TIGER grant set to improve bus service in and around our nation's capital - USDOT Blog

I am at another IntelliDrive Workshop and helping define research topics that will define how vehicles communicate to the infrastructure and the applications that will be developed. There are several discussion items swirling around the future of the vehicle fleet and how transportation engineers will handle the new data. Our interest as a government agency is improving safety of travellers using information from vehicles.

One of the challenges of research is to get adoption of the new concept. There are so many good ideas that have been studied, but remain unimplemented because of technology transfer.

I believe that projects should have elements of research in them and this blog posting by USDOT made me think about how IntelliDrive could be rolled out. If the federal government tied funding to specific technology enhancements like this one (TIGER grant set to improve bus service in and around our nation's capital - Welcome to the FastLane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation) and built in research as a part of the grant, the agency might serve itself well by implementing best practice and eliminating the need for Tech Transfer to their specific agency. There would be a research component tied to the project and the funding for research would be less difficult to find. A downside is it could increase the time needed before implementation because research isn't always on a fast track.

NYC BIke Signal on 1st Ave

On the bicycle tour fo 1st Avenue, I came across intersections like this where the left turn is separated from the bicycle movement. In this case, both are red because the pedestrian (crossing movement) is active. In Portland, we have been exploring the use of a optically programmed bicycle signal, so that motorists can't see the bicycle signal is active.

1st Avenue NYC

I was fortunate to visit New York City after a trip to DC for a FHWA Workshop. I met up with one of the bicycle planning staff that has implemented the 1st Avenue bicycle facility. The bicycle lanes were striped on the left hand side of the street to eliminate conflicts with buses. I was not initially enamored with the conflict of left turning traffic, but I found it more natural for a left turning vehicle to yield to the through bicycle traffic then the right turning traffic might otherwise. I could see a possible research problem statement forming for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program of the Transportation Research Board. One element that needs further study is the effectiveness of the green bike box with the person on a bicylce expected to make it across two or three lanes of through traffic. The conservative engineer makes me wonder if someone would weave over to the right hand side and have a conflict with traffic that has a green. Education of cyclists would be key to make this effective.
Signage is pretty good along the corridor since this is a rather new implementation. In this case, there was an exception for bikes at one of the mid block intersections that they closed down to reduce conflicts. In this case, they eliminated the access to vehicles, but left the path for cyclists and pedestrians to the local street. It encourages a little more mobility, actually reducing a conflict for motor vehicles (previously there was an occasional left turning vehicle).
The other treatment on this facility that was particularly innovative was the way they created green space within the median. In this case, they stripe the bicycle to yield to pedestrian and bicycle traffic within this median in order to allow an uncontrolled intersection. This is something we can use for the Portland to Milwaukie Light Rail line intersections as opposed to signals that might otherwise result in needless delays.

DC Leading Pedestrian Interval

Very hard to make out in these pictures, but I stumbled upon a Leading Pedestrian Interval in DC at this intersection near Dupont Circle. it looks like the Walk is provided a 4 second advance based on my single cycle observation and delays the green from coming up in both directions to allow pedestrians to establish their presence in the intersection. DC uses a 100-second cycle length and this is a two-phase intersection, so it is an easy location to make this happen within the constraints of the intersection (which didn't seem that busy).

DC Bike Share has evolved

I posted awhile back about DC's first efforts with Bike Sharing.
I don't recall where I stood on the issue exactly, but I don't think I was very positive because it seemed to be putting people that might not be very comfortable on a bike in difficult positions (riding in traffic without good information on routes, aka unfamiliar territory).  The bikes originally seemed a bit clunky and the system seemed to be bailing wire and duct tape.

I had a chance to check out version 2.0 this week and with the upgraded pay stations, the real-time communication to the sensors that tell you where bike stations are and how many of the spots are full, the system is fully functional and as convenient as you can make it, where stations are provided.

I encountered this station outside of the USDOT headquarters building which is adjacent to the Navy Yard station of Metro. The station had a lot of bikes, enough to make rental bike retail locations out of business for all but the all day trips (the costs of rental at Capital Bike Share is expensive for trips longer than 2 hours).

Riding the bike around, I found the 3-speeds adequate for DC's flat terrain. The bikes aren't light but they are very comfortable and have all of the chain guards and other features that you would experience on a European bike.

For the casual rider, it is a great system to get you from A to B. In fact, they don't charge if you use the bike less than 30 minutes. There is a $5 24-hour charge for membership and that increases to $25 for a month and $75 for an annual pass. Very reasonable considering that you can take a bike to a station every 30 minutes and not pay a cent for rental. You have to be willing to check in the bikes.

I am very interested in the cost per trip and the comparison with transit, although that suggests that you could take away transit, which isn't practical.

As far as urban design elements, this isn't the nicest looking station. The bollards are there for the USDOT building and I am guessing are not actually tied to the bikesharing (I haven't confirmed that).

So, what can I say... I have changed my tune on bike sharing and believe it is something that should be more seriously considered then I otherwise believed. I can admit that I am a believer, pending the cost data.

Portland = Amsterdam?

I had to chuckle a bit when the article form Yes! Magazine mentioned Portland becoming a little like Amsterdam.
Having been there this past year, I would argue we're a long ways away from streets like this. Maybe on Sunday Parkways, we achieve this sort of environment, but that's only 5 days of the year.

Cycle City, USA: Portland's Secrets for Becoming a World-Class Biking City

Cycle City, USA: Portland's Secrets for Becoming a World-Class Biking City

I had the pleasure of meeting with Jay when he was in Portland for the Bikes Belong Cycling Tour of Portland's facilities. We had a good time with him and the participants from Chicago, Houston, Seattle, elsewhere.