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Mount Rainier City Hall & History by National Bicycle Greenway

"Well Martin you were right, I think we are gonna wake this sleepy town up." Phil observed as he looked at my team and the different bikes they were riding.

Phil and Fred had obviously discovered a quiet haven in the middle of all the frenetic car activity that made up Washington, DC and its surrounding areas. Instead of boulevards and wide streets made friendly for the automobile, Mount Rainier had a cozy feel to it. The constant rumble of internal combustion was not a part of the background noise one could hear here. It was quiet! And for me, as a writer, quiet was delicious.
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US 1 / SULPHUR SPRING ROAD BRIDGE PROJECT MEETING

[Note: I am not sure if there is any bike/ped issues involved in this project but if you bike around UMBC you might be interested in this.]

The U.S. 1 bridge over Sulphur Spring Road in Arbutus, MD is scheduled to be rehabilitated in 2008. The main objective of this project is to replace the deteriorated concrete bridge deck and make some repairs to the bridge abutments. Additional maintenance work will include cleaning and painting the steel beams.
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Move over, motorists

Avid bicyclists will tell you that a nice, long ride is an invigorating experience. But sometimes it gets your heart pumping for all the wrong reasons.

"There’s plenty of times when you feel like that car came within inches of you," said Jeff Provisor, who owns Carpentersville’s Main Street Bicycles. "Thankfully, knock on wood, I’ve never come into contact with a car. Motorists feel like it’s an entitlement thing, like, ‘What are you doing in my lane?’"

To cut down on incidents like these, Illinois lawmakers passed a law this year that will take effect starting Tuesday. Senate Bill 80 provides that motorists must leave at least a three-foot cushion when passing bicyclists on the road.
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For Congressman, Life in Bike Lane Comes Naturally

By GREG HITT, Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON — A little after 6:00 one morning, Earl Blumenauer emerged from his Capitol Hill row house. The temperature hovered near 40 degrees and it was really raining. The Oregon congressman hopped on his rust-colored Trek Portland, an aluminum-frame bicycle with a carbon front fork designed to absorb road shock, and pedaled to his office.
Though he was alone on the road, and despite the downpour, he stopped at every red traffic signal. At one odd-shaped intersection, Mr. Blumenauer mused aloud about all the streets jutting off at odd angles. Perfect for a traffic circle, he suggested.
Later that morning, House Minority Leader John Boehner, the Ohio Republican, was incredulous that anyone had been out in such weather. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked.
Some members of Congress come to Washington and get in the fast lane. The 59-year-old Mr. Blumenauer came to Washington and got in the bike lane. Few members of Congress care more than he does about cranks and sprockets.
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Mt. Washington and the Jones Falls Trail

By: Charles Cohen, Urbanite
Even before Jeanette Ezzo has a chance to open her mouth, the birds begin making the case for her. On an early fall morning, they are dive-bombing in the tree tops, making a massive ruckus and helping demonstrate that this patch of woodland is indeed alive.
A Mount Washington resident and the research director for a Takoma Park medical publication firm, Ezzo stands on one side of a fault line that runs through this leafy northwest neighborhood. The city plans to build a bicycle and recreation trail through the mostly unused woods that wrap around the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital on Rogers Avenue. A local group calling itself the Mount Washington Green Space Preservation Committee made an eleventh-hour plea to re-route the trail, but other residents have defended the plan, saying that a well-designed trail would give residents safe access to the kind of nature usually found in large parks a good drive away.
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