Posts by David Cranor

During the same time, CaBi riders racked up around 1.79 miles per trip, higher than the predicted 1.5 miles. Although August and September numbers have yet to be released, we can deduce that riders pedaled approximately 1,790,000 miles in the first 365 days of use.

In addition to higher than expected ridership, revenue is significantly stronger as well.

With 18,000 annual subscribers and an additional 66,534 short-term users, (approximately 2,000 of whom held monthly memberships), CaBi more than exceeded projected earnings from member dues. According to revenue numbers provided by DDOT they made about $1,500,000 in membership revenue for the first year, which is well above what they expected.

Overage fees add up, too. About 1% of trips by annual users and about 8% of trips by casual users run long (down from 15% of trips that were longer than 30 minutes under SmartBike), and these trips garner additional fees. As a result, according to DDOT, they made an additional $770,000 in overage fees.

This results in a total of $2,270,000 in revenue. In their TIGER II application the organization estimated $942,000 in revenue, assuming an $80 per year annual fee.

Not only did they vastly exceed revenue, they report that when they compare DC's monthly O and M cost to revenue (membership/usage fees) generated, they have a surplus of $300,000. A statement they've echoed elsewhere, according to Josh Moskowitz of DDOT and Scott Kubly (formerly of DDOT) "the operations and management for Capital Bikeshare is entirely self-sustaining—even profitable for the department."

It's not unreasonable to think that Arlington has had similar success.

If we consider the positive external benefits, CaBi looks even better. As DCist noted, the system has proven itself to be "a vital component of moving around the city during an emergency."

A study of the Barcelona system showed that their bike-sharing network saves lives, reduces CO₂ emissions and provides health benefits that are 77 times greater than the risks. And by getting more people on bikes, it's making biking into a more normative behavior, leading to more bicycle sales.

To try to quantify the benefits of CaBi within the DC metro area, I tweaked the worksheet CaBi submitted with the TIGER II application by replacing projections with the actual ridership and membership numbers that the system experienced this year. According to those calculations, CaBi created around an additional $1,500,000 in environmental, health, safety, access, travel time and travel cost benefits. This means that with both external and internal benefits considered, the system made approximately a $1,800,000 return.

And while the gains were higher than expected, the downside was not nearly as bad as some feared. Vandalism has not been the problem that some projected it would be. Nor has safety.

One specific criticism prior to the system's launch was that the stations weren't placed densely enough. Transportation blogger Yonah Freemark expressed this concern:

This could potentially cause significant problems for the users of the new U.S. capital system.

There are two main reasons for this: One, light station density makes short neighborhood commutes via public bicycle more difficult, reducing the chance to attract occasional riders; Two, insufficient density can cause logistical problems in situations where stations either run out of bicycles or, inversely, run out of dock spaces—not infrequent issues, at least considering my own experience using the Parisian system extensively.

Based on the massive number of day members, even without access to the National Mall, it's hard to back up the claim that CaBi has had trouble attracting occasional riders.

And the problem of empty docks or full docks is not unique to CaBi. In fact, both Montreal and Paris have serious problems with that issue, as well.

Catherine Maurency of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique has analyzed bike-sharing data and notes that almost every city that's tried bike share has experienced some version of the problem. As Maurency points out, "if there's a subway breakdown you will have issues because there will be no more bikes and all these regular patterns will disappear. If it rains in the morning and it's sunny in the afternoon, then all the patterns change."

It's possible that a tighter placement of stations would have worked better. It's also possible that a looser placement would have been more successful. It's hard to say. But, at this point, it's even harder to say the numbers that CaBi is posting are indicative of a poorly functioning system. There is no definitive consensus on the appropriate dock density, and more likely than not, it differs from city to city anyway. However, this does not change the fact that DC's Capital Bikeshare is getting a lot right.

Another early concern, and one that led to a small controversy, was about the potential for a bike-sharing station to make a neighborhood more dangerous. Specifically, this was an issue with the Lincoln Park station, where neighbors were concerned about traffic, safety, trash, and so forth. But looking back, the whole issue seems rather silly. No one has asked that a station be moved further from his or her doorstep. Lincoln Park seems to have embraced the idea. And, indeed, most docks enjoy a warm reception.

It's exciting to see that Capital Bikeshare has exceeded expectations. The model has been more popular than expected, and it has cost less than projected. At the same time, it has been safer and more manageable than many anticipated. These are nothing if not solid indicators of a thriving, new system.

But perhaps the greatest testimony to its success is that not only is CaBi expanding within DC and Arlington, and to Rockville, Alexandria, and possibly Bethesda, but that other cities such as Chicago and New York are also following suit.

Crossposted at the Washcycle.

On the evening of May 14, 2009, about 40 Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers showed up at our house and attempted to execute the warrant they secured for the suspect. When no one answered the door, they proceeded to attempt to break down our back gate. After 45 minutes with a battering ram, drill and a crow bar they succeeded in damaging our security gate we installed before moving in, the door frame and parts of the house's exterior near the door, but they had not gotten in. They were in the process of getting a ladder so that they could break in through the second story window when my wife arrived.

After determining what was going on and showing the officers her ID, my wife was able to convince them to stop trying to break in. She coaxed them into showing her the search warrant and then allowed them inside. They briefly searched the house and admitted that they had made a mistake. They gave her some forms about how to be reimbursed for the damage, apologized and left.

We weren't angry. Police work is often time-sensitive and the impression they gave was that they were eager to catch some bad guys—which we support. They made an effort to avoid mistakes, but still mistakes will be made when one is in a hurry. No one was hurt and we expected to made whole.

Unfortunately, we had to pay to repair the damage first, and then ask to be reimbursed. To replace the door and the frame cost several thousand dollars, which we were able to pull out of our savings. But fixing damage to the exterior of the house would require removing much of the wall and the windows, and would have set us back over $10,000. We couldn't afford to float DC a loan to fix this and we were concerned that we might get stuck with the bill. Since the damage was only cosmetic we decided not to repair the exterior.

We had the repairs done over the course of the summer and fall, submitted the paperwork in November of 2009 and received a reply in January of 2010. We were advised that while the District intends to compensate residents for damages for which it is liable, it was not liable for damages in our case because the search warrant was valid.

However, DC MPD General Order 309 states, "In those instances where a forcible entry occurs as a result of misinformation, misinterpretation of information, or erroneous judgment, the Department will provide an explanation to the owner/occupant, and will repair the damage as soon as possible."

We started a dialogue with the city's Office of Risk Management (ORM) which makes the decision in these types of claims. They informed us that they have to follow the decision of the MPD, which said the claim should not be paid. When we contacted our District MPD, they said it was for the ORM to decide—though the police have their own ORM which the city's ORM accused of stonewalling.

Feeling like both sides were trying to blame the other, we asked if we could have a meeting with both agencies together. MPD declined, saying that, "The matter has been properly addressed by both agencies, DC and MPD's ORM... Although the MPD ORM does not decide whether to award or deny a claim, we do support and stand by the DC ORM's ruling that your claim is denied." I called MPD's ORM and was told, somewhat rudely, that my claim was denied, and "how hard is that to understand." After that my calls and emails to the MPD's ORM went unreturned.

Left with seemingly no other recourse, we filed suit against the District.

Property damage complaints related to police investigations are not new: the Police Complaints Board investigated them in 2005, finding that officers occasionally failed to inform people why their houses were being searched and left without arranging for repairs or informing the owners how to have repairs reimbursed. We learned from that report that MPD is supposed to immediately contact the on-call Facilities Management staff member to make necessary repairs when it appears MPD is responsible for repairs. This was not done for us.

We were not eager to go to court and were concerned that the District would win for reasons of sovereign immunity. So I made a last ditch effort and wrote letters to then-Mayor Fenty and Chief Cathy Lanier [My wife joked that I might as well write Barack Obama too, as much as that it likely to work]. I cited the general order that calls for the city to repair damage in cases like this.

I was impressed when Chief Lanier wrote me the next morning to inform me that she would get involved. By the following day, a representative of the MPD's ORM told me that, "in light of the recent development," my claim would be paid. By recent development I assumed he meant getting chewed out by the Chief of Police.

In the end we were reimbursed in full, about 5 months after making our claim, but there are three key ways this frustrating and time-consuming debacle could have been avoided.

DC needs better electronic record-keeping. Before the warrant execution, we sent back dozens of pieces of official mail, including checks intended for the previous residents, to the District. And there were at least four places in DC records where the sale, ownership and new residents of the home were documented. If the MPD is going to rely on these records as the basis for a search warrant, they should work to link them so that when changes to the recorder of deeds records are made, for example, a flag goes up in other records.

Ideally the system could be searchable so that they could search for an address and get a time-ordered listing set of records pertaining to that address. Had that existed, they could see that the person they were looking for had lived there, but that all the newest records related to a new set of owners. The information they needed was in their possession, but their system couldn't easily access it.

When property is damaged in this way, MPD needs to follow policy and offer to make repairs immediately. I'm not sure we would have taken them up on it as we preferred to use our own contractor, but not everyone is able to front the money. I have visions of people living with a broken down door for months, and that's not acceptable.

MPD should be proactive and let residents know if they're going to reimburse them for damage, and for which damage, within a very short time after an incident (i.e. a week) instead of only after the repairs are made. We were left to guess as to which damage would be covered and which would not, and to worry that none of it would be covered. A slow, mysterious bureaucratic process is not a productive way to handle these kinds of situations.

Scribner's first criticism is that not enough money is going to cars, the mode he wants to put above all. He writes, "When TIGER II grants were announced, only a third of funding went to road projects. 'Livability,' you see, really means, 'go to hell, drivers!'"

If getting one third of transportation money is being told to go to hell, cyclists would love to be asked to go there.

While he is correct that roads only got 29% of the money, what he doesn't mention is that it got more than any other mode, which hardly sounds like the anti-car agenda he makes it out to be. Roads received 29 percent of TIGER II funding, while 26 percent went to transit, 20 percent to rail, 16 percent to ports, four percent to bicycle and pedestrian projects, and five percent for planning grants.

In TIGER I, the three largest projects were freight rail projects. Perhaps Scibner thinks moving freight more efficiently is "anti-mobility."

And some projects that aren't labelled as "road" projects will actually improve driving. For example, the CREATE project in Chicago, which received money in TIGER I, lists "reducing motorist delay due to rail conflict at grade crossings" as one of their top goals.

Thus, it's laughable to state that roads and drivers are being ignored, but for Scribner getting anything less than 100% of the money is to be ignored. State and local DOTs see it differently. In the first round of TIGER funding, only 57% of the money applied for was for roads.

Scribner makes much of the fact that some modes of transportation are used by a small group. Only 5.5% of commuters in Salt Lake City, which won money for a streetcar, use transit. Only 0.3% of commuters bike commute in Fayettville, AR, which won a grant for a 36-mile bike trail.

But this only proves that we've done a lousy job of creating choices. We built entire regions of our country around driving, built roads designed to maximize driver speed, didn't bother with sidewalks or creating roads that invited cyclists, created a fractured and slow transit system and look, now no one takes transit or walks or bikes. That no one uses a non-existent option is not evidence that the option shouldn't exist.

Scribner's other criticism is that the process uses livability as a standard for making grants. In his usual self-contradictory style, he frequently refers to "livability" as vague and meaningless, while simultaneously linking to a USDOT definition of the term.

"We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live."

(That same link is tied to the words "all sorts of silly investments" even though the author at the link only worries that it will cause silly investments. There is no evidence of such investments. One person's worries hardly constitutes fact.)

USDOT even has a detailed website that more clearly defines what livability means.

And there's a technical reason why livability matters for these grants. In TIGER II, HUD kicked in $40 million to encourage transit-oriented development (one part of livability according to DOT's definition).

Scribner refers to the Razorback Greenway and Salt Lake City Streetcar as "duds" which, considering that neither has finished construction yet, is a bit premature. To Scribner, even if both projects meet or exceed the goals outlined in their TIGER grant applications they'll be duds because they don't meet his goals. It's like calling the Apollo program a dud because it didn't cure cancer.

But $15 million for a 36 mile transportation project compares pretty favorably to something like the 18-mile, $2.566 billion Intercounty Connector. The Greenway will only need 321 users per day to match the user/dollar ratio of the ICC.

Luckily, USDOT is moving away from the windshield perspective of Marc Scribner, and TIGER III has the potential to be a real success, as long as you don't define success only in terms of moving cars.

Tomorrow, the National Capital Transportation Planning Board is expected to formally approve the grants. The $1.288 million funding and $688,000 local match for the bikeshare project will cover capital purchases and operating costs for two years. $200,000 of the match is from the City of Rockville.

The Montgomery County DOT applied for the funds, and winners were chosen by a selection committee and staff. Other winning projects include funding the shuttle bus to National Harbor that is filling the gap left by rerouting and shortening hours on the NH-1 bus, gas cards for home care aides serving people far from transit, and a rideshare coordinator for the Dulles corridor.

CaBi is a sensible use of funds to improve mobility for low-income commuters. With its minimal membership fees and an extra subsidy for those who most need it, CaBi can be a great commuting option for those on a budget. One $75 purchase can provide a year's worth of transportation.

The city of Rockville expressed an interest in joining even before CaBi launched. Being so far from the rest of the system, it is unlikely that many people will ride CaBi from Rockville to downtown DC. The investment might have gotten greater network effects if it centered around a place like Silver Spring and DC added more stations on its side of the border.

Though the pilot is going to be small, it can still serve a couple of roles easily. Members can ride from near their homes to the train stations, then take a train to DC and grab another bike for the ride to work—all with one key. It will expand on the bike-sharing assisted commute by making it possible at both ends, just as the Crystal City pod does. And it will increase mobility in Rockville and Shady Grove, making it easier to cover short distances, just as it does now in Arlington and DC.

Also, if a completely separate pod is successful in Rockville, then it could pave the way for other pods in discrete areas. For example, College Park has been suggesting they want to join for some time. If it works in Rockville, it means College Park doesn't have to wait for the tide of bikes to ripple outward.

Cross-posted at The WashCycle.

Recent data confirms that biking east of the river is a challenge. Arlington released Capital Bikeshare data showing that there were few users in that part of DC.

We followed the news with a discussion of the issues that potential east of the river bike users face. WABA has also specifically targeted outreach efforts to improve cycling in that part of the city.

With this in mind, and inspired by David Alpert's WMATA fantasy map, I created this fantasy bike trail map based on the area east of the river. The idea is to create three north-south routes and connect them with several east-west rungs.

Here is a description of each of the trails.

Anacostia Riverwalk Trail (ART). The Anacostia Riverwalk Trail network is a set of trails proposed to follow along both sides of the Anacostia River for its entire length in DC. It will stretch from the Douglass Bridge to the DC/Prince George's County boundary. On the south end it will connect to the extant section of the South Capitol Street Trail. On the north end it will connect to Prince George's County's Anacostia Trail. Two sections of this trail are already open, one from the Douglass Bridge to 11th Street SE and and another between the CSX rail line and Benning Road NE. A section that bridges over the rail line and connects to 11th Street is currently being built.

Future construction includes the section north of Benning Road, which includes the trail along the the river and another to Eastland Gardens, and a new Anacostia River crossing south of the Arboretum. This is currently undergoing Environmental Assessment review. Once completed this trail will be the first north-south route east of the river and will connect Ward 7, Ward 8, and Maryland as well as the six river crossings in DC. A cyclist in Anacostia could ride as far as Wheaton or Beltsville on the new DC/Maryland trail network. The trail could be further enhanced with a river crossing on either the current or a future New York Avenue Bridge.

South Capitol Street Trail. The South Capitol Street Trail is a trail proposed to run along the east edge of the secure facilities that line the Potomac River in far Southwest before jogging east to connect to the Oxon Hill Farm Trail. It will serve as a connection between the Douglass and Wilson bridges as well as a continuation of the Anacostia Trails. By finishing the connection between the Mt. Vernon Trail and the Anacostia Trail System it will connect Northern Virginia's system with Prince George's County's. The concept plan for this project was completed in 2010.

Cheverly Connector. This trail would run on the east and south sides of the railroad tracks that connect Deanwood with Cheverly. It isn't in any plans, but is one I think should be included in future bike plans. In DC, it would start at the Deanwood underpass, cross the Deanwood Metro station and parking lot to connect to the alley behind the northernmost section of Minnesota Avenue NE and then cross over Eastern Avenue NE on a trail bridge. In Maryland it would follow the strip of land between the CSX rail line and Addison Road to go around the Mid-Atlantic Finishing site, then pass between the Metro tracks and what will be Addison Row. From there it would cross Lower Beaverdam Creek and connect to the parking lot at the Cheverly Metro.

This would create a straight connection between eastern Cheverly and DC. It could also serve as a connection between the ART, via a Nash Run Trail, and a planned trail along Lower Beaverdam Creek. Following the creek all the way to the Anacostia would be almost impossible as it would necessitate negotiating the trail under the Metro tracks, two sets of rail lines and MD-201 while passing through an in-use industrial site. There could be issues with the Addison Row development, as it appears to be very close to the Metro tracks.

Nash Run Trail. Nash Run is an Anacostia tributary that starts in Farimount Heights in Prince George's County, passes under the Deanwood Recreation Center and Metro station and into Kenilworth Gardens. There is no trail along this stream in any plans, but again it is one I think should be included in future bike plans. A trail could be built to follow this stream. It would connect to the ART at Anacostia Avenue before turning east along the above ground portion of the stream south of Douglas St NE. It could go over 295 on the extant pedestrian overpass and then through the tunnel under the rail lines. On the east side of the tracks, it would become an on-road route along Nash Road NE, Leroy Gorham Drive NE, and Nash Place NE, where it would connect to Robert Gray Elementary School and Fairmont Heights High School.

The WB&A Rail Trail. Prince George's County currently plans to build an "on-road" trail along MD-704 from the southern terminus of the WB&A trail in Bowie to the District line. As MD-704 is built on the old WB&A right of way, this would be a continuation of that trail. Once in the District, the trail could be routed on-road west along Dix Street NE to the Marvin Gaye Park Trail and south on Eastern Avenue NE to the Chesapeake Beach Rail Trail and the Watts Branch extended trail.

Chesapeake Beach Rail Trail. Maryland has plans to build a trail from the DC line to Chesapeake Beach, MD, following the old Chesapeake Railroad route (though not always on the old railbed since the line wasn't railbanked). A very short section of the trail exists from Crown Street in Seat Pleasant to the shopping center on East Capitol Street. If extended west to the DC line along an extant social trail, it could be easily connected to the east end of the existing Marvin Gaye Park Trail, which runs parallel to the old railroad in DC.

Marvin Gaye Park/Watts Branch Trail. The Marvin Gaye Park Trail is an existing, and recently rebuilt, trail that runs along the banks of Watts Branch. It could be extended to both the west and the east along the stream. It could go west through the Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue NE underpass and along Deane Avenue NE to the ART and from there to the new bridge across the Anacostia.

It could also expand east into Prince George's County, where the name of the trail may change, along the two Watts Branch tributaries that form the stream just inside the District. A trail along the western tributary would pass the planned Walmart and the Capitol Heights Metro before going through the Capitol Heights neighborhood. The trail along the eastern tributary would pass through park land. Both trails could end at different locations along Rollins Avenue where they could connect via bike lanes.

Boundary Bikeway. Moving cyclists along the east side of the District is trickier than the west side. There is no linear park and the only road that goes through, Southern Avenue, is considered a poor road for cyclists. While one option may be to make Southern more friendly with bike lanes or cycle tracks, an easier option might be to build a bikeway on the first roads across the boundary in Prince George's County. Using the streets Akin, Able, Boones Hill, and Arcadia and connecting them with short trails as needed, a bikeway could be built connecting the trail along Watts Branch to the one at Oxon Run. A bike/pedestrian bridge over Pennsylvania Avenue would finish the connection.

Pennsylvania Avenue Trail. As part of the Pennsylvania Avenue Great Streets concept plan there was a proposal to run a multi-use trail along the side of Penn from the old railroad tracks to Southern Avenue. This trail would have connected the Shepherd Rail Trail on the east side, with the Fort Circle Trail in the middle and the Boundary Bikeway and Oxon Run Trail on the west.

DDOT has been actively rebuilding Pennsylvania Avenue SE for over a year, and as sections have been completed, it's clear that there is no associated muti-use trail or cycletrack. There is a wider sidewalk, but it can't really be called a bike facility. Since there is unlikely to be a second bite at that apple for a while, the next best option is to connect the short distance from Fort Circle Trail and the trails in Maryland with a trail either along Pennsylvania Avenue or through the apartments on the south side above the buried Fort Davis tributary.

Shepherd Rail Trail. The dormant Shepherd Industrial spur rail line could be converted into a rail trail running from the South Capitol Street Trail all the way to Fort Dupont. Though the trail would run parallel to the ART, it would be on the east side of the Anacostia Freeway, where people live, thus serving a different constituency.

It would tie into the ART at both the north and south ends of the rail spur and also intersect the St. Elizabeths Access Trail, Suitland Parkway Trail, Pope Branch Trail, and Fort Dupont Trail. This trail was originally to be built in conjunction with the streetcar but was abandoned when the right-of-way was deemed unsuitable for the streetcar. Nonetheless, it is in the District's Bicycle Master Plan. Building it would require railbanking the existing right-of-way, which CSX reportedly wants to keep.

Fort Circle Trail. The Fort Circle Trail is a mostly-unpaved trail running from the Anacostia Community Museum at Bruce Place and Raynolds Street SE in Fort Stanton Park to the Marvin Gaye Park Trail at Hunt Place NE. The current trail is the only single-track trail in DC and is popular with mountain bikers. There have been some proposals to extend and improve the trail. DC should create a paved trail in line with those plans to complement the single-track trail. In addition, I propose some other enhancements not currently in any plans.

In the center, Fort Davis Drive could be widened with bike lanes, a cycletrack or a sidepath. In other areas a paved trail through the parks could be created or improved. On the south end it could be extended from its current endpoint to the Suitland Parkway Trail near 20th Street SE and then to the Congress Heights Metro. A spur from the Anacostia History Museum could connect to W Street SE . A second spur could connect through Fort Stanton east to Pomeroy Road SE and the Suitland Parkway Trail. It could then cross Suitland Parkway and travel uphill along the stream flowing from St. Elizabeths' east campus, where it too could connect to the Congress Heights Metro Station, Alabama Avenue, and, via 13th Street, to the Oxon Run Trail. The Fort Circle trail would become the critical "center leg trail" of the east of the river trail system.

Oxon Run Trail. Oxon Run is another stream that starts in District Heights, MD, but instead of flowing into the Anacostia, it turns south to the Potomac. It forms the route for Pennsylvania Avenue in Maryland, then crosses the DC/Maryland border and runs along it. It crosses into DC near the Southern Avenue Metro station, back into Maryland at Oxon Hill Farm and back again into DC just before emptying into the Potomac River. A pair of unconnected trails currently follows the lower portions of the stream in DC and Oxon Hill Farm.

DC has plans for improving its section from entry to exit and better connecting it to the Oxon Hill Farm Trail. PG County plans to extend it from the DC line to the Naylor Road Metro station where it would connect to the Suitland Parkway Trail.

In addition to these plans, NPS should upgrade its old, substandard trail in Oxon Farm, and PG County should consider extending the trail farther. Room exists to extend the trail north along the stream past Lincoln Memorial and Cedar Hill Cemeteries, then across Pennsylvania Ave at Arcadia Ave (where the Boundary Bikeway ends), and then along the North side of Pennsylvania Avenue to Penn Crossing.

Suitland Parkway Trail. The Suitland Parkway Trail is a bike trail along the north side of the Suitland Parkway from Pomeroy Road in DC to a dead end just west of Southern Avenue. On the west end it connects to the Anacostia Metro and the ART via an on-road route. PG County has plans to extend the trail into Maryland as far as the Branch Avenue Metro Station where it will connect to the extension of the Henson Creek Trail.

Prince George's County shouldn't stop at Branch Avenue. It should continue the trail east along the Parkway and upper Henson Creek all the way to Andrews Air Force Base. Once the Maryland section is built, DDOT will likely upgrade the almost-unusable trail in DC. Improvements to the on-street route should be included in the South Capitol Street plan.

St Elizabeths Access Trail. The St. Elizabeths Access trail is a trail to be built along the east side of the access road to the DHS facility at St Elizabeths. It would start at the intersection of the South Capitol Street Trail and Shepherd Rail Trail at Firth Sterling Avenue SE just east of the Anacostia Freeway and would end at the intersection of South Capitol Street and MLK Avenue. There it would connect to the Oxon Run Trail and, again, to the South Capitol Street Trail.

It will create a parallel option to the South Capitol Street Trail that is on the residential side of the Anacostia Freeway. This is to currently being built with part to open in 2013 and more to open in 2014.

Pope Branch Trail. Pope Branch is a short stream running parallel to and south of Massachusetts Avenue SE. It runs through park land and is only crossed by four roads along the way. A trail along this stream could connect the Fort Circle Trail to the Shepherd Rail Trail. It could also connect to many of the streets along the park to tie in the neighborhoods between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Avenues.

Fort Dupont Trail. In Fort Dupont Park there is a partial loop trail. The trails that exist there are mostly unusable and need to be upgraded - especially along the north side. On the south and east, the trail could be replaced with a sidepath along Fort Davis and Fort Dupont Drives.

The trail could also be extended east, past the Fort Circle trail, to Alabama Avenue SE and, with a bicycle boulevard on a couple of blocks on Beck Street SE and Vine Street, to the Boundary Bikeway. To the west the trail could be extended along the stream that flows through the park, to the Shepherd Rail Trail and through the south side of the railroad's DC-295 underpass to the ART. Currently, there is nowhere for a cyclist to cross DC-295 between Pennsylvania Avenue SE and Benning Road NE, and Pennsylvania Avenue is not for the timid. This would create a new crossing and a direct connection the entire way to Maryland.

Piney Run Trail. Piney Run is a stream that starts just south of Hebrew Cemetery on the DC/Maryland border and then flows on the south side of Benning Road before going underground just south of Fort Mahon. Though most of the stream is buried, it's route can still be used to build a trail connecting the Boundary Bikeway at Abel Road in Maryland to the Fort Circle Trail in Fort Chaplin Park, and connect the Fletcher Johnson and Benning Park Recreation Centers along the way.

Hillcrest Connector trail. A connector trail through Hillcrest could use an assortment of parks and green space to connect the Hillcrest neighborhood to the Fort Circle Trail and the Naylor Road Metro Station where the Suitland Parkway and Oxon Run trails meet. The trail could run on the north side of Naylor Road SE from the Metro station and along the edge of 30th Street SE to a point just south of Fort Baker Drive. The trail would then use an unbuilt road, for which the ROW still exists, to cross Naylor Road and connect to the Fort Circle Trail. In addition, this trail could easily connect to any future Skyland development.

Benning Road Cycletrack. Currently, Benning Road is the only place between Pennsylvania Avenue and Bladensburg where pedestrians and cyclists can go from west of the river to east of 295. This uncrossable span of river stretches nearly 4 miles. Traffic moves fast on Benning Road, so much so that it has a speed camera on it. Most cyclists use the sidewalks to travel from the river to Minnesota Avenue NE. On several occasions cyclists have been hit on the sidewalks along Benning.

To make this connection more desirable a cycletrack should be added along the south side of Benning Road between the Anacostia Bridge and the railroad bridge and from the railroad bridge to the Fort Circle Trail.

Henson Creek Trail. This is the only trail listed that doesn't connect directly to DC. This trail currently runs from Oxon Hill Road to Temple Hill Road in Prince George's County and is already planned for extension to the Branch Avenue Metro Station. A further extension along a tributary of Henson Creek through District Heights could connect the trailheads of the Oxon Run Trail and two Watts Branch Trails.

This network could create one of the most bikeable and walkable communities in the country, tie neighborhoods together, and bring all the benefits of active transportation to the eastern part of the city. It would involve a lot of paving, but if designed with stormwater management projects and daylighting of streams, the impact on water quality could be offset or even improved.

Cross-posted at The Washcycle.

I used Bikeshare station names to place the map markers, so they may not be exact. The first map shows all the stations that get an average of 50 trips (a trip is an origination or termination) or more per day. Dupont Circle is in blue, because it gets more than 100.

What's interesting about this map is that near Dupont Circle, there is a tight cluster of 10 heavily used stations. While there were many caveats to SmartBike, it makes me wonder if that system, with its mere 10 stations, would have succeeded if it had served this area—bounded by Eye Street, 21st Street, Florida Avenue, and 14th Street—than the CBD it attempted to span.

The next map shows all stations with 25 trips per day:

This includes one station in Arlington, and might be considered the core of the system. Because there are few trips between Arlington and DC, it might make sense to treat the two areas as two systems. But clearly, where CaBi is concerned, the Crystal City Metro station is the Dupont Circle of Arlington.

Next are stations getting at least 12.5 trips per day:

These stations are, as you'd expect, all located farther from the CBD than the heavier used ones, with the possible exception of the one at 19th Street and E Street.

The next map is all stations that see 6.25 trips per day or more:

This really fills out Crystal City and upper Northwest.

Next are stations with at least 3.125 trips per day.

These stations finish out Crystal City and account for the stations near Catholic University, among a few others.

Finally, here are all of the stations. The ones used fewer than 3 times a day are light purple. I left two off the map, at Foggy Bottom Metro and Nannie Helen Burroughs & Minnesota Ave NE, because they were either not installed or not operable most of the time.

With the exception of the White House station, which is behind a security perimeter and one station in Edgewood, the light purple stations are all east of the Anacostia River.

Of course we'd expect the stations in the middle to be used the most. Likewise is true of Metro. That doesn't mean that the peripheral bikeshare stations or Metro stations aren't useful.

Additionally, much of this data has changed or will change as new stations are installed. However, this visualization should help demonstrate what Capital Bikeshare stations see the most and least usage.

What priorities should DDOT use to expand the system? You can weigh in at the meeting, Wednesday May 25, 6-8 pm at 441 4th Street NW (One Judiciary Square), room 1107, or email ddot.bikeshare@dc.gov.

Crossposted at the Washcycle.

It's hard to get more high-profile than running for presidential office. Would anyone know who Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich were had they not run unsuccessful campaigns? Most protest ideas are illegal, unworkable, or require a large amount of dedication from many people.

This only requires DC residents to vote a little differently and for one person to dedicate a couple of years to the effort. Because Williams would be campaigning in such a small area, the campaign would be cheap and he'd have time to talk to just about every voter in the District.

Williams is a great choice. Unlike Fenty, he left office still relatively popular. Unlike Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton or Mayor Vincent Gray, he's not busy filling another office; without the indication that he might run for some other office, he has no need to curry favor with the Democratic Party.

There are plenty of other individuals that fit this description, such as Sharon Ambrose and Carol Schwartz, but he is really the best possible candidate in my mind: He's smart, telegenic, and without scandal.

It'd be better if Williams hadn't joined so eagerly in the Board of Trade's task force on WMATA governance, which met in secret and recommended diminishing the public's role in Metro's decisionmaking, but that's not a fatal flaw.

Williams would get plenty of opportunities to talk to the national media about why he's running and about DC's disenfranchisement. In the months-long, 24-hour-a-day news coverage, every media outlet will be looking for stories to cover. Williams' candidacy would certainly be one of them. If he's polling well in DC, and looks to win, as I think he would, he could even argue that he should be included in the debates.

If he went on to win DC, that would be covered throughout election night and in post-election coverage. Solutions to DC's second-class status range from statehood, to retrocession, to a constitutional amendment, but Williams wouldn't even need to pick a preferred tactic. He would merely need to advocate that there be a tactic to make DC voters whole. This means representation in both houses, as well as a voice in constitutional amendments and contingent elections.

But what if he were to win and Obama needed those three electors? Most voters in DC, if recent voting is any indication, will not want to put a Republican in the White House just to protest their lack of representation. Williams could campaign with the promise that, in such a situation, he'd instruct his electors to vote for the Democratic nominee, as long as that nominee and the Democratic party promise to make DC suffrage a priority with real, concrete goals.

Let's draft Anthony Williams for the presidential campaign. Let me be the first to ask him to run. You can also ask him to run at this Facebook page.

And so people are upset. On a neighborhood listserv people wrote:

Just came back this evening to Woodbury Drive to find that the county has put in a sidewalk between the deadend on Woodbury Drive and Fenton Street. Further to do this, they have cut down two large mulberry trees that provided us a buffer between the dead-end of Woodbury Dr and Fenton Street.

Now the buffer that these trees created has gone. None of the neighbors requested this sidewalk. There is already a perfectly good one.

This is really appalling, since those trees probably took a good 15 years to grow. Part of the appeal of this dead-end was that although it was right next to Fenton the trees provided a nice buffer. Now this has been lost!

And:

The sidewalk serves absolutely no purpose, and an existing sidewalk could easily have been widened to be ADA compatible.

They're half right. The existing sidewalk is only 4 feet wide, so to serve as part of a bike route it would need to be widened—meaning the new path serves a purpose, However, they're probably right that the sidewalk could have been widened with the tree trimmed back.

Some of it was over the top though:

We are concerned for the safety of our children who frequently play in this dead-end street. The trees provided a nice buffer from busy 410 and Fenton Street.

The DOT said that the "tree removal and sidewalk ramp was necessary to allow for a safe connection to an existing bike route" but didn't really explain how.

I'm a big fan of these kind of connections that help to make suburban street systems easier to bike and walk by allowing cyclists and pedestrians to avoid traffic sewers. But there needs to be proper outreach. Going a little off plan to avoid cutting down trees—or replacing them as best as possible—would probably help.

With Wright Gate closed, cyclists headed uphill will have to take one of the numerous detours, either around the base to the north and along Arlington Blvd, or through one of the gates on the south side (green arrow) if that is even allowed. Either way, it unnecessarily adds time to cycling trips and commutes.

The reasons for the policy are not particularly compelling, and are about traffic flow rather than security. The cemetery has between 27 and 30 funerals a day and anywhere from 4 to 5 funerals an hour. According to a cemetery spokesperson, with so many cemetery vehicles and the vehicles and buses that transport the military ceremonial troops to and from each service, there is a desire to closely monitor traffic, "not only in order to maintain the decorum appropriate for a national cemetery, but for safety purposes as well."

But cyclists are already passing through the cemetery without bringing traffic to a standstill, destroying the decorum of the cemetery, or reducing safety. The number of cyclists who take this route is pretty small and would likely remain that way, and in reality, dwarfed by the number of other vehicles in the cemetery.

A cyclist pedaling quietly and slowly uphill is hardly less dignified than the tour buses that already ply the roadways. As for safety, I think it has been demonstrated that bikes and cars can safely share roads; it hardly improves safety to push cyclists to ride a longer distance on roads with more and faster traffic.

Now is a great time to experiment with rescinding the recent policy of not allowing uphill trips. This is a rather recent policy instituted by the previous superintendent of the cemetery who was fired after a few scandals. In fact, before the Custis Trail was built, this was the preferred route of cyclists heading through this area.

A policy change would require little work. There is already a guard at the Chapel Gate and it would be easy to have them check the IDs of, and visually inspect, the cyclists who pass through, just as they did before the policy change, and as they do at other gates. The cemetery could revert to the rule that required cyclists to ride a predetermined route (the one in blue on the map, for example) that avoided tourists and high traffic areas.

While it is possible that the cemetery route would become so popular that it becomes a problem, I think it's unlikely (and probably a problem Arlington County would love to have to deal with). But if it did, the cemetery could simply limit the number of cyclists to the "appropriate" amount through a permit process. The permit process would remove those who might only occasionally pass through, and for whom the investment of time would not be worth it.

Permits would make the defined route easier to enforce: go off route, lose your permit. And if permitting was still too popular, they could further limit them with a hard cap or by requiring cyclists to commit to a certain number of hours of volunteering to keep their permit. Alternatively, they could limit the hours to only busy commuting hours.

But the policy currently in place does nothing to improve safety, decorum, or traffic flow within the cemetery; it only discourages bike commuting. The closing of Wright Gate is a perfect opportunity to experiment with reversing it.

Cross-posted at theWashcycle.

These options would also add a new trail along the Piney Branch Parkway from the RCPT to Arkansas Avenue.

A related project involves the Rose Park Trail, which runs along the west side of Rock Creek Park from P Street to M Street, including through Rose Park at the northern end.

NPS plans to either resurface (Option B) or resurface and widen (Option C) this trail. Both of these options would create a better connection to M Street, where a Capital Bikeshare station might end up, and other connections as well.

There is also a proposal to move the RCPT closer to the river in the area between Pierce Mill and Blagden Avenue. The trail would replace what is now a "social trail" and the existing trail would be replaced with a gravel "interpretive trail."

The biggest project is rebuilding 3.7 miles of the RCPT between P Street and Broad Branch Road. It would create new connections to P street, Arkansas Ave, Blagden Ave, Broad Branch Road and Porter Street; realign the trail around the various bridges over the Creek; and improve the grade below Calvert street;

The project would also improve the crossings over Shoreham Drive, Jewett Street and the Zoo entrance, and create a better crossing of the Creek south of the Zoo tunnel, where the sidewalk is extremely narrow.

Obviously, I think the more ambitious options are better for both the RCPT and the Rose Park Trail. I have no opinion on the realignment.

Almost all of the public comments were in favor of the widening and repaving options, with two exceptions. One, a man from Friends of Rose Park (F.O.R.P.), opposed widening or realigning the trail, but did not voice any opposition to letting cyclists use the trail. Another wants Klingle Road reopened.

The man from F.O.R.P. was pretty angry about the trail widening. During the open house, he raised his voice at a few rangers and DDOT employees because NPS had promised F.O.R.P. that they would not widen the trail (which is apparently true, though I doubt it applied in perpetuity).

During the public comment section, many commenters noted that the trail is already a multi-use trail, not a pedestrian path as F.O.R.P. wishes to label it. One commenter noted that Rose Park has been the site of several recent crimes and that having more trail users (cyclists) might discourage crime.

The man from F.O.R.P. was also concerned about a very large elm in the park also mentioned in the Georgetown Current article. I'm confident the trail can be widened and rerouted to not only avoid harming the tree but in a way that helps it.

Those who favored the project still had other suggestions including:

• Keeping the zoo loop open 24/7/365
  
• Making sure that detours caused by construction were well signed and easy to use
  
• Keeping the trail maintained (signage indicated that the trail is currently cleared of snow; is that true?)
  
• Building a fence to separate the Rose Park trail from the playground and using brick pavers to slow down cyclists
  
• Creating an elevated crossing of M street at the Rose park trailhead
  
• Making mountain biking legal in RCP which would allow NPS to tap into some free labor
  
• Creating a connection from Harvard Street to the trail
  
• Looking at the section from M to P street
  
• Improving drainage under Porter Street
  
• Building bike parking at every NPS facility trail users might visit including bathrooms
  
• Allowing CaBi into the park

The EA will be finished by late spring with another public hearing in the summer and a decision in the fall. If you'd like to comment on this project, you can do so here.

Cross-posted at The WashCycle.