[thucydides]

@jrenaut 86863 wrote:

Better World club covers bikes, too. And they actually advocate for things that would be good for society.

Does anyone here have experience with Better World?

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I wonder if part of a solution to what dasgeh raises with complex intersection and that jrenaut raises with pedestrians and with the Idaho stop issue generally is far wider spread use of bike-specific lights. I’m talking about ones like we see on the Rosslyn hill, only ones that make sense. Yellow essentially allows an Idaho stop or somewhat faster variants. Red means stop and stayed stopped until it changes. Red is used for complicated intersections and high-foot-traffic intersections when peds have the walk sign.

[thucydides]

@mstone 84531 wrote:

Yeah, Arlington has a quasi-system, which ends up being useless because of all the disconnected streets, streets that aren’t actually straight but are arbitrarily named e-w or n-s, all the “exceptions”, etc. E.g., 26th St S intersects with 28th St S, which intersects with Army Navy north of 24th St S, which is close the amusingly (or perversely) named 23d Rd S which runs south of and parallel to 23d St S. In some parts of the county where there’s an underlying grid the system mostly works (except for the exceptions) but that’s not true for most of the roads in the county. Other than as a historical curiosity to entertain people at a happy hour I’m not sure what the value is of bringing up the naming system–certainly, it’s not something that visitors can use to find an unfamiliar location.

It’s imperfect, sure, and I can name some other examples where it gets really crazy. But if you know the system you really can get by fine sans map of whatever flavor. My son is about as directionally challenged as you can get. He was 11 before he could reliably find his way to and from our elementary school, which is a quarter-mile away and requires one turn. So last summer we started biking to far flung areas of Arlington and I’d say, “Okay, find our way home.” Invariably there were some deadends here and there but he quickly figured out how to do it. I only intervened when he was taking us onto a road we had no business biking on. “Uh, no, we’re not taking the on-ramp to 395.” He now can find his way home from anywhere in Arlington. Cross ten feet over into Fairfax however….

[thucydides]

@dasgeh 84433 wrote:

Fellow TR Bridge commuters may have noticed that there’s a hazardous joint on the bridge….

Thanks for doing that. I’ve been bunny hopping that joint for so long I don’t even think about it anymore and never thought to report it. But you’re right, it could grab someone, especially in dim light.

[thucydides]

Perhaps bridge to nowhere is the wrong descriptor as it has developed into something useful. “Ad hoc” bridge perhaps because it was there not put there with the intent of actually doing anything with it. Just putting stuff up in an ad hoc way is one way you get a completely disjointed system where things don’t connect logically and efficiently. Fairfax in other words. In this particular case the bridge ended up being rather useful, though not nearly as useful as it could be.

[thucydides]

This is an aside but the area has a second bridge to nowhere with a funnyish (as in groan worthy) back story. (At least it’s the story I’ve been told by more than one former Fairfax official.) On the beltway just north of the Braddock road (alongside Wakefield Park) is a bridge to nowhere. Specifically it connects Wakefield park on the westside of 495 with a bunch of apartments on the eastside of 495. (So at least it doesn’t deadend like the one over 66.) The story is that VDOT was doing some work on 495 and needed to put up a sign. So they said to Fairfax County, “Hey would you like a bike/pedestrian crossing to hold our sign?” “Why not,” was the reply. So they got a crossing. This nicely sums up the randomness of Fairfax’s past (if not present) approach to cycling infrastructure. In truth they could potentially integrate this bridge into something useful. 495 is after all a significant barrier. But they really haven’t. To top it all off, after construction of the HOT stuff VDOT removed the signs from the bridge. Here are pics of it before that happened:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5163[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5164[/ATTACH]

[thucydides]

x2 on Performance Elite. Generally I dislike Performance stuff but I love these bibs and they’re definitely on the cheaper side of what you can find out there.

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NPS is surely shy on money so here is a cost-free solution to the “problem” of the TR parking lot. I’ll describe this from the perspective of someone heading into Virginia. Get rid of the barriers that prevent cyclists from entering the parking lot next to the island bridge. Don’t just allow but encourage or even require cyclists to ride in the lot until the curb-cut next to the bridge over the GWMP. I’ve ridden through there twice a day for years. The very few times I’ve ever faced problems with cars was due to cars failing to yield when I was on the trail crossing the parking lot (i.e., the crossing that connects the two 90 degree turns). In contrast I’ve had — I don’t know — hundreds of situations where being forced to take the trail put me in some sort of potential collision with pedestrians (frequent) or cyclists (rare and always at one of the 90 degree turns). I’ve never had an actual collision there but the potential is there and pretty much always is the consequence of forcing bikes onto a poorly designed section of trail. But NPS doesn’t need to spend millions to fix it. They just need to recognize that having bikes in the lot is a feature not a bug (or a viable workaround to the bug).

[thucydides]

That Morning Times one has got to be it. Thank you, thank you.

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I could swear the one I saw was about twenty years older. But it certainly was similar to this. Thanks.

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@hozn 81802 wrote:

I don’t think so:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliz%C3%A9
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/aller

Without too much research the attributed root “alis” in Latin seems to be a form (dative) of ala/alae “wing”.

Man Specialized’s lawyers generate the worst PR for that company.

Okay, it was an ignorant guess on my part. I do know enough French to know that they aren’t at all pronounced alike either, though perhaps Specialized’s contention is that American’s aren’t sophisticated enough figure out that allez and alize don’t sound alike. Regardless as you note, whatever the technical legal merits may or may not be, the PR side of it is a disaster. Everywhere you turn on the net they’re getting creamed for this.

[thucydides]

@Tim Kelley 81795 wrote:

http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2013/12/07/war-veteran-forced-to-change-bike-shops-name-after-threat-from-u-s-bike-giant-specialized/

Yeah I knew about that one and had mixed feelings about it. I could at least kinda maybe see Specialized’s point on that, especially with the whole protect it or lose it aspect of US trademark law. But the Alize thing seems worse to me. Then again alize basically means “wind” in French. Allez means “go” but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that its etymology goes back to wind. After the Cafe Roubaix thing you’d think that Specialized would figure out that the brand damage from this sort of publicity is worse than the brand damage from whatever minor confusion people might have over an Allez versus an Alize. There are things they can do to protect the trademark that don’t require stomping on someone.

[thucydides]

@mstone 81792 wrote:

yeah, there’s no particular reason to buy specialized instead of some other bike, and a lot of weaselly reasons not to.

I really like Specialized bikes. I’ve got three of them and was thinking about getting a Shiv this Fall. But not now. This is such a clear case where Specialized wins not on merits but on deep pockets. They and I both can do without my further contributions to those pockets.

[thucydides]

That situation on the TR bridge this morning was CRAZY. My jaw dropped through the floor when I saw what was causing the Eastbound backup. Basically there’s a big sinkhole, no it’s really a sinktrench, on the outer EB lanes. (Didn’t they just rebuild this bridge about 5 years ago?) One way or another DDOT will find a way for this to disrupt traffic on the main TR trail (on the cars’ westbound side).

[thucydides]

@consularrider 78484 wrote:

Where’s the alternative to just make the GW Parkway pedestrian bridge crossing over the parking lot entrance and line up directly with the trail? Yeah, I know, too expensive. Of course making comments with no cost estimates can be problematic as well.

You’re absolutely right about cost estimates. That should be a criterion for examination. 1 & 2 look so similar that my guess is they cost about the same. But it’s not like I have any expertise in civil engineering or costing out projects like this.

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