Today is a code red day, it didn’t really change my plans, I still biked from home to the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride and then mounted my bike on the 980’s bike rack for the trip to West Falls Church, then biked from West Falls to 18 an H in DC. Only benefit is that I didn’t have to pay the $1 on the bus 🙂
Trek 4300
Distance: 12.17 Miles
Riding Time: 50 mins
Av Speed: 14.5
Max Speed: 31
Odometer: 564.9 Miles
It had to happen sooner or later, but last night I came into the West Falls Church to find that two bikes were already on the 980 Bus. Turns out one of the bikes belonged to my wife who had biked independently from Ballston. So instead of taking the 980 to Herndon, I took the 505 to Reston Town Center and followed the W&OD to Herndon, this isn’t my preferred route since I have to travel on a couple narrow lane roads to get to our house. I also need to work out where the connector from the Reston Town Center bus Terminal to the W&OD trail is. It’s probably obvious but in my defense it was dark.
A self service cart appeared some time last week at the Big W&OD sign just before route 29. This morning on my morning commute I saw a gentleman emptying the payment box so I stopped to ask some questions. He is running the cart with his son who is learning who to be an entrepreneur. Before they could start selling soda they needed to be become licensed and have the cart inspected. They tired first putting it close to the East Falls Church metro but WMATA were concerned about it being a terrorist threat. I asked if they were making money and he grinned and said that loss from theft is small compared to the effort and time needed to keep is stocked. As I biked away I realized I forgot to ask the gentleman’s name….
So I read the official plam blog from time to time and saw a story posted there about phones behaving badly. It then says
Got a pet peeve? Post it below.
So I commented something along the lines of.
Pet peeves let me see, how about the palm web browser blazer that frequently times out the first time you access a website then works perfectly the second time. Then there is a phone that randomly reboots for no good reason, is there ever a good reason to randomly reboot? Then finally there is the fact that I couldn’t post to the official palm blog using my treo 700p on verizon using blazer and instead had to use firefox on a real computer.
Surprising or maybe not the comment was never posted on the Palm site as an official comment so I am recreating it here.
From: Ian Macdonald
Sent to:
jackevans@dccouncil.us
carol.schwartz@dc.gov
pmendelson@dccouncil.us
tellkwamebrown@gmail.com
CountyBoard@arlingtonva.us
chairman@fairfaxcounty.gov
dranesville@fairfaxcounty.gov
I live in Herndon and work in Washington D.C. close to the White House. I was saddened to hear about the accident in Dupont Circle that lead to the death of a cyclist today. I bike from West Falls Church to 1818 H Street daily and I walk in the city on a regular basis.
We need to do something NOW to make the streets safer for pedestrians. The poor girl was killed today because of the mixed signals that are given out to pedestrians and motorists at the same time. The washington post is reporting that she was cycling along the side walk parallel to the trash truck that killed her. Both were given a proceed signal, a green light for a truck and walk signal for the pedestrians. Both proceeded to complete their journeys, resulting in a tragic end.
We need to separate the pedestrian walk signal from the traffic green light. When pedestrians get a walk signal all traffic that crosses that walk signal should be halted to allow the pedestrians to cross the street safely.
As a driver, when I see red light I stop, then look, to see if it is safe to do a turn on red. When I get a green I have been programmed to go. The same thing is true for pedestrians when you see stop you don’t cross when you see walk you walk. It is counter intuitive for a driver or pedestrian to see a green light or walk sign then have to proceed with caution because a pedestrian or car might be crossing into your path.
Every day I see drivers sitting waiting a green light while pedestrians are crossing, stressing out both the drivers trying to make their turn before the light turns red and pedestrians scared that they are going to be run over by aggressive drivers.
This is as relevant to Washington D.C. as it is in Arlington and Fairfax county.
We need to separate the pedestrian crossing signal from green lights NOW. The walk sign should only be lit when all traffic has been signaled to stop, allowing safe traversal of the crossing. This will make it much safer for pedestrians and will help prevent tragic accidents like todays from happening in the future.
If you haven’t seen the washington post article it can be seen at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070800975.html
video coverage is at
previous washington post article on pedestrian safety in dc at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/18/AR2008051802517.html
The Washington Post has details about the accident, with video
The cyclist was traveling along the side walk on R street parallel to the trash truck, both the truck and the pedestrians got green light and a walk sign. By law she was allowed to be on the side walk, in DC you are allowed to travel on the side walk outside of the business district.
This is why we need separate the walk signals from traffic green lights. We need to move away from the traditional turn on red signaling that gives a green light to both pedestrians and car and give pedestrians a dedicated time when all traffic is at red to allow them to safely cross the street.
I wrote about this very issue in May
