Downtown Roanoke has a new pedicab service, courtesy of Sharebike, a community bike sharing operation with 4 (?) locations downtown. Now guests at the Hotel Roanoke can enjoy pedicab tours of Roanoke’s ever-more-happening downtown! They can also rent bikes at very low cost, to explore the Roanoke River Greenway.

Sharebike’s home base is in the landmark City Market building, at Cyclo-Ward, a bike service and repair shop operated by VBF’s own James Rosar.

On Jan. 8, I made the following statement to the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), which co-owns Virginia Railway Express (VRE) with the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission. The NVTC staff were directed to forward my comments to VRE staff for a response.

For more than a decade, I’ve asked the Commission to improve pedestrian and bicycle access to public transportation in Northern Virginia, especially for Metrorail and VRE.

Tonight, I visited the VRE website to look for information on bicycle access. Such information is difficult to locate and not very useful.

VRE still prohibits regular bicycles on all trains, although it now owns a full fleet of railcars specifically designed to accommodate bicycles. To find the bike-on-rail policy on the VRE website one must navigate through “Service Information” then “On-Board Policies”.

To find out about bicycle parking at VRE stations, one must navigate the VRE website through “Service Information”, then “Station Locations” and then click on information about each individual station. According to the VRE website, 8 of the 18 VRE stations have no bicycle parking facilities at all, although three of those VRE stations are near Metrorail stations that do have bike racks. In addition, the Alexandria and Franconia-Springfield VRE stations are adjacent to Metrorail stations where WMATA has rental bike lockers, but the VRE website does not provide that information.

Of the 10 VRE stations where bicycle racks are reportedly present, the
VRE website provides almost no information as to the number and quality, the basic design, or the specific location of the bike racks, except to note that the bike racks at Burke Center are in the new parking garage. Evidently, none of the remaining VRE stations offer weather-protected bike racks, and no VRE stations provide bicycle lockers, except at the two WMATA stations that I cited earlier.

The web page for each VRE station shows a vicinity highway map for motor vehicle access, but no maps or links to maps depicting routes for pedestrian and bicycle access are displayed.

At the same time, the VRE website indicates that VRE is providing free
parking for 8,241 motor vehicle spaces and that the motor vehicle parking volumes at six VRE stations exceed 90% capacity.

Before further expanding free motor vehicle parking for VRE customers,
VRE should provide quality bicycle parking in the form of both rental bicycle lockers and weather-protected bike racks at every suburban station.

I also urge VRE to establish a bike-on-rail policy for regular bicycles, now that every VRE railcar is designed to accommodate bicycles.

VBF has recognized how widespread the problem of cyclist-dog accidents is, and has decided to do something about it, generating much discussion on various bike forums. Bringing this discussion into the open is good because the case is clear: when a cyclist is injured in a crash caused by a dog, it’s no different than if that cyclist were mauled in some other way. In fact the injuries from such crashes are usually worse.

We still have a long way to go. A recent story in the Bristol Herald Courier highlights the difference in treatment of two similar incidents involving bikes and dogs, due to differences in state and local laws. As Beth Lohman from the NRVBA points out, it also brings to light some of the things officers should be looking for when responding to a bike-dog incident. (Thanks Beth, some of our officers do need further training!)

Full text of the article follows: [continue reading…]

Below is a report from VBF’s Barbara Duerk about the Jan. 5 CTB meeting in Dubllin, VA. With the Richmond and Fairfax meetings coming up this Monday and Tuesday, there’s still time for you attend and be heard. Please note that these meetings have been attended by the Secretary of Transportation and various heads of VDOT and DRPT. Now’s your chance! See our previous article about these CTB public input meetings to find out what you should advocate for, and how to go about it.

Bicycling was mentioned by several speakers at the Monday, January 5, meeting of the CTB at the New River Community College in Dublin, VA. CTB members Jim Bowie, Bristol District and Dana Martin, Salem Construction District were in attendance. Secretary of Transportation, Pierce Homer, chaired the session. Administrators from Bristol and Salem, VDOT Commissioner Akern, the DRPT chair, plus the CTB members were at the head tables.

Homer was honest with his assessment of the economy’s financial burden on VDOT. [continue reading…]