My fast commute route takes me down southwest on Michigan Ave towards Washington Hospital Center, where I pick up some brick alleys that hug the stonewalls of historic Glenwood Cemetery. I cut west at Channing, turn south for a block on First NW, and then, if the light’s green, lean into the turn west onto Bryant St, which winds downhill below McMillan Reservoir towards Howard University. That little stretch is a real pleasure.

I followed that route this morning, the air was cool and misty, the streets wet from last night’s rain. I came down First, slowed substantially given the wetness of the streets, and I remember thinking as I approached the corner of Bryant, “Oh, neat, they repainted the crosswa–” That was right before my tires got quiet, then made the very quiet hiss of rubber squeegeeing water off glass.

I’d only been going about 10mph or so, but I probably dived 15 to 20 degrees into the off-camber turn, and that little bit of rain on fresh crosswalk paint wasn’t going to hold me at any speed with any significant lean. Fortunately, The transition from upright to laid-down was pretty smooth and not very dramatic.

My right shin’s got a nice strawberry patch, and I can feel the bruise on my hip growing, but otherwise I came out fine. I gotta say, the Trucker’s a well built piece of steel, it’s in fine shape. My two-day-old Nitto Noodle bars (graciously discounted by City Bikes since the old ones got bent in a wreck*) picked up some gouges on the outside of the drops. Certainly annoying, but I haven’t taped them yet, and a little wet-dry sandpaper will take the rough parts off okay. At least they’re still straight. Also: Dickie’s shorts, though they occasionally grab tall water bottles when you get out of the saddle, are indestructible. Mine show no damage, not so much as a frayed cuff.

The rest of the commute was uneventful, slow, and as uniformly upright as I can remember being on a bike. I rode the whole rest of the way like I was on icy steel construction plates. It also got me thinking about road racing, in that I have no idea how people come down mountain descents doing 40-50 mph, in the rain, on 23c tires, with 50-100 other people packed in tightly around them.

Score for this week: one crash, one wipeout. Neither resulted in serious injury or damage, and I was thankfully wearing my helmet for both. Nevertheless, I gotta say, only 6 days into August, and it’s got a commanding lead for 2009’s coveted “Month I Hated The Most This Year” award.

Incidentally, is there a reason crosswalk paint doesn’t have non-skid material mixed into it?

*It’s true! Saul at the downtown store told me they just instituted a policy by which you get a 5-10% discount on parts you’re replacing because of a collision or wreck! Another reason to love City Bikes, folks.

I had jury duty this morning, so I had to hit the road early to get down to the US District Court building down at 3rd NW and Constitution. I didn’t end up having to go though, because about a mile from home, where 9th St NE passes under the Michigan overpass, someone drove their car into me.

It was a bizarre collision, actually. I often cut through the CUA Metro Station on the way to Monroe, because it seems safer than crossing Michigan (which local motorists treat like a freeway) at 10th. But I’m rarely there at that time of the morning, when people are dropping train commuters, and it was pretty busy with people slowly making their way around the circle. I came up to the stop sign on 9th, and came to a stop. I freely confess that I don’t always come to a complete stop there, any more than the cars do, but I do when there’s shuttle buses and cars coming through. This morning, I full stopped.

And as I was sitting dead center in the middle of my lane, behind the white line, a woman in a red Corolla came up to the intersection and started to turn left onto 9th. At first, I thought she was making the turn a little too tight, but figured she’d correct and go wider, since I was standing there right in front of her. But she kept turning, and started to accelerate. I started yelling at her to stop her car, since I was directly in front of her, but she kept coming. And when it was clear that she wasn’t going to stop and I couldn’t get out of her way, I jumped up and right as hard as I could, holding on to Cledus with my left hand, and tried to dive.

I pulled it off to the extent that the damage was minimal. She thumped the bike but it bounced off her hood since I was no longer holding it down on the ground. I mostly got out of the way, but took a pretty good thump to the left knee. And once she’d hit us, Cledus and I, she finally stopped. More than half her car was in my lane, and the center of her engine was squarely over where I’d been standing.

Now, I didn’t know who was behind the wheel of the Corolla, but I had adrenaline shooting out of my eyes and was vividly aware that someone had just driven their car directly, head-on into me (at low speed, thankfully), and was um… upset. Furious. My flash reaction was to start punching the car as if it and I were in a bar and it had just taken a swing at me. I didn’t, but I did start yelling at the driver to get out of the car, with several profanities interlaced, loud enough to wake folks all over the Metro station from their Monday morning fog, screaming questions at her about what she was doing and why she was driving straight into me. She yelled back at me, “I didn’t see you! I didn’t see you!”

What followed was typical, and I made a bunch of mistakes. The only person who saw the whole thing was the Comcast cable guy in the van right behind me, who got out and calmed me down, and then got into his van and left (which I honestly didn’t notice him doing). One witness in the wind. I let her move her car out of traffic while I called the police without getting a picture of it, which was another mistake. There was no wreckage or skid marks, and once the officer arrived she claimed that I was in her lane, and I’d hit her car. Not only was she lying through her teeth, but she was yelling at me indignantly like she believed it. I was able to find 3 people who’d seen what happened shortly after I yelled at her to stop the car, and could positively place her car in my lane, but the one person who saw the actual collision wasn’t there to talk about it. I’m waiting to hear from Comcast to see if they can help me find the vanishing cable guy.

She didn’t get so much as a ticket.

The bike’s amazingly okay, the only thing wrong with it is that my noodle bars are a little lopsided, they’ll need replacing, and the mudflap on the rear fender tore away. But the brake levers are fine, the wheel’s true, the forks are straight, and there’s not a scratch or a dent anywhere on the frame so I suppose the dismount-and-dive worked out.

My left knee’s got some stiffness, but nothing’s torn or broken, and I have full mobility. The quart of cortisol coursing through my blood vessels probably did more long term damage than the actual impact, but I’m putting the knee on ice for the day and keeping an eye on it just in case.

The worst part of it, really, is having to re-evaluate whether or not I want to keep riding the streets of DC. My guess is that this won’t keep my off my bike, but Mrs. Higgins and I do a lot of riding around on the big bikes with the kids, we go the long way and keep to smaller streets, and ride as safely and defensively as we can. But that woudn’t have helped in this situation, and that’s really the scariest part of it to me. There was no sun in her eyes, the lighting was perfect, I was standing at a dead stop in the middle of my lane, upright, and she was headed straight at me. How am I supposed to drive and maneuver defensively when I’m stopped in the middle of my lane, directly in front of an oncoming driver? How do you account and compensate for a driver whose blind spot is 10 to 30 feet directly in front of her?

I love DC in ways that I could not have known I would when we moved here 3 years ago, but I can say without reservation, as someone who came of driving age in Southern California and lived with a car in San Francisco, that nowhere I’ve ever lived compares to DC for shitty drivers. (Its been pointed out to me that I’ve never lived in Boston, so perhaps it gets worse.) At first, I thought it was because so many of DC’s motorists come from other places, and bring the bad habits of their native roads with them, making it impossible to have a common road culture where everyone knows which rules to bend. But now I’m not so sure, the locals are dangerous too. Sure, most people drive pretty well, and every day I consciously take note of those drivers that acknowledge my presence, and give waves and smiles whenever I can. But the bad ones here more than compensate for the competent ones, and they’re dangerous.

I’m sure this isn’t an uncommon reaction, but I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about whether or not I’m willing to do that with my kids anymore, or for that matter, willing to risk making them orphans. I know this without lengthy reflection: Davis, Madison, Boulder, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and all of Holland are at the top of the list of candidates for our next (and perhaps last) move. And maybe sooner than later.

[UPDATE]: It was pointed out to me that if I’d gone ahead and rolled through that stop sign and either zipped across before she got there or slithered around her aft, I wouldn’t have gotten hit. How about that, Mr. Forester?

[UPDATE AGAIN]: After some initial anxiety, I did ride in today, on Cledus Jr. I figured a low-geared single speed would keep my top speed down, which would be good for getting back in the saddle. Also, his offroad agility would give me the opportunity to immediately jump a curb off the street and onto someone’s lawn if I freaked out. All in all, it went pretty well, and I smiled/waved at least 5 people on the way in.

[UPDATE YET A THIRD TIME]: Here’s an animated dramatic recreation, but without me yelling, “Stop! Stop! Stop your fucking car!“, the subsequent crashing noise, or the raging river of profanity that followed.

Via MinusCar, a group of Iowans have started an online petition, seeking to put a measure on the ballot to make bicycling on farm-to-market roads illegal. Because, you know, when you’re driving along on a back country road in your minivan, just trying to send a text message to your husband or pastor, and you accidentally kill a cyclist, it really makes you feel bad. And not just for a little while! Sometimes you feel really, really bad about killing someone with your car for a long time! Plus, just like hitting a deer, it can cost a lot of money to fix the car.

A commenter notes that there is now a counter-petition to have motor vehicles removed from Iowa’s rural roads:

Over the past ten years the number of motorists using these farm-to-market roads has increased dramatically, as have the number of preventable accidents and fatalities.

Traditional rural methods of commerce are significantly impacted when forced to share the farm-to-market roadways with motorists. Because of the growth of today’s commerce and agricultural business, shared roadways are no longer safe or practical in today’s society.

Operators of automobiles routinely disobey speed limits, spook horses and raise clouds of dust. They zip about, and act as though they own the public road itself!

So please if you are a resident of the world join us and help make our roadways safe for both people and livestock. Thanks for your time and your support.

My favorite comment so far:

These 4 wheeled horseless carriges have gone too far, besides creating useless wars for rubber, oil, steel they create a place for youths to experiment with sex and liquor! Time to ban them from all our roads!

Sex and liquor? Really? Hm. Maybe I should drive a car more often.

I know that saying this may result in some gnashed teeth and rent garments, but I’m going to state, unequivocally, that I think this is going too far. I’m reasonably certain that Iowa’s rural roads can accomodate bicycles, tractors, buckboards, and motor vehicles, and that people can share the road safely and responsibly.

Maybe the folks on opposite sides of this debate need to get together, and experiment with sex and liquor (maybe even in a car, so long as they’re not driving on a rural road at the time). I mean, it couldn’t hurt?

Let’s say that a New York State Senator, driving through NYC in his black Mercedes, nearly crushed a cyclist. How do you imagine he might respond? Would you imagine he’d roll his window down and say, “get your hands off my car, you fucking asshole”? How would you feel about that?

Well, Colin Beavin, blogger and Transportation Alternatives board member, is a much nicer and more level-headed person than I am, and a role model for those of us trying to be good. He took the opportunity to pen an open letter to New York State Senator Jeff Klein, and to invite him to discuss transportation policy and traffic congestion with TA’s Executive Director.

Should I find myself in such a situation, I hope I have the presence of mind to realize what a great opportunity it is to discuss these issues with someone in a position to do something about it, instead of, um, some other way. Keeping perspective like that when you’ve just come uncomfortably close to not getting to see your daughter grow up is impressive. Good show, Colin!

If you’d like to contact Senator Klein to encourage him to take advantage of this opportunity, you can email him at jdklein@senate.state.ny.us, or give his office a call at 718-822-2049. As tempting as it is to tell Senator Klein to “get your car off our bikes, you fucking asshole,” it probably won’t get anything done worth doing, so if you’re gonna call or email, support Colin’s idea that they meet to discuss. That’s my official recommendation anyway.

I’ll soon have more to post about biking in New York with the kids, pastries from Balthazar, toddlers gone wild at Tompkins Square park, picnicking with friends at 9th and C, and other delights. There are many pics that need pulling off the phone, but I thought I’d post one that had me thrilled.

Check out what they done gone and built in Chelsea, going south on 9th Avenue:

That’s a real honest-to-god bike lane. Note, going from right to left: three lanes of traffic, one lane that’s parking or a left turn lane (depending on which way the cross street goes), a physical barrier, and a full bike lane. You can’t see it very well in this shot, but the traffic light at the corner, to the left of the bike lane, is a stop light exclusively for regulating the bike lane (the red, yellow, and green lights are actually in the shape of a bicycle). The light just to the right of it regulates the left turn lane, allowing cars to safely cross the bike lane.

Riding down this section of 9th, with my daughter in her kid-seat, I felt like the city recognized us as legitimate traffic and took our safety seriously. I felt like I was on a road built with bikes at the core of the design, rather than one where the design half-heartedly acknowledges that bikes are vehicles and then throws us into a raging current of cabs, busses, and SUVs. It felt really, really good.

That is infrastructure you can believe in, my friends.

[UPDATE]: fixed the lane order, here’s a document that lays out what I’m trying to describe, around page 19 or so. There’s more benefits than I’d considered, like a shorter crossing distance for pedestrians and a barrier to turning the wrong way on a one-way street. Neat.

It should also be noted that food messengers don’t seem to understand that the awesome new bike lane only goes one way, and that the northbound bike lane is over on 8th Ave. Or, they get it and don’t care. I’d typically blow off that kind of anarchy because, ya know, it’s New York and they gotta make a living right? But this is a real, permanent, well-designed bike road we’re talkin’ about, it’s undeniably a one-way thing, and going the wrong way on it makes it unsafe the same way that driving a car the wrong way up a one-way street does. So fuck that, ticket the living shit out of ‘em. Growing up ain’t always easy, ya know?

[UPDATE AGAIN]: This really was just supposed to be a short post, but I ran into this StreetFilms short about efforts to create more separated bike lanes in New York, it seems appropriate to throw it on the stack. I wonder if Mayor Fenty’s seen any of this. It’s quite a vision of what a city can be.

On the commute home last night:

• Coming up T St. NW, I come upon this fellow with his truck parked across the bike lane, which was both narrowing the lane for cars and forcing cyclists out into the traffic trying to get around his pickup. He had, oh, 8 bags of mulch or soil or something like that. I let him know that there was a parking spot 14 feet behind where he was double parked, and he yelled back that he was unloading. Evidently, he couldn’t be bothered to move those bags 14 extra feet, so commute traffic had to accommodate him.
• Don’t mistake my anecdotal evidence for real data, but I’m pretty sure that I’m one of the very few cyclists in D.C. who stop at lights and stop signs downtown. So I’m stopped at a light on New Hampshire, with about a foot and a half or so between me and the car stopped next to me. A woman on a road bike in business casual mode squeezes between me and the car, then blows through the intersection forcing cross traffic to brake. I only realized she was shooting the narrow gap between the car and I as it was happening, because she didn’t see fit to break her ninja silence at any point during her approach. She looked annoyed with me as she snaked past.
• Coming down the east side of the Taylor St. overpass, where it crosses over the Red Line, I’m doing about 30, keeping up with traffic, and taking the lane. Much to my astonishment, a yuppie scumbag (now now, no need for that) young professional in a Yukon passes me on a pretty tight part of the street, with traffic oncoming, giving me about a foot of space on my left. Since I’m on pace with traffic, I actually have to slow down to let him back in (or not get hit by him as he floats right, though I can’t say for sure if he’d have actually hit me). I look into the Yuke’s window to see if he’s doing this because he’s pissed at me, and he’s got the blankest, most apathetic look on his face imaginable.

Some days, there’s just no winning. Last night’s ride didn’t trip any serious pressure valves, but it did depress me enough to consider riding the Red Line for the rest of this week to relax and maybe catch up on some reading. I woke up and shook that off, it’s a beautiful day and I couldn’t let the jerks steal my morning ride.

But it did get me thinking about whether or not it was realistic to expect anything but ignorance, arrogance, and self-centeredness from our single-strand society. If I’m not well acquainted with the people who provide my sustenance, or my entertainment, and my job doesn’t involve me directly providing anything to the people in my community, then where’s the value in kindness, consideration, or humility? Why wouldn’t I adopt a philosophy of I got mine, now fuck you? What’s the penalty for treating my neighbors and fellow citizens contemptuously in the pursuit of my own goals, or the benefit of putting my own desires aside for the good of the community (much less my country or the world)?

I mean, aside from avoiding a physical attack. But is that what it’s coming down to, where the only reason for me to signal a turn is so that I don’t end up having another driver pull a bat or a gun on me? Is that the end state of a society where we dispense money and fuel from machines that say “Thank You”, order every scrap of our Chinese-made clothes and every shiny gadget from the internet, get our food from factories a thousand miles away, and only find pleasure in entertainment made by professionals? That courtesy is self-defense, and nothing more?

(I should make clear that, for me, the answer to “why” is: “My kindness, consideration, and humility shouldn’t be a response to you as a reward or punishment. That’s about who I am, and who I want to be, not who you are or whether or not you deserve it.” I should also make clear that I don’t think I’m particularly overflowing in those qualities, but I care enough to keep workin’ on it. I don’t know what other people’s answer to those questions are.)

Makes one feel like heading into eastern Pennsylvania, growing a mustache-less beard, and learning to live Amish just to see what it’s like. Hell, I don’t even need a barn, but I’d sure like to raise one in the neighborhood just to build something with my neighbors and share some lemonade. Ya know? It also makes me want to redouble my efforts to find a local bike shop in which I don’t feel like a plebe diminished by the whithering gaze of a barrista with a bone through his nose because I made the mistake of ordering a “large” coffee instead of a “venti”. Or maybe to open one.

Of course, I could be wrong, and I’ll probably do something on the way home tonight out of obliviousness that will convince someone else that the world is gone to Hell. And maybe I just rode through the wake of a few people having a bad day. Fuck do I know, anyway?

I had an errand to run downtown today, and I got an early jump on it so I could ride in the relative cool of the morning before we head towards the upper 80’s (which is a nice break from the upper 90’s we’ve had for the past couple days). My old commute to Capitol South flowed down the east side of the city, through residential areas that I’ve found to be pretty mellow traffic-wise. Often I’d float along, keeping up with traffic or even passing it by, and notice that the people in the cars weren’t having any fun. I’d sorta feel sorry for ‘em.

This morning’s route cut southwest across the city on some much busier streets, which left me feeling more vulnerable and brought my adrenaline up a bit. I found trouble on the way, getting into a spirited disagreement with a fellow commuter. The odd thing was that on any of the multi-lane, really busy streets, I was able to ride in and with traffic without trouble. But going south on 4th St NW through beautiful LeDroit Park (which is a slow, narrow street featuring a series of speed bumps), a motorist gave me an unfriendly honk before passing me dangerously. He also advised me that I should be riding on the sidewalk, and that the street was no bike lane. He also said, “fuck” quite a bit between the other words.

Now, the gentleman clearly was unaware of the municipal codes regarding bicycling on city streets, or the law regarding passing another vehicle safely and legally. Traffic ahead of us was stopped, passing me gained him nothing, so it’s unclear what advantage he was pursuing.

But none of that concerned me much at that point. What did concern me was the rather cavalier regard this hostile motorist had for my safety. Closely following the startled fear was intense, red-hot anger that I associate with car commuting. I loudly explained to him that I was well within my rights to be riding on the road, and that I was traffic.

It would be a lie of omission if I didn’t also mention that I used two shorthand terms that 1.) accused him of having sexual relations with his mother, and 2.) asserted that he was a provider of oral sex to men. (Please don’t construe this as meaning that I disparage those who are skilled at fellatio, it makes the world a better place, salute.) He attempted to rebut my points, but I let him know that I was no longer interested in continuing the discussion, and then invited him to stop talking. The words “fuck” and “fucking” were sprinkled liberally throughout my invitation.

Well, that didn’t get either of us anywhere. I’m reasonably certain that our discussion didn’t result in his rethinking his beliefs on sharing the road, and for my part I came away trying to remember how that Supreme Court decision came out regarding handguns in D.C., and whether or not I could apply for a bike-mount holster permit. And I don’t like either of those results.

One of the reasons I despise driving in the city is that driving among people who are casual about safety and oblivious to the flow of the world around them annoys the shit out of me, which accumulates over the course of the trip and converts to rage. And I don’t like being that way, especially when I’m piloting a few thousand pounds of metal. Bicycling, on the other hand, frequently melts away whatever concerns I had when I got on the bike, and leaves me feeling more alive at the end of the trip than when I started. What’s not to like about that?

So this is disconcerting. I don’t want to go back to the world of road rage, and I don’t want to inspire it in my fellow citizens. I’m mostly friendly to motorists and give them the benefit of the doubt when they violate my vehicular rights, because everyone makes mistakes, right? I’ve certainly pulled boneheaded maneuvers.

But there’s thousands of drivers in this town whose attitudes towards sharing the road with cyclists range between dull-edged apathy to aggressive hostility. It’s beyond my abilities to do anything about them, so I’m trying to figure out what to do about me, but some part of me thinks that without strong infrastructural support and traffic enforcement from the city, this is just how it’s going to be. Until the city actually treats us like traffic, the public won’t either.

I don’t know, ultimately I need to learn how to blow these things off, especially in those circumstances when my gorge rises because I feel like my safety’s been threatened. What do you do?

NOTE: I updated verb tense in a couple places, and made a couple edits for clarity.

First off, just got word from a friend that design and construction of the Metropolitan Branch Trail is back on! Though this news may not shake the foundations of D.C., it’s a big fat deal in our neck of the woods:

Note: This map was taken and adapted from WashingtonsBestAddress.com. Kinda says it all about how D.C. feels about Brookland and company, doesn’t it?

The current commute options involve routes with shoulderless stretches on major arterials that people around here mistake for freeways. Once you’ve made your way to the south or west of the big, blank NE section you see on the map, things improve dramatically. But our part of D.C. is, if not quite cut off, surrounded by routes that increase the pucker factor when riding with the kids.

So having a North/South connection to bike-friendlier routes will be delightful. They’re also going to connect the Metropolitan Branch Trail with the Northwest Branch Trail in West Hyattsville, as well as connecting it to the Capitol Crescent Trail up in Silver Springs (and that’s gonna be a real nice loop, by gawd). Great news!

And then there’s this: my wife said something really, really sweet to me last night.

She prefaced by mentioning how for her whole life, she’s always liked beater bikes, and never cared much about performance or tune. And how, when it comes to tools and things I use frequently, the reasons I research and obsess and will spend more for one over another have always eluded her (but she knows that about me and loves me anyway).

But she’s been riding my Long Haul Trucker quite a bit lately, and she told me last night that it is the nicest bike she’s ever ridden. She mentioned that, at first, it felt kinda twitchy to her, and she didn’t like the position. But since then, she’s really gotten to like it, and she’s never ridden a bike that felt that good.

Needless to say, I’m still turned on. “By your Girly or your Surly?” you quip cleverly. I can only reply, “Yes.”