[LhasaCM]

@bobco85 158818 wrote:

Working from home today, and guess what just arrived!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]14627[/ATTACH]

Very nice. I’m waiting until tomorrow night to gather my purple ensemble to see how many different shades I’ll have…

[LhasaCM]

@Judd 158807 wrote:

You should be fine. Given the pace on prior rides with Bobco, it will be similar to the doughnut ride.

Got it. I think I was getting hung up on low end of the “4-5 hours with breaks” estimate. If we’re thinking similar to the doughnut ride, that’s probably 4 hours or so moving time (it looks like we were around 11mph on average between stops, which included the climb up to Duck Donuts), plus however long we stop at wherever along the way.

Now – to figure out where to tack on 10 or so extra miles (beyond the ride itself and getting to/from the ride) to get to 100km for the trip…

[LhasaCM]

@bobco85 158770 wrote:

Considering the last ride I tried to lead had thunderstorms with hail, I’ll take “meh” as a good thing!

Based on the current forecast, it looks like the ride will be over (and folks able to get back from whence they came) before it goes from “meh” to “yuck!” (Heavier/steady rain is supposed to start around 6PM.)

Since I have no parental responsibilities Saturday, I think I’m in. My only hesitation (as always) is expected pace; I don’t want to be a drag.

[LhasaCM]

@Raymo853 158771 wrote:

I remember a news article stating the Wilson bridge is opened for a ship every two days on average.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

That was with the old bridge (20 feet lower) and before the Washington Post stopped having newsprint arrive on barges. It is much less often now.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[LhasaCM]

@peterw_diy 158739 wrote:

Another observation: the money added to include the drawbridge on WWB would have paid for all the work needed now for Memorial Bridge.

Very true. So does a single F-22 Raptor. Or (by some estimates) the security for the inauguration. Or the 2012 film Battleship.

[LhasaCM]

@mstone 158740 wrote:

How do landlocked cities manage without their construction barges?

The landlocked cities are where the cheaper labor is and things are actually made and not brought in…

Slightly more seriously – trains (usually there are more routes/options to avoid tunnels away from the coasts).

[LhasaCM]

@mstone 158733 wrote:

Yes, I remember the ridiculous arguments at the time. The added cost of 200M, while huge, is also a major low ball because it ignores the ongoing liability of a bridge that moves. (See the old Wilson bridge or a certain other Potomac bridge that doesn’t even open anymore–a movable thing is more fragile and maintenance intensive than a solid thing.) The reason there aren’t more openings is because the planning didn’t notice that DC isn’t really a port city. (It’s ok, George made that mistake also, right?) The projections missed the collapse of the vestiges of the region’s shipping industry. There was mumbling that the Navy needed to access the Navy Yard, but by now they’ve admitted that won’t happen. There was mumbling that we needed a draw bridge because one customer needed to access the port of Alexandria, but they’ve finally admitted that Alexandria wants condos more than a run down second rate dockland. There was mumbling about what if we needed to park a missile cruiser (too much Tom Clancy?) or hospital ship by the Jefferson memorial. Well, what if we needed to park a missile cruiser or hospital ship in Tyson’s or Omaha? Should we put in a bunch of canals now just in case we have to exercise a specific low probability option? Better answer: park the boat downstream of the bridge. If we’d just said no and built a shorter solid bridge we probably would have cut the life cycle cost of the project by more than half.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

It probably wouldn’t have been savings of half; the construction cost of the bridge itself was only about 1/3 of the overall project; most of the money went towards the interchanges and surface highways leading up to the new bridge spans.

But yes – the original design and underlying math was based on the assumption that traffic at the time (i.e., the 250 openings per year) would remain constant, so needed to be accommodated. That, and the doomsday scenarios of battleships on the Potomac. More likely, you’d see large barge traffic carrying precast building segments that can’t fit through a normal train tunnel, but most of those can probably fit under the new/higher span. In any event, that lead to the options of either (1) a high bridge that anything could get under (roughly same initial cost, Maryland loved it, but the FAA and Virginia did not); (2) the current design (higher ongoing maintenance of moving parts); or (3) a tunnel (higher initial cost and higher ongoing maintenance).

[LhasaCM]

@peterw_diy 158731 wrote:

Thanks! Wikipedia says the projection was 60 openings per year. At that rate, likely $50,000-$100,000 per opening, but based on these announcements it seems the bridge actually only opens one tenth that often, putting the cost around $500k-$1m per opening, $1m-2m per round trip. Does the Navy actually have fighting ships tall enough to need the drawbridge that can sail the Potomac? Quick searches suggest the really big boats like destroyers and aircraft carriers need 30-40′ of water but the channel just south of WWB is only about 20′, and there’s not enough tidal variation to make that navigable even at high tide, regardless of headroom / airspace.

Not a fighting ship, but I think the Navy’s hospital ships are around 10 stories tall.

I think the projection of 60 was based on the previous 250/year that the older/lower bridge had to open. It does seem that it is far less often, especially if you ignore the ‘maintenance’ openings. (I think I remember reading somewhere that it opened 41 times in 2013, but many of those were for maintenance/testing.)

According to the Internets (http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge.html), Maryland favored a high bridge (around 135 feet up), but Alexandria wanted the lower drawbridge. That makes sense, given what was on each side of the river at the time. The FAA also favored a lower bridge, given the approach to DCA. Given their stereotypical behavior, I think I’m OK with whatever Maryland drivers did not want…

[LhasaCM]

@LhasaCM 158717 wrote:

It’s a drawbridge because occasionally big ships need to come onto that side of the bridge In November, it opened to allow a Spanish replica galleon to dock in Alexandria.

As I recall, because the new bridge was built higher than the previous one, the numbers of times it has to open each year has been reduced dramatically.

I think it was something like $200m of the $2.4b construction cost. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/12/AR2005081201700.html) Beyond the occasional ship traffic like that, it also has a potential utility should any large naval ships need to get close to DC. Not making it a drawbridge would’ve meant either an even higher bridge (so higher cost) or closing DC to certain sized ships.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[LhasaCM]

@mstone 158716 wrote:

yes, it’s a drawbridge, because they were running out of ways to waste money

It’s a drawbridge because occasionally big ships need to come onto that side of the bridge In November, it opened to allow a Spanish replica galleon to dock in Alexandria.

As I recall, because the new bridge was built higher than the previous one, the numbers of times it has to open each year has been reduced dramatically.

[LhasaCM]

@Judd 158576 wrote:

I just had a flashback to my Driver’s Ed class. I can literally hear the clicking of the filmstrip with the soft radio voice saying, “Look left. Look right. Look left again. Now proceed with the turn.”

And it’s a problem that too many people just “Look left while proceeding with the turn.”

[LhasaCM]

@EasyRider 157905 wrote:

What about a vehicle that has pedals and a motor that can propel it the vehicle faster than 20mph, but which is not measured in cubic centimeters? A motor-driven cycle, right?

I read it as “Faster than 20 mph but under 30 mph” is a motor-driven cycle unless it has a big engine.

https://dmv.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dmv/publication/attachments/May%2017%202013%20Non-traditional%20Motor%20Vehicle%20chart.pdf

From the same chart, motorized bicycles are not allowed in bike lanes. The rule cited earlier (1201.18) could be interpreted as such – it’s not clear if “off-street” is modifying just “bikepath” or if it also applies to “bicycle route.”

[LhasaCM]

@Judd 157755 wrote:

I think we should use Steve O’s Crazy Idea for the individual rankings this year.

As someone who moves up 20 places in the standings by this math, I agree wholeheartedly!

I do agree with Steve that it may have been more interesting/impactful if we had something closer to a “normal” winter. It’s hard to say how much of this year’s disparities is driven by “fewer people rode today because it was terrible outside all day” vs. “fewer people rode today because of life.”

Part of it also gets to the more philosophical “why people rode how much they rode when they rode.” For me – it was all about opportunity: regardless of the weather forecast, I rode as much as I could get away with given work/family responsibilities. If it so happened that a greater share of my miles came on days fewer people rode, so be it. (It is interesting to see the wide range of “bump %” figures for those who rode all 78 days – from 5% to 34%.)

[LhasaCM]

@cvcalhoun 157642 wrote:

And regardless of the fact that the nearest bikeshare to me is a mile from my house? And that at the speed I ride, I’d have to change bikes about three times to get to work while staying within the half hour limit?

And given the distance between bikes along the CCT, I don’t think many could stay within the half hour limit and would have to pay additional usage fees. (That’s about what, 6 miles between the start of the trail and River Road? Up hill? On a Bikeshare bike?!)

[LhasaCM]

@Sunyata 157547 wrote:

So, my goal for Freezing Saddles this year was 1,500 miles… Thanks to some pretty tough competition with Team 15, I crushed that and got 2,200 miles! So, I am kind of happy that I did not win this prize. 😎

Yeah – I think I totally underestimated my pseudo-competitiveness heading into this competition, so I’m thrilled I was so far off. I had a goal/target of 70 days and 300 miles (the 1,000 points for Chris M), which would’ve been a modest but not crazy increase over what I had been averaging since July when I started using Strava. Little did I know that this competition would inspire me to come up with schemes like meeting my wife and daughter in Reston for lunch (me biking from DC, them driving). Now, to keep that effort up without the underlying “but it’s for the team” excuse…

[Author]

Posts