How many of these sites have you biked to? Now you can learn a bit of the history behind them.
What’s hard about biking in DC? [Video]
You could probably say the same thing about Baltimore.
Sec. Chu does bike commute
[B’ Spokes: love the bit how the Secret Service agent uses a electric motor.]
from TheWashCycle by washcycle
It’s a stunning fall morning in Washington, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, clad in bike shorts and a snug Stanford University biking shirt, climbs onto his Colnago bicycle and rolls down his leafy street and onto the Capital Crescent Trail. Then it’s a 20-minute sprint – breaking the trail’s speed limit – to downtown Washington. A Secret Service agent keeps close behind, with the help of a small electric motor. The trees are ablaze across the Potomac as he drops into Georgetown.
Chu winds his way through traffic along the Mall – where one angry motorist leans on the horn – before entering the Energy Department parking garage, right behind his general counsel’s red Maserati with the license plate “ENERGY.”
Is he the country’s highest ranking bike commuter?
Photo, from BTWD 2009, by Alex Wong.
Auto Industry Celebrates a Republican House It Helped Put In Power
They’re betting the Republican majority in the House will “investigate, slow and try to block Obama administration initiatives that it considers detrimental to the auto industry” – initiatives like “safety legislation, the new consumer finance agency’s regulations, fuel economy proposals and the EPA’s new ethanol standard.”
Seriously? Read more from from Streetsblog Capitol Hill by Tanya Snyder
Continue reading “Auto Industry Celebrates a Republican House It Helped Put In Power”
East Coast Greenway Committee Chairs in Maryland
Maryland – Greg Hinchliffe
Greenways advocate, chair for the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (MBAC) in Baltimore also serves on the Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.
Greg, a long-time member of the Maryland Committee for the ECG, stepped up as committee chair in 2004. He’s also a member of our Trail Council and has been a resource for ECG long-distance travelers coming through Baltimore. In the rest of his spare time, Greg chairs the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee in Baltimore, helps coordinate local cycling events, serves on the Gwynn’s Falls Trail Council, and is a member of the Baltimore Bicycling Club, Washington Area Bicycling Association, and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.
District of Columbia – Bob Patten
Bob Patten is a Transportation Planner with Toole Design Group and also serves on the ECGA Trail Council. Bob has over 15 years of experience transportation planning, including national policy work with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) and local trail planning both as a professional with DC government, and as a volunteer with the Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Coalition for the Metropolitan Branch Trail.
Over the course of his career, Patten founded the National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse at RTC, organized a successful campaign to secure $2.5 million in ISTEA funding to complete 13 miles of the 24-mile Anacostia Tributary Trail System in Prince George’s County, and became the first full-time trail planner hired by the District of Columbia. Bob is a frequent bike commuter and enjoys coaching his daughter’s soccer team. 
Continue reading “East Coast Greenway Committee Chairs in Maryland”
Joint and Several Liability: A Law and Economics Defense
from Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog
Contributory negligence is about as dead of an idea as communism. Maryland is one of five jurisdictions in the United States (along with Virginia, Washington D.C., Alabama, and North Carolina) that have maintained this antiquated notion that being 1% at fault for your own injuries should be a bar to your claim. It is pretty much intellectually indefensible, really.
One big impediment of changing this law in Maryland is a powerful plaintiffs’ lawyer. I will not name this lawyer. (One small hint: he owns a baseball team, has more money than everyone reading this blog post combined, and recently donated a truckload of money again to the University of Baltimore School of Law.)
Why would any plaintiffs’ lawyer oppose comparative negligence? The reason is simple: when this issue gets brought up in the Maryland legislature, a legislator always says something to the effect of, "This is not a bad idea. But certainly joint and several liability is a bad idea, too. How about we get rid of both contributory negligence and joint and several liability?" Some states have done exactly this. Other states, like Maryland, have allowed defendants to make contribution claims to try to reduce the claim of inequity that one defendant should bear the entire loss for an accident that was caused by more than one party.
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Continue reading “Joint and Several Liability: A Law and Economics Defense”
Why the federal gas tax isn’t covering our needs
from Streetsblog.net by Beyond DC
A few short decades ago the United States built the Interstate Highway System, one of the greatest public works of all time. It’s a good thing we built it when we did, because we couldn’t afford it today. We can’t afford to build much new transportation infrastructure at all these days, whether road or transit.
Why? It’s not as if we’re a less wealthy nation now. On the contrary, we’re wealthier. The problem is that the gas tax, the primary source of revenue for federal transportation capital investment, has been shrinking every year.
The gas tax isn’t indexed to inflation. It was 18.4 cents per gallon years ago when gasoline was less than a dollar per gallon overall, and it remains 18.4 cents per gallon today. Since revenue generated from the gas tax stays the same while the rest of the economy grows, that means the gas tax revenue doesn’t have the buying power that it used to.
In fact, when you take inflation into account American drivers are only paying half as much in federal gas taxes as they were in 1975.
That’s a double whammy, because not only do we have half the budget we used to, but instead of spending it all on new infrastructure we have to split it on maintenance for all the new roads we’ve built during that time.
Continue reading “Why the federal gas tax isn’t covering our needs”
America’s New Disease: Aversion To Risk
… But what should we expect in a society that requires adults to wear bicycle helmets while pedaling in the park, provides disclaimers of liability on TV advertisements, or prints warnings on fast-food coffee cups? The name of the game is zero risk. Not risk mitigation, or accepting responsibility for one’s actions, but risk aversion. It’s a failure to acknowledge that we can’t protect against everything bad that can happen to us, so we must protect against everything we think might — might — be harmful at some point.
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Continue reading “America’s New Disease: Aversion To Risk”
Just Coffee Now Available at BBW
Critical Mass Nov 26
[B’ Spokes: I’m going, are you?]
Nov
26
Fri
7:00 PM
- Location
- Who’s coming?
-
2 Cyclists
Who’s hosting?
A monthly Critical Mass ride as per
Loosely organized fun on bikes. Ride very much at your own risk. Seldom leaves on time, BTW. Often accompanied by music. My advice…Stick together, be safe, and be respectful to all.