DC bike group says fewer now riding bikes to work than in 2012 (?!?!)

[Anonymous]

This is always the craziest time of year when a few haggard crazy bike moms post pictures of them hauling Christmas trees through traffic in a bike trailer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Between the bus bump outs and the bikes lanes, Columbia Rd in AM has been destroyed for cars. It is absolutely awful, but I suppose that was their intention. It seems less safe for bikes now.

Seems sad what DDOT did there. All it does is permanently reduce the number of people who will go there.

go there? or drive through there at top speed?

I'll never go there again. It's impossible to get around. There's plenty of other neighborhoods that aren't infuriating.

Lol! Get out of your car. Expecting to be able to drive and park at your convenience anywhere within an urban core is just silly.

What’s with all the incessant “lols?” Are you 90?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is always the craziest time of year when a few haggard crazy bike moms post pictures of them hauling Christmas trees through traffic in a bike trailer.

“A few” = two people with an insatiable need for attention

[Anonymous]

Cyclists: We need to have a data driven process except when the data goes against the thing we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

They do sound good, but only if you are in your 20s and have abundant free time and limited responsibilities to other people, particularly childcare responsibilities. Then the calculus changes.

i bike commuted when I had a newborn. It cured my PPD.

I am in favor of bike lanes but just want to point out that if a bike commute cured your PPD, you didn't have PPD (or you're exaggerating and the bike commute was one of several things you did and the exercise and time outside was a contributing factor). Please don't perpetuate myths about how depression or PPD can be magically resolved with extra exercise in the name or promoting bike usage.

[Anonymous]

I have a few questions for the people who are determined to prove that families with kids can replace cars with bikes in DC if we just build more bike lanes and encourage biking.

- What do you do when your kids outgrow riding on your cargo bike but are still not really safe to ride a bike on their own behind you? I have a 7 yr old now who is already borderline for the back of a cargo bike. She can ride a bike on her own and I'm happy to take her own on certain trails and less-busy streets near our home during off peak hours. But I would not feel comfortable having her ride on her own bike in front of me during normal commuting hours to school -- there is too much traffic and drivers are so impatient that time of day and I don't think she has the awareness needed for that yet (it stresses me out sometimes and I'm and adult).

- What about the time and logistic crunch? My kid has an activity at 4:30pm one day a week. It requires some gear and that she change clothes from her school uniform and the venue doesn't have a place to change. Right now I pick her up from school on foot and then we walk home, she changes, and then I drive to the venue which takes about 15 minutes. On a bike it would take closer to 25 minutes. Even if I bike home from school cutting that commute in half over walking, I don't know how we'd get to the activity on time, plus I think the bike would be a little unwieldy with the equipment. And currently I often do grocery shopping while she's at the activity and then bring the groceries home in the car, but I don't see that being as feasible if we were on a cargo bike.

I like the idea of switching to a cargo bike in theory and if it were just me going to work, it would be a nobrainer (I currently take public transportation or walk to work though, so it wouldn't get a car off the road). But with a middle grade elementary kid it just doesn't make a ton of sense -- she's not a toddler who can easily pop on the back of a cargo bike and in a year or two that will be out of the question. And when I look at our schedule I ony see a few places where a bike would meaningfully compete with a car. For some things it's out of the question -- I can't take a cargo bike on a freeway to get her to her swim lessons or gymanstics camp. For other things like the weekday activity I just described it just seems inconvenient and inefficient.

I hear people raving about their cargo bikes around DC and especially other parents saying how it's replaced their car in so many ways and it makes life easier. The one thing I think would be nice on a cargo bike is grocery shopping (right now I either do it on foot and only get as much as I can carry or I take my car). But that's just once or twice a week, max. For everything else it makes more sense for us to walk (and let our kid scooter or bike if she wants but under our close supervision on foot) or drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

They do sound good, but only if you are in your 20s and have abundant free time and limited responsibilities to other people, particularly childcare responsibilities. Then the calculus changes.

i bike commuted when I had a newborn. It cured my PPD.

Did you bike commute with your 5th grader?

I did not but plenty of 5th graders bike to school with their parents or alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

They do sound good, but only if you are in your 20s and have abundant free time and limited responsibilities to other people, particularly childcare responsibilities. Then the calculus changes.

i bike commuted when I had a newborn. It cured my PPD.

I am in favor of bike lanes but just want to point out that if a bike commute cured your PPD, you didn't have PPD (or you're exaggerating and the bike commute was one of several things you did and the exercise and time outside was a contributing factor). Please don't perpetuate myths about how depression or PPD can be magically resolved with extra exercise in the name or promoting bike usage.

Ok well you’re just going to have to believe me. The extra exercise, sunlight and change of pace were incredibly therepeutic. I realize people believe that bikers are lying about this stuff or being smarmy, but bike commuting is fantastic on many levels including mental and physical health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

And the number of bike commuters started falling a couple years *before* the pandemic.

Other transportation surveys show driving is becoming a lot more popular in DC.

VMT is still down in DC proper since the pandemic. Traffic just seems worse because drivers have gotten worse.

Nothing to do with less road capacity in what is an ongoing failed experiment in online transportation meme turned policy “reduced demand”.

The whole point of DDOT's policy has been a deliberate effort to increase congestion under the miaguided theory that doing so makes roads safer.

Traffic is worse now because DDOT tried to make it worse.

It’s dumber than that. They think that by intentionally increasing traffic congestion they can force people to switch to cycling or transit. They read a book by Malcolm Gladwell and saw some urbanism memes online so they know it works.

What they don’t factor into the equation is the idea of choice. Like people choosing not to come into DC at all or employers choosing to move jobs outside of DC due to the inconvenience.

In fact, DC has basically given up on attracting private sector employers into the city. The strategy now basically revolves around turning downtown into a college town.

DC will never be a city where you can reasonably expect to breeze into the city and park on the street. It’s a dense metro area. That’s why we have always had the #2 highest volume subway system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is always the craziest time of year when a few haggard crazy bike moms post pictures of them hauling Christmas trees through traffic in a bike trailer.

“A few” = two people with an insatiable need for attention

It’s interesting that these thread almost always devolve into personal attacks and caricatures of bikers, but not the other way around. Almost as if this doesn’t actually have anything to do with a bona fide attempt to talk about modes of transit, public space, and the common good to y’all, but rather is an opportunity to create a target of insults and a reaction to any change at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Between the bus bump outs and the bikes lanes, Columbia Rd in AM has been destroyed for cars. It is absolutely awful, but I suppose that was their intention. It seems less safe for bikes now.

Seems sad what DDOT did there. All it does is permanently reduce the number of people who will go there.

DDOT: Helping Washingtonians rediscover Virginia and Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Between the bus bump outs and the bikes lanes, Columbia Rd in AM has been destroyed for cars. It is absolutely awful, but I suppose that was their intention. It seems less safe for bikes now.

Seems sad what DDOT did there. All it does is permanently reduce the number of people who will go there.

DDOT: Helping Washingtonians rediscover Virginia and Maryland.

The economy is absolutely booming, and pretty much every neighborhood in DC is a pale shadow of what it was 10 years ago. So many empty storefronts, so few people on the streets. It's sad. The city used to seem so much more vibrant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a few questions for the people who are determined to prove that families with kids can replace cars with bikes in DC if we just build more bike lanes and encourage biking.

- What do you do when your kids outgrow riding on your cargo bike but are still not really safe to ride a bike on their own behind you? I have a 7 yr old now who is already borderline for the back of a cargo bike. She can ride a bike on her own and I'm happy to take her own on certain trails and less-busy streets near our home during off peak hours. But I would not feel comfortable having her ride on her own bike in front of me during normal commuting hours to school -- there is too much traffic and drivers are so impatient that time of day and I don't think she has the awareness needed for that yet (it stresses me out sometimes and I'm and adult).

- What about the time and logistic crunch? My kid has an activity at 4:30pm one day a week. It requires some gear and that she change clothes from her school uniform and the venue doesn't have a place to change. Right now I pick her up from school on foot and then we walk home, she changes, and then I drive to the venue which takes about 15 minutes. On a bike it would take closer to 25 minutes. Even if I bike home from school cutting that commute in half over walking, I don't know how we'd get to the activity on time, plus I think the bike would be a little unwieldy with the equipment. And currently I often do grocery shopping while she's at the activity and then bring the groceries home in the car, but I don't see that being as feasible if we were on a cargo bike.

I like the idea of switching to a cargo bike in theory and if it were just me going to work, it would be a nobrainer (I currently take public transportation or walk to work though, so it wouldn't get a car off the road). But with a middle grade elementary kid it just doesn't make a ton of sense -- she's not a toddler who can easily pop on the back of a cargo bike and in a year or two that will be out of the question. And when I look at our schedule I ony see a few places where a bike would meaningfully compete with a car. For some things it's out of the question -- I can't take a cargo bike on a freeway to get her to her swim lessons or gymanstics camp. For other things like the weekday activity I just described it just seems inconvenient and inefficient.

I hear people raving about their cargo bikes around DC and especially other parents saying how it's replaced their car in so many ways and it makes life easier. The one thing I think would be nice on a cargo bike is grocery shopping (right now I either do it on foot and only get as much as I can carry or I take my car). But that's just once or twice a week, max. For everything else it makes more sense for us to walk (and let our kid scooter or bike if she wants but under our close supervision on foot) or drive.

I don’t have all the answers for you except to say that there are very few people claiming that you can/should NEVER drive. Just that we should make biking possible for many more trips.

In answer to some of your questions, obviously if we had better biking infrastructure you would feel safer letting your child bike on her own. In terms of logistics, you just invest in some gear (like panniers) to hold clothes etc. And often times biking is as fast or faster than driving, or you just build in an extra 15 mins. For example my bike commute downtown from the Hill is about only 5 minutes slower than driving and about 20 minutes faster than metro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check out these stats from the League of American Bicyclists. They say 13,276 Washingtonians commuted to work on bike in 2023, which is less than the 13,493 who did in 2012. What's up with that? The number of bike lanes, protected and otherwise, has exploded and the numbers are down? It looks like biking to work peaked in 2017 and began declining even before the pandemic. Any good explanations of what's happening here?

https://data.bikeleague.org/data/cities-rates-of-active-commuting/

I think the answer is that not very many people are interested in biking to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

And the number of bike commuters started falling a couple years *before* the pandemic.

Other transportation surveys show driving is becoming a lot more popular in DC.

VMT is still down in DC proper since the pandemic. Traffic just seems worse because drivers have gotten worse.

Nothing to do with less road capacity in what is an ongoing failed experiment in online transportation meme turned policy “reduced demand”.

The whole point of DDOT's policy has been a deliberate effort to increase congestion under the miaguided theory that doing so makes roads safer.

Traffic is worse now because DDOT tried to make it worse.

It’s dumber than that. They think that by intentionally increasing traffic congestion they can force people to switch to cycling or transit. They read a book by Malcolm Gladwell and saw some urbanism memes online so they know it works.

What they don’t factor into the equation is the idea of choice. Like people choosing not to come into DC at all or employers choosing to move jobs outside of DC due to the inconvenience.

In fact, DC has basically given up on attracting private sector employers into the city. The strategy now basically revolves around turning downtown into a college town.

DC will never be a city where you can reasonably expect to breeze into the city and park on the street. It’s a dense metro area. That’s why we have always had the #2 highest volume subway system.

DC is so upside down that they started from a premise of bikes and then developed their economic strategy around it: students ride bikes! It’s an absolute recipe for failure.