Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study after study of grid-connected cycling tracks and traffic calming suggests that this infrastructure is positive to businesses.

In NYC streets with bike lanes saw 24% higher retail sales growth than those without (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf).

Salt Lake City experienced a 25% increase in sales tax revenue for areas with lanes vs those without (https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/10/06/salt-lake-city-cuts-car-parking-adds-bike-lanes-sees-retail-boost/)

But sure, there are no studies.

You’re not doing yourself any favors by comparing central Manhattan to upper NW. There are almost zero single family homes in NYC and very few families as compared to Ward 3. Bike lanes are great if your young, childless, and live in a high rise.

Personally, I'd love a bike lane on Connecticut so I can ride my bike to work safely after riding with my kid (on his bike) to our neighborhood elementary school. I'm almost 50 and don't live in a high-rise. Definitely prefer biking in NW D.C. to biking in Manhattan, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

2/4 = 50%

In all practicality, is is 2 through lanes now and will be 2 through lanes in the future.

In all practicality it will be one functional lane in each direction. Because taxis, Ubers, buses, deliveries, etc will all need to stop somewhere and it will just be to stop in the street because there will be no other place.

Actually, they'll just stop in the bike lane, if they behave anything like drivers in every other bike lane in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The roads are a scarce resource - at any given time on any given block the ratio of non-bikers to other people in vehicles including public transportation or walking is huge - yet so many resources money and space are dedicated to bikes - which seems like a giant waste. It is delusional to think that adding more bike lanes will change that ratio in any material way.

Yes, our public space is scarce. So why not make it so as many people can use it as possible. If one were designing a city from scratch, planning around a single occupancy vehicle wouldn't be on the top 20 list of getting people around efficiently. As such, we should be doing everything we can to maximize mass transit and cleaner forms of mobility like scooters, bikes and eBikes, which are a game changer.

Thanks for making the point.

Bikes and scooters are single occupancy vehicles

Ironically, cars and trucks are not. They are multi-occupancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The roads are a scarce resource - at any given time on any given block the ratio of non-bikers to other people in vehicles including public transportation or walking is huge - yet so many resources money and space are dedicated to bikes - which seems like a giant waste. It is delusional to think that adding more bike lanes will change that ratio in any material way.

Yes, our public space is scarce. So why not make it so as many people can use it as possible. If one were designing a city from scratch, planning around a single occupancy vehicle wouldn't be on the top 20 list of getting people around efficiently. As such, we should be doing everything we can to maximize mass transit and cleaner forms of mobility like scooters, bikes and eBikes, which are a game changer.

Thanks for making the point.

Bikes and scooters are single occupancy vehicles

They take up a fraction of the space, they seldom cause death when there is a collusion and they don't pollute.

Cars on the other hand...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

2/4 = 50%

In all practicality, is is 2 through lanes now and will be 2 through lanes in the future.

In all practicality it will be one functional lane in each direction. Because taxis, Ubers, buses, deliveries, etc will all need to stop somewhere and it will just be to stop in the street because there will be no other place.

Actually, they'll just stop in the bike lane, if they behave anything like drivers in every other bike lane in the city.

Unless they are in a humvee, that won't be very easy to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The roads are a scarce resource - at any given time on any given block the ratio of non-bikers to other people in vehicles including public transportation or walking is huge - yet so many resources money and space are dedicated to bikes - which seems like a giant waste. It is delusional to think that adding more bike lanes will change that ratio in any material way.

Yes, our public space is scarce. So why not make it so as many people can use it as possible. If one were designing a city from scratch, planning around a single occupancy vehicle wouldn't be on the top 20 list of getting people around efficiently. As such, we should be doing everything we can to maximize mass transit and cleaner forms of mobility like scooters, bikes and eBikes, which are a game changer.

Thanks for making the point.

Bikes and scooters are single occupancy vehicles

They take up a fraction of the space, they seldom cause death when there is a collusion and they don't pollute.

Cars on the other hand...

You literally just claimed we should not cater transportation policy to single occupancy vehicles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:D.C. started building protected bike lanes in 2009. You'd think that after almost 15 years and spending who knows how many billions of dollars on bike lanes, if bicycling was going to catch on, it would have caught on by now. And yet all these bike lanes are mostly empty. The number of people who actually use them is pathetically small.

People here just aren't into bikes. The only people who use the bike lines are a tiny number of white guys from Ward 3.

Tell me you don't see Black and Hispanic people without saying it directly...

Oh brother. I love when these entitled white guys pretend what they want is really actually for black and brown people. (If you ever visit Ward 8, you'll notice there are no bike lanes, though I'm sure you've never been.) Anyway, just look at surveys of who rides bikes in DC. It's upper income white guys between the ages of 25 and 45. I live in a mostly black neighborhood and there are very few bike lanes and we like it that way.

Ward 8 has no bike lanes because Trayon White asked DDOT not to install any and DDOT complied for whatever reason. Ward 8 is the poorest part of the city and has horrendous numbers of traffic deaths. It needs traffic calming and better alternatives to driving than anywhere else in the city. But, having biked all over Ward 8, I will concede that the geography and topography do not make biking as good of an option there as it is elsewhere in the city. That - as well as the CM’s refusal to allow bike lanes to be built there - explains the low use of bikes there.

And yet, at any given time, you will see scores/hundreds of DC residents biking around there, going up the hill to Congress Heights, or down to the waterfront. Whatever, just because the CM doesn't like bike lanes doesn't mean his constituents aren't riding bikes. And no, many of them are not wearing spandex.

The Anacostia River Trail is the most popular “bike lane” in DC based on DDOT bike counters. It is used almost exclusively for recreation purposes.

[Anonymous]

money should be put into public transportation and HOV requirements during certain times of the day for commuters v.s people driving in their own neighborhood. Those would reduce car traffic.

Bikes, scooters and other dangerous and traffic snarling non-motorized vehicles should be on separate paths/roadways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The roads are a scarce resource - at any given time on any given block the ratio of non-bikers to other people in vehicles including public transportation or walking is huge - yet so many resources money and space are dedicated to bikes - which seems like a giant waste. It is delusional to think that adding more bike lanes will change that ratio in any material way.

why do giant cars with a single occupant get to dominate a “scare resource”? If it’s scarce then get more people into buses and on bikes.

+1.
We agree that transit space is a scarce resource, so we want to encourage commuters to use it in the most efficient and safest way, i.e. more dedicated bus lanes, and more protected bike lanes.

Street Space For 60 People: Car, Bus, Bicycle by Carlton Reid, on Flickr

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your desire to feel sanctimonious will result in a lot of money and natural resources going into reconstructing Connecticut Ave to benefit a handful of vocal bike commuters. It will inconvenience many and will not save the planet, sorry.

And in the long term, more people will bike which means less pollution and better health results for the residents who use the bike lanes, so a win all around.

There is not a single DC bike lane that has seen progressively increasing capacity utilization over time based on DDOT’s own bike counters. Which is probably why they turned most of them off.

[Anonymous]

Bicyclists don't regulalrly ride in a pelaton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The roads are a scarce resource - at any given time on any given block the ratio of non-bikers to other people in vehicles including public transportation or walking is huge - yet so many resources money and space are dedicated to bikes - which seems like a giant waste. It is delusional to think that adding more bike lanes will change that ratio in any material way.

Yes, our public space is scarce. So why not make it so as many people can use it as possible. If one were designing a city from scratch, planning around a single occupancy vehicle wouldn't be on the top 20 list of getting people around efficiently. As such, we should be doing everything we can to maximize mass transit and cleaner forms of mobility like scooters, bikes and eBikes, which are a game changer.

Thanks for making the point.

Bikes and scooters are single occupancy vehicles

They take up a fraction of the space, they seldom cause death when there is a collusion and they don't pollute.

Cars on the other hand...

You literally just claimed we should not cater transportation policy to single occupancy vehicles.

Single occupancy cars. happy now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your desire to feel sanctimonious will result in a lot of money and natural resources going into reconstructing Connecticut Ave to benefit a handful of vocal bike commuters. It will inconvenience many and will not save the planet, sorry.

And in the long term, more people will bike which means less pollution and better health results for the residents who use the bike lanes, so a win all around.

There is not a single DC bike lane that has seen progressively increasing capacity utilization over time based on DDOT’s own bike counters. Which is probably why they turned most of them off.

I'm not sure about individual bike lane counters, but there was a very significant mode share increase in bikers over the decade when DDOT first started installing protected bike lanes. Obviously the pandemic will have changed the data but we'll see.

https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:money should be put into public transportation and HOV requirements during certain times of the day for commuters v.s people driving in their own neighborhood. Those would reduce car traffic.

Bikes, scooters and other dangerous and traffic snarling non-motorized vehicles should be on separate paths/roadways.

Which is why the city is building bike lanes. I agree with the rest of your statement as well, though being DC and not a state, we are not able to regulate HOV into the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:D.C. started building protected bike lanes in 2009. You'd think that after almost 15 years and spending who knows how many billions of dollars on bike lanes, if bicycling was going to catch on, it would have caught on by now. And yet all these bike lanes are mostly empty. The number of people who actually use them is pathetically small.

People here just aren't into bikes. The only people who use the bike lines are a tiny number of white guys from Ward 3.

Tell me you don't see Black and Hispanic people without saying it directly...

Oh brother. I love when these entitled white guys pretend what they want is really actually for black and brown people. (If you ever visit Ward 8, you'll notice there are no bike lanes, though I'm sure you've never been.) Anyway, just look at surveys of who rides bikes in DC. It's upper income white guys between the ages of 25 and 45. I live in a mostly black neighborhood and there are very few bike lanes and we like it that way.

Ward 8 has no bike lanes because Trayon White asked DDOT not to install any and DDOT complied for whatever reason. Ward 8 is the poorest part of the city and has horrendous numbers of traffic deaths. It needs traffic calming and better alternatives to driving than anywhere else in the city. But, having biked all over Ward 8, I will concede that the geography and topography do not make biking as good of an option there as it is elsewhere in the city. That - as well as the CM’s refusal to allow bike lanes to be built there - explains the low use of bikes there.

And yet, at any given time, you will see scores/hundreds of DC residents biking around there, going up the hill to Congress Heights, or down to the waterfront. Whatever, just because the CM doesn't like bike lanes doesn't mean his constituents aren't riding bikes. And no, many of them are not wearing spandex.

The Anacostia River Trail is the most popular “bike lane” in DC based on DDOT bike counters. It is used almost exclusively for recreation purposes.

It is also mostly in Ward 7, not 8.