The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC...

[Anonymous]

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Transit surveys show biking is becoming less popular in DC. The government is spending more and more money on fewer and fewer people.

Which, you know, is kind of weird, because year by year, I see more people biking in DC. Well, who am I going to trust, some anonymous rando on DCUM or my lying eyes?

Neither! You could just look at the data. It's not that hard. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments puts out an annual transit report. TL;DR: Every form of transportation is becoming less popular, except driving, which is way up. It also says cyclists are exactly who you'd think: white, young, upper income and (because of that) they live close to wear they work. Drivers are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

This isn't in and of itself a reason to oppose bike lanes, though. And actually, people who live near to where they work are a good universe to target with policies that might get them not to drive, because then they're not adding to congestion on the roads (if they're in a protected bike lane, they are not interfering with car trips by people driving from farther away) and it may not be a significantly longer commute to bike rather than drive. Obviously, the main users of bike lanes are not going to be people coming from 15 or 20 miles away, it's going to be people who live and work relatively near where they're biking.

Basically you're saying we should spend billions of dollars building up an entirely separate transportation system for white cyclists who are rich enough to live in the most desirable parts of the city, and if that makes car traffic a whole lot worse for predominantly black and brown drivers who don't live within such easy distance of their jobs and other places they need to go, then I guess you'd just say that's too bad. Seems kind of racist, doesn't it?

It’s not a coincidence that the biggest advocates of bike lanes on the city council represent lily white neighborhoods and the biggest critics of bike lanes come from wards 7 and 8

Vince Grey supports bike lanes. The majority of Ward 8 residents want more bike infrastructure despite their councilmember.

This debate shouldn’t be about pro bike lanes or anti bike lanes. People may support bike lanes in many places but location and context matters. Constraining Northwest Washington’s major arterial road and diverting traffic into lesser capacity streets is simply not smart transportation planning.

The police have said the bike lanes will lead to MORE accidents. Which is completely obvious to just about everyone except the bike bros.

The police union assertion is factually incorrect, as has already been explained a billion times previously on this and the many other DCUM threads started and maintained by the small number of people whose weird hobby is hating on the Connecticut Avenue plan anonymously online.

Look, in the middle of the current crime wave that shows no signs of receding you have to listen to the rank and file police. Any project that could potentially increase response time is irresponsible and dangerous. The mayor finally understands this.

Even when they're wrong!

Or, you know, maybe we shouldn't listen to them when they're wrong.

So the stated purpose of the bike lanes is to slow down cars. But this will have no impact on the police, fire, and EMS vehicles? This all sounds very magical.

That's what's been stated: That bike lanes will make Connecticut Avenue "safer" by slowing down the speed of vehicle traffic substantially.

One of the goals of the redesign is to change the "design speed" to more closely match the posted speed (25). Right now you have people driving the design speed+ and others going "merely" 30ish, leading to lots of aggressive lane changes and passing. This is what creates danger, the variability in speed and the "racing to the next stop light" mentality.

By reducing variability in speed, you increase safety, and paradoxically increase throughput of a road by reducing average speed. This should make it easier for emergency vehicles to proceed, as fewer intersections should be blocked (by cars, not bikes).

This - I don't recall the average speeds on Connecticut Avenue but in other DDOT traffic studies I've read the average speeds on major mixed use corridors is surprisingly low - usually in the range of 10-12 miles per hour.

Sure there are brief open stretches where you can hit or even exceed the speed limit but most of the time you are sitting at a traffic light in a queue of cars so the only benefit to gunning it in the open stretches I guess is you have more time to check your phone sitting at a light.

Slowing down cars can actually improve traffic and it definitely reduces accidents and improves air quality if it reduces queuing and again it has no impact on the carrying capacity of a road - that is solely determined by the thru put at intersections which as has been stated hundreds of times now in this thread will be improved along Connecticut Avenue by the addition of turn lanes which will prevent a single turning car from narrowing the road from 2 lanes to 1 which commonly happens now.

There is actually a great example of this on Connecticut Avenue just across the line in MD. Since Chevy Chase MD added the two speed cameras on SB Connecticut Ave about 10 years ago magically everyone now drives the speed limit between Bradley and Chevy Chase Circle and guess what happened - traffic is now slowed and spread out as it approaches the circle rather than arriving in a high speed knot of cars and that enables cars to smoothly merge and negotiate the circle rather than everyone slamming on the brakes when they get there because they were going 40 MPH and there is a back-up because everyone arrived together - and guess what - there are rarely any back-ups SB at the circle anymore while they used to be persistent.

This is a horrible example. Chevy Chase, MD is a high functioning local government that collects a large percentage of those photo tickets. DC, on the other hand, currently has over 3,000,000 billion unpaid tickets totaling almost $2 billion. This is another reason the bike lane plan is fatally flawed. Without actual enforcement it will be traffic Armageddon.

This has nothing to do with level of functioning of the local government and everything to do with the fact that if a Maryland jurisdiction issues a Maryland driver a photo ticket, they have to pay it or risk consequences to their license, whereas if D.C. does the same, they don't.

Because of the dumbass Council (non-functioning) and Bowser (non-functioning) failing to get reciprocity from MD and VA.

Then vote for democrats nationally, so DC can do this. Short of that, Bowser and the Council can't just make that happen.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tyranny of the Minority (2020-2023) RIP.

You had a god run. The adults are finally back in charge in 2024. Drive, bus, walk, or Metro. Those are your choices.

Anonymous rando on DCUM on a Friday night, deciding which modes of transportation people should get to use.

Love these entitled white guys who are like, I don’t want to walk or ride the subway or take the bus or drive. You have to spend billions of dollars building me my own separate transportation system because I just really like riding my bicycle. Because a city with one quarter of its kids living in poverty doesn’t have anything better to spend its money on.

Hey jerk, paint and a little concrete isn't billions of dollars. All that asphalt and signaling is. The bike infrastructure costs next to freaking nothing compared to the subsidized car infrastructure.

Not billions of course. But if some touch up paint on the mayor’s “BLM plaza” will cost $300K, what do you think bike lanes with the barriers and infrastructure changes nearly the length of Connecticut will cost? That would certainly pay for some needed cops and reading teachers

Look at the budget. The city routinely spends a quarter billion dollars each year on bike infrastructure. They’ve been spending at this rate for 15 years.

I don't see how that's possible when Bowser's budget proposal last year proposed spending $6 million per year on 10 miles per year of protected bike lanes, over the course of six years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/04/01/dc-transportation-budget/

Either the city hasn't actually spent $250 million per year on bike infrastructure, or there are actually many, many more miles of protected bike lanes than any of us is aware of.

The city's budget is a public document. You can just look it up. Here's a *small* sampling of what you'd find:

$36 million for bike lanes
$15 million for Capital Bikeshare
$800,000 for electric bike rebates
$56.4 million for Vision Zero
$39.1 million for bike and pedestrian safety
$18.5 million for signs
$32 million for intersections for intersections with safety concerns
$52 million Long Bridge bicycle connection

Remember all this money is being spent on a tiny number of people. It would be cheaper for the taxpayer if the government bought every cyclist in the city a Porsche.

If the city spent money on poor people like it spends it on cyclists, there would be no poverty in D.C.

It is amazing how much money the city spends on bicyclists. $185 million for bike trails? Are they made of gold?

The city spent $4 million building a place at union station for cyclists to tie their bikes up.

And DC spends $20 million+ every year just so people have a place to put their trash cans (alleys).

Obvious solution is to turn the alleys into bike lanes. We can save $185 million that way and people get a dedicated space to strut their spandex.

Wow - that deserves a golf clap - such a witty and clever suggestion!

[Anonymous]

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Transit surveys show biking is becoming less popular in DC. The government is spending more and more money on fewer and fewer people.

Which, you know, is kind of weird, because year by year, I see more people biking in DC. Well, who am I going to trust, some anonymous rando on DCUM or my lying eyes?

Neither! You could just look at the data. It's not that hard. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments puts out an annual transit report. TL;DR: Every form of transportation is becoming less popular, except driving, which is way up. It also says cyclists are exactly who you'd think: white, young, upper income and (because of that) they live close to wear they work. Drivers are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

This isn't in and of itself a reason to oppose bike lanes, though. And actually, people who live near to where they work are a good universe to target with policies that might get them not to drive, because then they're not adding to congestion on the roads (if they're in a protected bike lane, they are not interfering with car trips by people driving from farther away) and it may not be a significantly longer commute to bike rather than drive. Obviously, the main users of bike lanes are not going to be people coming from 15 or 20 miles away, it's going to be people who live and work relatively near where they're biking.

Basically you're saying we should spend billions of dollars building up an entirely separate transportation system for white cyclists who are rich enough to live in the most desirable parts of the city, and if that makes car traffic a whole lot worse for predominantly black and brown drivers who don't live within such easy distance of their jobs and other places they need to go, then I guess you'd just say that's too bad. Seems kind of racist, doesn't it?

It’s not a coincidence that the biggest advocates of bike lanes on the city council represent lily white neighborhoods and the biggest critics of bike lanes come from wards 7 and 8

Vince Grey supports bike lanes. The majority of Ward 8 residents want more bike infrastructure despite their councilmember.

This debate shouldn’t be about pro bike lanes or anti bike lanes. People may support bike lanes in many places but location and context matters. Constraining Northwest Washington’s major arterial road and diverting traffic into lesser capacity streets is simply not smart transportation planning.

The police have said the bike lanes will lead to MORE accidents. Which is completely obvious to just about everyone except the bike bros.

The police union assertion is factually incorrect, as has already been explained a billion times previously on this and the many other DCUM threads started and maintained by the small number of people whose weird hobby is hating on the Connecticut Avenue plan anonymously online.

Look, in the middle of the current crime wave that shows no signs of receding you have to listen to the rank and file police. Any project that could potentially increase response time is irresponsible and dangerous. The mayor finally understands this.

Even when they're wrong!

Or, you know, maybe we shouldn't listen to them when they're wrong.

So the stated purpose of the bike lanes is to slow down cars. But this will have no impact on the police, fire, and EMS vehicles? This all sounds very magical.

That's what's been stated: That bike lanes will make Connecticut Avenue "safer" by slowing down the speed of vehicle traffic substantially.

One of the goals of the redesign is to change the "design speed" to more closely match the posted speed (25). Right now you have people driving the design speed+ and others going "merely" 30ish, leading to lots of aggressive lane changes and passing. This is what creates danger, the variability in speed and the "racing to the next stop light" mentality.

By reducing variability in speed, you increase safety, and paradoxically increase throughput of a road by reducing average speed. This should make it easier for emergency vehicles to proceed, as fewer intersections should be blocked (by cars, not bikes).

This - I don't recall the average speeds on Connecticut Avenue but in other DDOT traffic studies I've read the average speeds on major mixed use corridors is surprisingly low - usually in the range of 10-12 miles per hour.

Sure there are brief open stretches where you can hit or even exceed the speed limit but most of the time you are sitting at a traffic light in a queue of cars so the only benefit to gunning it in the open stretches I guess is you have more time to check your phone sitting at a light.

Slowing down cars can actually improve traffic and it definitely reduces accidents and improves air quality if it reduces queuing and again it has no impact on the carrying capacity of a road - that is solely determined by the thru put at intersections which as has been stated hundreds of times now in this thread will be improved along Connecticut Avenue by the addition of turn lanes which will prevent a single turning car from narrowing the road from 2 lanes to 1 which commonly happens now.

There is actually a great example of this on Connecticut Avenue just across the line in MD. Since Chevy Chase MD added the two speed cameras on SB Connecticut Ave about 10 years ago magically everyone now drives the speed limit between Bradley and Chevy Chase Circle and guess what happened - traffic is now slowed and spread out as it approaches the circle rather than arriving in a high speed knot of cars and that enables cars to smoothly merge and negotiate the circle rather than everyone slamming on the brakes when they get there because they were going 40 MPH and there is a back-up because everyone arrived together - and guess what - there are rarely any back-ups SB at the circle anymore while they used to be persistent.

This is a horrible example. Chevy Chase, MD is a high functioning local government that collects a large percentage of those photo tickets. DC, on the other hand, currently has over 3,000,000 billion unpaid tickets totaling almost $2 billion. This is another reason the bike lane plan is fatally flawed. Without actual enforcement it will be traffic Armageddon.

This has nothing to do with level of functioning of the local government and everything to do with the fact that if a Maryland jurisdiction issues a Maryland driver a photo ticket, they have to pay it or risk consequences to their license, whereas if D.C. does the same, they don't.

Because of the dumbass Council (non-functioning) and Bowser (non-functioning) failing to get reciprocity from MD and VA.

Then vote for democrats nationally, so DC can do this. Short of that, Bowser and the Council can't just make that happen.

Are you HIGH?

OF COURSE the DC Council can reinstate penalties for failure to pay tickets by DC drivers. Just by simply undoing the changes they made.

OF COURSE Bowser can work out reciprocity agreements with MD and VA, in the past both D and R state governments had expressed surprise she had not even attempted to do so.

This tendency to make everything far more complicated and impossible seeming is baffling. No national elections required! Just a focus on public safety and people having consequences for unsafe driving. DC would have a lot more revenue and people would drive more safely, win/win.

[Anonymous]

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Transit surveys show biking is becoming less popular in DC. The government is spending more and more money on fewer and fewer people.

Which, you know, is kind of weird, because year by year, I see more people biking in DC. Well, who am I going to trust, some anonymous rando on DCUM or my lying eyes?

Neither! You could just look at the data. It's not that hard. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments puts out an annual transit report. TL;DR: Every form of transportation is becoming less popular, except driving, which is way up. It also says cyclists are exactly who you'd think: white, young, upper income and (because of that) they live close to wear they work. Drivers are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

This isn't in and of itself a reason to oppose bike lanes, though. And actually, people who live near to where they work are a good universe to target with policies that might get them not to drive, because then they're not adding to congestion on the roads (if they're in a protected bike lane, they are not interfering with car trips by people driving from farther away) and it may not be a significantly longer commute to bike rather than drive. Obviously, the main users of bike lanes are not going to be people coming from 15 or 20 miles away, it's going to be people who live and work relatively near where they're biking.

Basically you're saying we should spend billions of dollars building up an entirely separate transportation system for white cyclists who are rich enough to live in the most desirable parts of the city, and if that makes car traffic a whole lot worse for predominantly black and brown drivers who don't live within such easy distance of their jobs and other places they need to go, then I guess you'd just say that's too bad. Seems kind of racist, doesn't it?

It’s not a coincidence that the biggest advocates of bike lanes on the city council represent lily white neighborhoods and the biggest critics of bike lanes come from wards 7 and 8

Vince Grey supports bike lanes. The majority of Ward 8 residents want more bike infrastructure despite their councilmember.

This debate shouldn’t be about pro bike lanes or anti bike lanes. People may support bike lanes in many places but location and context matters. Constraining Northwest Washington’s major arterial road and diverting traffic into lesser capacity streets is simply not smart transportation planning.

The police have said the bike lanes will lead to MORE accidents. Which is completely obvious to just about everyone except the bike bros.

The police union assertion is factually incorrect, as has already been explained a billion times previously on this and the many other DCUM threads started and maintained by the small number of people whose weird hobby is hating on the Connecticut Avenue plan anonymously online.

Look, in the middle of the current crime wave that shows no signs of receding you have to listen to the rank and file police. Any project that could potentially increase response time is irresponsible and dangerous. The mayor finally understands this.

Even when they're wrong!

Or, you know, maybe we shouldn't listen to them when they're wrong.

So the stated purpose of the bike lanes is to slow down cars. But this will have no impact on the police, fire, and EMS vehicles? This all sounds very magical.

That's what's been stated: That bike lanes will make Connecticut Avenue "safer" by slowing down the speed of vehicle traffic substantially.

One of the goals of the redesign is to change the "design speed" to more closely match the posted speed (25). Right now you have people driving the design speed+ and others going "merely" 30ish, leading to lots of aggressive lane changes and passing. This is what creates danger, the variability in speed and the "racing to the next stop light" mentality.

By reducing variability in speed, you increase safety, and paradoxically increase throughput of a road by reducing average speed. This should make it easier for emergency vehicles to proceed, as fewer intersections should be blocked (by cars, not bikes).

This - I don't recall the average speeds on Connecticut Avenue but in other DDOT traffic studies I've read the average speeds on major mixed use corridors is surprisingly low - usually in the range of 10-12 miles per hour.

Sure there are brief open stretches where you can hit or even exceed the speed limit but most of the time you are sitting at a traffic light in a queue of cars so the only benefit to gunning it in the open stretches I guess is you have more time to check your phone sitting at a light.

Slowing down cars can actually improve traffic and it definitely reduces accidents and improves air quality if it reduces queuing and again it has no impact on the carrying capacity of a road - that is solely determined by the thru put at intersections which as has been stated hundreds of times now in this thread will be improved along Connecticut Avenue by the addition of turn lanes which will prevent a single turning car from narrowing the road from 2 lanes to 1 which commonly happens now.

There is actually a great example of this on Connecticut Avenue just across the line in MD. Since Chevy Chase MD added the two speed cameras on SB Connecticut Ave about 10 years ago magically everyone now drives the speed limit between Bradley and Chevy Chase Circle and guess what happened - traffic is now slowed and spread out as it approaches the circle rather than arriving in a high speed knot of cars and that enables cars to smoothly merge and negotiate the circle rather than everyone slamming on the brakes when they get there because they were going 40 MPH and there is a back-up because everyone arrived together - and guess what - there are rarely any back-ups SB at the circle anymore while they used to be persistent.

This is a horrible example. Chevy Chase, MD is a high functioning local government that collects a large percentage of those photo tickets. DC, on the other hand, currently has over 3,000,000 billion unpaid tickets totaling almost $2 billion. This is another reason the bike lane plan is fatally flawed. Without actual enforcement it will be traffic Armageddon.

This has nothing to do with level of functioning of the local government and everything to do with the fact that if a Maryland jurisdiction issues a Maryland driver a photo ticket, they have to pay it or risk consequences to their license, whereas if D.C. does the same, they don't.

Because of the dumbass Council (non-functioning) and Bowser (non-functioning) failing to get reciprocity from MD and VA.

Then vote for democrats nationally, so DC can do this. Short of that, Bowser and the Council can't just make that happen.

Are you HIGH?

OF COURSE the DC Council can reinstate penalties for failure to pay tickets by DC drivers. Just by simply undoing the changes they made.

OF COURSE Bowser can work out reciprocity agreements with MD and VA, in the past both D and R state governments had expressed surprise she had not even attempted to do so.

This tendency to make everything far more complicated and impossible seeming is baffling. No national elections required! Just a focus on public safety and people having consequences for unsafe driving. DC would have a lot more revenue and people would drive more safely, win/win.

Reciporcity depends on statehood or a regional agreement. DC Cannot just force it.

[Anonymous]

"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

[Anonymous]

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Transit surveys show biking is becoming less popular in DC. The government is spending more and more money on fewer and fewer people.

Which, you know, is kind of weird, because year by year, I see more people biking in DC. Well, who am I going to trust, some anonymous rando on DCUM or my lying eyes?

Neither! You could just look at the data. It's not that hard. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments puts out an annual transit report. TL;DR: Every form of transportation is becoming less popular, except driving, which is way up. It also says cyclists are exactly who you'd think: white, young, upper income and (because of that) they live close to wear they work. Drivers are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

This isn't in and of itself a reason to oppose bike lanes, though. And actually, people who live near to where they work are a good universe to target with policies that might get them not to drive, because then they're not adding to congestion on the roads (if they're in a protected bike lane, they are not interfering with car trips by people driving from farther away) and it may not be a significantly longer commute to bike rather than drive. Obviously, the main users of bike lanes are not going to be people coming from 15 or 20 miles away, it's going to be people who live and work relatively near where they're biking.

Basically you're saying we should spend billions of dollars building up an entirely separate transportation system for white cyclists who are rich enough to live in the most desirable parts of the city, and if that makes car traffic a whole lot worse for predominantly black and brown drivers who don't live within such easy distance of their jobs and other places they need to go, then I guess you'd just say that's too bad. Seems kind of racist, doesn't it?

It’s not a coincidence that the biggest advocates of bike lanes on the city council represent lily white neighborhoods and the biggest critics of bike lanes come from wards 7 and 8

Vince Grey supports bike lanes. The majority of Ward 8 residents want more bike infrastructure despite their councilmember.

This debate shouldn’t be about pro bike lanes or anti bike lanes. People may support bike lanes in many places but location and context matters. Constraining Northwest Washington’s major arterial road and diverting traffic into lesser capacity streets is simply not smart transportation planning.

The police have said the bike lanes will lead to MORE accidents. Which is completely obvious to just about everyone except the bike bros.

100 percent. I worry about hitting a cyclist a lot because they're so unpredictable. They seem to ignore pretty much all traffic laws so you never know what they're going to do and they don't seem to care if no one can see them at night.

+1! Why do bikers think that stop lights/signs don't apply to them? I'm a walker and even I stop at these things???

This behavior seems to be spreading to everyone on two wheels. People on scooters and motorcycles seem to think they don't have to stop for anything, including red traffic lights.

I friggin' despise the motorized scooters and (unlicensed) motor bikes that dart between traffic and endanger pedestrians on sidewalks. Anything with a motor should not be on pedestrian walkways.

I saw a teenager on a scooter on Georgia Avenue at rush hour at night. I am astonished the city promotes this sort of thing. It is so unsafe. One of these kids is going to get killed and I hope the family sues the beejeesus out of the city.

Um, yes?

If you're worried about the risk to this teenager of a driver hitting and killing them, I sure hope you support protected bike lanes.

This cyclist would be thrilled to see a few kids killed if it advances their cause

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tyranny of the Minority (2020-2023) RIP.

You had a god run. The adults are finally back in charge in 2024. Drive, bus, walk, or Metro. Those are your choices.

Anonymous rando on DCUM on a Friday night, deciding which modes of transportation people should get to use.

Love these entitled white guys who are like, I don’t want to walk or ride the subway or take the bus or drive. You have to spend billions of dollars building me my own separate transportation system because I just really like riding my bicycle. Because a city with one quarter of its kids living in poverty doesn’t have anything better to spend its money on.

Hey jerk, paint and a little concrete isn't billions of dollars. All that asphalt and signaling is. The bike infrastructure costs next to freaking nothing compared to the subsidized car infrastructure.

Not billions of course. But if some touch up paint on the mayor’s “BLM plaza” will cost $300K, what do you think bike lanes with the barriers and infrastructure changes nearly the length of Connecticut will cost? That would certainly pay for some needed cops and reading teachers

Look at the budget. The city routinely spends a quarter billion dollars each year on bike infrastructure. They’ve been spending at this rate for 15 years.

I don't see how that's possible when Bowser's budget proposal last year proposed spending $6 million per year on 10 miles per year of protected bike lanes, over the course of six years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/04/01/dc-transportation-budget/

Either the city hasn't actually spent $250 million per year on bike infrastructure, or there are actually many, many more miles of protected bike lanes than any of us is aware of.

The city's budget is a public document. You can just look it up. Here's a *small* sampling of what you'd find:

$36 million for bike lanes
$15 million for Capital Bikeshare
$800,000 for electric bike rebates
$56.4 million for Vision Zero
$39.1 million for bike and pedestrian safety
$18.5 million for signs
$32 million for intersections for intersections with safety concerns
$52 million Long Bridge bicycle connection

Remember all this money is being spent on a tiny number of people. It would be cheaper for the taxpayer if the government bought every cyclist in the city a Porsche.

If the city spent money on poor people like it spends it on cyclists, there would be no poverty in D.C.

It is amazing how much money the city spends on bicyclists. $185 million for bike trails? Are they made of gold?

The city spent $4 million building a place at union station for cyclists to tie their bikes up.

And DC spends $20 million+ every year just so people have a place to put their trash cans (alleys).

Obvious solution is to turn the alleys into bike lanes. We can save $185 million that way and people get a dedicated space to strut their spandex.

In fact it's not a bad idea at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

To the extent there is a “bike lobby,” it is exactly the same people also advocating for better bus service and more pedestrian safety. So basically your view is that cars are the only legitimate type of street transit to lobby for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

To the extent there is a “bike lobby,” it is exactly the same people also advocating for better bus service and more pedestrian safety. So basically your view is that cars are the only legitimate type of street transit to lobby for?

DP. Yes, that is their view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

The worst thing about it is people don't even want or use the bike lanes. The number of bicyclists in this city is miniscule and transit surveys show their number is shrinking. Our government is extremely solicitous of special interest groups though and there is no organized group opposed to bike lanes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

The worst thing about it is people don't even want or use the bike lanes. The number of bicyclists in this city is miniscule and transit surveys show their number is shrinking. Our government is extremely solicitous of special interest groups though and there is no organized group opposed to bike lanes.

Plenty of people are using the bike lanes in DC. Where are you posting from? Vladivostok?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

To the extent there is a “bike lobby,” it is exactly the same people also advocating for better bus service and more pedestrian safety. So basically your view is that cars are the only legitimate type of street transit to lobby for?

Hahahaha

Then why is every "pedestrian' improvement a bike lane? Why is bus service getting cut but bike lanes are getting added (even in places where there are no sidewalks). The "bike lobby" claims to represent pedestrians and bus users yet somehow every solution is a bike lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A driver, bicyclist and pedestrian walk into a bakery. The baker brings them a plate of 12 cookies. The driver quickly snatches up 11 cookies, turns to the pedestrian and says, “Watch out! The bicyclist is going to steal your cookie!”

Here’s a better analogy. A bakery has three lines: one for drivers, one for cyclists, and one for pedestrians. The cyclist walks in and says “finally, a dedicated line for cyclists,” and gets his cookie. Not satisfied with one cookie, the cyclist then gets in the driver line. Instead of waiting his turn, the cyclist cuts to the front of the line while giving everyone the middle finger and gets another cookie. The cyclist still wants another cookie, so he goes to the pedestrian line and bullies everyone out of the way while angrily screaming “on your left.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

The worst thing about it is people don't even want or use the bike lanes. The number of bicyclists in this city is miniscule and transit surveys show their number is shrinking. Our government is extremely solicitous of special interest groups though and there is no organized group opposed to bike lanes.

Plenty of people are using the bike lanes in DC. Where are you posting from? Vladivostok?

They don't. We all have eyes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC."

It's not exactly true that the Bike Lobby is inherently powerful. They actually don't represent a meaningful slice of DC voters. It's just that they have a large megaphone, paid for by the DC taxpayers. This enables them to lobby the Council, in concert with DDOT, the mayor's office and the builders (and loudly shout down those who oppose their plans) all on the public's dime.

To the extent there is a “bike lobby,” it is exactly the same people also advocating for better bus service and more pedestrian safety. So basically your view is that cars are the only legitimate type of street transit to lobby for?

Hahahaha

Then why is every "pedestrian' improvement a bike lane? Why is bus service getting cut but bike lanes are getting added (even in places where there are no sidewalks). The "bike lobby" claims to represent pedestrians and bus users yet somehow every solution is a bike lane.

I can tell this is all a fight you are having in your head and nothing to do with what is actually happening …