The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

THREE children were killed by cars this year in DC.

41 children have been shot in DC in the last year.

Crime and traffic safety improvements actually go hand in hand if you slow criminals down so they can't peal 100mph down neighborhood roads after committing crime. There's research supporting this. It's not either or. It was true in my neighborhood that making road improvements to slow down cars meant I stopped having to witness and hear getaway cars go 100mph down my tiny one way road after (or while) shooting.

What it's going to do is bring more people through residential areas. Not sure that's going to help at all with regard to either crime or safety.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

It isn't just traffic deaths. It is injury, repairs to auto, maintenance on roads, pollution and corresponding health externalities as well as cost savings when more people are walking and biking.

residential and commercial buildings contribute more to dc emissions than passenger vehicles. Of course they do contribute, but it's not as strong of an argument as many believe.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

It isn't just traffic deaths. It is injury, repairs to auto, maintenance on roads, pollution and corresponding health externalities as well as cost savings when more people are walking and biking.

More people aren't going to walk or bike. They'll just drive elsewhere. They'll avoid neighborhoods that are too hard to get to or they'll take side streets instead of main arteries designed for lots of traffic or they'll just sit in traffic longer.

You can see this happening downtown. The city conveniently used the pandemic to put bike lanes everywhere and now it's just really hard to get around. Not surprisingly, a lot fewer people are going downtown. It's not the only reason downtown is dying. But it's a big one.

The goal was to make it harder to drive so less people drive. The assumption was that if they don’t drive they would still come downtown but on bikes or transit. The reality is that they are just going somewhere else instead. In the meantime, retail vacancy in downtown is 20% and rising. One out of every five storefronts are vacant.

You are just making up bike lanes as a reason for decreased occupancy downtown. Sorry, that's not the reason.

I said nothing about bike lanes. There is nothing that I said that was inaccurate. This is “traffic calming”. Funny that you want to run away from and not defend your own agenda when its negative impacts are clear. If you reduce road capacity, the traffic does not magically disappear. It just goes somewhere else.

The reason that there are so many vacant storefronts downtown is that people are not coming back to work in large numbers. One reason why many people are choosing not to come back downtown is that DC had intentionally made it difficult to navigate with a car. That should be considered a policy victory. Right? I guess you don’t like the consequences.

Well at least you can now ride your bikes faster past those blighted downtown areas to reach your vibrant urban destination.

People aren't coming downtown because employers are not requiring it. Which is also a reason the hystrionics around the bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue are totally misplaced.

+1 except for the totally unfair addition of a y into histrionics. The anti-bike rager(s) on here is(are) clearly male.

[Anonymous]

The city should spend more time on the pedestrian perspective. Pedestrians by far outnumber bikes and yet all of the safe street changes benefit bikes at the expense of pedestrians. everytime pedestrians speak up they get shouted down as drivers in disguise. I am in favor of slowing down car traffic to safe levels AND getting bikes/scooters etc.. under control so that walking around isn't like frogger. Particularly with the "hidden" bike lanes that cause pedestrians to have to lurk around the bike lane peeking around the cars parked on the other side to see if it is safe to enter the cross walk while trying not to get hit by bikes speeding by. This is particularly difficult with small children and dogs. It's impossible to see if it is safe to cross from the sidewalk

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

I would love to hear the last time someone was sent to prison for intimidating, hurting, or killing someone with a car in DC. The father of the little girl who was killed in a crosswalk last year while on her bike (Allie) posted on Twitter that the name of the person who killed his daughter was never even named, much less faced any apparent penalty. He got a call from MPD less than 12 hours after she was killed saying her name would be released but the driver’s never was. Not much of a penalty.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

It isn't just traffic deaths. It is injury, repairs to auto, maintenance on roads, pollution and corresponding health externalities as well as cost savings when more people are walking and biking.

More people aren't going to walk or bike. They'll just drive elsewhere. They'll avoid neighborhoods that are too hard to get to or they'll take side streets instead of main arteries designed for lots of traffic or they'll just sit in traffic longer.

You can see this happening downtown. The city conveniently used the pandemic to put bike lanes everywhere and now it's just really hard to get around. Not surprisingly, a lot fewer people are going downtown. It's not the only reason downtown is dying. But it's a big one.

The goal was to make it harder to drive so less people drive. The assumption was that if they don’t drive they would still come downtown but on bikes or transit. The reality is that they are just going somewhere else instead. In the meantime, retail vacancy in downtown is 20% and rising. One out of every five storefronts are vacant.

You are just making up bike lanes as a reason for decreased occupancy downtown. Sorry, that's not the reason.

I said nothing about bike lanes. There is nothing that I said that was inaccurate. This is “traffic calming”. Funny that you want to run away from and not defend your own agenda when its negative impacts are clear. If you reduce road capacity, the traffic does not magically disappear. It just goes somewhere else.

The reason that there are so many vacant storefronts downtown is that people are not coming back to work in large numbers. One reason why many people are choosing not to come back downtown is that DC had intentionally made it difficult to navigate with a car. That should be considered a policy victory. Right? I guess you don’t like the consequences.

Well at least you can now ride your bikes faster past those blighted downtown areas to reach your vibrant urban destination.

This is what businesses complain about. Bike lanes mean a lot fewer people are around.

What? Provides proof. You're just making stuff up.

Not really sure what people are disputing here. If you replace driving lanes with bike lanes, you're obviously reducing the carrying capacity of those roads. A street that previously might have moved 30,000 people per day is suddenly moving a fraction of that. That's like giving a city arteriosclerosis. You're making it harder for people to circulate in a city. The bike people say drivers will all just suddenly switch to bikes but that's obviously ridiculous. We've seen this happen in other cities:

San Francisco’s Cyclists Cheer a Road Less Traveled. Museums Mourn It.

Though pedestrians and cyclists are rejoicing at a Golden Gate Park ban on cars, rebounding museums fear the detour will keep visitors away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/arts/design/san-francisco-bikes-cars-museum.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I actually agree with OP even though I think DC needs to reduce it's car infrastructure and would be in favor of drastic measures like shutting down parts of the city to cars or taxing cars using city streets during rush hour. I just think DC's current transportation trajectory, which seems to rely on continually increasing the number of cars moving in and out of the city, is totally unsustainable. I've lived in LA. At some point you have to invest in public transportation and car alternatives or you just wind up living in this sprawling traffic jam that decreases the quality of life for everyone on a daily basis. It's miserable. It's hard for people to transition to other forms of transportation but especially for commuters, it's really the only longterm option that makes economic and environmental sense. We can't just keep increasing road capacity. There is an upper limit.

But I find the bike lobby in DC tedious because it does often feel like all they want to do is add bike lanes and promote more biking. I bike places and even I think this is dumb. We do need to change streetscapes to make them safer, and bike lanes should be part of that. But the main goal should actually be pedestrian safety and reducing car speeds within the city. Instead we just stick a bike lane on an existing road where cars already go too fast. Great? This doesn't actually solve anything even if the bike lane is amazing for cyclists.

I wish the bike lobby would stop taking about bikes and instead focus exclusively on pedestrian safety and better infrastructure. If you do that, the city will naturally get safe for cyclists. But the truth is you are not going to convert a bunch of people into bike commuters. You might be able to convince them to take regional trains, light rail, metro, and buses, if you invest money in these options and make them affordable and convenient. Some people might also choose to bike. But why would this be your main focus? It's dumb.

You need to actually spend more time in public meetings and talking to people, and less time on twitter and DCUM and wherever you are getting your impressions. There is no "bike lobby." There is a broad coalition in favor of making DC streets safer and reducing emissions. Bike lanes just get vastly more attention because of the few paranoiacs who fixate on them. But DDOT is also working on all sorts of other things, like speed humps, bus priority projects, etc. Furthermore, adding bike lanes is a traffic calming technique for *all users.* You seem to think it's done for the "bike lobby," but it is actually often a integral part of slowing traffic for everyone.

Improving Metro and bus service is, unfortunately, not entirely within the control of DC, apart from changes to DC streets to improve the flow. I don't know a lot about that, but would be great if people actually investigated what's going on instead of frothing about the "bike lobby."

DP. As one of the council members said recently, we just keep making changes to make streets safer and deaths keep increasing.

It's not working.

DC has barely scratched the surface on Vision Zero improvements, so that's inaccurate. The bus priority projects and road diets are just taking off. If this is an argument to increase enforcement I'd agree with that.

On Massachusetts Ave NW near the mosque, authorities have already taken down a slow street structure. It was obvious to anyone that it would fail. Essentially, they blocked off one of the lanes of Mass Ave right where cars come out of rock creek park. This created a huge bottleneck. It was removed about two or three weeks after it was installed. The same thing happened years ago when they reduced lanes on Wisconsin Ave in Glover Park. This is such a wasteful use of our tax dollars.

+1

Our transportation policy appears to be largely based on wishful thinking.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

THREE children were killed by cars this year in DC.

41 children have been shot in DC in the last year.

Crime and traffic safety improvements actually go hand in hand if you slow criminals down so they can't peal 100mph down neighborhood roads after committing crime. There's research supporting this. It's not either or. It was true in my neighborhood that making road improvements to slow down cars meant I stopped having to witness and hear getaway cars go 100mph down my tiny one way road after (or while) shooting.

What it's going to do is bring more people through residential areas. Not sure that's going to help at all with regard to either crime or safety.

Uh what I'm saying is I live in a residential area in NE DC, probably nowhere that anyone on this forum would bother to visit. And it was BEFORE traffic safety improvements like speed bumps and a traffic cam that we had people racing though tiny streets, sometimes cop chasing cars through our tiny one way streets. Sometimes the wrong way down a one way. And now it's better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

I would love to hear the last time someone was sent to prison for intimidating, hurting, or killing someone with a car in DC. The father of the little girl who was killed in a crosswalk last year while on her bike (Allie) posted on Twitter that the name of the person who killed his daughter was never even named, much less faced any apparent penalty. He got a call from MPD less than 12 hours after she was killed saying her name would be released but the driver’s never was. Not much of a penalty.

There aren't even any improvement to the intersection where she was killed. You can see videos weekly of cars and wmata buses running that stop sign now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The city should spend more time on the pedestrian perspective. Pedestrians by far outnumber bikes and yet all of the safe street changes benefit bikes at the expense of pedestrians. everytime pedestrians speak up they get shouted down as drivers in disguise. I am in favor of slowing down car traffic to safe levels AND getting bikes/scooters etc.. under control so that walking around isn't like frogger. Particularly with the "hidden" bike lanes that cause pedestrians to have to lurk around the bike lane peeking around the cars parked on the other side to see if it is safe to enter the cross walk while trying not to get hit by bikes speeding by. This is particularly difficult with small children and dogs. It's impossible to see if it is safe to cross from the sidewalk

Is that why all the pro-bike people were for banning right on red? That's one that will benefit pedestrians. Same thing for anything that slows down drivers. It makes pedestrians safer, notwithstanding the dumbasses who say that making them slow down or wait at a red light will FORCE them to tear around unsafely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

I would love to hear the last time someone was sent to prison for intimidating, hurting, or killing someone with a car in DC. The father of the little girl who was killed in a crosswalk last year while on her bike (Allie) posted on Twitter that the name of the person who killed his daughter was never even named, much less faced any apparent penalty. He got a call from MPD less than 12 hours after she was killed saying her name would be released but the driver’s never was. Not much of a penalty.

There aren't even any improvement to the intersection where she was killed. You can see videos weekly of cars and wmata buses running that stop sign now.

You're talking to a bunch of rich men who live in NW and don't want the city to do anything. They don't care about the concerns of people anywhere else in the city. They literally just talk about NW and CT Ave like it's the only part of DC that matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I actually agree with OP even though I think DC needs to reduce it's car infrastructure and would be in favor of drastic measures like shutting down parts of the city to cars or taxing cars using city streets during rush hour. I just think DC's current transportation trajectory, which seems to rely on continually increasing the number of cars moving in and out of the city, is totally unsustainable. I've lived in LA. At some point you have to invest in public transportation and car alternatives or you just wind up living in this sprawling traffic jam that decreases the quality of life for everyone on a daily basis. It's miserable. It's hard for people to transition to other forms of transportation but especially for commuters, it's really the only longterm option that makes economic and environmental sense. We can't just keep increasing road capacity. There is an upper limit.

But I find the bike lobby in DC tedious because it does often feel like all they want to do is add bike lanes and promote more biking. I bike places and even I think this is dumb. We do need to change streetscapes to make them safer, and bike lanes should be part of that. But the main goal should actually be pedestrian safety and reducing car speeds within the city. Instead we just stick a bike lane on an existing road where cars already go too fast. Great? This doesn't actually solve anything even if the bike lane is amazing for cyclists.

I wish the bike lobby would stop taking about bikes and instead focus exclusively on pedestrian safety and better infrastructure. If you do that, the city will naturally get safe for cyclists. But the truth is you are not going to convert a bunch of people into bike commuters. You might be able to convince them to take regional trains, light rail, metro, and buses, if you invest money in these options and make them affordable and convenient. Some people might also choose to bike. But why would this be your main focus? It's dumb.

You need to actually spend more time in public meetings and talking to people, and less time on twitter and DCUM and wherever you are getting your impressions. There is no "bike lobby." There is a broad coalition in favor of making DC streets safer and reducing emissions. Bike lanes just get vastly more attention because of the few paranoiacs who fixate on them. But DDOT is also working on all sorts of other things, like speed humps, bus priority projects, etc. Furthermore, adding bike lanes is a traffic calming technique for *all users.* You seem to think it's done for the "bike lobby," but it is actually often a integral part of slowing traffic for everyone.

Improving Metro and bus service is, unfortunately, not entirely within the control of DC, apart from changes to DC streets to improve the flow. I don't know a lot about that, but would be great if people actually investigated what's going on instead of frothing about the "bike lobby."

DP. As one of the council members said recently, we just keep making changes to make streets safer and deaths keep increasing.

It's not working.

DC has barely scratched the surface on Vision Zero improvements, so that's inaccurate. The bus priority projects and road diets are just taking off. If this is an argument to increase enforcement I'd agree with that.

On Massachusetts Ave NW near the mosque, authorities have already taken down a slow street structure. It was obvious to anyone that it would fail. Essentially, they blocked off one of the lanes of Mass Ave right where cars come out of rock creek park. This created a huge bottleneck. It was removed about two or three weeks after it was installed. The same thing happened years ago when they reduced lanes on Wisconsin Ave in Glover Park. This is such a wasteful use of our tax dollars.

The city also got rid of that awful Slow Street programs so I guess it's a positive that they have the capacity to realize when their ideas are stupid and/or extremely unpopular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually agree with OP even though I think DC needs to reduce it's car infrastructure and would be in favor of drastic measures like shutting down parts of the city to cars or taxing cars using city streets during rush hour. I just think DC's current transportation trajectory, which seems to rely on continually increasing the number of cars moving in and out of the city, is totally unsustainable. I've lived in LA. At some point you have to invest in public transportation and car alternatives or you just wind up living in this sprawling traffic jam that decreases the quality of life for everyone on a daily basis. It's miserable. It's hard for people to transition to other forms of transportation but especially for commuters, it's really the only longterm option that makes economic and environmental sense. We can't just keep increasing road capacity. There is an upper limit.

But I find the bike lobby in DC tedious because it does often feel like all they want to do is add bike lanes and promote more biking. I bike places and even I think this is dumb. We do need to change streetscapes to make them safer, and bike lanes should be part of that. But the main goal should actually be pedestrian safety and reducing car speeds within the city. Instead we just stick a bike lane on an existing road where cars already go too fast. Great? This doesn't actually solve anything even if the bike lane is amazing for cyclists.

I wish the bike lobby would stop taking about bikes and instead focus exclusively on pedestrian safety and better infrastructure. If you do that, the city will naturally get safe for cyclists. But the truth is you are not going to convert a bunch of people into bike commuters. You might be able to convince them to take regional trains, light rail, metro, and buses, if you invest money in these options and make them affordable and convenient. Some people might also choose to bike. But why would this be your main focus? It's dumb.

You need to actually spend more time in public meetings and talking to people, and less time on twitter and DCUM and wherever you are getting your impressions. There is no "bike lobby." There is a broad coalition in favor of making DC streets safer and reducing emissions. Bike lanes just get vastly more attention because of the few paranoiacs who fixate on them. But DDOT is also working on all sorts of other things, like speed humps, bus priority projects, etc. Furthermore, adding bike lanes is a traffic calming technique for *all users.* You seem to think it's done for the "bike lobby," but it is actually often a integral part of slowing traffic for everyone.

Improving Metro and bus service is, unfortunately, not entirely within the control of DC, apart from changes to DC streets to improve the flow. I don't know a lot about that, but would be great if people actually investigated what's going on instead of frothing about the "bike lobby."

DP. As one of the council members said recently, we just keep making changes to make streets safer and deaths keep increasing.

It's not working.

DC has barely scratched the surface on Vision Zero improvements, so that's inaccurate. The bus priority projects and road diets are just taking off. If this is an argument to increase enforcement I'd agree with that.

On Massachusetts Ave NW near the mosque, authorities have already taken down a slow street structure. It was obvious to anyone that it would fail. Essentially, they blocked off one of the lanes of Mass Ave right where cars come out of rock creek park. This created a huge bottleneck. It was removed about two or three weeks after it was installed. The same thing happened years ago when they reduced lanes on Wisconsin Ave in Glover Park. This is such a wasteful use of our tax dollars.

the wisconsin avenue project was scuttled by the corrupt Jim Graham. Glover Park residents are going to be really jealous of Ct Ave outcomes.

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Anonymous wrote:The city should spend more time on the pedestrian perspective. Pedestrians by far outnumber bikes and yet all of the safe street changes benefit bikes at the expense of pedestrians. everytime pedestrians speak up they get shouted down as drivers in disguise. I am in favor of slowing down car traffic to safe levels AND getting bikes/scooters etc.. under control so that walking around isn't like frogger. Particularly with the "hidden" bike lanes that cause pedestrians to have to lurk around the bike lane peeking around the cars parked on the other side to see if it is safe to enter the cross walk while trying not to get hit by bikes speeding by. This is particularly difficult with small children and dogs. It's impossible to see if it is safe to cross from the sidewalk

I’m do tired of rebutting this. Bike lanes are part of overall traffic calming projects that benefit pedestrians. They narrow the road and slow it down.

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Anonymous wrote:Still don't understand why bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets, or why they're allowed to put small children on bikes without helmets. If those kids were in cars, they'd be required to wear seat belts or be in car seats...

I mean, I'll care about this when the city actually does something about reciprocity with crappy drivers from M/VA, actually starts traffic enforcement for people who run stop signs and red lights without any enforcement (literally in front of police cars and nothing happens).

Or, actually puts in a crosswalk at one intersection in my neighborhood that we've been advocating for for a decade and it never happens.

You seriously MUST live in rich real estate if this is what is most top of mind to you to complain about. Just admit it. Take a drive to other parts of the city and tell me if bike helmets are really the bigger concern in terms of road safety.

Wow. It going to take an awful lot for you to start caring about the safety of small children.

I do. I have two of them myself. It's why I like safe road design, especially when I live in parts of the city that have crappy road design and it takes a decade of advocating for a simple crosswalk whereas those in the rich areas get one fairly quickly. Especially when safe road design also prevents criminals from barreling through neighborhoods shooting guns at a million miles per hour as we've actually dealt with.

You still didn't admit you live in rich NW where you aren't even dealing with much crime and your roads are designed better anyways, and having $$ has meant you got 311 requests more quickly and efficiently. It's ok. Just be honest.

You make a lot of weird assumptions. Also, don't you have anything better to do? It sounds like you spend your entire day on this stupid web site just waiting to jump down the throat of anyone who isn't into bicycles.

Well that confirms my assumption because you won't deny it. I assume you have to live in NW if bicyclists annoy you more than cars. You don't actually experience the day to day nuisance of bad road design. You don't experience things like criminals flying down your one way street the wrong way while you're trying to get your kids into the car (hey, no one died! I shouldn't care, right? I should care about the bicyclists, right!). You don't experience drivers running the red light at the end of your street At. Least. Once. Every. Single. Week. when you have the green and are turning left with your kids in the car. You don't even experience much of the crime you are pretending to be so concerned about while here in a forum about the bike lobby advocating for safer streets.

Also, apparently you don't have anything better to do either, you're here too?

I think the bolded seems to be what people are either obtusely or deliberately missing here. Safe street design isn't just to prevent people from dying or getting hit. There are so many close calls that never get reported and aren't in any statistics that still make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk or bike places in the city. If someone blows a stop sign and almost hits my kids that isn't going to be in a police report but it still has an effect on my day. It means I might be less likely to let my ten year old walk home so then I have to drive him.

There are people on this site who see to say that if people don't die then we shouldn't need to make changes to the street. That is fine if that is your position but know that other advocate for safe streets so that we can have higher quality of life, which for us includes walking or biking places. If that means that a person in a car gets someone five minutes later, I truly do not care. (and if it means that when I drive somewhere I get to my destination five minutes slower then I am all for it if it means that kids can cross streets safely). Transit isn't solely about getting people to their destinations as fast as possible while they re sitting in climate controlled, cushy metal boxes. There are other people who have different preferences than you and we are absolutely going to continue to advocate for them.

Or maybe you should just be more careful? You live in a big city, one of the most densely populated in North America. There's lots of people moving around and sh*t is going to happen. You'd probably be better off exercising a little common sense than putting all your hopes in a doomed-to-fail campaign to have the government try to engineer away accidents.

So you think it is ok to ask me and my children to be extremely careful (which we are, by the way) and not to ask drivers to be extremely careful? Drivers don't have to be aware of the fact that they are driving through densely populated areas but pedestrians do? Why the double standard?

Is yours just a "might makes right" argument that because someone chooses to drive a deadly vehicle then everyone has to get out of his way? This is WHY the streets need to be re-engineered. If there is a bollard in your way as you make a turn that slows you down or a speed bump or other traffic calming then you can't bully pedestrians as you run a stop sign.

Watch any intersection where there is a crosswalk and no stop sign or signal. Pedestrians legally have the right of way but they wait until cars full stop or there is no traffic (IOW they are being careful) because drivers are unable or unwilling to drive carefully and yield to the party that has the legal right of way.

Drivers are careful. People in this city probably take close to a billion car trips a year, and yet the number of people involved in accidents is tiny. That doesn't just happen unless people are trying to avoid running into each other. For those who aren't careful, we already have lots and lots of penalties (including sending them to prison).

There are over 3 billion VMT on DC roads each year. Annual car trips by DC residents (excluding MD and VA drivers) are estimated around 2.5 million. Accidents on DC roads are very rare and DC is one of the safest cities in the US for vehicle accidents.

Sure. And mass shootings are rare and devastating. But I'd also like more done to prevent them. Same concept. "These things are rare. Thoughts and prayers."

The issue is diminishing returns. Most people don't think it's worth spending billions of dollars and ruining traffic for hundreds of thousands of people so that we can reduce the number of traffic deaths from 24 to 22. The city has more important things to do.

It isn't just traffic deaths. It is injury, repairs to auto, maintenance on roads, pollution and corresponding health externalities as well as cost savings when more people are walking and biking.

More people aren't going to walk or bike. They'll just drive elsewhere. They'll avoid neighborhoods that are too hard to get to or they'll take side streets instead of main arteries designed for lots of traffic or they'll just sit in traffic longer.

You can see this happening downtown. The city conveniently used the pandemic to put bike lanes everywhere and now it's just really hard to get around. Not surprisingly, a lot fewer people are going downtown. It's not the only reason downtown is dying. But it's a big one.

The goal was to make it harder to drive so less people drive. The assumption was that if they don’t drive they would still come downtown but on bikes or transit. The reality is that they are just going somewhere else instead. In the meantime, retail vacancy in downtown is 20% and rising. One out of every five storefronts are vacant.

You are just making up bike lanes as a reason for decreased occupancy downtown. Sorry, that's not the reason.

I said nothing about bike lanes. There is nothing that I said that was inaccurate. This is “traffic calming”. Funny that you want to run away from and not defend your own agenda when its negative impacts are clear. If you reduce road capacity, the traffic does not magically disappear. It just goes somewhere else.

The reason that there are so many vacant storefronts downtown is that people are not coming back to work in large numbers. One reason why many people are choosing not to come back downtown is that DC had intentionally made it difficult to navigate with a car. That should be considered a policy victory. Right? I guess you don’t like the consequences.

Well at least you can now ride your bikes faster past those blighted downtown areas to reach your vibrant urban destination.

This is what businesses complain about. Bike lanes mean a lot fewer people are around.

What? Provides proof. You're just making stuff up.

Not really sure what people are disputing here. If you replace driving lanes with bike lanes, you're obviously reducing the carrying capacity of those roads. A street that previously might have moved 30,000 people per day is suddenly moving a fraction of that. That's like giving a city arteriosclerosis. You're making it harder for people to circulate in a city. The bike people say drivers will all just suddenly switch to bikes but that's obviously ridiculous. We've seen this happen in other cities:

San Francisco’s Cyclists Cheer a Road Less Traveled. Museums Mourn It.

Though pedestrians and cyclists are rejoicing at a Golden Gate Park ban on cars, rebounding museums fear the detour will keep visitors away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/arts/design/san-francisco-bikes-cars-museum.html

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