Remove Useless Bollards (RUB)

[Steve O]

At the last BAC meeting I made mention of the three consecutive bollards on the connector to Van Buren St. just east of the Lee Highway intersection.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_k_xVNJhFaqo/TFsQPB5aUiI/AAAAAAAAAQE/9UD0tjMtsPI/s320/three+bollards+in+150+feet.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_k_xVNJhFaqo/TFsQTDu9akI/AAAAAAAAAQM/fJejzh5MxE0/s320/Two+useless+bollards.jpg

Along those same lines, not long ago I blogged about the uselessness of these trail hazards (http://www.commuterpageblog.com/2010/02/to-stanchion-or-not-to-stanchion.html). The really questionable ones are ones that occur at the intersection of two trails. Huh? What's the point of that?

Obviously by bringing it up at the meeting I jinxed myself. Just yesterday I was cycling with my daughter on the Bluemont Junction Trail. She is still gaining confidence as a cyclist, so she wobbles a bit, particular when starting and at low speeds. We stopped to cross Evergreen Street, and, lo and behold, as we got started she collided with the bollard on the opposite side of the street. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_k_xVNJhFaqo/TFsQV_WnuLI/AAAAAAAAAQU/AyzEpr1qSBU/s320/guilty+bollard+bluemont+jctn+at+Evergreen+st.jpg
Fortunately it was a low-speed encounter--but, of course, she cried for a couple of minutes until she regained her composure and we could move on. This just redoubles my opinion that these obstacles are more liability than benefit and should be removed until there is a history of trail encroachments.

Pretty much the entirety of the W&OD does not have bollards. What do they know that we do not? (Or what do we know that they do not?)

Steve
Self-Appointed Chair of Remove the Useless Bollards (RUB)

[Dirt]

Ha! You think those are bad. Wait till you see the ones thy put in the middle of the cross walks. Bwahahahaha

[RideTheWomble]

Those particular bollards are confusing and redundant, but I'm in favor of keeping them in other places. I can't count the number of times I have seen cars driving on trails to go places like the picnic pavilions in parks like Bluemont and Barcroft. If you hang out in any of the parks with facilities on a weekend, I promise you'll see cars driving on the trails.

Drivers need some indication that it's not OK to drive on multi-use trails. It's not safe, and the bridges and trail surfaces aren't designed for it. Expecting someone to haul the cooler from the parking lot to the picnic table isn't exactly asking them to clean the Augean Stables, either. There are definitely people who maliciously disregard the rules, but for the others, it's important to give them a clue that, even though the trail is paved, their car is not welcome. I'm a proponent of the design principle, "never underestimate the Power of Stupid."

Four or five (six?) years ago, someone drove an automobile on the W&OD from the Custis intersection to approximately the Red Caboose in Bluemont Park. They put tire-tracked shaped trenches in the wooden decks of two of the bridges. Who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars were diverted from other uses to rebuild those bridges? Any cavalry scout or civil engineer can tell you that driving over a bridge in a vehicle that is too heavy can cause hard-to-see, permanent damage that only an expert can find.

It looks like Arlington tried more flexible bollards last year, but the snow came, they got plowed up, and now most of them are gone. They were a pretty good solution -- an authorized vehicle could drive over them, but they'd pop back up, to tell people not to drive on the trail. As it turns out, though, they just weren't all that durable. As Dirt's post on crosswalk signs (http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?228-New-Crosswalk-signs) shows, designing this stuff is hard.

[jabberwocky]

A few weeks ago I was riding the W&OD out in Loudoun County. I ran into a confused looking old lady driving towards me on the W&OD immediately before the bridge over 28. She had just done a 3 point turn in the middle of the trail. I threw up my hands in a "wtf are you doing" expression and she just laughed and accelerated around me. Very surreal.

As womble pointed out, some people are dumb.