THINGS I NOTICED IN D.C.

In my family, I am not The Traveler, that is the one family member who travels all over the world, to all the fun or interesting places, for leisure.  However, with my current job, I did get to travel to a few places to work.  Work is, well, work, with the 9-to-5 or something along that line, but usually in the evening I get to enjoy the city/town a little bit.  On occasions, I stay over the weekend and get to appreciate local culture in a more leisurely way.  I started to work-travel back in August and meant to blog about the experience but life got in the way.  Without much further ado, here are the Things I Noticed in Washington D.C., with no research whatsoever on the topics:

• There are road-runners in all times of day, I love it!  I do work about 9 hours during the day, but on those occasions I went out for lunch, or walk back to or from the hotel, or early in the morning when I myself go for a run, I would see runners.  Good for ya, D.C.!
• Bike-share is alive in D.C.  $7 gets you a day pass that include free 30-minute rides.  I haven't tried it yet but I worry that it's like NYC, where at certain time it's impossible to find an empty dock to return the bike, or every bike taken out.  During an evening rush, I did notice a few stations with available bikes, so maybe it's not as bad.
• Cycling is popular!  In the Metro Center area that I frequent, I don't see that many bike lanes, definitely no protected lanes, where the lane is between sidewalk and a parking lane, so cycling is not as well supported as in New York City, but it sure is popular.  I noticed bike racks outside many building, people riding bikes home during evening rush hour.
• The bike-share map shows certain areas in Downtown as off-limit to sidewalk-riding.  What?  Does that mean riding on the sidewalk is allowed elsewhere?  That seems to be the case, as I saw many people riding on the sidewalk.  Most sidewalks are wide so it's not a problem, but it's something I shudder, as I'm a law-abiding cyclist when it comes to sidewalk-riding, as prohibited in NYC.
• Like many big cities, there are homeless people on the street in many places.  I arrived in D.C. at night, during the taxi ride to the hotel I couldn't help seeing people sleeping in bus shelter and in public parks.  Sad.
•  It's a given that there are museums everywhere in D.C., but I also noticed that associations and groups are all over too.  I suppose chances are your groups need to convince the politicians to support your cause by passing laws so might well be in physical proximity to the legislators.
• I didn't like the non-rectangular streets of Boston and incorrectly thought D.C. would be worse.  While there are those diagonal avenues, there is some kind of a grid with the numbered streets and the lettered streets, at least in the northwest area that I stay at.
• The motorists I crossed paths the past few days are pretty nice compared to others I know.  They yield to pedestrians!  I haven't heard any angry honking either.  Maybe I just need to walk in rush-hour traffic more?  I do obey traffic signals for pedestrians, so maybe that helped.

I have a few more days, maybe all this will change, maybe I will share more observations, definitely some photos is in order.

BIKE SHARE IS HARE TO STAY!

NYC finally got its bike share program.  About this time last week (Friday 24 May) on the way home I noticed that some stations in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn already had bikes parked in them.  I didn't get my annual member key then so even if I could just park and go check them out I wouldn't be able to.  I had to wait until Saturday the 25th to receive my key in the mail.  Memorial Day was the official kick-off but I worked in the morning, started really early too.  When I was done with work around noon, I could have taken the subway from Roosevelt Island to Manhattan (another island, but pretty much no one says Manhattan Island, it's just "Manhattan") to check out the bikes.  But that's another subway trip for no other purpose.  I'm really careful with money these days so I put it off for another day.  No rush, let others be the testers of the new system.

Yesterday I finally gave the bike share program a twirl.  I needed to be on 67th Street between First and Second Avenue, which is the east side of Manhattan, but the D train doesn't go there.  Sure I can make some transfers but rush-hour trains are pretty crowded and I hate to wait for the connection.  So I got off the D train on the west side of Manhattan and make my way to the east by bike.  I brought along a bike helmet, the relatively new one I got from the City a few weeks back.  Just a few blocks from the D train station I bumped into the first Citi Bike station, 58th Street and 6th Avenue, I believe.  Whipped out my member key and out came a bike.  I had to adjust its seat but that was it, off I went.

Although I rode with car traffic before, it usually was off-hours and not on super-busy streets like Uptown Manhattan during rush-hour.  A few times traffic was so bad I had to pull to the sidewalk and ran pushing the bike.  After Second Avenue things got more quiet.  I suppose most drivers found their way onto the Queensboro Bridge.  I thought I reviewed the map of bike stations and saw some near 67th Street.  That was not the case.  All stations are around 60th Street and below.  So I ended up pedaling back downtown to return the bike and ran back uptown.  I was 20 minutes late to the appointment, which worked out in the end, but so much for having bad intel.  I could have returned the bike earlier and walked leisurely uptown.

After my visit at the 67th Street Library, I gave bike share another try.  I was nowhere near a subway station, the nearest being on Lexington Avenue.  Can't wait for that Second Avenue subway line to be completed, eh?  So I can walk to a subway station, or I can hop on a Citi Bike and get there a tad faster.  I hopped.  The first time I returned the bike, I saw clearly that the light went green to indicate that the bike was properly locked, my rental period over.  The second time around, the light remained yellow, but the bike wouldn't budge as well.  I tried to take it out again, but perhaps because of security measure that didn't work either.  Later at home I verified that my rides were recorded, equipments returned, although the first time, with the green light, it didn't list the return location.  The second ride was all a-okay, weird.

Today I planned to use bike share again while in Chinatown waiting for my son and his music lesson.  I always have to park far away because of lack of parking space or because of outrageous parking fee, even the meters.  So theoretically I can park far away like always then ride a bike to the center of Chinatown.  I found a spot near Corlears JHS as usual and walked over to Seward Park Branch of the NYPL.  There was a bike station nearby but either all the bikes were taken out or the station was not activated, there was no bike to be found.  It was a hot day to walk around so I settled down in some cool place and checked email etc.  On the way back to the car some time later, I discovered two functional stations, both near Madison Street, just a street over from where I parked.  Just a matter of going in the wrong direction.  In the future, I definitely could use bike share to get to the heart of Chinatown.