Get There Without A Car Days!

So a number of car free days are coming up.

Car Free DC day is tomorrow, September 18th. Check out their website which encourages transit use, biking and walking to your destinations. http://www.carfreedc.info/

And Tommy Wells, representative for Ward 6 on the DC Council, challenges people to go car free not just on Car Free DC day, but also on World Car Free Day (more about that next), the whole Car Free Week of Sept 16-22nd, and, for a true challenge, an entire month! Check out his Car Free Challenge on his blog.

World Car Free Day is Saturday, September 22nd. http://www.worldcarfree.net/wcfd/


Wednesday, October 3rd is International Walk to School Day. If you have kids or if you attend school, consider walking or biking or taking transit if it's too far to do either of those. http://www.walktoschool.org/ has information and information on Safe Routes for kids to take to school alone can be found here: http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/.

Bicycle boulevards in Berkeley, California

DC1974 writes:

Particularly nice is the signage and wayfinding system. The boulevards function as feeder streets for bicycles. They've moved into the second phase of actually making the street lights change and additional benefits for bicycle traffic flow. The first ones were just going in when I lived in Berkeley in the summer of 2001.

Click here for the website.

I agree, the signage is great.

Bike-to-Work Day

I missed writing about Bike-to-Work Day. Oh, I had a post all planned out. I was going to write about how I used to bike part of my commute to work, from my house to the Silver Spring Metro station when I used to take the J busses to Bethesda for work, and about all the different events that were going on for B-t-W Day, and I was going to encourage you to try biking. I was even going to say that even if biking the whole way isn't your cup of tea (or feasible depending on how long your commute is... or how in shape you are!), then to see how you can bike part of your route, and use transit for the rest. (Biking to Metro stations is optimal.) It's more feasible, it takes cars off the road, and it's good for you!

But the thing that makes me the happiest about Bike-to-Work Day is that it's always held the week of my birthday. :-) So the area gives me lots of people biking to work as my birthday present. And that's a lovely present indeed.

However... I missed it. It came and went, and so did my birthday. (I'm a full quarter of a century now.) Turns out I didn't even end up going to work on Bike-to-Work Day.

But perhaps YOU biked to work? Or maybe part of the way? Tell me about it!

Montgomery County has bike trail maps available for free. Bethesda even gives out pamphlets with locations of bike racks all around the city. And Metro always has plenty of bike parking, whether it's the (admittedly crappy) bike racks or just railings to lock your bike against. (Check out Commuter Connections for more commuting by bike information. And I'll bet that WABA has info on it, too.)

Try biking to the Metro instead of driving. It's fun, good for you, and it might even be faster than driving, depending on traffic. And also find out if there's a bus route that goes by your house. Because if it's the end of the day and you're tired (or a little too tipsy from Happy Hour; drinking and biking do not mix. I know this the hard way.), you can always take your bike on the bus home.

(BTW, Metro has SO much really great, awesome information on their website that's so far hidden in the bowels of their website that you'd never find it. But that's a blog post for another day.)

Think different...about mobility

(Reprinted from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, 12/2005)


Schwinn Women’s Cruiser 26" Bike for sale at $99.99 on the Target website. Target employees get a 10% discount.

When society is so focused on the car, it's hard to explore options in a focused and more broad-minded fashion. Take mobility. I get around the city of Washington (where I work and live) pretty much by bike.

Now some people say, "oh that saves you money." But it really doesn't. DC roads are not kind to bikes, neither are thieves. And I am not mechanically gifted so I pretty much pay for repairs and tuneups. So it costs about the same.

But what that doesn't take into account is the time I save. Rather than waiting for a bus or subway, for the most part I can ride where I need to go, when I want to. I figure that bike transportation saves me a minimum of 30 minutes/day (granted I waste that time blogging...).

Yesterday's Post, in "For the Carless, Life Is a Wait: Local Bus Systems Can Be Slow, but They Get There" recounts the story of Connie Wells in Fredericksburg, who takes a bus to work. She leaves up to three hours before she is supposed to be at work, to ensure she's on time. Unlike most people Ms. Wells actually lives pretty close to her job--it's three miles away.

From the article:

Connie Wells is waiting for the 1:10 p.m. bus outside her Fredericksburg apartment complex. Her cashier shift at Target doesn't start for nearly three hours, and she's only going three miles. But the next bus, in two hours, will get her there too late. So Wells is waiting, early -- very early -- to make it to a job she desperately needs.

Eventually, Bus No. 2 pulls up, a beige, boxy 20-seater on the regional system called "the Fred," which serves suburban cul-de-sacs, rural roads and the touristy little city of Fredericksburg. Wells beams at everyone in their clean, green vinyl seats as she walks down the aisle. And for the most part, they beam back, because that is the unspoken rule of the Fred: No complaining.
Image from Fredericksburg Public Transportation Evolution.

"I have learned a lot of patience riding the Fred," said Wells, 41, who sometimes gets to work nearly two hours early, where she waits in the break room talking with co-workers. The last bus leaves at 7 p.m., so if her shift runs past that, she'll take a taxi home, which costs $6.25 -- 75 cents shy of an hour's worth of smiling and taking money at a Target register.
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While I imagine that the roads from home to work don't offer convenient bike lanes or sidewalks, she could walk to work in one hour (saving two hours of her time there, and I don't know how much time coming back), or she could bike to work in no longer than 20 minutes--saving more than 2.5 hours of time getting to work, plus the time returning.

Transportation and mobility isn't just about bus, subway, or car--even in Fredericksburg.

Although, it's very important that businesses-office buildings offer quality bike parking as well as shower and locker facilities. Certainly shopping centers could offer this to employees, and it's another argument for requiring transportation demand management plans for commercial projects.

Note: it appears from the The Fred website, as well as the student paper referenced above, that the Fredericksburg area actually does pretty well from a transit perspective, offering more options than comparably sized regions across the country.