Via TheWashCycle, the news (to me; the story’s been out for over a month, ouch) that D.C. has for the first time in many years slipped off the list that the lock company Kryptonite keeps of the Top 10 cities with the most bike thefts.

I’ve got no idea how rigorously the data are parsed over at Kryptonite, but its blog post on the subject expresses surprise that Philadelphia rocketed to the top, displacing New York City for the top spot it’s held for the past nine years. “When we did the compilation, there wasn’t even a city close to Philly. Not even close,” says Kryptonite’s Donna T.

It’s even weirder that we’re not on there because, Nationals Park aside, bike-rack availability is lousy here. And empirically, pretty much everyone I know here has had at least one bike stolen. But hey, a win’s a win.

Kryptonite also offers largely common-sense set of bike-locking tips.

Photo by Rockers generation

A local Girl Scouts troop is speaking out against major Nationals advertiser ExxonMobil. According to a press release from The Coalition to Strike Out Exxon:

The Washington Nationals ballpark is the first stadium to be LEED Silver Certified by the U.S. Green Building Council … Yet the Nationals continue to accept millions of advertising dollars from Exxon, by far one of the world’s biggest contributors to global warming.

The Girl Scouts have joined the campaign to prevent Nationals Park from being renamed in Exxon’s honor. In the process, the scouts will fulfill every girl’s dream: Getting to wear a polar bear outfit. This Sunday, June 29, the girls will bear up to raise awareness about the Nats funder:

Sunday is “Nats Conversion Day,” when the first 10,000 fans that bring in any old MLB merchandise can trade it in for a brand-new Nats Curly W cap courtesy of ExxonMobil. The girl scouts will don polar bear suits and hold up signs about ExxonMobil and global warming as people enter the stadium.

Photo by mape s

Former ANC 5B-10 commissioner Kathy Henderson tends to draw strong reactions from the people she encounters. She’s a scrapper, known for throwing all her energy into filing complaints, writing letters and putting politicians on the spot. When she relinquished her seat last year to run for city council, she had her teenage daughter, India, run in her place (Henderson told me she “told” her daughter to run). And ever since India won the seat, her mom has exhibited masterful control over the young comish, marching her out of one meeting so a quorum wouldn’t be met. Henderson has also been a vocal supporter of those controversial police checkpoints and a vocal opponent of bars and loitering kids.

Like her or not, you can’t deny Henderson has had particularly bad luck with her car, a 1991 blue Mercury Capri. First someone torched it, then, last November Henderson got a ticket for parking it in the median of Pennsylvania Avenue to attend a police oversight hearing–even though she’d put her “official business” placard on the dashboard. Now her well-known car is the object of what Henderson sees as vengeful slander. When a poster on the Fifth police district listserv ranted about the reckless driver behind the wheel of vehicle that fit the description of Henderson’s car (“blue capri with howard univ stickers in back window and dents on the back left…dc license of ‘anc 5b__ __’.”), Henderson fired right back: “I find your timing suspect and wonder why you did not immediately call the police? I suspect that your true motive is some ridiculous attempt to embarrass me in a public forum.”

Henderson hasn’t responded to my email so far.

Matthew Yglesias is all over MyBikeLane, the D.C. iteration of a site that lets cyclists post pictures of vehicles parked in bike lanes. Even though I suspect this is a grand forum for people outraged by vehicles parked in bike lanes to report vehicles parked in bike lanes to other people outraged by vehicles parked in bike lanes, there’s always the chance that public shaming will discourage this dastardly practice.

But over at DCist, a number of commenters have complained that cyclists are whiny and need to get off their high horses. I think there’s something to that; many cyclists want to have it both ways, freely disregarding traffic signals when it suits them, pulling in front of drivers without warning and terrifying pedestrians. Just the other day I was pedaling up 17th Street NW and saw a guy riding south in the northbound side of the street. He nearly hit me, then weaved through cars around me before heading over to the side of the street he should have been on all along.

Of course, he was not wearing a helmet.

There’s a lot of enthusiasm online for making D.C. a more bike-friendly place. May I humbly suggest as an advocate of that position—and someone who’s had to break rules to not get killed by oblivious drivers—that cyclists can lead by example here? Keep up the pressure on bike-lane scofflaws. And don’t be one yourself, if you can possibly avoid it.

Photo by tvol

Based on the Washington Post, here are the facts of a very interesting accident:

*A Maryland State Trooper, James Davis, is checking for speeders on a strip of I-95 near Laurel.

*Some motorcyclists pass by at speeds of around 100 mph.

*Davis pulls out and turns on his lights.

*Sixteen miles later, on an on-ramp, two brothers, Suky Shamin Heureaux and Suky Shamin Heureaux, die in nearly simultaneous crashes on a Baltimore exit ramp.

*A twist: It turns out that one of the bikes that the brothers had acquired had been reported stolen–a circumstance that could have motivated the brothers to flee from the police.

The father of the brothers, Maximo Heureaux, is irate. From the Post story:

“They tell me they were racing, that’s all they tell me,” Maximo Heureaux, 45, who shared his home in Landover with his sons, said of his limited contact with investigators. “I don’t believe the police; nobody here believes the police. We all need to know what really happened.”

I guess the question here is whether Davis chased the motorcyclists, which is a controversial practice in law-enforcement circles. The state police declined to release a copy of the pursuit policy to the Post. So take your pick:

A) This is clearly a case in which a police chase caused deaths. The state should apologize and pay.

B) This is clearly a case in which two people were recklessly driving dangerous vehicles. It’s their fault.

C) This is a murky case.

Via the increasingly indispensible Streetsblog, this story about how Philadelphia is planning to paint optical illusions on streets around town to slow down drivers. They’re cheaper than speedbumps, apparently, and they have the added benefit of scaring the bejesus out of drivers who suddenly see three triangles floating in front of them. Why stop with triangles? Imagine how effective trompe l’oeil dragons, or maybe a realistic portal to hell would be?

If you own a fruit stand in Philadelphia or are engaged in the business of moving large panes of glass across the street, this may be cause for concern.

I use the D.C. bike map a lot—I especially appreciate its ratings of streets’ respective suitability for riding. (E.g.: 14th Street NW north of Thomas Circle is splendid; south much, much less so. But wow, is Ride the City’s route tool for New York City awesome. Put in your starting and ending points, and it’ll calculate the safest route, a safe route, or the quickest route. Just thinking out loud (or as I like to call it, “blogging”) here, but what would it take to get something like this fired up for this area?

(Helmet tip: TheWashCycle)

LL was hanging out outside the office a few minutes ago when another City Paper employee passed and said, “Marion Barry blocked me in.”

Indeed, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry is currently appearing on WPFW-FM, with whom we share our Adams Morgan building, speaking about his personal health issues and issues in the African-American community on the Heal DC program.

Behold his champagne Mercedes E320, complete with Ward 8 councilmember plates, on the City Paper’s cramped parking deck:

After the employee went down to the radio offices to complain, an aide came out to move the car into a proper space.

Oh, and here’s a tidbit from the interview: “I don’t ever want to be mayor again. I don’t even want to hear that word,” he said. “I just want to be mayor-for-life.”

UPDATE, 1:45 P.M.: Here’s some detail from the rear bumper, which shows some damage, which may or may not be related to the whole bus run-in thing.

Looks like a lot of downtown office workers are headed for a supercasual Friday. A Metro fire and a power outage are keeping hordes of salarymen on the sidewalks, unable to boot up in their offices. A correspondent in the area informs us that a clock on the 1300 block of F Street NW stopped at 7:20–a bit of trivia that comports with reports that a fire broke out on Metrorail tracks around that time. We will be updating this story as it breaks.

So I was looking to go out and enjoy the night. See some ladies, get a few drinks–you know, just have a good time. [This was the weekend before the train derailment] Of course my decision making must not have been too good to think that on a weekend, I could do this via the Washinton Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

I had gotten on the train earlier today and what takes 50 minutes to get to my destination (20 on good day) took 75 minutes. Of course I thought nothing about it because now it just happens so often.

I got on the rail system at my usual starting point and waited…and waited…and (WTF) waited some more. I waited for a train to be built, sent, and put on the damn rail is what it seemed like. Of course when the train came, it was as if it ran through every hood which made me think “I’M SO HOOD” and I don’t even like that song. I swear I could’ve read every newspaper there, soda cans, smelly urine in the air, yadda yadda yadda…

…it was just too gross!

Then I get to the metrorail hub, L’Enfant Plaza and it was like the Pope had pooped in someone’s hat there were so many people. People were angry and hot and ugly.

After being there for like 30 minutes watching the opposite platform’s light blink me into a headache, I decided to leave. I went downstairs and what did I find? A crowd larger than the crowd I had just left.

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This from Metro:

A six-car Orange Line train headed in the direction of Vienna derailed at about 2:45 p.m. today. The third car of train 905, with an unknown number of passengers on board, experienced the derailment between Rosslyn and Court House Metrorail stations. Emergency crews are on the scene. There are no reports of injuries at this time.

Trains are sharing one track (single-tracking) between Clarendon and Foggy Bottom Metrorail stations. The Blue Line is operating regular service.

Customers can expect major delays on the Orange Line throughout the remainder of the day.

This, less than a week after downed power lines near Falls Church shut down the orange line in both directions. Anyone out there know how bad this is yet?

UPDATE: A second train is now backed into the derailed train and is being used to get the passengers off. Shuttles are trying to handle the rush-hour backups.

TheWashCycle puzzles over the Web site of a bike-rental business recently feted in The Washingtonian. Besides the usual services, the company says it also “provides confidential services to those in high-visibility professions” and that hotel concierges “suggest Better Bikes for their guests needing confidentiality.” WashCycle sagely notes that this sounds like an escort service. I dunno, though: considering the fashion Guernica that results whenever cyclists congregate, such as at the recent Bike to Work Day gathering (above), maybe a little discretion is what this sport needs.

Photo by Wayan Vota

Friday night I drove to Chincoteague, Va. It was an opportunity not just to try out the GPS unit my wife just bought but also to try Mike DeBonis’ Best Crosstown Shortcut. These opportunities were soon at war.

“Recalculating…recalculating” said the GPS’ voice over and over as we brazenly ignored its attempts to get us to New York Avenue NE. After about 10 minutes, my oldest son was holding his ears and asking us to turn down the “robot lady,” who finally succumbed to DeBonis’ shortcut four blocks before South Dakota Avenue NE. Too bad for it, because the route was AMAZING. I couldn’t have crossed the District more quickly if I was a freaked-out Spotsylvania dentist hauling ass from the convention center.

Is there any way to program shortcuts into these units? Or are you stuck with the bog-standard routes, all of which seem to favor staying in traffic for a long, long time? I liked having the GPS when I was traveling, but I ended up muting it on the way home.

Metro sent out a release today about a delay in service on the red line. A man was hit around 1:45 on the tracks near the Wheaton station. The release goes on to state about how trains are sharing a track, shuttle bus service was activated, regular rail service to resume momentarily.

Hey, Metro? What about the guy? Turns out that required a phone call. A press officer said “he was alive when they took him” and that the man is believed to have been on the track intentionally.

I don’t know how he did it, but the guy selling this beauty managed to install a kettle grill in his bicycle. Imagine the possibilities!