Rides 7/27: predictions of nostalgia

I had a bit of a cold this weekend and this morning I wasn't up to biking the whole way to work so rather than skip work entirely (allegedly, that's why I'm paid money every morning and not due to some residuals from my endorsing a Korean soda. Turns out they didn't even want my endorsement and keep tellin me to stop calling. No way man!) I biked to Union Station to take the Metro to work. Then at the other end of the trip, rather than bike to the office, I took the shuttle bus the less than a mile. I almost never take the shuttle bus because, for the most part, I always have legs and if you have legs you can pretty much always bike slightly less than a mile across flat terrain, even in a post-sick stupor. But today, I took the bus. And the traffic light was flashing at a key intersection and the bus was stuck in traffic [cue Alanis] as drivers mostly patiently (mostly) navigated their way through the four-way intersection. 

I opted to take Bikeshare home (the whole way) in the afternoon since I went well enough and the weather was unatrocious summery following some thoroughly nasty thunderstorms. A slow Bikeshare commute is a true urban joy. Something about those bikes (the girth? The weight? The gearing?) just makes you want to take it easy and so I did, rolling down the usual route over towards 15th Street and past the White House. By the Treasury Department, a police officer stood on the sidewalk, ticket pad out, likely ready to issue tickets to cyclists who fail to stop at the red light by the entrance to the White House. I believe a few things simultaneously: 

1. Don't run a red light in front of a police officer if you don't want to risk getting a ticket. 

2. Cyclists should yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. 

3. There are probably better places to enforce against these kinds of things than this location (places where the likelihood of a crash is higher).

4. This has nothing to do with Vision Zero and anyone who tells you it does is a huckster and a fraud. 

5. Going through a red light in a bidirectional protected cycletrack at a T intersection that is utterly devoid of pedestrians shouldn't be a crime and the Council should fix that because it's pretty silly. Think Paris. 

6. Overly legalistic approaches are doubtful to really change cyclist behavior, if that's actually the goal and the goal isn't just to punish people. 

7. Sorry tourists who inevitably got caught up in this. 

8. This isn't the biggest issue in the world and probably didn't deserve all these enumerated points, but I just love enumerating points so much and that's yet another reason why the makers of Milkis need to stop deleting my emails. Delicious, delicious Milkis: the official soft drink of the 37th most popular local DC bike blogger whether they want it to be or not.