Ride In 7/16: Special Offer

At 6th Street, I realized I wasn't going the way I wanted and I turned right to head towards F Street NE and its new bike lanes. Here they are:

White stripe

Yellow stripe

I love checking out new bike lanes, even though they pretty much always look almost exactly the same, except when they look somewhat different. The bottom picture shows the contraflow lane between 2nd Street and Union Station. This is designed to allow cyclists to approach the Bikeshare station more directly and without having to ride to the entrance from Columbus Circle, which is a bit of a mess. If you look closely in the picture, you can see a cyclist taking somewhat evasive action to avoid the driving turning across the bike lane towards the parking garage entrance. What you might also see in the picture is my blocking the bike lane to take this picture and this was met with no small amount of consternation from my fellow bike commuters who were forced to ride around me. Sorry!

The only problem I have with this new contraflow lane isn't a problem with the lane itself, but rather how it just kinda stops at the top of the hill past the Bikeshare station and it's mostly unclear where through-riding bicyclists are supposed to go. Met with this #CONFUSION, I abandoned my bike, boarded a train at Union Station and now I'm spending the afternoon in Wilmington. Or, at least I considered that. What I did instead was ride along the taxi pickup lane, which seemed like the best option of a few bad ones to get over to First Street and its cycletrack. So, be aware of that.

First Street to New York Avenue and there I would wait by the world's most inconveniently placed Wendy's for the light to change. Hard to see New York Avenue and not admire the majestic beauty of Washington's grand boulevards.

R Street has speed bumps and aren't speed bumps proof that education and enforcement don't work?

I found myself behind a few bicyclists near New Jersey Avenue and two of them wanted tot take it easy and one wanted to go fast and the one who wanted to go fast just couldn't find the space to get around the two who wanted to take it easy and you could see the frustration building with each pedal stroke. It's rarely worth trying to go fast when so many things and people conspire to make it difficult.

This guy is running for Congress. Seriously. It's my friend and neighbor, Tim Krepp!

Local man holds clipboard

I saw him by the Shaw library, where he was presumably trying to collect signatures so his name can appear on the ballot. Or maybe he was just checking out a book. A book called THE CONSTITUTION. Funnily enough, I also happen to be collecting signatures on his behalf. So, here's the deal:

IF you want to sign this petition and if you're a registered DC voter, please let me know and I will (maybe) be willing to bike the petition RIGHT TO YOUR DOOR (or wherever you might be). That's how much I believe in #kreppmentum. So, tweet at me and let's make this happen.  Is this a monstrously inefficient way to gather signatures? Absolutely! But if he can't embrace monstrous inefficiency, I can't see how he's ever going to make it in Congress.