[lordofthemark]

@PotomacCyclist 55577 wrote:

I’d much rather ride on the MVT (when it’s not crowded) and in Old Town (when it’s not too crowded) than in any hipster-ish areas.

It really wasn’t about how hip or unhip it was – it was about the sheer normality of biking there. How functional it was. How taken for granted it seemed. That just seemed so cool to me. Riding on a trail is nice but not the same. And I while I love Old Town I can’t think of any part of it where biking is quite that taken for granted.

Actually now that I think about it, the one place in NoVa that I guess has the vibe the most is not Old Town, but Del Ray.

I need to bike around Del Ray.

[lordofthemark]

@KLizotte 55412 wrote:

In that case, there is a lot of “regular clothes on bikes” folks around Dupont, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Georgetown, and Capitol Hill. We’ll never be NYC but at least we don’t have the funny street smell that NY produces in the summer.

Maybe it was the heavy rain the night before, or maybe it was just a Myrtle Avenue thing (lots of rose bushes along the way, and Fort Greene Park) but North Brooklyn smelt good for our walk.

[lordofthemark]

While I like historic architecture, froyo (which this ride should certainly include) and also nature, what was distinctive for me was how normative biking was there. I haven’t been to Amsterdam or Copenhagen or even Portland – but my impression was that cycling is simply more part of the fabric of day to day life in that part of Brooklyn than about anywhere else in the USA at least, except for some of the smaller cities (like Portland) and college towns (like Davis). Thats the vibe I want. I already sense that the L”Enfant city part of DC is the most like that anywhere closer than NYC (unless Philly has some surprises). Just wondering if there was a particularly intense area I’ve overlooked. My thought is to do something like what y’all have suggested – tool around the 15th and Penn Cycle tracks, East Capital, 11th Street, etc.

[lordofthemark]

@4st7lbs 55394 wrote:

If you work at (or near) the five sided nuthaus and want to do a loop (Crystal City-Georgetown-Foggy Bottom-National Mall-Nats Park-Capitol Hill-National Mall-Crystal City) with me some time let me know. I live and work right by there and love riding in heavy traffic. If you want to extend it to Logan Circle I’d be down with that too.

I do not work there – I work on M Street SE. But I don’t feel ready yet (if ever) to commute all the way from Annandale, so my commute (which I did on BTWD) is on the express bus to the Pentagon, then around the Pentagon Reservation to the MVT to the 14th Street bridge, then Water to 7th SW to I (Eye) Street SW across to SE. The latter part is urban, and not bad, but hardly up to hipster Brooklyn standards.

[lordofthemark]

@4st7lbs 54912 wrote:

And a lot of the displaced are none too happy.

Dilemma – I think the costs and benefits of gentrification for exisiting residents are more complex than the above suggests, but I don’t want to take this off topic.

[lordofthemark]

@baiskeli 54906 wrote:

Well, the difference is that you know where those pockets of rough areas are, and probably avoid them yourself. Those who don’t know them will need to avoid a larger area, perhaps an entire quadrant, in order not to stumble into them. And when you’re on a bike trail, it’s hard to avoid the pockets of rough areas if the trail leads you through them, even if you did know where they are.

Let’s all remember that bike trails can attract predators anywhere. There was a woman stabbed just a week or two ago on the Four Mile Run trail in a very low-crime area, and cyclists attacked at gunpoint on the Custis. I’d be more concerned about the MBT, but still, we should always be on the lookout wherever we are.

I hear you, and personally am leary of the MBT. But I think the reaction was to charecterizing the entire quadrant. Northeast happens to include H Street Northeast – I’ve never biked there, but I’ve walked there on many occasions. As a cyclist your bigger danger there is probably the street car tracks. The city has changed fast in the last few years.

[lordofthemark]

eh? The healthy, enviro, and vaguely unamerican memes are part of the “bikers are elitist hipster snobs who look down on the salt of the earth types” meme which a certain kind of populist autocentrist often espouses. Of course not all conservatives espouse that, and some who are not conservatives (er, Courtland Milloy?) seem to share it. The “sharing” thing is specifically aimed at bike share, and while its not that common a meme, I do think I’ve seen fringy folks put it forward before.

And the hate for Bloomberg among NYC conservatives, and conservatives generally who follow Bloomberg, is quite real AFAICT. Of course there are liberals who don’t like Bloomberg, but I don’t think its quite as visceral, and I think for them (and I don’t think he’s a bogeyman for liberals OUTSIDE NYC the way he is for conservatives) it doesn’t align so well with views of biking and bike sharing.

[lordofthemark]

This explains a lot.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/venn-diagram-why-conservatives-hate-citi-bike.html?test=true

[lordofthemark]

@Bilsko 53900 wrote:

Funny thing is that Gabe Klein was also in town this weekend – any chance he was at that Bat Mitzvah?

I am sorry to say I wouldn’t have recognized Mr. Klein.

I also attended Friday night (a bit unusual for me lately, but it was my father’s yahrzeit and I was there to say kaddish (hebrew/yiddish explained on request)) and seeing Rahm my first thought was “Is he here for Chicago business, or to fix things at 1600?” Wasn’t until his daughter got up to say the blessing over wine at the end that I realized it was the eve of her Bat Mitzvah ceremony.

[lordofthemark]

Whatever share of regualar bike commuters to downtown is going to be versus non-active modes and walking, I think Mstone is correct that the best way for most of them to get downtown is going to be to use their own bike. Its got to be cheaper to provide more bike parking than to provide more Cabi docks, and as he says, busing bike back for this purpose doesnt really make sense.

So what can be done

A. Don’t some cities provide incentives for reverse biking – if you go from a dock blocked station to one that needs bikes, you get extra minutes or other incentives? That seems like a desirable way to deal with some balancing issues

(edit – you mentioned that above, I see. I think thats a good idea, and would not be subject to the kinds of problems Mstone fears)

B. Doesn’t the software make it possible to ID who is riding where? Could it be possible (without violating privacy) to somehow use that info to market regular commuters to dockblocked stations to buy bicycles?

[lordofthemark]

@DismalScientist 53028 wrote:

HOV restrictions on I66 forces traffic onto 50 and other non-freeway arterials such as Lee Highway and Washington Blvd. This seems to be preference of Arlington voters. Similarly, Arlington sued to stop the addition of express lanes on I395.

nonetheless my understanding is that most of the people commuting by car through Arlco are doing so on I395 and on I66 (and GWP. Add US 50 into the mix if you like. No current plans I know for traffic calming or major densification on rte 50. So far the discussion in this thread is of washington blvd west of George Mason.

thats parallel to I 66, to Rte 29, and to the Orange (and soon Silver) line. I think deciding that moving commuters on it is a lower priority than making it work as a neighborhood street, is pretty reasonable. Note that does NOT mean through commuters couldnt drive on it – just they would have to put up with whatever that does to their speed. They will still have transit alternatives. Why would ArlCo want to make a neighborhood main street less walkable to make it possible for people driving from Fairfax to DC at rush hour have a faster commute?

[lordofthemark]

@JorgeGortex 53011 wrote:

. With housing prices etc. its not feasible to ask someone in outer Fairfax, Woodbridge, etc. to commute in by bike. At least not everyday, certainly.
.

I live in fairfax. Our county is investing a very considerable amount of $$ in the new Silver line – I certainly hope SOME people in outer Fairfax will use it to get to Arlco and DC. There are already lots who so use the Orange line. PWC has both VRE (I hear the trains fill up) and express buses to Arlington and DC. Biking is hardly the only alternative to cars for commuting from the outer suburbs to Arlington and DC.

[lordofthemark]

@JorgeGortex 53011 wrote:

Because, again, with respect, this is fantasy. You are not going to get people out their cars. Not with the distances that many people have to travel, and the time commitments they have. Some people manage, and I salute them. The majority passing through Arlington can not. (I live in Arlington, and I can not, right now.) Otherwise, they’d simply live and work in Arlington. Right? The commuters through Arlington are part of where are Arlington is. Its geography..

pardon, but arent the vast majority of those passing through Arlington taking I66 or I395 (I usually do transit to work, but when I do commute by car, I pass through Arlco on I395) I don’t think anyone is calling for traffic calming on those , or even on GW Parkway (though that might make sense purely for motorist safety)

While some people may commute through Arlco on the arterials, I would guess its far smaller than the total who commute through Arlcon by car total. And some subset of them DO have viable alternatives.

I don’t think its at all unreasonable for the govt of Arlcon to prioritize the needs of its residents over those of commuters. Thats essentially what DC is doing as well. Its not like Fairfax County is contributing to support the cost of governing ArlCo.

And of course the evidence is that as Arlco has densified, the traffic counts on key arteries in the RB corridor have stayed the same or declined. Thats not getting everyone out of their cars – but it is getting some.

[lordofthemark]

@dasgeh 52892 wrote:

Ah, yes… HS physics is vaguely coming back now… Maybe some easy rule of thumb, similar to MPG for cars? Like how long my commute would take with bike set up X v. bike set up Y. (or more seriously, I bet you could model an “average” rider, and an “average” city (lots of stops) v. path (fewer stops) route and have a time for that average rider to ride that route. Obviously, that won’t be the time it takes most people to ride most routes, but it would provide a comparison and an idea of the tradeoff when buying that yummy looking dutch bike that’s on ridiculous sale at REI v. a speedy road bike.

very interesting calculator.

Seems like going to the non-MTB tires, and losing a few pounds of my person, will do most of what I’m looking for. And increasing my wattage !!

[lordofthemark]

I’d love to spend time checking out bikes, but right now we have one bike for three of us in the household, and getting at least one more bike quickly has taken on priority (PM if you want details). So I’m tempted to just get the REI bike (Novara is their house brand, apparently) assuming it feels comfortable. OTOH, what vicegrip says above.

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