[Dewey]

I’m not sure that particular stretch of bike lane on Wilson gets much use while the lane closures for the building site at 1555 Wilson Blvd/Highlands Park are ongoing, but I regularly have to dodge salmoning scooters, joggers, and pedestrians, in the PBL sections on Wilson going up hill towards Courthouse.

[Dewey]

ArlNow report a scooter rider crashed into a School Bus at the intersection of Wilson Blvd & N Oak St in Rosslyn. A commenter on the ArlNow article claiming to be a witness wrote the scooter rider was salmoning in the bike lane coming downhill and ran a red light he couldn’t see before he hit the bus. No life threatening injuries reported.

[Dewey]

The NY Post reported Gov Cuomo’s veto was a result of a local political squabble with the bill’s sponsor NY State Sen Ramos over remarks she made to the NY Times about something completely unrelated to ebikes. Chris Nolte owner of Propel Bikes in Brooklyn and long-time New York ebike campaigner posted a video a couple of weeks ago where he talked about renewing the campaign in Albany although he recently moved to Santa Monica, CA, so may not be able to be so involved while lobbying from a distance. Meanwhile Senator Ramos tweeted she would reintroduce her bill, though Cuomo will likely object again unless it is rewritten to include the helmet, lights & bell requirements he is pushing for. The bill included problematic wording affecting family riders and commuters, by prohibiting passengers under 16 years old on an ebike that would have affected cargo bikes, and banning ebikes from the Hudson River Greenway which is a safe main arterial bicycle commuter route on Manhattan Island, I don’t know if any of this can be argued out and corrected before a new bill is passed.

[Dewey]

The ArlNow article was updated at 4:05

“[The driver] was cited with failure to yield,” said Savage. “The cyclist’s injuries are considered non-life threatening.”

[Dewey]

BPSA/People for Bikes announces Virginia is one of 14 state assemblies that will be lobbied to adopt the 3-class model ebike legislation in 2020

[Dewey]

Nice design of bike racks installed at the NE corner of the recently renovated Oakland Park near Virginia Square metro station in Arlington. I’m glad they put these in because a while back they removed a Capital Bikeshare station on the South side (Wilson Blvd) of the park.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]20550[/ATTACH]

[Dewey]

Sucks to be Lime or Bird

[Dewey]

The Post’s Dr Gridlock reports DDOT has announced two private companies have been awarded permits to operate dockless ebikes in DC next year, with up to 5,000 ebikes up from the current 1,000 JUMP bikes. Uber/JUMP have had their permit renewed, the new entrant is Helbiz. The Post mentions Cllr Cheh walked back her scooter regulation, but both that bill and another need to be passed in some amended form to update the city’s municipal regulations for ebikes and scooters to enable legal access to sidewalks and multi-use paths outside the CBD and so their riders are treated more like pedal cyclists with regards to recourse against drivers insurance in the event of a collision with a car.

Meanwhile Fairfax County quickly followed Arlington issuing new regulations for dockless scooters and ebikes, permitting them to ride on multi-use paths and sidewalks. The final piece is for the District to legalize ebike and scooter commuters on the other Potomac bridge side paths (Memorial Bridge is NPS so is a legal crossing for ebikes).

[Dewey]

I rode this route today and made a video, starting at Glebe Rd, heading East, past the end of the VDOT study area at Fillmore, and around the curve taking the new connector path ending at Pershing Dr. Apologies for my squeaky rim brakes!
[video=youtube_share;Me5r-7iHN3c]https://youtu.be/Me5r-7iHN3c[/video]

[Dewey]

Arlington County Board vote to pass the Micromobility Ordinance. ebikes that meet Virginia state definition of a power assisted electric bicycle (up to 1,000w, 25mph) are permitted to ride on County multi use trails, 20mph trail speed limit, but also a new 6mph speed limit applies to ebikes riding on County sidewalks, and no sidewalk riding where a PBL is in place https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/county-board-votes-to-regulate-e-scooters/

[Dewey]

Arlington County Board vote to pass the Micromobility Ordinance. https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/county-board-votes-to-regulate-e-scooters/

[Dewey]

@zsionakides 194231 wrote:

With 28mph ebikes being allowed on the MUPs locally, I’d imagine the real speed differential to be much higher than 3-4kph.

This is where I’d like to see ebike researchers like Chris Cherry at UTK and John MacArthur at PSU get funding to carry out a US study equivalent to the German naturalistic cycling study, equipping a variety of pedal bikes and ebikes with data measuring equipment, and getting some US data on path and road speed and behavior. The German study measured mean speed difference of 9kmh between pedal bikes and EU speed pedelecs/US Class 3 equivalent ebikes, speed difference should be lower between pedal bikes and Class 1 & 2 ebikes, Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753515001976

[Dewey]

@n18 194207 wrote:

So did CaBi put their E-Bikes back in operation?

Mark Sussman thinks February https://twitter.com/msussmania/status/1187863710905393152

Might be delayed if there is any difficulty meeting San Francisco’s demand on Lyft to add a further 4,000 ebikes to the Bay Wheels fleet by April, and Lyft are changing their battery supplier (as well as fixing the brake issue that caused the CaBi+ withdrawal) https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2019/11/11/lyft-bike-sharing-service-will-return-sf-battery-fire-cause-found-not

[Dewey]

@Steve O 194091 wrote:

For those who are unfamiliar, here is the road in question. There is no frickin’ way any experienced person riding a bicycle would hug the curb to allow cars to pass on this blind rise.

Oh is it a grate? I thought it was filled-in pothole, horrible and teeth-jarring.

[Dewey]

Here are some other thoughts I have about the proposals:

Under the draft resolution I read it to mean e-bikes that meet the existing Virginia power/speed definition of an electric power-assisted bicycle (<1,000w/25mph) would be defined in the Arlington Code as a type of "Micro-Mobility Device" including e-scooters, e-unicycles, e-skateboards, and e-bikes.
– It’s unclear to me if the 20mph trail speed limit is a “powered” speed limit or an absolute speed limit, On my Class 2 e-bike I regularly exceed 20mph riding on the street downhill from Courthouse toward Rosslyn unpowered simply due to gravity, if I take the Custis trail I ride the brakes because on that narrow trail with frequent stops due to crossing streets and entryways I prefer descending under controlled braking, but there are stretches on the Rt 50 bike trail descending toward Iwo Jima from Ft Myer Heights with good sight lines after you round the corner where you can safely exceed 20mph unpowered.
– It’s unclear to me why the proposed sidewalk speed limit is to apply to all Micro-Mobility Devices equally, an e-bike is not a scooter, skateboard, or e-unicycle, with tiny wheels and low center of gravity – 6mph is too slow for some e-bikes for powered low-speed manouvering in pedal assist level 1, while for some e-bikes 6mph might be too slow for safe unpowered low-speed manouvering where issues like balancing weight, center of gravity, gearing for high speeds, require they maintain a higher speed when pedalled.
– Micro-Mobility Devices including e-bikes would all require a functioning speedometer…but there are many e-bikes that use LED displays with no speed readout like the Giant RideControl One, or in the case of electric unicycles and skateboards cannot physically mount a speedometer, at the least this needs rewording to include phone apps by way of an alternative to OEM equipment, but then this would require the rider to always have the phone app on and visible displaying speed, an e-bike handlebar can accommodate a phone mount but an e-skateboard or e-unicycle rider would have to be holding the phone in his/her hand in line of sight and that strikes me as unsafe when we discourage texting while riding and those devices sometimes require you move your arms around to physically balance.
– The proposals for regulating shared Micro-Mobility Device operating companies provide the County with power to revoke an operating permit for a safety violation and inspect any new equipment fitted, but it does not require operating companies to share safety data with each other. This emerged as a problem earlier this spring when Capital Bikeshare Plus shared ebikes were withdrawn for the same brake issue that led Uber to modify their 1st gen JUMP bikeshare ebikes last fall, but Uber apparently did not share this information with Motivate/Lyft and several riders reported falls and injuries before Lyft withdrew their bikes 6 months later.

[Author]

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