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@KLizotte 17436 wrote:

If your company leases the office space, I’d go high up your food chain and see if they can complain to the building’s owner about extraordinary lax security and demand financial compensation. For someone to come in with a buzz saw and use it in broad daylight is remarkably ballsy but also shows that he or she cased the joint and decided there was zero risk. It would have been easier to just steal a car!

Cars are expensive enough that the police care a bit more.

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just wow

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And my favorite pet peeve–No jaunty angle!

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@GuyContinental 17262 wrote:

Sterling Blvd is plain terrifying at the wrong time of day.

I don’t think there’s ever a time of day when someone can look at that mess and say “this was well planned”. A four lane highway with a crosswalk on it. They couldn’t even move the start of the turn lane down 50 feet so we’d have 10 feet less pavement to scurry across.

edit to add: Oh, I did forget to acknowledge that they did zig-zaggy pavement lines approaching the crosswalk, which protects pedestrians and cyclists by indicating to drivers that they’ve suddenly been transported to Europe.

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Over on the fairfax co pkwy trail just south of the toll road where it detours temporarily onto the road there are yield signs facing both ways on the trail. I I don’t know what confusion of ideas led to that signage.

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good grief, is it hand-knitted from threads unraveled from the horn of a unicorn?

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@eminva 17156 wrote:

Another intersection that seems to invite scofflawery (is that a word? If not, it should be) is the W&OD and Gallows intersection

That’s one that’s quite clearly configured to not interfere much with motorists. It will not give pedestrians a signal more than once ever N minutes. If you see the cross signal lit while you’re approaching, you know you’re screwed because it’ll be red by the time you get there and you’ll have to sit a couple of minutes. Yet while it makes sure cars don’t get inconvenienced too much, it has a very short cycle for pedestrians, and quite often there’s a scramble to clear the road when it’s backed up on both sides. What’s even more hilarious about the timing is that it is quite clearly possible to give peds their 20s in periods when there’s no traffic coming due to light timings up and down the street–quite often it doesn’t change until the cars from the next light turning green are just starting to reach the crosswalk. So I’ll bet it also generates a lot of motorist complaints. Ignoring the signal is pretty safe at slack times because the sight lines are good and it’s a mid-block crossing so there aren’t any turning cars. The only upside to the signal is that it gives people a chance to cross at times when the traffic is heavy enough that there are no breaks. Oh, and it’s out on a fairly regular basis, so everyone has to learn how to cross without the signal anyway.

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@5555624 17125 wrote:

You mean how many people would take advantage of being able to bring non-folding bikes on metro during rush hour?

I’d like to think that an serious cycling commuters who use Metro as part of their normal commute have a folding bike. After all, that’s the way the current rules reads.

If the rule would be eliminated, I think the biggest increases would be

– Emergencies — Can’t ride home due to a mechanical issue or weather (thunderstorms, snow, etc.)[/quote]

I completely agree with this one, though I’m not sure I’d call it an “emergency”, and I suspect it would be any time it rains in the afternoon when the forecast said it wouldn’t. And if the rules say you can do it, I suspect it will be a lot more than a couple of people who take advantage of the opportunity.

Quote:

– Tourists — after spending a day cycling around, they take the subway home/hotel. (I’m including not just tourists who have brought their bikes to DC, but locals.)

I’d consider this a group that can accommodate the current rule without a lot of hardship.

Quote:

I can’t see a big impact on revenues unless other rules are revised, too. There is a weekday limit of two bikes per car, which is only a maximum of 16 bikes per 8-car train — if there is room. Barring some sort of zone system, many rush hour cars do not have room for one bike, much less two.

This is the part that many of us have trouble grokking. Why would you think people wouldn’t try to stuff the bike onto a car in which it won’t fit, once they’ve managed to easily get to the platform? This is the same system that routinely has the remains of peoples’ lunches on the floor under the no eating signs, and has a lot of trouble with people cramming their way into a full car, breaking the doors. But cyclists are saints, and would only follow the rules? If the doors open and the car already has two bikes, the guy waiting will just stand back and wait for the next train? Even if it takes 2 or 3 or 4 trains before he’s lucky enough to be standing in front of a car without bikes? (Because no way he’s gonna be able to run to the next car before the doors close, even if it’s empty.) Somehow this will be the one commuting mode in metro dc where everyone is simply polite and the system polices itself?

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@Mark Blacknell 17114 wrote:

Do you ride Metro? Because I associate most summer commuting with “discomfort”, and can’t imagine that anyone else who does thinks that’s really a reasonable standard. As to extreme danger, well, that’s just silly. SUV strollers, someone’s giant suitcase, and conference display units are physically comparable to bikes in size and effect, and I can’t think of the last time I looked at one of those and thought – “The danger, it is extreme.” Sure, I might think “That’s f’in annoying.” But not dangerous.

None of those things has any reasonable possibility of becoming a routine part of the commute of any significant fraction of the population. (Well, strollers maybe, but I’ve seen fairly few of those 6 foot long, two person strollers on the metro during peak. Few parents probably want to put their baby into that mess.) People talk about things like refrigerators on the metro exactly because they are rare and unusual. If that sort of thing becomes routine the rules should certainly be reexamined.

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I’ve decided what I really need is one of those stadium air horns. I’m tired of not having a way to lay into to idiot drivers, and the bell just doesn’t cut it for getting through the windows. E.g., the sign says “no right turn on red when pedestrians are present”, I’m at the corner next to the car with a bunch of pedestrians *trying to cross during the walk cycle*, and the car decides to turn. *AIR HORN*.

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@JeffC 17111 wrote:

The common thread of many complaints about idiot cyclists and drivers is why people consistently do reckless and dangerous acts that ultimately save them no time,

I think the only consistency is the imprecise nature of the complaints. E.g., what does it mean to “blow through a light”? Does that mean to continue through a red without stopping? To proceed after slowing and looking? To proceed after a stop? When using such imprecise terms, the argument consists of what each participant has in mind, which is likely different than what anyone else is thinking. The crosswalk signal argument is similar. Is it really inherently unsafe to go while the signal is red and inherently safe when the signal is white? There’s a legal argument and a safety argument, and people conflate the two in a hard-to-discuss confusion of different concepts. It might be very rational to argue from a safety standpoint that crossing signals without a dedicated cycle are inherently unsafe, and should be ignored in favor of simply crossing when traffic permits (though this would be illegal). It would certainly be an easier conversation if it were clear that the crossing devices were configured for the safety of pedestrians/cyclists rather than the convenience of the motoring public.

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To be fair, it’s not like the turning cars always stop when the walk signal is on. I wonder sometimes what the point is of waiting for the walk signal vs just going when there’s a break in traffic. I suppose it’s important for your heirs?

What would be nice is if the push to cross actually had a priority. If there’s plenty of room for several cyclists to cross in the gap, why not just have the signal change a bit earlier? Is that 30s for pedestrians/cyclists really so much of an imposition?

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Yeah, full capacity depends on the capital for more cars, and the O&M funding so cars work, doors work, escalators/elevators work, ATC works, etc. That’s why I make a distinction between what the system might be able to handle and what it’s actually able to handle in its current state. And that’s why if someone wants to see better support for bikes on metro, their effort is best spent fixing metro first.

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The design capacity is 90s headways…

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@MCL1981 17061 wrote:

That would help reduce the platform and car crowding problem. However, they’re already only every 3-4 minutes. I don’t think they can get them any close together than that. Longer trains, maybe 10 cars instead of 8, would be a good start. But the platforms aren’t long enough for that.

They still don’t have enough cars to run 8 car consists during rush hour, and won’t even with the new cars on order because of the retirement of the 1000 series. If they could do exclusively 8 car consists at peak that would help a lot. (If for no other reason, it would encourage people to spread out and use the entire platform instead of just the front end.) They could run 2 minute headways, but again there simply aren’t enough cars. They also don’t have the capital to fix that problem; even the financing for the 7000 series is shaky. The 8000 series is scheduled for maybe the 2023 timeframe, to give some idea of how slow changes will take (even those will be to replace cars at end of service life, not expand service).

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