Bicycling News/Analysis By Libby Solomon (Former Managing Editor) January 6, 2022  7

CaBi in Columbia Heights by Bekah Richards licensed under Creative Commons.

As the region awoke Tuesday morning to discover that drivers had been stranded overnight on I-95 in Virginia, one District Department of Transportation (DDOT) employee took to Twitter with a comment that was only slightly tongue-in-cheek:

“300 brave folks road CaBi yesterday, so I’m confident that we moved more people than I-95.”

300 brave folks road CaBi yesterday, so I’m confident that we moved more people than I-95

(Pun not intended, it seems.)

With snow so wet and heavy it took out trees and power lines, riding a bicycle exposed to the elements seems like it would be the last option on peoples’ minds. But as the fiasco on I-95 shows, driving has its own hazards in severe weather. And if municipalities and riders plan for winter cycling, a bike can get you where you need to go.

Just like cars, bikes fare best if their lanes have been cleared of snow. In DC, while the Department of Public Works leads the Snow Team responsible for clearing roads, protected bike lanes and trails are largely under the purview of DDOT.

As our District’s Snow Team remains fully deployed and crews continue to work hard to clear the snow and ice on primary and residential streets, we have also been working throughout the day to clear bike lanes of snow. pic.twitter.com/aQusOLNmiN

DDOT staffers shared tweets with videos and photos while plowing the lanes this week.

More bike lane plowing content since that seems to be popular here! @WHands80 was behind the wheel while I shot this. pic.twitter.com/Vb882k0ys0

Colin Browne, communications director for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), said the region’s record on clearing bike lanes is “hit-or-miss,” as DDOT has a handful of vehicles and a lot to cover. The work, he said, can also be easily undone by other plows clearing snow from the roads. Other jurisdictions have similar capacity issues, he said.

Snow on a bike lane in Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, two days after Monday's winter storm.  Image by the author.

Snow on a bike lane in Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, two days after Monday's winter storm.  Image by the author.

Unprotected bike lanes are particularly challenging to clear because snow from roads can be pushed into them, and pushing it any further can damage cars on the other side of the lane.

“[…] trying to walk, bike, or take transit after a snowstorm will give you a clear picture of how our transportation infrastructure and resources still prioritize moving private automobiles over basically everyone else who needs to get around,” Browne said in an email.

Still, other than the need for a few Good Samaritans to brush snow off bikeshare station solar panels, CaBi demonstrated that bikeshare can be an awfully resilient mode of transportation. Although crews paused bike rebalancing during the snow storm, the service continued, and hundreds of people were able to get where they needed to go. That tracks with the role bikeshare has played during the pandemic, a steady part of the transportation ecosystem that remained available when transit and rideshare options suddenly became inaccessible.

Looking to try your hand at some winter cycling? Trey Robinson, a WABA bike ambassador, offered the following tips:

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Libby Solomon was a writer/editor and Managing Editor for GGWash from 2020 to 2022. She was previously a reporter for the Baltimore Sun covering the Baltimore suburbs and a writer for Johns Hopkins University’s Centers for Civic Impact. 

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