Past and future chances to walk and bike

This week was, and is, jam packed with special events around walking and biking, including some great walking and biking tours coming up.

Capital Bikeshare launched yesterday to great fanfare in the plaza behind USDOT. TheWashCycle summarized all the press coverage. Memberships are still $50 so join now!

Don’t panic if the station you were hoping to use isn’t included in the official map. More stations will be rolling out, a few a week, through October. The printed maps on the existing stations have the complete map, and there are no plans to cut any of those stations.

The bike sharing launch wasn’t the only non-motorized transportation event yesterday, however. It was also Park(ing) Day, where people in cities across the world feed the meters and occupy one parking space with some artificial turf and a little park.

Last year’s efforts to get official permits ended in bureaucratic absurdity, so ReadySetDC just did it guerrilla-style, and ran into no trouble. They even got a game of horseshoes going in the little park.

Tomorrow is Car-Free Day, where commuters pledge to go car free for a day. It’s also a great opportunity to try Capital Bikeshare. There will be rallies at CaBi stations at Gallery Place in DC and in Crystal City.

The biennial WalkingTown DC, a jam-paked weekend full of free walking and biking tours in neighborhoods all around DC, is this weekend. On Saturday morning, Richard Layman is leading one of his excellent tours of the Florida Market, DC’s functioning wholesale food market, and Sunday morning, GGW contributor Kent Boese will show off the history and architecture of Park View. Sunday afternoon, Concilmember Tommy Wells is leading a bike tour around Ward 6.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth has some great events coming up: a forum on revitalizing Fairfax’s Route 1 with the former mayor of Indianapolis on Wednesday, September 29, and walking tours of White Flint and the West End on two Saturdays, October 2nd and 23rd.