CommuterPageBlog

2 More Bike Movies This Summer!

The Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse is again catering to Arlington's bicycling community with two cycling themed movies:

If you missed it the first time Chasing Legends, which follows the Colmbia-HTC team at the 2009 Tour de France, will be showing on July 29th.

Ride The Divide, which follows racers on the world’s toughest mountain bike race as it traverses over 2700 miles on the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains is showing on August 5th.

Purchase tickets to both these screenings at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse website.
 

BikeArlington is an initiative of Arlington County, Virginia to encourage and enable more people to go by bike more often. To stay up to date on biking in Arlington, follow BikeArlington on Twitter.

First Photos of Capital Bikeshare

The first photos of Capital Bikeshare are in! The prototype bikes look great. Branded to match the D.C. Circulator bus, Capital Bikeshare bikes are red with the Capital Bikeshare logo in yellow on the downtube.


Similar to other bikes in the Bixi Community, your bikes have flashing front and rear LED lights, reflective sidewall tires, adjustable seat post with marked numbers (to help you remember your seat height), and a carrier with bungee cord on the front.

The rear fenders are to be available for a service sponsor of Arlington's 110-bike/14-station portion of Capital Bikeshare, similar to Nice Ride Minnesota's sponsorship by BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota (below). (Prospective sponsors can email me for sponsorship info.)


The launch of Capital Bikeshare is right around the corner in September. The actual launch date is still to be determined. Capital Bikeshare will change Arlington and D.C. forever.

by Paul DeMaio of MetroBike, LLC, a bike-sharing adviser for Arlington County Commuter Services

Cross-posted at The Bike-sharing Blog.

London's Proposed Cycle Superhighways

Imagine a direct route through the city for bicycling that is protected from other modes of traffic. The route is painted blue, has excellent directional signage, and gets you to where you're going quickly and safely. London is going through a transformation with the creation of its Cycle Superhighways which repurposes street space from motor vehicle to bicycle in order to encourage more Londoners to cycle.Through its Cycle Superhighways and Barclays Cycle Hire, London hopes to transform itself into a bicycling capital.

Can Arlington and D.C. do the same with its greater commitment to better bike facilities and Capital Bikeshare?

by Paul DeMaio of MetroBike, LLC, a bike-sharing consulting company, for Arlington County Commuter Services

Capital Bikeshare is on Facebook!

 Capital Bikeshare now has a Facebook fan page that you can check out here. Click on the "Enter to Win" tab and "Like" the page for a chance to win a free 30-day membership! The fan page will be used to keep everyone up to date on the official website launch, opportunities to sign up, and the program launch!

 

In other news, Capital Bikeshare received a mention on CNN World News online.  Check out Slide 6 here. 

BikeArlington is an initiative of Arlington County, Virginia to encourage and enable more people to go by bike more often. To stay up to date on biking in Arlington, follow BikeArlington on Twitter.

Army Navy Country Club Expresses Support for Bike Connection in South Arlington

Today's Washington Post printed a letter from Edward A. Urben, the General Manager and CEO of the Army Navy Country Club in South Arlington.  This letter shows support for the County's request to obtain an easement that will allow bike/ped access from Arlington View neighborhood, under I-395, to Pentagon City.  This is a long-sought connection.  Please also see this related post from a few weeks ago, urging cyclists and others to support this connection.

View Hoffman Boston I-395 bike/ped connector in a larger map

Having this letter published in the Post is a huge step toward bringing this issue to fruition.  Here is the complete text of the letter, which was in response to an article which appeared in the Post on July 13.  I have bolded the key statement.

The July 13 Metro article "Plans for bike path at Army Navy club lead to uproar, suit" highlighted sensationalist quotes from a few members of the Army Navy Country Club. I want to provide a fuller perspective.

The Army Navy Country Club (ANCC) is a nonprofit organization that, at a reasonable cost, provides recreational facilities for a cross-section of the community, including active-duty and retired military personnel, schoolteachers and local businesspeople. The Arlington County club invests about $19 million in the community annually, including $10 million for more than 500 jobs and more than $1 million in property taxes. The ANCC prides itself on being a responsible member of the community and hosts many annual events for the public.

In the post-Sept. 11, 2001 environment, the club's Board of Governors believed that granting an easement for emergency access, which could also be used as a bike path on a sliver of property that is removed from other ANCC facilities, was a public benefit that made sense. The 40-member board carefully considered its authority to make decisions in the best interests of its membership.

Edward A. Urben, Arlington

The writer is general manager and chief operating officer of the Army Navy Country Club.

Capital Bikeshare - D.C. Stations Announced

With Arlington's stations announced on July 7, Washington's D.C.'s stations were announced today, thereby fleshing out the initial 114 stations of the Capital Bikeshare network. On the District of Columbia's Department of Transportation website, a map of D.C.'s 100 stations is provided covering all eight wards of the city. Downtown is densely covered with stations every couple of blocks with inner neighborhoods also well covered.

In other news, our temporary CapitalBikeshare.com website is now live. Visit us and leave your email address so we can tell you when registration opens - likely in early August.

Stay tuned... Lots more good stuff happening with Capital Bikeshare!

Paul DeMaio of MetroBike, LLC is a consultant to Arlington County Commuter Services.

Capital Bikeshare on Fox5

Video clip:

And link to the Fox story.

Tim Kelley works for BikeArlington which is an initiative of Arlington County, Virginia to encourage and enable more people to go by bike more often. To stay up to date on biking in Arlington, follow BikeArlington on Twitter.

BikeArlington's Visit to Madison Wisconsin

Last weekend, I was in the midwest for a friend's wedding and had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is one of the few gold level status Bicycle Friendly Communities in the nation and Arlington (as a silver level) could learn a lot from them in our efforts to achieve platinum status.

Madison, a town with a large University, has a lengthy bike/pedestrian/bus-only road that is lined with fun boutiques and interesting ethnic restaurants. There was bike parking and people on bikes everywhere. What struck me as the most impressive was that I was there during the middle of the summer when, I would suspect, the town is at it's lowest population levels due to school being out.  Despite that, I saw all shapes of bikes: hybrids, road bikes, fixies, single speeds, tandems, time-trials, recumbents, and even a few trikes!

See the pictures below and be sure to check out the rest of the gallery here.

 

 
  

 

 And two shots from the Northwoods of Wisconsin (way up North).  Not much bicycle infrastructure there, but people can enjoy many other forms of recreation:

 

  

Tim Kelley works for BikeArlington which is an initiative of Arlington County, Virginia to encourage and enable more people to go by bike more often. To stay up to date on biking in Arlington, follow BikeArlington on Twitter.

Having Fun With the Bixi Rap in Montreal

Da Gryptions' Bixi Anthem rap is gaining popularity in Montreal just like the bikes are (De Gryptions ride Bixi rap to the top, June 17, 2010; Montreal Gazette). Its funny that in shooting the video (Music Video - The Bixi Anthem, July 8, 2010) in three hours on a Saturday that the group kept returning the bikes every 30 minutes in keeping with the first 30 minutes being free to ride. Perfect.

From the lyrics:

"I woke up one morning, in 2009/ I did a double take, there were 50 bikes in line."

It will be fun come September when folks in DC and the Crystal City area of Arlington will wake up one morning to the first phase of 1,100 bikes. I wonder if the Capital Bikeshare or CaBi bikes will inspire their own song?

Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Transportation Bureau Chief for Arlington County in the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.

Cycling Revolution In London. Can Our Region Do the Same?

Cycle Super Highways. More and better bike signage. More bike parking. Grants to employers for putting in bike facilities and showers at the workplace. City-wide bikesharing. All part of London's $169 million dollar in one year (according to this video) effort to get more people to use the "reliable, cheap, environmentally friendly bicycle" to commute to and from work. Why can't this region do things on this scale?

Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Transportation Bureau Chief for Arlington County in the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.