Whenever I think I’m carrying a lot on my bike, I remember our trip to Vietnam, and it shifts my perspective.

Grains, well-packed (by jacquesofalltrades)

neighborhoodr-washingtondc:

hendel:

jen22201:

On 16th St in Washington, someone decided to spread the Valentine’s Day love, literally. All the “One Way” signs up and down this main artery through the city now say “One Love” instead.

Isn’t that precious.

DC just has so much love to give. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.

I love the sentiment, and the execution is well done. But I’d hate to be the DDOT employee who has to scrape the stickers off!

The World’s Best Subway Maps

sunfoundation:

Mass transit maps can be a big part of the visual culture of cities. The more iconic the map, the more likely it is to be turned into a t-shirt, an umbrella, even a shower curtain. Here’s a look at 20 different subway system maps that serve as a window into the culture of their respective cities.

boston:

Is this the best commute in Boston?

- It takes Rob McDonald roughly an hour to get from his home in Brookline, near the western edge of the BU campus, to his office in Kendall Square.

Hmmm… this makes my bike ride look like child’s play.

The secret life of highway construction crews.

theartistknownasromeo:

So this is what they do all day.

reaktorplayer:

(Image) - zupy?

High-Speed Rail: $117 billion for a 90 minute DC-NYC trip?  

How much does that work out to per ticket?  

From Greater Greater Washington:

Yesterday, Amtrak announced plans to create a new, exclusive high-speed rail corridor in the Northeastern United States.

The proposal would cost upwards of $117 billion ($40 billion in 2010 dollars) and could be complete by 2040. Trips from Washington to Boston would take only 3 hours.

Amtrak rightly points out that there is almost no better candidate for true, “next-gen” HSR than the Northeast Corridor. But the density in the corridor would also make this easily the most expensive rail project ever undertaken in this country.

The benefits, though, could be phenomenal. In fact, Amtrak expects that the new line could generate an annual surplus of $1 billion (2010 dollars) and could more than triple Amtrak ridership in the NEC from today’s level.

As noted, the actual price in FY2010 dollars is more like $40 billion, which still sounds quasi-astronomical, but it at least neatly fits into 11 figures.  And if it would actually tripe annual rail travel, then it seems like a worthwhile investment, and one that would even free up some of the ridiculous driving traffic along the I-95 corridor.

From a purely self-interested standpoint, I would love to have a realistic train option, not only for quicker trips to New York, which is already quite accessible by train, but especially for a quick way up to New England, as a 75 minute flight from DC to Boston ends up taking well over two hours, when you account for security lines, baggage check and the rest.  

Some interesting facts about how we live in Washington DC, from the 2010 Census’s American Community Survey (via Lydia DePillis at Washington City Paper):

• Overall, we’re not adding housing units very fast. In the District, there were 282,900 housing units in 2006, and 285,164 today. 
• Our housing is pretty old! Eighty percent of our buildings were constructed before 1970, with the greatest portion–34.7 percent–built before 1940. That’s compared to 42.5 percent of housing units constructed before 1970 nationwide. Obviously, being the nation’s capital, D.C. filled in before much of the rest of the country, and much of that old stuff has stuck around. 
• Yup, we’re a transient city: 47.6 percent of people moved into their current housing in 2005 or later, compared to 40.5 percent nationally. 
• We have relatively a lot fewer cars: 35.2 percent of D.C. housing units have no automobile attached to them (nationally, only 8.9 percent of housing units don’t have a car). 44.7 percent have one car (which approximately matches the 43 percent of people who commute by car). 
• We pay a lot in rent: 53.8 percent of renters pay more than $1,000 per month, and the median rent is $1,059. 41.6 percent of units pay more than 35 percent of the household’s income in rent, which is five percent above what is deemed affordable by HUD guidelines (the national average is about the same, even though the national median rent is only $842).

(via Hey D.C., Here’s How You Live - Housing Complex - Washington City Paper)

On the opening day of the new Capitol Bikeshare (CaBi) service in DC yesterday, I saw a half dozen of these red bikes zipping around the District, alleviating the bikeshare envy I experienced during an August trip to Minneapolis.

The excitement, which was intense at Greater Greater Washington, was enough to get me to sign up for the (currently discounted to $50) annual membership!  Next steps:

• Buy a helmet, or maybe two—one to keep in the office and one for home.
• Wait with bated breath for the CaBi station next to the Social Safeway to open (ETA, some time between now and the end of October).
• Try out my first morning bike commute.

Likely in that order.

Any other DC folks sign up yet?

Epic Traffic Jam in China Enters Its 9th Day - TIME NewsFeed

Nothing is worse than sitting in traffic, right? How about sitting in traffic for nine days? 

A 100-kilometer-long traffic jam in China’s Heibei Province has left thousands of truck drivers stuck on the interstate heading towards Beijing since August 14. What’s worse, officials are saying that the jam could continue for up to a month!

The original jam was caused by roadside construction work, but has been made worse by minor car accidents and breakdowns.

This makes me thankful I don’t live in a country of 1.3 billion people, with a rapidly growing number of cars.  Though it also makes me wish we were doing a better/faster job of expanding mass transit options here in the USA.  

DDOT Reveals Proposed Locations For Bikeshare Expansion (via dcist)

And an impressive map to boot.

DDOT has released this map of its proposed locations for the Capital Bikeshare program, which will build upon the success of the SmartBike DC program to increase the number of available shared bikes from 100 to over 1,100. The expansion is scheduled to be completed by this fall.

Personally, I’d like to see a couple of stations in Georgetown, other than simply one at the University (Social Safeway? Wisconsin and M?), but overall, I’m a huge fan of the overall picture, as the lack of stations was the only thing keeping me from signing up for the existing SmartBike program — 10 stations only gets you so far.