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@Freerojo 44391 wrote:

This Econolodge is just the setup I have been looking for and the Metro Station nearby makes this a no brainer, thank you. I get that you can’t take bikes on the Metro at rush hour but what is the prevailing attitude when you do bring bikes aboard? Just curious.

You won’t get crap for bringing bikes on the trains but it is somewhat inconvenient. As TwoWheelsDC has indicated you have to take the elevators but you should realize that it is often hard to find the elevators (if the station isn’t on ground level you will need to find an elevator outside the station but it can be somewhat difficult since stations often have multiple entrances but not all will have elevators, for example), the elevators are extremely slow, and you will usually have to take a second elevator to get from the level of the ticket gates to the actual trains. It’s not that bad, really, but it will add an extra set of confusing details if you already aren’t used to the train system and it does add some time to each trip.

The bus system may be somewhat more confusing if you aren’t used to it, but all the WMATA buses and many of the other local buses have two-bike racks on the front, plus they don’t have rush hour restrictions, so buses can actually be much more convenient if you need to transport you bikes.

I’ll second the recommendation for Crystal City. It will be much more convenient and there are a bunch of hotels right near the Mount Vernon Trail: http://goo.gl/maps/sr4YL (hopefully this link will work?) which will put you really close to a lot of the sights on a really nice bike route.

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@Arlingtonrider 28080 wrote:

I have some easily attachable/detachable SKS fenders that I’ve been very happy with for my 35 mm tires. I’ll bring them to the happy hour in case anyone would like to see them. (Tire size doesn’t matter with these.)

Do you know what model they are? Since I’m also running 35mm tires currently, I’m somewhat constrained in my options so I would be interested to know what you’re using.

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@krazygl00 28009 wrote:

I just wish SKS made RaceBlades (the quick detach ones) that covered 32mm tires (they max out at 23mm), because I don’t like the look of fenders on a cross bike and don’t want to have them on ALL the time.

I think they do; I was looking at them before for similar reasons but I have 35mm tires on my commuter at the moment.

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@Chris Eatough 27925 wrote:

Thanks for trying this out and your initial feedback.
I want to make sure everyone realizes that the base map for Bikeplanner (openstreetmap) is open for edit by anyone. So if you get a result that doesn’t seem right, you can view the base map and usually there is a correction that can bring the map and the routing more in line with reality. The openstreetmap that is used as the basemap is here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/
You can log in and start making improvements!
This is truly a community tool. Avid cyclists like yourselves are the people that collectively know all the details of our bike network, and that knowledge can be incorporated into the base map over time.
The more we use Bikeplanner and provide feedback, the more accurate it becomes!
Open Plans and BikeArlington will be bringing more tutorial info (both online and in person) to you soon to help with map editing skills).
What’s important is that we see this as a great starting point that we can improve collectively, rather than dismissing it because it does not replicate our preferred routes the first time.

I hope you’re not discouraged by the initial reaction to this site; it really is already quite impressive and I think everyone is just excited by the further potential they see in it. Nearly all the route problems appear to either be minor issues with the current OSM data, which can be easily fixed as you note, or a side effect of the fact that there’s no way to flag unsafe routes in OSM. For the latter issue it seems (based on Kevin’s comment on Greater Greater Washington) that OpenPlans is already quite aware of the situation and has a solution (adding their own information to the OSM data) that they’re using in Portland, so it shouldn’t be a problem on bikeplanner.org much longer. I certainly intend to keep using it and I think with just a little improvement it can reach a level where I’ll feel comfortable recommending it to new cyclists without feeling the need to warn them to take the directions with a grain of salt. The site is really neat and I can’t wait to see how it continues to improve.

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@FFX_Hinterlands 27869 wrote:

For Fairfax Co (and I imagine other places) we have a road rating as part of our bike map. Maybe that can be incorporated into the “score?”

If you could convince OpenStreetMap to allow this information to be included it would be technically trivial, but since OpenStreeMap is international it might be complicated to work out a standard for rating streets even if they liked the idea.

Alternatively, the most realistic option would be to talk to the OpenTripPlanner people and see if they would be interested in allowing some way for the people using the software to provide their own files with this information. Then it would just be matter of getting Fairfax Co to prepare such a file and getting BikePlanner to enable it.

Edit: I hadn’t realized it but the OpenTripPlanner software is actually by the people making this site. That probably means it wouldn’t be hard to get any backend changes made that were necessary to improving it. Still the site saying that they’re going to have a guide to editing OpenStreetMap suggests that they may not plan to try to make adjustments to the data from their end.

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@jrenaut 27819 wrote:

If you have a viable business plan for said website, I would be interested . . .

I’m far too lazy to try to make something like that myself, and I doubt it would be possible to make money off of it, but with people actually developing software for bike directions it might become fairly easy for someone to do it in the future.

One simpler alternative in the meantime would be for someone to take a copy of OSM for this area and OpenTripPlanner and just add some sort of road annotation for their own prefered routes (in the vein of the non-bike path roads listed on the Arlington bike map). This still might be somewhat of a pain to set up but wouldn’t require actually making new software.

@TwoWheelsDC 27822 wrote:

Am I the only one that would use a “Hilliest” route option?

It looks like OpenTripPlanner may have or may be working on an algorithm using elevation data so this would might just be a matter of changing one coefficient.

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@DismalScientist 27779 wrote:

This looks like a nice tool, but it doesn’t give me the routes I expect.
I assume this is due to differences in assumptions on the speeds and relative safety of various routes.
What assumptions are being made? Is there any way to access these assumptions through OpenMaps or is this internal to BikePlanner?

In particular, BikePlanner always puts me on the Key bridge and M or the towpath going downtown rather than the TR bridge. I would think that the TR bridge is safer and probably as fast give lights. I think the towpath in that section is almost unrideable on a road bike.

A second example is that BikePlanner route someone going from Clarendon to Rosslyn by Clarendon and over on Oak to the Custis. I think that going through to Lynn would be safer than dealing with that part of the Custis. Does BikePlanner allow for changing safety and speed parameter on a very narrow segment of a route?

I just glanced at the source code for opentripplanner (what BikePlanner uses for routing) and I’m not sure I completely understood its algorithm (it’s spread out in a lot of files) but it doesn’t seem to take speed limits into account but simply has a “safety” weight applied to the distance based on whether there’s a bike path or what type of road it is (e.g. whether it’s a highway).

Unfortunately, how safe or pleasant roads are actually to bike on isn’t something you can really determine just by looking at the type of road, or sometimes even whether there’s a bike lane.

An interesting alternative approach might be to create a website that would allow users to rate segments of roads or intersections and then use these ratings to evaluate routes.

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@dbb 27671 wrote:

Well it won’t be shorter (longer by maybe 150 feet) but will be possibly less exciting (meaning the odds of not becoming a hood ornament will go down). Common sense will remain a valuable trait! The motorists should be provided a less destracting situation at the new crosswalk location.

I think pfunkallstar means the length of the actual crossing itself, compared to the current two-lane crossing, although if it will now be where the pink line was on your image from the first page this won’t decrease either.

Assuming some cars stop for cyclists at the crossing (I guess illegally if you listen to the NPS) it may get shorter in terms of waiting time, though, since it won’t be necessary to wait for both lanes to stop.

I wish they could somehow make the crossing from the Washington Blvd path only one lane as well.

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Dear cyclist riding down Washington Blvd (in the actual road) and the GW Parkway toward Memorial Bridge,

I’m impressed by your balls. Please consider donating them to science when a driver you’ve given the finger runs you over in a fit of road rage. I will continue to cheer you on and worry for your sanity from the safety of the path on the path on the side of the road.

[Author]

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