Breakfast links: Sharing

MD funds bikeshare

Montgomery, College Park and UMD, and Baltimore won state grants to build bike sharing systems. Greenbelt, Frederick, and Howard County also got grants to study the possibility of doing bike sharing. (MDOT)

Holds now barred

After no bike thefts in two years of operation, the Twin Cities’ Nice Ride bikeshare system has eliminated the deposit hold for both credit card and debit card users. Could CaBi get rid of their credit hold? (StarTribune, Mase)  (Tip: Mase)

Give up cars

3 top officials, including Richard Sarles, no longer have WMATA issued cars, opting to give them up to the vehicle pool.  Several other officials still have agency cars, but their jobs require them to travel around the system. (Examiner)

Baltimore’s green line

The MTA is testing out green tracks in Baltimore that use grass and other plants in the track bed. They’ve included green track beds in Purple Line renderings as well. (BeyondDC)

Protests need permits?

Jack Evans wants protesters to have to get permits. Evans says last minute-protests make providing police protection are difficult and costly, but it could stifle free assembly. No colleages cosponsored his bill. (Post)

More diamonds diverge

There’s another diverging diamond interchange in the works in Maryland, on the BW Parkway near Arundel Mills. Unlike the Greenbelt one, Anne Arundel County has no plans to try to make that area at all walkable. (Huffington Post)

A little goes a long way

A pilot program in the last transportation law showed small investments in bike and pedestrian facilities can have a huge impact. But will Congress recognize this success? (Streetsblog)

And…

A planned balloon for the Hirshhorn Museum will not violate the height limit. (City Paper) … The Georgetown ANC is overly concerned with cars. (Georgetown Metropolitan) … Another fight over historic designation of a church could be brewing on Georgia Ave. (City Paper) … More details on Glen Echo Park’s vanished streetcar. (Post)