Why doesn’t the DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) protect the bike lane in front of the Wilson Building?
That was the subject of the recent protest, Stop U-Turns on Pennsylvania Avenue. Local cyclists (including me) created a human shield to protect those using the bike lane that runs down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue. While DDOT has installed “park-its” (little curbs) to discourage drivers from making u-turns along most of Penn, it has declined to do so along the 1300 and 1400 blocks of the avenue.
DDOT says it’s studying the issue. Coincidentally, the 1300 block is home to the Wilson Building and a gaggle of DC Councilmembers, known for their reckless driving and park-anywhere attitude. They enjoy making u-turns on Penn, among other, greater offenses.
It’s dangerous to make a u-turn across a bike lane where people are riding in both directions. There have been three reported incidents of cyclists getting hit by cars just on this block.
The park-its have made a huge difference on the rest of Pennsylvania Avenue, where I used to see cars making u-turns across the bike lane every time I rode it. That’s largely ended, thanks to the park-its.
At the protest, we formed a human shield of about fifty riders to protect the unprotected blocks. We lined the bike lane where the park-its should be. Police officers on bikes and in cars were there to keep everyone safe.
Surely, no driver would attempt to make a u-turn through the protest, right? Hah! Crazed DC drivers aren’t going to let people on bikes get in their way, even with cops all around! I saw at least three illegal u-turns in just thirty minutes, demonstrating a shocking disregard for traffic laws and human life.
Someone even made a u-turn through the protest! There was a ten-foot gap between protesters so the crazed driver nosed his SUV through the line of people and across the bike lane. If you’re this reckless, you should not be allowed to drive in DC.
Moves, an iPhone app, allows me to track my rambles. Gray is Metro, blue is biking and green is walking.
In most of the United States, there exists but a single transportation mode: driving. You use a car to get to where you want to go. Government has created a massive transportation infrastructure to accommodate that choice – roads of all sizes, gas stations on every corner, parking lots everywhere. Other transportation modes (biking, buses) are distinctly secondary, if they exist at all.
Only in the centers of the most urban of cities is life any different. In select urban areas, other kinds of modes exist. Haphazard government planning has resulted in the occasional protected bike lane. Lack of regulation allows companies like Uber to start. Streets designed in previous centuries accommodate pedestrians who walk to work.
In a multimodal environment, you pick the right tool for the job. You can’t just drive and park somewhere – parking might be expensive or not available or you might not have a car (like me). Instead, you select the transportation mode that works best for you, balancing a mix of a factors including time, hassle, expense and convenience.
While these choices may seem complex, after a while you learn what works best for you. And it won’t be just one mode. My day on July 2 is a good example of what it’s like to live in a multimodal world.
Destination: U Street Metro
Mode: Bike
Time: 8 AM
Distance: 1 mile
Cost: Free
Every weekday, I trek from Logan Circle to Silver Spring for work. The first leg involves biking one mile to the U Street Metro. I bike because it’s easy, fun and quick. Most of the journey is along the 15th Street Cycletrack, a protected bike lane that makes it safe. I have two bikes – a Specialized Sirrus and a Breezer folding bike. I take the Breezer because it’s the cheaper of my two bikes so less likely to be stolen. Even so, I keep it locked up with a Kryptonite lock at the Metro. Safety is an important consideration in urban environments.
Destination: Silver Spring
Mode: Metro
Time: 8:10 AM
Distance: 6 miles
Cost: $3
I’ve biked up to Silver Spring before but it’s nothing but hills and traffic so I take Metro instead. I take the Green Line to Fort Totten and switch to the Red Line. Most of the time, it’s a pleasant, uncrowded reverse commute that takes 20 minutes or so. My commute costs around $120 but actually it’s even less because I can take that money out of my paycheck pre-tax as a transportation benefit.
Destination: Whole Foods Silver Spring
Mode: Walk
Time: Noon
Distance: 1.2 miles (round-trip)
Cost: Free
There’s nothing good around the office so I typically walk up to Whole Foods in Silver Spring for lunch.
Destination: U Street Metro
Mode: Metro
Time: 4 PM
Distance: 6 miles
Cost: $3
Weirdly, on the reverse-reverse commute, the Metro ride home typically takes 5-10 minutes longer than the morning.
Destination: Home
Mode: Bike
Time: 4:30 PM
Distance: 1 mile
Cost: Free
On the way home, I rocket down 13th Street and go around Logan Circle, which is always fun. However, it’s impossible to make a left on Rhode Island to my apartment building. Instead, I go to the next corner, stop, wait for the light to change, then turn around and come back. It’s one of those minor inconveniences that you get used to as a bike rider.
Destination: Aveda Salon
Mode: Walk
Time: 5 PM
Distance: .5 mile
Cost: Free
I got a $40 haircut! It was quite pleasant actually. Part of the reason I chose the salon was that it was within walking distance.
Destination: Glen’s Garden Market/McClellan’s Retreat
Mode: Capital Bikeshare
Time: 5:30 PM
Distance: 1.5 miles
Cost: Free (normally $8 for 24 hours but I had a coupon)
If you’ve visited DC, then you’ve seen the red Capital Bikeshare bikes. They’re impossible to miss. I took one from Logan Circle to Dupont Circle to meet friends for drinks at McClellan’s Retreat. I knew it was the fastest way to get where I was going and I had a coupon. And I didn’t want to have to worry about my bike, or about drunk-biking home. And they’re just fun to ride every once in while.
Destination: GBD
Mode: Walk
Time: 7:00 PM
Distance: .5 miles
Cost: Free
After a couple of bourbon-heavy drinks at McClellan’s Retreat, I had a hankering for fried chicken and biscuits. Thankfully, I could walk to GBD. I think I would’ve been a little wobbly on Bikeshare.
Destination: Home!
Mode: Walk
Time: 8 PM
Distance: 1 mile
Nice to be able to walk home without having to worry about a driving a car after a couple drinks.
Analysis
Distance Covered: 18.7 miles
Total Transportation Costs: $6
Bikes, trains, walking – multimodal transportation can seem complicated. But if you look how I transited around a busy urban area, it’s a model of low-cost simplicity. If I had to drive to all the places listed above, I could’ve easily spent $50 on parking, as well as the aggravation of dealing with DC traffic. Plus, biking is quicker for virtually any trip in the city.
So, give multimodal living a try. Ride a bike. Walk to the corner store. Take a bus downtown. There’s probably more than one way to get to where you’re going.
Tulips along the Metropolitan Branch Trail in Washington, DC.
There’s a perception that biking is something that’s only done by men on expensive road bikes aka MAMILs (middle-aged men in lycra).
But, if you bike around DC like I do, you see just about every kind of person in the bike lanes – female executives on red Bikeshare bikes, bearded hipsters on fixies, Salvadorans on beat-up mountain bikes, students on vintage cycles, eccentrics on Bromptons and even whole families on cargo bikes.
For an all too-brief spell, we had an enlightened city government that invested in bike infrastructure, such as the 15th Street Cycletrack, a bike lane protected by a line of parked cars. This made biking safe for everyone – I even see little kids in the cycletrack. And during rush hour, there’s a traffic jam of bikes in the bike lane.
A typical day in the 15th Street protected bike lane, as kids, golfers and tourists make their way around DC.No matter the weather, #BikeDC rolls on.I’m no MAMIL. Selfie in the cycletrack.
“You’d have to be crazy to bike around DC.” I heard that regularly twenty years ago, when I biked. You only biked on the weekends, and on trails like Rock Creek Park – but you’d never think to bike during rush hour, because it was way too dangerous.
Protected bike lanes, Capital Bikeshare and other advancements normalized the idea of biking in the nation’s capital, turning an activity once done only by crazed bike messengers into something that even tourists could do. Washingtonians and visitors discovered that biking was the fastest way to get around town – and the most fun.
Capital Bikeshare deserves a huge amount of credit for this development, making biking easy – you don’t even need to own a bike anymore – and commonplace, as hordes of the ubiquitous red bikes spill out onto the streets every day.
Capital Bikeshare riders along the Potomac.Bikeshare riders on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Biking in DC is no longer just the province of fit young men. Everyone rides now, a change that has been documented in the excellent Women of BikeDC series, which profiles female bike riders. There’s less racing and more slow riding. Fewer road bikes and more upright Dutch-style city bikes.
And with these changes has developed a tremendous sense of community, where cyclists get together at events like DC Bike Party and rides organized by BicycleSpace and others. You can also find them sharing information virtually using #BikeDC on Twitter.
DC Bike Party at Dupont Circle.Riders at Tour de Fat.DC Donut Crawl passes the White House.
Biking has changed in DC. The face of biking is changing as well. Nelle Pierson was recently appointed as interim director of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association. If someone is going to represent #BikeDC, than I can think of no one better than Nelle Pierson. She’s creative, outgoing, rides every kind of bike and is great at expanding the bike community, like with her Women and Bicycles program which matches up new cyclists with mentors.
Nelle Pierson and Pete Beers distribute bike lights on a bitterly cold winter day in Silver Spring, MD.
I first met Nelle a couple years ago at a WABA happy hour. She was there with her mom and the two of them had rode over on a tandem – how cute is that?
The great thing about biking in this city is the chance to run into your #BikeDC friends. You meet people at events and then see them biking around town. Sometimes, you even stop and chat for a moment, something you could never do in a car.
Biking to the Metro one morning, I saw this cool old tandem. It was Nelle and her mom, on the way for coffee with women bicyclists.
All this amazes me. Protected bike lanes, Capital Bikeshare, #BikeDC – I never would’ve imagined this and I love every bit of it.
This progress was possible due to the efforts of WABA. A strong WABA benefits everyone who bikes in DC. If you haven’t joined already, join! Help Nelle and WABA make biking easier and safer in DC.
I can’t wait to see what happens next as the biking community in DC grows and expands. We may never be Copenhagen. But we can aspire to be a city where biking is safe, normal and fun.
Your employees are your brand, according to an all-star panel of communicators at the recent workshop, “Building an Agency’s Brand and Defining the Audience.”
The Federal Communicators Network (FCN) and the Partnership for Public Service sponsored this conversation on how to build a strong brand and better define your audience. This lively discussion featured real-world stories from professional communicators who have honed their organization’s brand and established a clear customer base.
Panelists included Danielle Blumenthal (NIST), Bill Walsh (AARP), Suki Baz (National Park Service) and moderator Dave Herbert (NGS).
Suki Baz began by describing the rebranding efforts going on at the National Park Service. They have a logo that’s iconic and instantly recognizable. However, the design of the NPS arrowhead is limiting, as it was designed before the needs of web pages and social media. As their 100th anniversary approaches, they’re reintroducing their logo with a fresh new feel that’s designed to appeal to millennials.
However, NPS recognizes that to appeal to younger audiences they need to do more than just change their logo. NPS is adding to their social media teams and encouraging their parks to actively engage with younger audiences, particularly online.
(An aside: of course I asked NPS about how they never respond to my tweets! Unsurprisingly, NPS is a large bureaucracy like any other one. Suki has little control over what local park districts do. So, how do you get in touch with a park if you have an issue? She suggested calling.)
Another organization that has approached rebranding is AARP. For most people, it’s an organization synonymous with senior citizens. The arrival of a letter inviting you to join AARP is like an official acknowledgment of old age. Bill Walsh of AARP hopes to change all that. AARP no longer stands for the American Association of Retired Persons. Instead, it’s just AARP these days. They’ve modernized their web, print and social media materials to reach out to Baby Boomers – you only need to be 50 to join. These efforts fall under a single banner: Real Possibilities. AARP no longer wants to be known just for travel discounts – they want to be seen as an organization that will help you reach your potential through career and life advice.
Employees are a key element in this transition. AARP has offices nationwide and a cadre of volunteers. Field offices have been provided with briefing materials and messaging guides so that the organization can speak in a single, consistent voice.
Danielle Blumenthal underscored this point with examples from her career in federal government. Her experience is been that most people don’t read the employee newsletter. The way to reach busy employees is through short, concise, valuable content. Instead of doing a newsletter, she suggests sending out a daily email with the three things that you need to know for the day. You need to focus on value (the things employees care about) and be real (speak as a person, not an organization). After all, the first people you need to sell your brand to are your own employees.
Employees are brand ambassadors. The public builds impressions of brands based upon the experience they have with them. New logos and redesign efforts are only part of the solution to modernizing a brand. Employees are the key element in any transition for they embody the brand.
May 15 was Bike to Work Day, a nationwide celebration of bicycling as a clean, fun, and healthy way to get to work.
It’s a huge event in DC, with 79 pit stops around the region to receive refreshments, swag and a free commemorative t-shirt! I had shirts from the past three years – no way was I going to break my streak.
One problem: I was scheduled to fly out of National Airport at 8:35 AM. Could I attend Bike to Work Day and make it to the airport in time for my flight?
I was determined to find out. And I would do it by bike (of course).
That meant taking a backpack. Can’t exactly bike with a suitcase. But I was going to Florida so didn’t need much more than shorts and a swimsuit. And a Kindle. And sunscreen.
I prefer to travel light, anyway. Who wants to check a bag, pay a fee and then have to wait for it when you reach your destination? Not me.
Bike to Work Day dawned with perfect weather – sunny and in the low 60s. I hoisted my backpack, hopped on my Specialized Sirrus and hurried down the 15th Street Cycletrack.
My Bike to Work Day pit stop was Freedom Plaza. Located at 14th and Pennsylvania, it’s a great open-air plaza where you can see the Capitol in the distance. I got there about 6:45; they weren’t scheduled to open until 7. Pretty sure I got the first t-shirt issued – they had to open one of the boxes for me.
Bike to Work Day t-shirt.Very early at Bike to Work DayLet’s Riide.
I made a quick walk around the plaza. WABA was there, ready to advocate for biking in DC. Whole Foods was passing out granola bars and bananas. Riide Bikes offered me a test ride on an electric bike. Sadly, I had to decline – I had a plane to catch!
It’s a lovely ride to the airport. I went around the Ellipse, looped around the Lincoln Memorial, crossed the Memorial Bridge and then rode down the Mount Vernon Trail as bike commuters headed the other direction into DC.
Twenty minutes later, I was at National. It’s very easy – you just veer left off the trail as it goes by the airport. Then follow the service road to USAIR baggage claim. I rolled my bike into the airport – no one paid me any attention – up the elevator and across the pedestrian bridge to the Metro. Around the right of the Metro entrance are a couple of bike racks.
My route to National Airport.I’ve arrived!
And I mean a couple – just two, which were already occupied with bikes. I couldn’t squeeze my bike in there so locked it to a fence instead.
After going through security, I was at my gate with a good thirty minutes to spare. Biking to the airport is so easy that I’m surprised more people don’t do it. Good thing they don’t – DCA doesn’t have enough bike racks. And it would be nice if they had someplace a little more secure than some racks by the Metro.
But even better than biking to the airport is biking home. By doing so you miss the worst of the airport experience – luggage and taxis. My packed flight from Florida arrived Sunday night. While everyone trooped downstairs to wait for their bags, I headed for my bike. I wheeled by passengers plaintively staring at the carousel. Then I passed a line of broken-down cabs waiting to gouge people desperate to get home.
I am the Night Rider.Best at night.
The Mount Vernon Trail was dark and buggy and gorgeous. There were plenty of people out. Kids clustered at Gravelly Point to watch planes land. Joggers huffed and puffed. I passed a couple of women on a long-haul excursion, their bikes loaded with panniers and lit up like Christmas trees.
It’s a good thing that I know the Mount Vernon Trail like the back of my hand because there are no lights on it. I might’ve ended up in the Potomac if I didn’t know where I was going. The headlight on the front of my bike seemed inadequate for the task.
I was glad to reach the streetlights of Memorial Bridge. I stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. It was calm and quiet, with just a few school groups climbing the steps. I took my time coming home.
After upgrading from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 6, I was shocked at what good photos it could produce. I took some snow photos when I first got it and had a hard time distinguishing them from what I shot with a DSLR. They were so sharp and so clear to be uncanny.
With the iPhone 5, I didn’t shoot much video. One reason was lack of space – I had the 16GB model. When I got the iPhone 6, I opted for the 64GB model so that would no longer be a problem.
And I started shooting video. Apple has made it effortlessly easy, as I discovered shooting this cherry blossom clip. The camera compensates for everything – exposure, hand-shake, moving – to produce sharp and beautiful video.
For example, check this clip out of the Royal Knights at the DC Funk Parade. I’m hand-holding it, backing up as the band goes by. It’s amazing to me that everything (even the sky) is properly exposed and that the image stabilization works so well. You’d think I was using a dolly, rather than just holding it steadily in two hands.
Look at it in HD and full-screen to appreciate it.
The iPhone is the most popular camera in the world because it made digital photography easy and accessible. The iPhone 6 will do the same thing for video.
Tulip mania was the original economic bubble. Long before the dotcom bust and the housing crash, 17th Century Europeans speculated in tulip bulbs. You read that right – tulip bulbs.
Introduced to the continent by the Ottomans, tulips became a status symbol commanding top prices at a time when Holland was developing into an economic giant. Tulip bulbs became a sort of substitute currency and were widely speculated upon – after all, we’ll always need tulips, right? You could trade a tulip bulb for a ton of butter! Men even speculated in tulip futures and other derivative products. Everyone was getting rich.
But like shady Internet companies and Arizona condos, the market eventually crashed, as recounted in this excellent Wikipedia entry on tulip mania.
All that was left were the tulips themselves. Fortunately, they are beautiful and bloom on the streets of DC every April. Seeing them, it’s hard not to get a touch of tulip mania. Good thing that tulip futures aren’t listed on the NYSE – otherwise, I’d be buying.
Here are some colorful photos of tulips around Washington.
Biking past tulips at 15th and K.The man in the tie wonders what the hell am I doing. I’m taking tulip pictures!15th St has a protected bike lane running in both directions.The weather has been beautiful for running.Tulips on the west side of the Capitol.Tulips on the east side of the Capitol.
Cyclist returning home along the Metropolitan Branch Trail.Tulips along the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which runs from Union Station to Catholic University.I’m not the only one taking pictures.
That’s my bike, a Specialized Sirrus.Tulips in Lafayette Park, across from the White House.A tulip selfie.
How do you build buzz around a new play? If you’re the Studio Theater, you invite InstagramDC to a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming production of Murder Ballad. Studio Theater has been on 14th Street since 1980, in a large building (much expanded) that at one time was a hot dog stand warehouse. Murder Ballad is a rock musical about a love triangle that’s presented cabaret-style in a set that looks like a dive bar.
I was lucky enough to be a part of this exclusive tour. It was a small group (less than a dozen) of social photogs. We met in the lobby of the theater and then were taken on a rapid-fire tour of all four of Studio’s stages, through backstage spaces where they stored costumes and made sets and even up the perilous gantries above the stage. We were encouraged to take and share photos during tour using the hashtag #murderballad on Instagram and Twitter to help get the word out about the play.
Here are some highlights from the tour:
If you work at the Studio Theater, you see this stage every day. But for everyone else, standing on a stage is a very unique experience.This is where they make the sets and is one of those rooms that they had a hard time getting us out of. Old tools, wood, sawdust, beautiful light – everyone found stuff to photograph.Watch your step! And your head! This is the gantry – about twenty feet above the stage.Looking down from the gantry at one of Studio Theater’s stages.Jarrett (IG: brilliantartistry) celebrates surviving the gantry.Photographers love mirrors.Studio has a lot of great windows facing 14th Street.
After the tour (we could’ve spent hours backstage, especially if they let us get into the costumes), they led us upstairs to the best part of all – the bar/set for Murder Ballad!
It looks just like a dive bar but is actually part of the play. There we were plied with drinks and bacon-wrapped figs while cast members sang a couple songs from the play. There were also giveaways and special surprises for this VIP event.
The set/bar for Murder Ballad. I used Snapseed to give this photo a faded look.
Photographers love unique spaces that aren’t open to the public. At the Studio, everything was new and interesting to us – even collections of old props. So if you have something new to promote, consider inviting your fans behind the velvet curtain. Give them access to your hidden spaces. Share with them something special and they’ll do the marketing for you.
The best time to visit the monuments? At night. The best way to get there? By bike.
The Errandonnee Challenge changed my life. My bike-life, that is. The challenge is to take 12 errands by bike over 12 days. There are a lots of categories and rules but the gist of the contest is to use your bike for everyday errands.
Doing it last year changed my approach to biking in Washington, DC. Before then, I was a weekend cyclist. I didn’t ride during the week because I thought it was too much of a hassle. But the experience of running simple errands by bike taught me that biking was by far the easiest, fastest and most fun way to get around the city. The Errandonnee Challenge turned me in to an everyday cyclist, one who rode in all kinds of weather, even when it was 16 degrees.
A cool bike outside Garden District, a local beer garden.
One of the requirements of Errandonnee is to share what you learned during the challenge.
This year, I learned that there’s nothing I like more than drinking coffee and biking – if only there was a challenge for that! Oh, wait, there is.
Bikes, books and coffee – that’s pretty much my lifestyle.
My bike trips around the city tend to be more rambling than functional. I look for good excuses to bike around town (which is why Errandonee is perfect for me). DC is compact, so the distances are small. But you always see interesting things.
For example, every morning I bike one mile to the Metro. Most of the trip is up the 15th protected bike lane – the best piece of bike infrastructure in the city. It’s a neverending stream of people heading downtown, from women in heels on red Bikeshare bikes to power commuters on road bikes.
This little five-minute trip is the best part of the day. It’s like people-watching but done at ten-miles an hour.
What my morning commute looks like. This is the 15th Street protected bike lane.
A flâneur is a French word meaning “urban explorer.” A term with literary pretensions, it’s defined as a lounger, a stroller or, even better, a boulevardier. As a Gen Xer, I might call this person a slacker.
Wandering around the city is exactly what I do, except that I’m doing it by bike. Tracking miles and setting personal records doesn’t appeal to me. Instead, I want to bike around Washington and look at stuff.
Errandonnee has taught me that I am a biking flâneur. I will embrace it. Here’s to more urban rambles by bike!
A very icy and dangerous section of the Mount Vernon Trail near National Airport. Photo by Michael Neubert.
I recently attended Social Media: What’s the Right Strategy for Your Agency?, a forum put on by the Federal Communicators Network. The event was a roundtable discussion of best practices from social media experts at the CIA (really), VA and USGS, among others.
It was a very interesting discussion but one point stood out for me as a government communicator: good federal agencies know that social media is customer service. They realize that Twitter and Facebook are more than just broadcast vehicles; they exist to help the public get answers. Social media is a chance to change the perception of Big Government by providing information to the public in a timely manner.
Seems like a no-brainer, right? Smart federal agencies like the VA and USGS have teams in place to respond to public inquiries. They’re setup as customer service centers and pride themselves on letting no question go unanswered.
And then we have the National Parks Service, who never ever ever respond to anyone who asks them a question on Twitter. They’re too busy tweeting about TV shows and Junior Rangers to reply to us taxpayers.
For example, the bike trail (you knew this would come back to bikes, didn’t you?) along the GW Parkway is one of the most heavily traveled bike commuter routes in the region. It’s essential for people coming from Alexandria to get into the city.
Does NPS plow the bike trail like Arlington County does? No, they let the trails turn into ice-covered ruts that endanger walkers, runners and cyclists.
What’s worse is that they never ever respond to anyone (and there’s been a lot of people) who ask them about it on social media. Do you think the phones at NPS go unanswered? No, of course not. They have people to answer the phones. But when it comes to social media they let it ring and ring, the public be damned.
Not responding to the public is one of the cardinal sins of this age. Agencies with budgets much smaller than NPS will reply to your tweets, like the DC Department of Transportation. We in #BikeDC forgive their lapses in snow removal because we know that they’re trying.
How do we know this? Because there’s a real person who answers their Twitter! You can get angry at a big agency but when there’s obviously a human being on the other end of the computer – you feel empathy for them.
The National Parks Service has a budget of $2.6 billion. They have a staff of 21,798. You can’t find a couple folks to answer tweets?
If the National Parks Service cannot maintain their social media accounts, they should shut them down. Their poor customer service is embarrassing the rest of Big Government – and that’s saying something.
