Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

Tag: transportation

Want to Help Arlington’s Bike Transportation Policy Efforts?

Then please consider donating a couple hours of your time.  Arlington County volunteers collect bicycle and pedestrian count information several times a year, and there are still a number of unfilled positions for next week’s seasonal bicycle and pedestrian counts. From David Patton, Arlington County Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner:

We could really use more help to have full coverage at the 20+ locations where we count. The September seasonal count is the most important one of the year, and the one with the greatest number of communities participating. (Here in Arlington we have counted four times in the past year – other places only once.)

To check the sign-up sheet, and for lots more information, please visit the website: http://drop.io/september09bikepedcount

Much of what is there is pretty self-explanatory. Please feel free to write to me at this email with any questions. I’ll be checking it periodically over the holiday weekend.

With thanks, and best wishes for an enjoyable end of summer …

David Patton

I’ve done this before, and I’ll be out there next Thursday, at a minimum.  Very easy, and very helpful.  For more about the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, in which Arlington County participates, visit: http://bikepeddocumentation.org

I Won’t Be Renewing My SmartBike DC Membership

Just received a solicitation from SmartBike DC/DDOT to continue supporting its bike-sharing efforts by renewing my membership. I will not be renewing. While I very much support the concepts behind SmartBike DC (indeed, I bought a membership despite having more bikes than one person ought to), the extraordinarily poor customer service has soured me greatly on the implementation. While the occasional malfunctioning rack is understandable on a pilot project, the complete lack of any response to my multiple calls and emails about an improperly returned bike, the suspension of my account, and the sharing of SmartBike DC’s customer’s emails on the Internet is unacceptable. These failures weren’t the occasional mistake, but a continuous absence of any sort of customer service. And this doesn’t even touch on SmartBike DC’s ridiculous decisions to occasionally shut down its operations when people need it most (snow days, Inauguration). I hope that DDOT will take this story into account when selecting future vendors and (hopefully) redesigning its customer service standards.  Bike-sharing is an important part of the transportation puzzle, but there’s no need to accept such dismal performance.

The email from SmartBike DC/DDOT is on the flip.

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