for a phone call, a road crew, a work order, or specialty equipment. If it’s a chunk of road debris that would cause a cyclist to veer, I’ll dismount and move it. If it’s a tree limb on the trail small enough to move, I’ll move it. Once I even brought a saw the next day because all the branches and leaves of the downed limb blocked the line of sight on a high speed turn. I spent 10 minutes cutting it up. It would have taken NPS 10 days to get around to it, if ever.

I know every inch of my route like the back of my hand. If there’s new debris, I’ll know intuitively if it’s a problem that only a cyclist would see. We know our life and death conditions and we know fixing them are very low priorities for most everybody else. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves. If we see a problem and can fix it, we should fix it.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I go through Courthouse, I’d suggest crossing 50 at Rhodes like this: http://g.co/maps/euz8t

15th Street is steep down off of Courthouse. After Rhodes Bridge the left turn onto the access road backs up sometime; take your turn and once you get through the access road is virtually traffic free and a nice long downhill. Practically no peddling your first mile. Through Iwo Jima to Marshall Drive onto a bike trail. You have to cross GW Parkway at Memorial Bridge. Use common sense caution, dismount and wait for both lanes to come to a stop. After some experience you won’t have to dismount, but don’t push it. This is your biggest kill spot.

At the DC end of Memorial Bridge use caution crossing traffic; in the a.m. they’re good about yielding to you, but you always have to watch. Take a leisurely monumental path of your choosing from Lincoln Memorial to 14th.

Easy in the a.m. but you’ll have to earn it on the way home. The last hill up to Courthouse is a killer. During dark evening commute you’ll absolutely need a light for the section where you skirt the Cemetery. The trail is unlit, and along the highway, the oncoming headlights are particularly blinding. You’ll want to go slow and careful to make sure you can see everything.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Walk off 100 feet. Time the rate from start to end. Calculate and get average MPH. Good enough to make a point, even if it’s not scientifically calibrated. But what others said, NPS still won’t care.

They might care if all bike commuters somehow managed to group together and cross GW parkway one every 15 seconds for a half hour or so around 8:30. Wonder if anyone would notice that.

Nice YTP crosswalk you have here. It would be too bad if something bad happened to it.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Scorcher.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@dasgeh 13584 wrote:

However, wouldn’t chicanes before the crossing be LESS safe, because drivers would not be able to see the people crossing until they’d come around the curve?

I don’t think so because drivers already don’t see cyclists waiting at the crosswalk. At least with a chicane cars would be forced to drive 25 and at least on one side (on the interior of the curve) visibility would be near perfect. As it is now, when a cyclist pulls right up to the crosswalk to indicate a desire to cross, the line-of-sight from cars to the cyclist is nearly parallel to the line of traffic. Since each car is a sight obstruction that means only the lead car (maybe 2nd back as well) can see the cyclist. That’s why there’s fender-benders: cars 3, 4, 5, etc. cannot see waiting cyclists until it’s too late.

It’s like trying to see through a picket fence. Stand back from it and set your line-of-sight perpendicular to the line of pickets and you can see right through. But stand nearly against the fence and set your line-of-sight practically parallel to the line of pickets and your vision is 100% blocked and you can’t see through the fence.

Chicanes won’t make cyclist visibility worse, but they will control speed and driver attention. Drivers are more likely to focus on the road than a cell phone if they have to navigate a curve. Chicanes are cheaper than a tunnel (NPS can’t even keep the pebble-dash sidewalk on Mem Br paved, they ain’t building a tunnel). NCPC will not allow visible highway devices in what they consider a scenic park.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Funny about LEED and biking facilities. I work with historic architecture groups and we complain that builders get more LEED points for a bike rack than they get for reusing an old building with millions of BTUs of embodied energy in it. From our tainted perspective, all we see are oceans of bike racks. The short explanation is that LEED is 80% brilliant marketing and only 20% science/engineering. But now we’re way off topic.

Thanks btw for pointing out there are three crossings, not just the one I use. Same solution: chicanes before every crossing. If people don’t want to drive 25, NPS won’t patrol/enforce the speed limit, and NCPC won’t allow traffic lights/signals in the park, make them drive 25 mph with a safer road layout.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

BTW the solution is to realign GW with a sharp bend which will force even the worst speeders to slow down to the speed limit. [ATTACH=CONFIG]619[/ATTACH]

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I cross GW @ MemBr daily. I’ve started gliding to a stop well back from the crosswalk (about 30-50 feet back) rather than pull right up to the road way. I figure I can see gaps better and approach when it’s safest for cars to yield to me. But you know what? Even that far back cars yield to the crosswalk to let me cross. In fact, they seem to do it more reliably than when I pull right up to the crosswalk.

My guess is that I’m in a better spot in the drivers’ cone of vision. Not only does the first car see me, but the 2nd and 3rd cars too.

This works best inbound in the a.m.: I have space to hang that far back and a.m. cars are commuters (they’re almost all in their normal routines and know about the crosswalk). P.M. not so much: only about 15 feet of space so no room to hang back 30-50 feet and p.m. cars are a mix (commutters, errand runners, tourists, cabs, etc.) They’re out of their routine, more likely to not know about the crosswalk, and are much more unreliable on their yield.

Also too, many cars double the speed limit and tailgate, so f that really. And by f I mean fix.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I use the Park gear box. Fill it with Kerosene. Kerosene takes the oily grime off the chain lickety-split. The used kerosene I pour into a jar. After a week, the solids settle and I can re-use the kerosene a couple more times. I dry the chain pretty well with an old tee-shirt or rag then let it sit for a while. The kerosene evaoporates without leaving residue. Then I apply whatever gimmicky chain lube I’ve fallen for most recently.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Or like this weekend when they shut down portions of the Red line this weekend: http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=5006

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@americancyclo 7021 wrote:

I was hoping some of these might be closer to DC so I could get in a quick hill ride during lunch. I managed to find some small hills over in Rosslyn, but would appreciate any more tips leaving from Capitol Hill
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/45600606

Pennsylvania eastbound over Anacostia. Minnesota northbound. Massachusetts eastbound. Long steady climb up to 200 feet (pretty much same as Courthouse in Arlington). Enter Fort Dupont Park for some rolling hills. Return. Massachusetts on the return is long and straight so you can really bomb down the hill, which is good for getting back to the office.

The bridge and Pennsylvania/Minnesota intersection are little hairy, but Mass Ave is low traffic with bike lanes and Fort Dupont is quiet, shaded and very low traffic.

If you want more urban, a great climb is Morris Rd from MLK up to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Your rewarded with one of the best view of the city from one of the least known overlooks.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

GWP will never get new signage or signals. They won’t pass muster from the National Capital Planning Commission which has jurisdiction over GW and the other parkways around DC. This document (p. 126-127 specifically) outlines NCPC’s mission regarding parkways: http://www.ncpc.gov/DocumentDepot/Publications/CompPlan/CompPlanPartFive_ParksOpenSpace.pdf.

In particular, NCPC views parkways as cultural resources, not transportation resources, “Although the parkway is considered a commuter route by many local residents, its scenic and historic qualities are more important than its traffic-carrying role.”

Here are their bullet points:

Parkways Policies
The federal government should:
1. Maintain parkways as scenic landscape corridors, and protect their historic aspects.
2. Encourage local jurisdictions to plan for and zone development in such a way that it is not visible from parkways.
3. Encourage local jurisdictions to minimize––through planning, regulation, and careful design––the impact of development that is visible from parkways.
4. Where transportation system impacts are unavoidable, require action to minimize and mitigate these impacts to maintain parkway characteristics.(emphasis added).

I don’t see NCPC ever allowing interstate type signage or traffic signals. That leaves real enforcement and road geometry alterations as the only approaches. Either get the NPS police to enforce the 25 mph speed limit, or re-build the crossing so there’s a chicane or some other new geometry that FORCES motor vehicles to drive 25 mph. Neither of those approaches would impact the cultural, historic or design values of the parkway.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I see your point about the truck ironically being stuck in traffic. Hmmmmmm. Helicopters then.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Death is everywhere.

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