Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

I think I’ve found a good part of the problem. In many protected bike lane projects around the world, the bike lanes are placed at sidewalk level, with the curb placed at edge of the on-street parking. DC however, places it’s bike lanes at street level, with the curb between the bike lane and the sidewalk this means that it’s nigh impossible for someone in a wheelchair to get between a vehicle and the sidewalk because the curb is in the way and cannot be reached by a wheelchair lift as it normally would. If DC were to raise its bike lanes to sidewalk level, I think most instances of this problem would be solved, and the bike lanes would be much harder to violate with illegal parking.

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Not at all. It’s only damned if you refuse to adopt well-known and successfully implemented accessibility strategies in your infrastructure.

> This is not a choice between accessibility and bicycle lanes. These disability barriers are not necessary; rather, they result from the District’s systemic failure to adopt available, well- known, accessible designs for on-street parking and curb access—including practical solutions for bicycle lanes.

DC could have used an accessible bike lane design, they just chose not to.

Curb side bike lanes are safer for bikes. Curb side parking is more accessible and safer for those who need it.

someone gets the shaft either way. It’s a lose lose situation.

Sidewalk level bike lanes are straight up fantastic. The ones on Virginia Avenue are some of my favorite in the city. The ones at the wharf are also very good other than the pedestrians walking in them all the time (not their fault, sidewalk should be bigger).

Where on Virginia Ave. are the bike lanes at sidewalk level? Near Foggy Bottom they’re in the median, the worst place for a bike lane.

This will probably just result in less bike lanes

And more handicapped people after bikers get run over

Which is fine because there will be more handicap-accessible street parking due to the fewer bike lanes

Thank you. I couldn't figure out what was the issue because it's really rather rare that disabled people would fight bike lanes because when they are designed to be access. They make getting around as wheelchair user so much easier.

Between 8th and 2nd st SE

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not everyone lives in NW :)

These are the SE ones.

I live in SE, just more familiar with the NW part of Virginia Avenue.

That’s the point. The reporting on this has been bad because reporters are treating it as a good faith lawsuit, when in reality it’s more Nick DelleDonne and Ed Hanlon nonsense. They’re both nutters and seemingly the sole (or at least primary) people behind the Dupont East Civic Action Association (one of the plaintiffs in this suit) and have made opposing bike lanes on 17th St NW his raison d’etre (also really hate the apartment building at 15th and S). DelleDonne has previously been featured on this subreddit for stunts like setting up a table with a coffee urn blocking bike lanes between a parking lane and sidewalk (meaning bikers had to dismount and carry their bikes on the sidewalk to get around him), holding town halls wherein he blamed bike lanes for children getting killed by cars, and, most hilariously, blaming bike lanes for inflation. This suit has little to do with safety for disabled people; it’s just about blocking bike lanes.

Damn sounds like a totally real person. How does she drive?

Nobody gets the shaft with sidewalk-level bike lanes, which is what DC should have done from the start.

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Damn I stand corrected

This is exactly what I’m talking about! I hate what the city had done to the streets. They are creating traffic and parking issues!

Exactly. The NBC people were even like "they aren't against bike lanes". Horseshit. Lance and NDD think the solution to bike safety issues is for bike riders to grow up and drive instead of riding their bikes in traffic.

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