> tbh if they got rid of the most notorious cameras (395 and 295 with a dishonorable mention to independence ave SE heading onto 295), there'd be a lot less hostility to them.

Which of course they won't do because the entire point of the camera program is revenue generation, not safety.

The speed limit there used to be 40, and it was much more functional when it was. They dropped it to 25 and added the camera when they were rebuilding the bridge, but surprise surprise, they just left the lower limit and camera that actually makes that merge substantially more dangerous by bunching traffic at the worst possible location- because that camera prints money.

It's also a nice little tax on Ward 7 residents who have to loop around RFK to go south on 295.

So you're saying that the point of the camera is to be placed where the most tickets can be issued rather than in the places where it has the most impact on public safety? Are there, perchance, some financial incentives for prioritizing ticket generation over safety?

They're not placed at exit ramps, at least on 295. They're placed on the highest speed areas, which are often the places furthest from any exits, to maximize revenue generation.

On a similar note, crosswalks across more than one lane in each direction absolutely should have a light. There's always somebody who stops in one lane and then a bunch of assholes who keep going in the other.

What exactly do you think a city subreddit is for, if not for talking about the issues of living in this particular city?

And DC is far better about having people actually stop than most places in the US. Would be nice to see cameras used for this somehow instead of giving people tickets on freeways.

Yep. You can book your wedding there if you want. They've got a little Linconalia there, but mostly it's just the house itself, no furnishings or anything like that. Great place for events, lousy as a museum.

Reclaim? Before cars, the streets were filled with horses, carts, and streetcars pulled by horses. Many of which were larger than vehicles today. There was absolutely never a time in the history of developed roads where they were only or even mostly for pedestrian use. I mean, we're talking back to the romans here. Rome was far louder than nearly any city today because of the traffic of horses and carts with iron rimmed wheels on cobblestones.

Oh, and the bicycle is about the same age as the car. Roads were never developed with them in mind, either. The width of a road lane was set by the width needed for a cart pulled by two horses side by side.

I threw out facts that you are entirely unwilling to accept because of your ideological biases. Bike trips have only a 2.5% share of all trips made in the DC area. That is a researched fact from an authoritative source. In the core of the region, it rises to a whopping not quite 8%. And again, these are close to the highest numbers you'll find anywhere in the nation. And that counts the tourists on bikeshare hopping from museum to memorial.

You and your other yuppie friends in NoMA aside, biking is extremely niche as a practical mode of transportation. Because for the vast, vast majority of people and trips, it is not remotely practical and never can be.

If you want to reduce car dependence, bikes are not the answer, nor is punishing drivers. More and better transit is.

Everything you ever say or think is wrong.

Just as logical and persuasive an argument!

> protect all road users and discourage car use throughout the system.

Quite frankly, discouraging car use will make the system less safe, because it encourages drivers to be more aggressive to simply keep their trip times the same. And to be very, very blunt, a system designed to protect the most people is one that bans bikes from roads entirely. Bikes make up a single digit percentage of total trips made in DC, and DC has extremely high bike use compared to the rest of the US. Bikes are not a practical transportation mode for the vast majority of trips people make, and many, many people cannot use them the way healthy twenty and thirty-somethings can. If there is a tradeoff to be made between bike and car prioritization on the roads, from a strictly utilitarian perspective bikes will lose that battle every single time.

To solve the problem, you need to make the system more streamlined and efficient for everybody. Car users included. I love biking for recreation, but when you're arguing to punish drivers in favor of your small group of mostly upper middle class white yuppies, you're fighting a major uphill battle.

Edit: No, seriously, bikes have a 2.5% mode share in the region. 7.8% in the core. Here's a GGW link, which you cannot accuse of being anti bike. Bikes are a niche mode of transportation. If you think otherwise, you are stupendously out of touch with reality.

People block the box because getting into the box and beating the light cycle saves them about two minutes. There's simply way too much traffic volume shoved into not one, but two lights. The one thing I could think of doing is to make the ramp two lanes (which means fucking over that body shop, but they deserve it) and allow that right turn lane to bypass the light entirely. The left lane could be allowed to turn right into the outer lane with the light, but the inner lane would be continuous flow. You'd have to merge on the ramp, but that would eliminate any gaps in the flow of traffic on the ramp that the second light cycle causes.

Always expect people to behave in their own self interest. Any system that doesn't account for that will never succeed.

And driving. Probably sucks for the trains above it somehow too.

I live right off of East Capitol, so I think about it every time I have to go up Division to go over on Eastern or NHB to get to the BW Parkway or have to do the goddamned loopty loop around RFK (with bonus speed camera to rob people who live EotR and are forced to take that loop constantly!) to get on 295 South.

That intersection will always be a clusterfuck as long as you have to wait at a light to get onto the 295 ramp. Hard to fix with that CSX bed there, but I'm sure a traffic engineer more creative than I can find a solution. Putting in 295 access from Benning and East Capitol WB would really take a lot of pressure off that intersection as well. When you take traffic from major streets and force them to go onto local roads to get to a major highway, this is kinda what you get. The fact that you cannot directly get onto 295 from the two largest roads in NE is one of the absolutely dumbest infrastructure decisions in a city fully of very dumb decisions.

Of course, the fact that both Benning and E Cap have very easy access to 295 from the EB side makes it pretty obvious that this was an intentional environmental racism thing from when they built 295. Should probably think about fixing that.

Yeah, the DC housing groups on facebook are by far the most popular tool for this. Suck it up and give Zuck some data.

I used to just get them at Giant.

Report 'em to DCRA. It's pretty easy for them to go after a registered business.

Mow over them. Congrats, natural fertilizer.

Raking is one of the most moronic practices involved with the American lawn, and that's saying quite a lot.

You just got whooshed. The joke is that that's how WMATA is forced to operate even when it objectively makes the overall transportation system less safe.

Some think tanks are funded by highly wealthy interests to promote their agenda. Some are funded by grassroots donors. Which kind you work for will affect whether you're going to be affected or not.

Because most people grab scooters when they're away from home and literally no one brings a helmet everywhere they go. Helmets are quite simply not a realistic option for 95% of scooter trips.

Gee, us North Carolinians just have an assload of barbecue catered by whatever legit NC place is willing to drive 5 hours up 95.

They seem to be going for cocktail lounge this time. Uh, good luck with that.