D.C. Bicycle Advisory Council

The BAC Safety, Education, and Enforcment Committee met on Tuesday, December 13. Thanks to Ellen Jones, Lt. Nick Breul of MPD, and Daniel Hoagland of WABA for coming. I think it marks a productive beginning to a working relationship between BAC and MPD. 1) Street Smart Campaign Activities . Lt. Breul provided an overview of activities in the recent round of Street Smart Campaign enforcement. It covered enforcement against pedestrians endangering themselves, motorists endangering pedestrians (not respecting pedestrians in crosswalks with flashing lights) and bicyclists riding in an unsafe manner. The Street Smart Campaign is organized by Lt. Breul using officers being paid for working overtime. It is paid for with special funds from NHTSA. Several of the activities involve teams of officers, thus the type of activities which wouldn’t be happening normally. They also involve a lot of education. Dan Hoagland of WABA got all the numbers in his recap: http://www.waba.org/blog/2011/12/safety

Below are twitter updates from tonight's WABA Women's Bicycling Forum at the West End Public Library from 6p to 8p. WABA has asked that the public use the twitter tag #womanbikedc to convey your thoughts about the forum. The goal of this conversation is to produce executable recommendations that utilize WABA's reach and resources to put more women on bikes. The event is open to the public to observe the discussion. You can read more about the forum here . Responses no longer available.

Bikes cueing Photo by theDCeye The Sustainable DC Working group is an effort by the District government to make a city that makes better and lasting environmentally progressive decisions. The transportation group is meeting at 441 4th St, NW (One Judiciary Square), Room 1114 from 6p to 8p Thursday, December 15.

At the BAC Facilities meeting held Tuesday, December 6, District Department of Transportation staff introduced a proposed map of bike lanes to be added to the system in 2012. The following map contains proposed bike infrastructure  improvements / ideas that could be implemented  within the District some time in calendar year 2012.  The items in red are improvements proposed for 2011 but not completed. DDOT hopes to include those routes in 2012.   One of the proposed routes include L and M Streets between Pennsylvania Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue NW.  While these lanes were planned for some time, the bike community voiced concern when Terry Bellamy said during his confirmation hearing as director of the DDOT  that the dedicated lanes were "on hold" and at the risk of cancellation, as reported by Washington Examiner and other information outlets.  Also, you can overlay the current bike lanes on the map. Click the larger view of this map and then the traffic link a

The next Legislative Committee meting will be Wednesday, December 7 at 6:30pm . The location will be Teasim at 400 8th St NW . David Cranor (At-Large - Orange ) is the Committee Chair and will meet at a large table in the basement of the restaurant. The agenda for the meeting will be:  Review of letter seeking status of compliance with the Bicycle Safety Enhancement Act . Parking report - Now that we have it, we need to decide if there are any legislative actions. The report does not completely meet the requirements of the law - for example it was never made public and doesn't include an evaluation of routes to facilities.  What has long been cited as the law (and included in every iteration of the WABA / DDOT Pocket Guide) as 18 DCMR 1201.2--which states a presumption that the cyclist right to the right, but with a number of clearly defined exceptions--is not actually the law. This was changed in a piece of legislation from 2006 for Segways, to make them exempt from certai

In 1896, civic rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony made the following statement about bicycling : " Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood ." From a Black Women Bike Ride Photo by theDCeye Monday, December 12, 2011, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association will hold a forum that hopes to determine why over a hundred years after her statement, there are statistically fewer women bicycling when compared with men.  The Women's Bike Forum (registration is required, space is limited) will begin at 6:00p until 8:00p at the in the small meeting room in the West End Neighborhood Public Library , 1101 24th Street NW. The roundtable discussion will include a panel of women who are active in the local bicycling community and will sha

Below is a public notice regarding the Rock Creek Park Trail as sent to the DC Bicyclists and Pedestrians List by the DDOT Bicycle program manager, James Sebastian.  BAC encourages the public to comment on this public facility that serves thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists in the region and allows for the safe access of Rock Creek Park. Map from NP This is the second meeting regarding the rehabilitation of this section of the trail. The open house and subsequent presentation will be held Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at the Columbia Heights Educational Campus, Auditorium , 3101 16th Street, NW Washington, DC 20010 from 6:00p to 8:00p. The rehabilitation project cover the main trail and at least two tributaries, from Broad Branch Road, NW to P Street, NW.  It also includes the addition of new connections to the trail from the surrounding communities. The National Park Service (NPS), in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration and the District of Columbia Departmen

Picture This , a photo by uno000 on Flickr. Workers making repairs to the New York Avenue overpass at the Metropolitan Branch Trail the morning of December 1 at around 9:30a.