An illuminated helmet can operate as a brake light, turn signal, or just look cool.

That helmet will be very confusing in real life, because bikers need to look around all the time to ride safely. For instance, when you're about to make a right turn, you need to look left. How does that work with tiling your head right?

Cool idea, unworkable though.

by Jasper on Jun 21, 2012 9:06 am • link • report

Is it too much to ask to provide a link to the original reason blog rather than links to two stories about another blog?

That said, I don't really see anything in here worth getting worked up about. Just send them the pages of stories we've already had debunking everyone else and we can laugh and move on.

Considering I see people riding CABI at all hours I think we can safely assume that most people would rather have it than do without.

by drumz on Jun 21, 2012 9:11 am • link • report

Then again, I'm not so sure even the regular readers of reason can find a reason to complain about bike share except for A. the government had the gall to actually spend money on something. B. It involves whatever they conceive of as a hipster and they don't like those people.

by drumz on Jun 21, 2012 9:15 am • link • report

@drumz: Yes, if they didn't want to drive traffic to the original, moronic post.

by cy on Jun 21, 2012 9:31 am • link • report

Get real. Bollards are there to protect people and cars from reckless bicyclists that speed down trails, ignore stop signs and blast through intersections. The county should install more of them. (I say this as a lycra-wearing cyclist with several thousand miles on my road bike)

by jinushaun on Jun 21, 2012 9:32 am • link • report

It seems to me the purpose of those bollards is to try to slow down bicyclists at conflict points. In that case they should be the flexible plastic kind and not a damn steel rod set in concrete that could kill someone.

by MLD on Jun 21, 2012 9:47 am • link • report

It's a fallacy to claim that progressive architecture = progressive urbanism.

Good urbanism requires buildings with a lot of small-scale details on the lower couple of levels, which progressive architecture usually does not provide. If you can walk more than 50 feet without anything substantial changing on the building next to you, then the building is bad urbanism.

If folks want to cheer the addition of more sculpted bare walls to the city, that's their prerogative, but it isn't necessarily good urbanism. Some of the better examples may qualify, but there is not a causal relationship.

by BeyondDC on Jun 21, 2012 9:52 am • link • report

@jinushaun
I agree that there is a segment of trail users which needs to slow down and show more courtesy but installing dangerous obstacles on the trail is not an effective means of doing so. If Arlington's goal is to slow bike traffic, perhaps speed bumps (or speed tables or whatever) would be a better option since most (all?) road bikes do not have suspension. They would not be nearly as dangerous as steel poles sticking up out of the ground catching unsuspecting cyclists. (I say this as a former courier who has logged tens of thousands of miles riding in lycra. (but I didn't wear lycra as a courier!))

by Biker on Jun 21, 2012 10:11 am • link • report

@Biker IMO, if pot holes are dangerous to cyclists, speed bumps would be even MORE dangerous than bollards. And I don't buy the safety argument regarding bollards. They are not hazardous at any speed, especially at speeds one should be riding when approaching intersections. The bollards are bright yellow and highly visible. There is plenty of clearance on either sides of the bollard. Unsuspecting rider = a dangerous rider to everyone else on the trail. As a cyclist, I know that at any point I can hit a patch of gravel or pot hole, flip over and break open my skull. That's why I wear a helmet. Even while driving a car and having right of way, I know there is a chance a negligent drive can run a red and t-bone me in the intersection. There's no excuse to not pay attention to the road whether you're riding or driving. These bollards are not hazardous and attentive riders will not be able to miss them.

by jinushaun on Jun 21, 2012 10:21 am • link • report

Thank you BeyondDC for clearing the air on this false narrative modernist ideologues keep promoting. These people talk as if DC where swimming in classicism until recently. Does demolishing a whole quadrant of the city for "contemporary" (read modernist) architecture and urbanist count for nothing? Does the wall of glass and steel from the 1950's onward through out our downtown mean we are but novices in the ways of "progressive" architecture? Conflating modern, contemporary, and progressive with the modernist style of building is what modernist boosters have been doing since the 1930's, but a good marketing strategy doesn't alter empirical evidence. Decades of abysmal modernist/progressive architecture is responsible for the deadening of countless downtowns in america, to say nothing about the visual polution they've done to our landscape. Being progressive means progressing from something that dosen't work to something that works, and by any measure, a lot of modernism has failed. This dosen't mean that there's no place for modernism as a style, but the meme of equating one particular style with progresivity undercuts the whole point of progress. It's not about the style, it's about creating places for good living, regardless of style, or politics for that matter.

by Thayer-D on Jun 21, 2012 10:31 am • link • report

It focuses on how ridership demographics skew white

So what? That's supposed to be an argument against CaBi?
I knew there was a reason I've always been less than impressed with Libertarians.

by Juanita de Talmas on Jun 21, 2012 11:00 am • link • report

What the f*** is a firm like Kittleson thinking writing a report for anti-transit "concerned neighbors"?

Projects like the CCT need a more concerned effort from pro-transit neighbors and the entities building them to say "here's WHY we're doing this number 1, and this is how we have to build it to achieve those goals."

Otherwise you get disinterested parties being convinced by BS like this report. Yes, if you don't actually build BRT then it will be cheaper. Also nobody will ride it because it will be much more convenient just to drive to Shady Grove.

by MLD on Jun 21, 2012 11:04 am • link • report

@jinushaun

"They are not hazardous at any speed, especially at speeds one should be riding when approaching intersections."

Say what now? If several cyclists have suffered injuries by hitting bollards, how can they possibly be "not hazardous at any speed"? Your statement is absolutely and demonstrably false.

Also, while bollards at intersections are obnoxious, the real issue is bollards that are NOT at intersections, such as the bollards at the top of the MVT/Custis connector bridge over the GW pkwy, as pointed out in the article. Finally, I would bet that the people hitting these bollards are less experienced cyclists who aren't as familiar with the trails and not the superbikers that everyone likes to complain about.

by TwoWheelsDC on Jun 21, 2012 12:20 pm • link • report

@beyond and esp Thayer.

I've looked at 60's and 70s modernist stuff built with antiurbanist design principles.

I've also looked millenial era pomo (I guess?) stuff in places like North Brooklyn.

And Ive looked at millenial era "conservative" modernist stuff in places like Clarendon.

I do not have a degree in Architecture, but I can say that to me

A. The stuff in brooklyn is, urbanism wise, MORE like the Clarendon stuff than like the bad old modernism stuff, details or no details.

B. The Brooklyn stuff seems to work about as well as the Clarendon stuff at promoting urbanism

C. I dont mind the clarendon stuff (SOME of it blends into the existing fabric pretty well) but I know a lot of people (laypeople, not arch school grads) find it rather boring. It seems to me like having a variety of styles, is good for the region.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Jun 21, 2012 12:29 pm • link • report

should be "millenial era conservative stuff" not "conservative modern"

by AWalkerInTheCity on Jun 21, 2012 12:39 pm • link • report

I'm not going to make up my mind re CaBi until Martha Quinn weighs in.

I found it strange that Reason credited D.C. Pedicab with production help. Is D.C. Pedicab generally known for assisting with such misguided libertarian adventures?

by Todd on Jun 21, 2012 12:47 pm • link • report

On a trail on the southwest side of the NIH campus, near the National Library of Medicine, there is a trio of bollards that act as a "speed bump" for cyclists, on a stretch that is on a hill with a blind curve.

by Frank IBC on Jun 21, 2012 3:50 pm • link • report

Given just how common security bollards now are in DC and the surrounding communities, so common, in fact, that our local government agencies place bollards in the middle of bike trails for no obvious purpose, may I humbly submit to the almighty blogosphere a new nick name for Washington DC:

Bollard Town.

Its sort of catchy.

by AlanF on Jun 21, 2012 4:39 pm • link • report

@TwoWheelsDC Anything is dangerous on the trail if I ride right into them, including other cyclists. That doesn't make that thing inherently dangerous. It just means people need to pay attention while they're riding and slow down at bollards. Or if you're really uncertain about your ability to ride around it, get off your bike and walk around it.

by jinushaun on Jun 23, 2012 10:28 am • link • report

Bollards are there to protect people and cars from reckless bicyclists that speed down trails, ignore stop signs and blast through intersections.

I can assure you that is absolutely not the reason that bollards are installed on trails.

These bollards are not hazardous and attentive riders will not be able to miss them.

People do crash into them and sometimes die. So...that's the very definition of hazardous. That good cyclists can avoid them is not a particularly good defense. We're talking about cyclists on the margins, and whether or not it is worth putting them at risk.

by David C on Jun 24, 2012 5:59 pm • link • report