OPINION / COMMENTARY

Last Updated January 8, 2023

Biking is a seasonal activity in North Bethesda, Maryland. Rain, sleet, snow, and wind blowing sideways will as sure as the brilliance of local government keep those aluminium and carbon fiber bikes up on the rack and in the garage. We are not Canadians.

That brilliance from an unelected branch of government, the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, with the support of the Montgomery County Council, and the lobbying of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association reduced six lanes of traffic on Old Georgetown Road down to four, and in return gifted local drivers with two full lanes dedicated to bikers, skate boarders, and riders of electric scooters - all of whom tend to be out in agreeable seasons and in good weather - Spring, Summer, and Fall, but not when it is raining or snowing. In point of fact, however, the new bike lanes are the equivalent of two bike lanes in width going north bound, and two bike lines in width going south bound. There were no public hearings that invited local commuters to weigh in. But,  equality of outcome was the result, planned or not. 

The unintended consequences of this bull headed and obtuse move spearheaded by the bicyclist lobby will be that the driving application Waze will certainly direct backed up traffic during the morning and late afternoon rush hour on Old Georgetown Road through Luxmanor and possibly Windermere as well. And in the backwards logic of "smart growth" that bypasses public hearings and seeks to urbanise the long established quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the suburbs with bicycle infrastructure, cars and not bicyclists will be rerouted through communities where families walk their pets and children walk with friends.

So, two miles of bike lanes were put in to placate the Washington, D.C.- based Washington Area Bicyclist Association, which lobbied to reduce traffic capacity on Old Georgetown Road between West Cedar Lane and Nicholson Lane to accommodate bicyclists in the wake of two bicycling fatalities. In the association's own words, this is precedent setting with a call to "thank Delegate Marc Korman and County Councilmember Andrew Friedson for their work pushing for the new protected bike lanes."

17-year-old Jacob Brian Cassell of Bethesda, Maryland and a student at the Diener School in North Bethesda was hit by a Volkswagen Atlas after falling off his bicycle on Old Georgetown Road and Beech Avenue on Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at about 5:00 p.m. He died the next morning.

18-year-old Enzo Alvarenga, of Bethesda, Maryland and a student at the University of Maryland in College Park, went off the south bound sidewalk on Old Georgetown Road at Cheshire Drive into the oncoming northbound traffic when he lost control of his bicycle as a result of riding through shrubbery on Tuesday, June 1, 2022. He died at the scene of the accident as a result of being hit by a Ford F-250 cargo van at around 4:00 p.m.

Both fatalities occurred as a result of similar circumstances. They were young men riding their bicycles during rush hour and went off of the sidewalk and into traffic where there were no bike lanes. Alvarenga was apparently in violation of Maryland law since bicyclists are required to ride in the same direction as traffic, not against oncoming traffic. In his defense, the state still does not require licensing or knowledge of vehicle laws to ride a bicycle on the sidewalks or roadways. 

Most people are fully aware that in the teenage years there is a sense of invincibility, which can lead some to risky behaviours including the manner in which a bicycle is handled. Youth may have been a contributing factor in the tragic loss of these two promising lives.

Jack Cochrane and Damon Luciano, active lobbyists for improved biking infrastructure, were among the leading advocates for reducing traffic capacity on Old Georgetown Road. Their discussion thread on Google Groups from earlier in 2022 clearly described their strategy for reducing traffic capacity with a plan to press Delegate Marc Korman and County Councilmember Andrew Friedson with a timeline for action. By October 17, 2022 the State Highway Administration announced that they were going to create buffered bicycle lanes. 

That brings us to the Winter doldrums for bikers. And, that brings us to the doldrums for commuters forced to suffer decreased road capacity due to the government manufactured bottleneck for the 40,000 vehicles driving every day on Old Georgetown Road as a result of the State Highway Administration, the Montgomery County Council, and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

​“Our top priority is always to make sure our customers reach their destinations safely,” said Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration Tim Smith, the Administrator. “We ask that motorists obey all of the rules of the road and be extra vigilant when bicyclists are on the road. We are committed to ensuring that our roadways are safe for everyone, regardless of their mode of transportation.”

Tax payers are not customers nor are they purchasing anything from any government agency. Tax payers fund many levels of government, even incompetent agencies. Just fix the pot holes. All of them. In a timely manner. And, if sidewalks are in the domain of the State Highway Administration, fix those too so no more bicyclists riding on them go flying into oncoming traffic. Do not create the problems. Just fix the existing problems.

Delegate Marc Korman and County Councilmember Andrew Friedson, both bypassed public input from immediately impacted residents, taxpayers, and voters.

Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration's Secretary James F. Ports, Jr., what your agency did to Old Georgetown Road is not "an improvement." It is a fiasco. Your agency has contributed to creating assured traffic gridlock given the approved "smart growth" that translates into approximately 31,000 new dwelling units, many will have car drivers, in Bethesda, North Bethesda, the White Flint Town Sector, and the southern section of the City of Rockville.

The bottleneck and angst over the issues prompted a petition to remove the bike lanes followed by a petition to keep them. As of January 8, 2023, those opposed to the bike lanes were numbered at 6,553 and those in favour numbered at 1,494, a clear four to one spread indicating overwhelming disapproval of the planning and actions of Jack Cochrane, Damon Luciano, Marc Korman, Andrew Friedson, James F. Ports, Jr., and Tim Smith that failed to take into the majority and departed from reality based thinking. 

The public's overwhelming disapproval did not keep about 100 weekend bicycling enthusiasts away from showing up on Old Georgetown Road on January 8, 2023 to make their rare presence felt. They presented themselves in full gear: helmeted, gloved, with full water bottles, and in cycling tights chanting "Safe Streets!" Bear in mind, these bicyclists were not seen on Old Georgetown Road's new double wide bike paths complete with make believe safety barriers on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday, or the Sundays prior to January 8. They showed up on just one day and for a short period of time evidencing what most of us have always known, that bicycling is not about commuting back and forth from work, engaging in commercial activities like shopping and keeping appointments with professional service providers, or dropping off and picking up children from school or practice. But, it is instead in the overwhelming majority of cases a good weather, three season, weekend activity that is an alternative to the local gym or walk in the community. The fact is this, according the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, "Bicycle trips make up only one percent of all trips in the United States." And, that is is why these new, double wide bike lanes are empty most of the time. The angst in North Bethesda is palpable as if was right out of a Jerry Seinfeld episode with the suppressed Cold War like hostility in the lines, "Hello Newman. Hello Jerry."

Contrary to the traffic planners' insights, driving is an all year, all weather, and a 24/7 activity. Driving is as American as the Commerce Clause is to the U.S. Constitution. Yes car drivers, like truck drivers, keep America moving. The same cannot be said of bicyclists. But, what do affluent suburbanites insensitive to social equity and addicted to driving cars know? They only have common sense, and certainly not the training and expertise lodged within the State Highway Administration.

In the neighbouring jurisdictions of Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia, bike lanes exist and in point of fact do not take up an entire car width lane, nor are they "protected" by bike lane barriers that will never survive a snow plow that keeps the roads free of snow and ice for cars to be able to drive back and forth from work and shops. Those bike lane barriers, flimsy at best and designed to give way to a wayward car's bumper, surely will not protect a biker from a driver who is texting or on the phone while driving even if it is snowing. Those barriers, moreover, will certainly not protect a driver from an unlicensed and uninsured bicyclists from veering into traffic. When the plows clear the roads, the curbs, the sewers, the sidewalks, and even those bike lanes get piled high with snow, slush, and ice. And, surprise of all surprises, the bike lanes in neighbouring jurisdictions - with or without snow - are also mostly empty in Winter.

With or without bike lanes, there will be accidents and fatalities for bikers. No well intended local government administration or bicyclist association will stop that. Bikers tend to disregard traffic laws and the rules of the road, and they do so at their own peril. Often times, drivers just do not see bikers racing through those red lights or ignoring the stop signs. No bike lane, whether well designed as in neighbouring jurisdictions or absurdly designed and implemented as is plainly evident on Old Georgetown Road, will change that. In fact encouraging bikers to ride on roadways with 40,000 cars, buses, and trucks on Old Georgetown Road, contrary to the informed thinking within the State Highway Administration, will in our opinion and with certainty increase accidents and fatalities for bikers.

Bicyclists are regulated, but not licensed nor insured. And, absurdly, under Maryland as well as other state laws, a bicycle is defined as a vehicle rather than an alternative mode of transportation like roller skates and skateboards. And, therein lies the core of the problem. Both the law and bicyclists have equivocated unlike categories as if they were the same insofar as roadways are concerned. 

Far be it from me to say the obvious though politicians try to please everybody and end up pleasing nobody. In our opinion, motor vehicles and bicycles do not belong on the same road at the same time, because someone will eventually get hurt, and it likely will not be a vehicle driver unless it is the bicyclist flying through a vehicle's windshield. 

According to Megan Alcalay, there are five commonalties in biking accidents.

1. Motorists hitting bicyclists from behind.  

2. Motorists exiting driveways or parking lots into a bicyclist’s path.   

3. Bicyclists riding into a car door that opens on their path.  

4. Motorists turning right in front of you, colliding with your path. 

5. Motorists turning left, colliding into a bicyclist they do not see. 

The other real issue of danger for bicyclists is that their bicycles do not make the sound of a motorcycle, which alerts others of their presence. Instead when they are on the road they peddle silently alongside vehicles, and when a vehicle slows down from 45 miles per hour to take a right and cross a lane wide bicycle lane, the possibility of a bicyclist running into the right side of the vehicle making that right turn exists. 

What is missing in the State Highway Administration’s planning are safety measures like speed bumps on those bike lanes near stop signs and traffic lights. Speed bumps should be evenly applied to all users of public roadways. Adequate signs specific to bikers like "Cars Crossing Ahead" and "No Texting While Biking" and "Arrive Alive, Do Not Drink or Toke and Bike" and "No Ear Plugs" should be put up. How about cameras and ticket by mail technology to ensure that bikers - with visible license plates - stay off of sidewalks where a bike lane exists nearby. Pedestrians should be able to leisurely walk to their destination without the startle of hearing a bell ring and a shout, "On your left!" And, again, fix those sidewalks that need to be maintained. There is no reason a bicyclist riding on a sidewalk, when he should not be, drives into traffic head on. It is no wonder there are fatal bicycle accidents. Finally, we all pay taxes, and therefore there is no good reason why we cannot have snow plows designed to plow those trendy bike lanes.

I am a first hand eye witness to countless bikers trapped under vehicles in other countries. They had bike lanes. After the expressions of shock, two types of comments always emerge: the driver did not see the biker, and the biker was driving recklessly. And, of course there are plenty of calloused comments. That is one less biker. 

And, I knew a county resident who died while biking in traffic. The car driver survived the crash. The car suffered minor injuries to the fender. 

The beneficiaries of the State Highway Administration's misguided planning and implementation of these bike lanes will be florists and funeral homes. For the injured survivors, doctors and lawyers will take on new business by providing medical treatment and legal action as a result of cuts and lacerations, traumatic brain injury, broken bones, facial injuries, torso trauma, spinal cord injury, and musculoskeletal injuries stemming from bicycles and motor vehicles crashing into each other. 

The "but, I had the right of way" reasoning of an injured biker sitting before a doctor or an attorney will never match the common sense to ride a bicycle on a bike path that is off of a roadway with automobiles where assumption of risk and possible reckless endangerment are contributing factors to a bicyclist's injuries - with or with out bike lane buffers.

I predict that in places like Old Georgetown Road in North Bethesda in the years to come, the county and state's leadership will follow the lead of places like Bogota, Colombia - a biker's utopia and "model" for other major urban areas around the world - and stomach the certain coming rise in biking injuries and fatalities by reducing them to academic studies and faceless statistics. People like Jacob Brian Cassell and Enzo Alvarenga will not be memorialised by the academics and the planners. And, when those academics get a hold of the data, accidents and deaths will be segregated by age, gender, race, income, time of the day, day of the week, and many other inane factors that fail to take into account the obvious. 

If you build it, they will come. The more you build, the more that turn out. The numbers and graphs will then tell the story.

Sarah Langenkamp was riding her bicycle on a bike lane on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland and was hit by a Volvo D13 flatbed truck when it turned right into a parking lot and killed her near 5244 River Road at about 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 25, 2022. Langenkamp, a 42-year-old State Department employee, thought it was safe to ride a bicycle on a government designed and installed bike lane right next to a busy road.

In London, England there are many bikers on their back and forth daily commutes on bike paths in the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames that wonderfully meander through the park without automobile traffic. In the best of all possible worlds, bicyclists in North Bethesda would use good judgment and seek out bike paths such as the Capital Crescent Trail and especially the Trolley Trail that parallels both Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Road in order to stay clear of on average 4,000 pound automobiles that travel 45 miles per hour on Old Georgetown Road. 

According to the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, some groups are at higher risk for bicycle injuries and deaths. 

Risks vary by age and sex. For example, adults ages 55 to 69 have the highest bicycle death rates. Adolescents, teens, and young adults have the highest rates of bicycle-related injuries treated in emergency departments. And, people ages 10 to 24 account for nearly one-third of all bicycle-related injuries seen in United States emergency departments. Male bicyclists have death rates six times higher and injury rates five times higher than females. 

There are additional risk factors. For example, most bicyclist deaths - 78 percent -  occur in urban areas. About 64 percent of bicyclist deaths occur on sections of roads away from intersections (where higher speeds might occur) and 27 percent occur at intersections. About one-third of crashes that result in a bicyclist’s death involve alcohol for the motor vehicle driver and/or bicyclist. But get this, one fourth of bicycling fatalities are due to bikers riding while drunk.

As noted earlier, while bicycle trips make up a meager one percent of all trips in the United States, bicyclists make up over two percent of people who die in a crash with a vehicle in America. Each year, about 1,000 bicyclists die and over 130,000 are injured in the United States every year.

Given the injuries and fatalities and bicycling infrastructure already in place, however, all bicyclists should absolutely be licensed, registered, adequately insured, helmeted, equipped with safety reflectors, know and abide by the law, and be trained by a licensed training academy that also offers required continuing education prior to being able to ride in a bike lane immediately adjacent to any roadway with automobiles. That would include being required to watch bicycle accident and fatality films modelled on the Ohio Films that Baby Boomers were required to view during driver's education, which would include what everything actually looks like when the face plants into the sidewalk at 30 miles per hour and what human body parts and blood look like when splattered across the wheel well of a Ford F-250 cargo van. Given the accidents and fatalities, risks assumed by riding that close, it is clear that bicyclists pose a threat to not only themselves, but to drivers and their vehicles as well. Drivers should not routinely have to endure bicyclists meandering around cars at a stop light and silently watching them run that red light as if there are no consequences. That has to end.

POST SCRIPT

A word to the Montgomery County Council and State Highway Administration regarding the absurd and ridiculous bike lanes on Old Georgetown Road: Bicycles are unlicensed and uninsured vehicles on roadways and walking paths. They should be separate, because they are unequal to automobiles as well as pedestrians. The solution to the dilemma posed by the angst and dangers of sharing the road is to continue peddling down the road of social justice and social equity and declare that a person riding a $30 to $3,000 bicycle is as valued and appreciated as a person driving a $30,000 to $300,000 car on Old Georgetown Road. For everyone's safety, please get the bicycles off the road. They do not have safety features like seat belts and airbags. There is a reason why automobiles have these features. Exercise eminent domain and seize a ten foot strip of land on common property in Devonshire West, Georgetown Village Condominium, and Old Georgetown Village as well as a ten foot strip of land from the backyards of the homes in Neilwood, Luxmanor, and The Oaks and put in those must have bike lanes. Argue that the doctrine of eminent domain and the English common law of the freedom to roam here serves the greater public good of ensuring that there are zero injuries and deaths due to bicycles riding alongside 40,000 vehicles per day on Old Georgetown Road, and there will be no prospect of shutting down Old Georgetown Road to investigate the next bicycle riding fatality.  

Written by Peter Hebert