Starting on or about Monday (11/25) we’re going to begin installing a protected bike lane (also known as a cycle track) on M Street NW.
The cycle track, with a buffer of parked cars and flexible posts, will span over a mile on the north side of M Street NW between 14th and 28th Streets and will serve as the westbound compliment to the eastbound cycle track on L Street NW. On the 1500 block of M Street NW, the lane will be installed as a "traditional" bike lane. Green paint will also be used for much of the block to increase the visibility of the lane.13 more blocks of cycletrack and one block of much green paint and the District of Columbia trundles on in its efforts to install bicycle infrastructure. I don't have the tally for 2013 in terms of mileage, but I can think of a some notable improvements (11th street NW, New Mexico Avenue NW, a repaved 15th street, a be-zebra-ed block of Penn, and _______?) and now M Street and it won't be too much more time until First Street NE also sprouts a cycletrack as part of its massive overhaul in the direction of becoming NoMa's Main Street (NoMaMaiStr for short. I believe Nomamaistr is also the name of a minor character in Game of Thrones. Like a wizard, maybe?). And in other news on the bicycle infrastructure front, WeMoveDC ("who moved c? we did!"- Moses) proposes 70 (70! [no seriously, 70!{no, I'm not kidding. Seven-Zero, 70!}]) miles of new cycletrack as part of DC's new master transportation plan. As the saying doesn't go, 14 blocks of cycletrack in the hand is worth 70 miles in the bush, but this is an ambitious plan worth supporting and we should support it and so we support it.
These are all good things and I'm grateful for them. But my gratitude for things pales in comparison to my gratitude for the people of #bikeDC, those of you I know by name and those of you I know by face and those of you whom I don't know at all, but who ride your bikes around to work or to pleasure or to the grocery store to compete with me for the last thing of corn chips, earning my enmity as you grab them right as I turn the aisle even though it didn't even look like you were going to take them until you saw that I wanted them because maybe you're spiteful like that and while it's not personal and while in other circumstances, circumstances in which I wasn't the victim of this spitefulness, I'd probably even think it amusing, I'd nevertheless be disappointed as I very much care for corn chips [I have a full-color image of a bag of Fritos tattooed on my back]. My point, meandered past and now circling round back in front, is that it's the people who make this place special and it's the people who make riding better and I mean that multifariously. Every other cyclist makes every other cyclist safer and every other cyclist makes every other cycling advocate's voice louder, like a megaphone name of smaller megaphones. A megamegaphone if you will. So, thanks. Also, having other people out there on bikes makes it less boring because aside from riding my own bike and writing about bikes and reading about people on bike bikes and talking to people about bikes and thinking about people and bikes, seeing people on bikes is also good. And validating, I guess.
To those of you riding this week, stay safe. It should be quite a bout of wintry weather and you know, drivers. And ice and stuff. So, if you do ride, be sure to attach a hair dryer to the front of your bike and melt the ice before you ride over it and this is a much more practical solution than just going a little slower and with caution. Happy Turkey Day, which until 1920 was called Ottoman Day, and also happy Greece day and happy Armenia day and happy black friday and blue monday and Wednesday Addams. [snap snap].
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