Bike to Work Day (or Bike At Work Day, for some!) US Secret Service Bike Cop by Elvert Barnes licensed under Creative Commons.

This Friday, May 17 is Bike to Work Day! If you've never biked to work before, this is the perfect opportunity to give it a try. You'll find plenty of bike commuters volunteering to share tips and help you expand your commuting options, and you'll see thousands of fellow Bike to Work Day cyclists on the streets! Stop by “your choice of 115 pit stops in DC, MD, and VA and receive a free T-shirt, refreshments, and be entered into a raffle for a new bicycle” courtesy of Commuter Connections and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Sign up here to find out all the wonderful resources that Bike to Work Day can bring to your commute!

Other events from around the region:

Tuesday, May 14

Speak out against highway-widening: Speaking of commuting priorities, you can also take the occasion to tell Maryland Governor Larry Hogan that he ought to invest taxpayer resources in supporting healthier and greener modes of transportation like biking and transit, intead of embarking on yet another round of self-defeating road widening boondoggles that keep people trapped in car jams. Speak out against the I-270 and I-495 widening projects at public meetings Tuesday, 6:30 - 8:30pm at Oxon Hill High School (6701 Leyte Drive in Oxon Hill, MD) and Thursday, 6:30 - 8:30 pm at Seneca Valley High School (19401 Crystal Rock Drive in Germantown, MD). You can also submit comments online.

Open your eyes and learn: From 3 to 6 pm at the Kellogg Conference Hotel on Gallaudet's campus (800 Florida Avenue NE), you can see the Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) Knowledge Festival, “an important two-way participatory event [that] showcases the [Gallaudet University Science of Learning] Center’s scientific discoveries and transformative translation products from the entire previous year of work [from] the VL2 Center’s four National Resource Hubs, three laboratories, pioneering PhD in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) Program (including students), and new Cognitive Neuroscience Institute. It's free to attend, you can RSVP here. “Interpreters will be provided… refreshments will be served and tours of our new laboratory spaces will be available to all participants.”

Take the #TransitChallenge in Montgomery County: The Action Committee for Transit (ACT) is “challenging local politicians to take the #TransitChallenge and ride nothing but transit for a week.” Attend ACT's May meeting from 7:30 to 9 pm at the Silver Spring Civic Center (1 Veterans Pl, Silver Spring, MD) to hear from Takoma Park Councilmember Kacy Kostiuk and Rockville City Councilmember Mark Pierzchala.

Wednesday, May 15

Give a watershed moment to our watershed: The District Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) has released a draft “cleanup strategy [to] improve the Chesapeake Bay and District’s rivers and streams [which] is available for public comment through June 7.” From 1 to 3 pm in Room 101 at the UDC Student Center (4200 Connecticut Avenue NW), you can meet with DOEE along with the “University of the District of Columbia College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) and Rock Creek Conservancy, two partners supporting the District's water quality goals through dedicated programming and leadership.” Register here.

Ride for the fallen: Five people have been killed while riding their bicycles in DC in the last year (Malik Habib, Jeffrey Hammond Long, Carlos Sanchez-Martin, Tom Hollowell, and Dave Salovesh). Observe their untimely deaths by joining the Ride of Silence, “an annual event held in hundreds of locations worldwide on the third Wednesday of May at 7 pm local time, to honor the lives of riders injured or killed by traffic violence and remind motorists and public officials that people on bikes have a legal right to public roadways.” DC's ride “will gather [at 6:30 pm] at Benjamin Banneker Park [429 L'Enfant Plaza SW], and ride through all four quadrants of DC, ending at the John A. Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Ave.” Find more information here.

Thursday, May 16

Learn why we ban plastic straws and charge for plastic bags: Swing by the Washington DC chapter of the Sierra Club (50 F Street NW) from 6:30 to 8 pm to learn about “Polluting Plastic Impacts [and] the need to stop using single-use plastics rather than relying on recycling” with “a presentation and Q&A with Lisa Anne Hamilton who is the Director of the Climate and Energy Program for the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).” RSVP here.

Saturday, May 18

Enjoy roads reserved for cyclists only: Coming off your high from Bike to Work Day, you'll still be set free from cars in the DC Bike Ride, “a celebration of the two-wheel lifestyle [and] the region’s ONLY closed-road, car-free, recreational bike ride. The closed-road course will take over 7000 participants past some of the most beautiful sight lines DC has to offer with the monuments and the memorials. The course will also feature pit stops with snacks, photo stations and entertainment to get you pumped up on the ride. The event ends with a Finish Festival along the National Mall nearly at the steps of the US Capitol.” The ride takes place between 8:30 am and 12:30 pm and starts at West Potomac Park (121 West Basin Drive SW). Buy your ticket (and rent a bike if you like) and sign up for the ride here!

Mark your calendar:

Monday, May 20

Learn how to become an active DC resident: Don't forget that next Monday (May 20), you can transform your city by transforming yourself into a trained local advocate. Attend GGWash's DC 101 workshop at WeWork Metropolitan Square (1440 G St NW) from 6 to 8 pm to help us fight for safer streets and expanded housing. It's a free way for you to make a serious invesment in yourself and in your neighborhood (including in our GGWash Neighborhood to keep our site going, if you haven't yet joined!).

Check out more urbanist events at ggwash.org/calendar. Do you have an event you'd like to see featured in the weekly events post? Submit it here.