DC Metro is a heavy rail system.
HN user
jrf6
The rider is a much bigger factor, of course. But that’s not the problem being addressed here. You’re not suggesting the bike should not be optimized are you?
What is BDDM? It is used throughout, and I can't find a plausible definition anywhere.
It makes their experts look incompetent. Quite a bit of what this guy found should have been low-hanging fruit for an expert witness.
They haven't raised the price of commuting at all, because the only people that have to pay the toll are solo drivers, and this road was not previously available to solo drivers during rush hour.
I've been a cyclist in DC (and Boston) for almost 20 years, and the changes over that time have been fairly astounding. Overall, DC is doing a pretty good job [0]. The gradual transition from a little stripe to demarcate the bike lane to protected cycle tracks that take up a full lane of traffic has made a huge difference.
[0] http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/03/08/street-by-street-dc-bu...
What a wonderful illustration of a child's boundless curiosity. My five-year-old asks these sorts of questions constantly, and it's fascinating and hilarious (and, I confess, sometimes tiresome).
The article also cited the lower wages in Alabama. The pay scale tops out at $23 an hour, and the workforce is not unionized.
Cycling (and driving) in the city is safer in part because the cars aren't going very fast. They aren't going very fast because they can't. There are simply too many obstacles in the city, whether speed humps, narrow roads, crosswalks, four-way stops, or heavy traffic. I believe this is why DC has the lowest traffic fatality rate in the US [1], despite the near-universal belief that driving in the city is dangerous.
[1] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...