[cvcalhoun]

But how did they determine this was a year’s supply?

[cvcalhoun]

I saw that. Of course, I’m trying not to think too hard about how they will determine what a “year’s supply” of toilet paper is. For example, will the quantity be greater if a woman wins than if a man does?

@PotomacCyclist 85207 wrote:

In case anyone was worried, they confirmed that the year’s supply of toilet paper will be back as one of the prizes. You can all rest easier now.

[cvcalhoun]

To be honest, 65 and raining sounds better to me than 90 and sunny. You can always wear rain gear, but there’s nothing much you can do about heat.

[cvcalhoun]

Some years ago, when my bike was stolen, I got two pieces of advice from the police:

• Use more than one type of lock. Thieves usually carry tools for only one type, so having two tends to foil them.
• If parking for Bethesda Metro Station, just park the bike in front of the police station across the street, instead of parking in the Metro Station itself.

The second item is obviously specific to one Metro station. But it is true generally that Metro stations tend to have enough bikes parked in one location to attract bike thieves, so parking just a little way away may be safer.

Of course, my chief defense against theft these days is to have a 10-year-old Trek hybrid, and try to park it where there are enough high-end bicycles around that no one will want mine.

[cvcalhoun]

Hmm… Google maps is currently showing one little segment of slow traffic right in front of the Porsche dealership. But I can’t find any news stories on this.

[cvcalhoun]

I biked out the Georgetown Branch Trail today, and discovered that the button is working! My service request is still showing as “In Progress,” but I doubt it’s just a coincidence that after being broken for weeks, the button is finally working two days after I reported it.

[cvcalhoun]

If the primary concern is safety, there is in fact a huge difference between the amount of damage someone can cause with a two-ton car versus a 25-lb. bicycle. A driver who exercises discretion inappropriately can easily kill people. A bicyclist who does so mostly endangers himself or herself.

@Crickey7 84857 wrote:

No. Yield signs are placed in accordance with transportation engineering standards where the conflicts are already minimal. No change is necessary. Stop signs are there to establish an orderly and logical way to resolve potential conflicts at low-volume intersection. Again, no change is necessary. The discretion the Idaho Stop seeks to establish is that of low volume, or extremely low volume, intersection at every intersection regardless of volume.

I don’t trust drivers with that kind of discretion. And I see no reason why it should be different for cyclists. Yes, I’m aware of the two self-serving justifications, one being that cyclists are more capable of discerning risk because they are not in a closed vehicle. That’s a load, frankly. And the other, that since bikes are self-powered, it’s harder to stop and start as often. That’s true, but it really has no bearing on a safety issue.

[cvcalhoun]

I’m thinking that if a computer could report that a traffic light was out, they must have something that is reporting when an electrical circuit isn’t functioning. And the same system could report that the electrical system necessary to make the button work wasn’t functioning.

I can understand beg buttons being necessary at some intersections–ones in which cars also need to beg, by rolling over a circuit in the street, for example. If you’ve got a main street with constant traffic, and a side street (or trail) in which one person an hour comes through, it seems silly to keep the light cycling continuously for that side street or trail. However, I would agree that far too little attention is paid to bicycle or pedestrian traffic in determining whether cycling should happen automatically, or should require a beg button.

@mstone 84733 wrote:

I’m curious what kind of system could report that when people pushed the button, the button didn’t notice.

The bigger issue is that they keep expanding the use of beg buttons instead of just reserving some time for pedestrians.

[cvcalhoun]

One of the issues, I suspect, is that allowing the checking of multiple boxes might seriously overstate the people who were using walking or bicycling as an alternative to driving. It would mean, for example, that someone who parked next door to his or her office building, and then walked over, would get counted as a walker. That would result in virtually 100% of commuters being walkers–and the statistic being meaningless.

@Greenbelt 84703 wrote:

Biggest problem I’ve heard mentioned with transit surveys is that they classify multimodal transport based on the leg with the longest distance. That’s fair in a way, but it undercounts the numbers of people who use their bikes to get partway to work by a lot.

For example, people who take Metro to Cabi, or bike to Metro, would be classified as Metro if the distance was longer (and people answered the question correctly).

So it’s wrong to cite their results as the percentage of people who biked to work. Instead, it’s the percentage of people who used their bikes for the longest leg of their commute. All those shorter legs by bikes don’t reckon into the statistics, but it’s a lot of people.

I think the question would give much more informative results if the respondents were allowed to check multiple boxes. Please ask your demographer friends about that!

[cvcalhoun]

Yeah, that’s one reason I hadn’t gotten around to reporting it earlier. Another is that I was bicycling with someone else before, and didn’t want to make that person stop for long enough for me to get the pole number for the report. But today, I was biking that way later than usual, and there was no one coming the other way to push the button. And because I was alone, I was able to sit down right by the pole where I could see the pole number and call from there. (Of course, I didn’t have the presence of mind to write down the pole number, so when I discovered that the promised e-mail hadn’t come through and went to submit the issue a second time, I had to submit the report without the pole number.)

@ebubar 84712 wrote:

Keep us updated. I’ve noticed this problem myself, as with the good weather i’ve biked through there on my work day commutes. Its quite annoying, but hasn’t been a problem as i’ve had people on the opposite side pushing the button. If its not fixed soon, i’m happy to contact someone as well! TEAMWORK! Law-Abiding Cyclists UNITE!

[cvcalhoun]

Cynic! Of course, that doesn’t mean you are wrong…

What is ironic is that if a traffic light goes out, apparently there is a computer system that automatically submits a report within seconds. But if the button for a pedestrian/bicyclist walk light is broken, there is no such system in place. Once again, whatever inconveniences/endangers motorists is a lot higher priority than what inconveniences/endangers pedestrians or cyclists.

@skins_brew 84709 wrote:

I bet if a revenue generating speed camera was broken, it would be fixed THAT day.

[cvcalhoun]

Thanks, sethpo! They are currently claiming they will deal with the issue within 2 days. But if they don’t, I’ll go ahead and contact the relevant councilmembers.

[cvcalhoun]

I also notice that Washington, DC went from 1.2% bicycle commuting in 2000 to 3.1% in 2008-2012. That’s way above the national average.

[cvcalhoun]

Wow, I hadn’t even seen that one! Just went over and claimed the awesome socks. Thank you!

@Rod Smith 84586 wrote:

She did win socks.

“SOCK WINNERS…
We love our Challengers so much, we’re giving TWO pairs away this time! Carol V. Calhoun and Jeff Sovich, please send us a Facebook message so we can get you your official Challenge socks!
If you didn’t win, don’t worry – there will be many more opportunities to snag these awesome socks!
Did you get a ride in today? Tell us about it!”

[cvcalhoun]

For anyone still having issues with syncs from MapMyRide, can you please contact Alison Dewey at alison@bikeleague.org, with a screenshot of your MMR miles? Clearly, MMR miles are syncing for some people but not others, and they are trying to get to the bottom of this.

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