State Issues (except laws, standards) » CycleMoco

“Bikes May Use Full Lane” signs going up in Maryland

Aug 282012

The Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) is now installing “Bicycles May Use Full Lane” (BMUFL) signs around Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Maryland SHA’s written guidance for use of these signs is in this three page document. That document leaves a lot of gaps, but SHA’s traffic and safety director supplied more depth in an interview with Jim Titus of WABA. For more from Jim, see his post on Greater Greater Washington. SHA’s primary guidance states that BMUFL signs may be used on roads where the usable space for the cyclist in the right lane is 13 feet or narrower. Usable means, for example, that gutters don’t count as part of the 13 feet (gutters are typically 12-16 inches wide). […]

Maryland announces bikeway grant winners

Jul 262012

Maryland just announced that the following Montgomery County projects will be funded under the state’s bikeways program for 2013: Clopper Road sidepath closing gaps in Germantown ($100,000) River Road sidepath west of Potomac. Grant funding contingent on ROW acquisition by Montgomery County ($100,000) Woodglen Drive bike lanes and sidepath in White Flint ($100,000) . From Edson Lane to Nicholson Lane. Sidepath will be a segment of the Bethesda Trolley Trail. The southbound bike lane will be sharrows instead. The state also identified a Gaithersburg project as a grant recipient, described here by the Gaithersburg planning director: The Maryland Department of Transportation has approved $16,000 in reimbursable grant funding for the Assessment of the Gaithersburg Bicycle Loop along I-270, which will explore […]

Bike paths and cupcake parlors

Jul 162012

From Courtland Milloy’s column in the Washington Post today: Well look who’s back: the Fenty brigade, led by true believers of former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty. Among them are my nemeses — whom I have referred to before as myopic twitsbecause of their inability to see that dog parks, bike paths and cupcake parlors do not make a “world-class city.” So yet another pundit or politician has trivialized bike facilities (he probably means bike lanes) by lumping them in with the most frivolous-sounding improvements he could think of. Such tripe is usually reserved for Republicans. This is from a Heritage Foundation article: [States’] limited resources are diverted from urgent infrastructure projects to so-called enhancements, such as flower plantings, bicycle and […]

Rt. 29 trail and other ICC trail tidbits

Jun 292012

Dan Reid wrote this informative post in Greater Greater Washington about the ICC trail, with a special focus on the recently built Rt. 29 segment. That mile-long segment, which runs along 29 from Fairland Road to Briggs Chaney Road, is a great trail though it has limited east-west value (notwithstanding it’s designation as part of the ICC trail) and will probably get no recreational use in any direction. Google Maps doesn’t show the trail on its trail overlay yet, but here’s the alignment.

New federal transportation bill slashes biking and walking funds

Jun 292012

On Friday, Congress will did vote on a “compromise” transportation reauthorization bill that would does drastically cut funds provided to local jurisdictions for bike and pedestrian projects. I assume regret to say that the bill will did pass. According to America Bikes: Congress will vote on a new transportation bill that reverses years of progress on biking and walking policy and cuts by 60 to 70 percent funding for local safety projects such as sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike lanes. There’s more from that synopsis here. Here is their detailed analysis. Prior years’ transportation bills always included funding for “transportation enhancements”. That’s funding provided by the federal government to the states who in turn are required to award it to local […]

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