Ask anyone who lives in the DC what they think about the Metro System and you’ll get a medley of complaints from pricing, to delays, and even fires. But another, less dramatic complaint is also common: the system makes it hard to get around the city in any way other than heading uptown or downtown. Want to travel from Woodley Park to Edgewood, Tenleytown to Fort Totten, or really any where horizontal on the map from where you are starting (with the exception of downtown areas with the green/blue line)? You’ll have to traverse the system downtown only to loop back up, making some stations only two miles from each take 20+ minutes to get between. The reason this design frustrates residents looking to do inter-city travel is because the Metro layout (for better or for worse) is clearly designed to bring people into and out of the downtown areas from the less dense neighborhoods at the city’s periphery, as well as incredibly from the incredibly populous suburban ring. The network itself is made to serve the needs of commuters, which in theory should help alleviate the DC’s infamous rush-hour traffic problem.

The DC metro map — made for getting people in and out of the city quickly. The red lines U shape is notoriously in-efficient for crosstown travel

Another alternative to spending every morning/afternoon in a mind-numbing car/bus/pedestrian cluster-fuck is to bike to work — an increasingly popular option. Bike commuting’s clear public benefits of reducing traffic, emissions, noise, and promoting health pushes DC government to support it via various initiatives to spread information, as well as building out its ever-growing and in-vogue bike lane network.

Yet in contrast to the DC metro network, the bike lane “network” does not promote safe bike commuting into the center of the city as a rush-hour alternative, but rather prioritizes downtown travel and tourism. For starters, outside of the downtown neighborhoods it’s not actually a network, but rather a discontinuous scattering of bike lanes with varying degrees of infrastructure. Now there is nothing wrong with a having robust bike lane network in the most congested downtown areas, or even making bike lanes to keep segway-rolling tourists at ease. But for a city enjoying record breaking tax revenue, openly supporting bike commuting as an option should be backed by bike lane infrastructure allowing residents to commute safely and un-impeded by rush-hour gridlock (because if you can’t avoid traffic on a bike, what is the point of biking in the first place?). It is well regarded that bike lanes make commuting safer and more enjoyable, but the public health and congestion easing effects of expanding a bike lane network fail to have the sway in local policy they deserve. A New York-based study by Columbia University found that ridership increases with every mile of bike lane created (i.e less people behind the wheel) and even concludes with pollution-based calculations showing that bike lanes are the cheapest way to improve public health.

So it should now be clear that it is in the city’s interest to get more people out of their cars an on a bike during rush-hour. To do this we need commuters from all of DC’s neighborhoods to be confident that they can get to work safely and free of most automobile related stress. We need a true bike lane commuting network that allows residents in DC’s currently unconnected periphery neighborhoods to get downtown and cross-town almost completely on bike lanes that are adjusted in design to match the level of surrounding traffic they are expected to interact with.

DC bike lanes from Google Maps —scattered with no apparent grand-design

A quick glance at the adjacent DC bike lane map reveals the problem: other then Capital Hill and the 14th Street Corridor, none of the residential neighborhoods making a ring around the bike lane filled central business district have a continuous bike lane route downtown. Every other little street in the city doesn’t need a bike lane, but every neighborhood should have at least one bike lane protected street connecting to the more robust existing downtown bike lanes and therefore connecting it to every other neighborhood — a true network.

Biking in the city can be intimidating, especially for a beginner. It is unreasonable to expect more people to ride to work while forcing them to have to battle impatient rush hour traffic for space on clogged avenues. Avoiding main roads is hardly an option for most neighborhoods as it would add miles to a route and side road routes are often interrupted by border vacuums such as Rock Creek Park, the many hospitals, and NE’s disruptive train tracks. Riders are currently funneled into major arteries sans bike lane, making commuting in DC as a biker more dangerous and chaotic than it has to be. Any “funnel street” that has no real other alternatives to people of a certain area must have a bike lane. Only a few streets in DC fit this category: Rhode Island Avenue going NE and Martin Luther King Avenue heading South into the bottom of the city being two examples. These will be the most controversial installations because these bike lanes will affect the streets car commuters from certain areas have no choice but to use as well.

In other areas, it shouldn’t have to be as controversial. Most of the currently un-connected residential areas get to select from at least a few major streets headed downtown. Using NW DC as an example: Rock Creek Parkway, Connecticut Avenue, Reno Road, Massachusetts Avenue, MacArthur Boulevard and Canal Road all reach radially into the NW of the city and the latter five are seamlessly connected by Nebraska Avenue. As a car commuter from one of the quiet NW neighborhoods or the suburbs beyond you have multiple choices to consider when getting to work every day, you can even change up your route on the fly to accommodate for specific delays. Yet a bike commuter has no other choice but to throw elbows with cars every morning since none of the mentioned streets have a bike lane. Adding a bike lane to, let’s say, Reno Road that connects via Calvert St to a bike lane-d lower Connecticut Avenue as well as bike lanes on MacArther Boulevard would not significantly affect car traffic flow or cost much but would open up safe bike commuting to an entire sector of the city. NW is not unique in this way; with the exception of Suitland Parkway (which doesn’t fully connect into downtown) in SE, and Kansas Avenue headed into NE there are essentially no protected routes into the center of the city from almost all of the periphery residential areas. There are many streets suitable for a bike lane that could be discussed as options that with a little paint (and hopefully some sort of rubber barrier) would revolutionize the prospect of getting downtown on two wheels for dozens of DC neighborhoods. Eventually expanding the network to include major cross town streets such as Military Road and South Dakota Avenue would connect the major commuting uptown/downtown bike lanes to each other forming a complete network — you could be able to get anywhere, from anywhere with limited exposure to cars making the morning routine safer for current bike commuters while getting more people to transition away from driving.

MacArthur Boulevard uses a full right lane for parking — a clear misuse of street space that could easily accommodate a bike lane

As I’m writing this I can predict the obvious objection popping into people’s heads: how can bike lanes be installed on major streets without sacrificing car lanes? In a city already severely congested, bike lanes stealing car real-estate would only hurt those who commute by car, which was the most popular method by a few percentage points for DC residents and the overwhelmingly popular choice for suburbanites during the last Census. The way to avoid harming car users’ convenience is to get two birds stoned at once (come on, this is DC after all) by incorporating building a bike lane network into a larger transportation plan that includes fixing the parking crisis as well.

Almost all of the major city streets have on-street parking during at least non-rush hours that pose a risk to cyclists via doors, but also contribute to congestion as parallel parkers stop in the middle of what should be broad, flowing avenues. In addition, spotty on-street parking such as on 16th street do more harm then good by forcing cars in the right/parking lane to frequently merge back into traffic causing more delays. Yet these problems with the current parking arrangement ignore the overriding issue: there just isn’t enough parking in central areas. Street parking, especially in dense areas, should be phased out and replaced by public parking lots (both vertical and underground) with hardly-for-profit prices. This idea has been implemented with great success in Silver Spring which offers $1 an hour parking in nine “downtown” locations. The total amount of parking would be drastically increased if DC follows suit allowing for problematic right lane parking to be replaced by protected bike on some streets, and even extra travel lanes on others. Granted, this isn’t even necessary on many other streets which use full right lanes for parking leaving room for an added bike lane to co-exist with on-street parking. Examples of this kind of street are MacArther Boulevard as shown in the above image and Rhode Island Avenue, both of which, if given a bike lane would connect a significant amount of neighborhoods into downtown. The city should start with these types of streets as they are the least politically controversial and while the new lane paint is drying we can begin working on the parking lots (which I believe should be created even if the city has no interest in creating a bike lane network).

DC today has the means to make safe bike commuting available to every neighborhood at the same time as leaving the “but where will I park” worry in the past. With small parking lots scattered around the cities popular areas, and some white paint and rubber we could build a low cost, yet drastic, improvement to the city we all know and love. Imagine DC except no more cars are vulture-ing for parking. No more stories of cyclists getting doored (or at least less of them). No more getting stuck behind a tourist trying to parallel park an SUV. Being able to get anywhere from anywhere in the city almost completely in a relaxed, protected bike lane. And for the drivers, no more pesky cyclists in your way during your commute.

This is a tangible, and achievable goal that could be accomplished in the next few years. Our public health will thank us. We would be able to be proud of constructing an efficient 21st century solution to bike commuting issues. Are we willing to take this step?