I am a New Yorker who just made his first real visit to Washington. I had been there on four previous occasions; but on those visits I had done little exploring, and no bicycling. So this was the first time seeing the city the proper way.
I went there and back on the Bolt Bus, which allows the storage of the bicycle in the cargo hold beneath the bus. Going down I took a 6:30am bus on a Thursday morning. This bus was mostly empty, so I had an empty seat next to me. This ride felt luxurious.
Coming back I took a bus that departed Washington at 3pm on a Saturday. That bus was full, which impacted the experience somewhat. I had several bags which I had to juggle on my lap and also stow in the overhead compartment (my fault for overpacking). I am lucky that I didn't have to use the restroom during that trip, because leaving and returning to my seat would have been very difficult.
Nevertheless, the Bolt Bus was a great deal. I paid $22 going down and $18 coming back. I will almost certainly do it again.
I found Washington to be a remarkable place for bicycling. There are bike lanes on many streets, including, most dramatically, a pair of centre-running lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue running roughly between the Capitol and the White House.
Generally speaking, the state-named streets are to be avoided, as they tend to be multi-lane streets that lack shoulders. A New Yorker could compare them to Northern Blvd. in Queens.
But another exception to that, along with Pennsylvania Avenue mentioned above, is New Hampshire Avenue, which has good bike lanes in both directions (which is to say southwest and northeast) from Dupont Circle.
But many numbered streets (running north-south) and lettered streets (running east-west) have bike lanes that go a long way. Most impressive was the two-way protected bike lane on 15th Street NW.
And even those streets that do not have bike lanes are good enough to ride on.
I encountered very few hills; most of them were out in the eastern sections of town. I went out to the border with Capitol Heights, Maryland and nearly up as far north as the border with Silver Spring, Maryland. I partially explored Anacostia Park and also Rock Creek Park.
But I was mainly interested in getting familiar with the streets, which I did to some extent. Once you get into the "second alphabet" going north, very few streets go a long way in the east-west direction so there is much turning.
When I compare my trip to Washington with recent trips to Philadelphia, I notice one similarity and one difference.
The similarity is in the demeanour of the drivers. In both Philly and Washington, the drivers behave in a polite manner, in both cases putting New York drivers to shame. In both of these cities, when drivers stop at stop lights, they actually stop behind the painted stop line. This contrasts to the practice in New York of stopping well ahead of that stop line, and sometimes encroaching into the crosswalk. In fact, in every case where I saw a driver rolling over a stop line during a red-light period, it was someone with a New Jersey or New York licence plate.
The difference is in the red-light periods. In Philadelphia, the red lights are extremely short. In Washington, they are extremely long, with countdown clocks that can be 60 or even 90 seconds. New York lights are somewhere in between. So, in New York, if I see a green light about a long block in the distance, I can be pretty sure that I am going to have to stop at that corner as the light turns red. In Philly, I can figure that that green light will turn red and then green again by the time I get there. In Washington, I typically found that I could make a green light seen in the distance during the same period.
I hope to get down to Washington again very soon, in order to expand on my newfound knowledge.