The Morning Commute is an occasional look at meetings or other #BikeSpecific discussions and stories happening in the District. It also looks at interesting bike, scooter, or urban related ideas or concepts from other places across the globe that could possibly work here. Again, this isn’t journalism, just fun.
Today’s commute includes:
Each year, Council of the District of Columbia committees hold hearings with District agencies to discuss how they’ve spent funds during the first quarter of the fiscal year.
The oversight hearings also provide Council with updates to projects or programs recently completed, underway, or planned. Council committees gather this information in the form of questions that District agencies complete and submit to Council before each hearing.
The District Department of Transportation provided answered to a total of 113 questions totaling, with attachments, 624 pages. The document is available on the Council’s website.
At BikeSpecific, because we have no lives, we looked through this document to find the top ten most interesting questions or responses that have some relevance to #BikeDC, micromobility, or specific trail elements devoted to pedestrian issues.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of topics discussed in the DDOT document. Let me know if I missed something significant was overlooked.
According to a District Department of Transportation (DDOT) press release, the agency announced a plan to install 100 off-sidewalk dockless scooter and bike parking corrals across all eight wards of the District over the next several months. This appears to expand a bike corral pilot program that DDOT initiated last year.
DDOT has aggressively installed bike corrals across the District to test the the viability of corrals and possibly address concerns regarding scooters and bikes left in pedestrian rights-of-way, particularly on sidewalks in more residential areas.
According to the press release, “these off-sidewalk corrals provide a designated area where both shared dockless vehicle operators and riders and private vehicle riders can safely store their vehicles,” said DDOT Director Jeff Marootian. “By placing these corrals in no-parking zones near intersections, we are fulfilling Mayor Bowser’s vision of creative problem solving to make our streets safer for all users.”
Beginning in February 2020, DDOT will install off-sidewalk parking corrals across all eight wards. Residents on impacted blocks will receive notice from DDOT approximately one week before the corrals are installed.
DDOT has created a simple form that enables residents to submit a request for off-sidewalk parking corrals. DDOT will review submissions to identify possible micromobility parking locations, either in the roadway or on the sidewalk and assess submissions to determine safety and approximate demand.
DDOT intends to place corrals in the area between stop signs and the start of the parking zone, to also provide a deterrent against cars illegally parked and blocking the visibility of crosswalks. It’s unclear if DDOT intends to remove vehicular parking to accommodate new corrals.
Several years prior to this pilot, DDOT installed a hand full of bike corrals near Metro Center, Chinatown, and Penn Quarter. The most recent pilot expanded bike corrals in business improvement districts and commercial areas where higher numbers of dockless vehicles were expected to be parked. This pilot expanded bike corrals to residential areas where DDOT has received complaints regarding what DDOT considers to be improperly parked dockless vehicles.
DDOT also suggests that bike corrals incentivize dockless bikes and scooters operators and customers to place vehicles in a dedicated spaces. A map of installed and planned off-sidewalk parking corrals is available on DDOT’s website.
The bike corral plan also coincides with updated regulations regarding driver parking in residential zones. The updated regulation eliminated the exception for vehicles with in-zone RPP stickers to park overnight closer to the intersection than best safety practices and signage would allow.
The Morning Commute is an occasional look at meetings or other #BikeSpecific discussions and stories happening in the District. It also looks at interesting bike, scooter, or urban related ideas or concepts from other places across the globe that could possibly work here. Again, this isn’t journalism, just fun.
Today’s commute includes:
The Bike Estate scours local blogs and government websites for information about bike facilities in new, recently opened, or planned residential or commercial buildings. The following is recently-filed development applications with the D.C. Zoning Commission.
Continue reading “The Bike Estate – 1200 5th Street, NW”
