D.C. Bicycle Advisory Council

The bimonthly Bicycle Advisory Council  Facilities Committee (BAC-FAC) meeting has been rescheduled for Monday, February 25, 2013.  The meeting will be held at Meridian Pint , 3400 11th Street NW  Washington, DC, beginning at 6:00 pm in the downstairs section. Topics for discussion : Discussing BAC FAC rides over the past year Discussing of facility improvements made in the areas where we've ridden Making recommendations to the District Department of Transportation and other pertinent agencies Drafting ride destinations for 2013 As always, our meetings are open to the public and we would appreciate hearing your thoughts . For more information, please contact the BAC-FAC Chair, Jeanie Osburn .

Photo by Ranpuba on Flickr The D.C. Bicycle Advisory Council is scheduled to provide testimony at its Fiscal Year 2012-2013 Performance Oversight Hearing before the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, chaired by Council member Mary M. Cheh (Ward 3) . The hearing will begin at 11:00a, Monday, March 4, 2013 in hearing room 120 within the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Also scheduled to testify are the Pedestrian Advisory Council and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). The purpose of the Performance Oversight Hearings are to allow the Council to ask questions regarding the current operations of District agencies, committees, and other government organizations during the current fiscal year, which began October 1, 2012. This hearing provides an opportunity for residents discuss bicycling-related issues before Council and the opportunity to ask DDOT questions about bicycle infrastructure or policy. One of the more effective ways...

At last Satuday's WeMoveDC Idea Exchange at the Martin Luther King Library, the District Department of Transportation planning team created an ideas wall . The purpose of wall was to identify transportation infrastructure ideas based on certain transportation-related topics. The wall also allowed people to provide thoughts on how the District could better serve it's residents through short-term and long-term improvements. Below are some bicycle-related posts but we'd like to hear your comments about the event. You're thoughts will likely be incorporated in the DCBAC Fiscal Year oversight hearing scheduled for next month and likely help us determine what bike-related issues are most important for the current and upcoming year. Please feel free add comments below or post your pictures and comments about the event to the DCBAC Flickr Pool .

The next meeting of the Safety, Education and Enforcement committee (BAC SEE) will be the second Tuesday of even-months as usual, which falls on Tuesday, February 12, 2013. The SEE meeting will begin at 6:30pm at Teaism - 400 8th Street NW (we will have a table downstairs). Topics for discussion : Report-back on Penn Ave U-turns outreach day (which involved the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the DC Taxicab Commission, and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association). We will ask how it went, what did it take to make this happen, and should this sort of event happen more? Follow-up on MPD training update - what traffic enforcement priorities is MPD communicating to officers? Please let me know if there are other items you have to discuss. As always, BAC meetings are open the the public.  For more information, please contact the BAC SEE committee Chair, Jameel Alsalam .

In one of the last acts of the last legislative session, the Council voted on D.C. Act 19-646, "Pre-litigation Discovery of Insurance Coverage Amendment Act of 2012". Passing 12-0 (Council member Barry was not present), this legislation amends certain sections of the "Compulsory / No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act of 1982", which lists several requirements that aim to facilitate settlements and to reduce the amount of litigation in the Superior Court. The amended Section 4a (h) contains the following provision: (h) For the purposes of this section, the term "vehicle accident" includes accidents involving bicyclists. This additional provision could have wide ranging effects with regard to protecting bicyclists involved in a crash. What this provision seems to suggest is that if there is a crash involving an bicycle and the bicyclists makes a claim or initiates a court proceeding against another vehicle, then that bicyclist is entitled to informatio...