More cyclists out there than last year?

I go from Vienna east on the W&OD almost daily, and have been commuting this way semi-regularly for four years. I think the volume of commuters is increasing, especially our fair weather friends. Even now that it is dark, late and cold when I go home, I normally see half a dozen others from the county line on, whereas it used to be rare to see one.

As for the town of Vienna itself, it is hard to say if more people are biking around to do errands and such. It hasn’t caught on quite so well as in downtown DC or other places. I would love to see that change over the next few years.

Liz

@eminva 11499 wrote:

I go from Vienna east on the W&OD almost daily, and have been commuting this way semi-regularly for four years. I think the volume of commuters is increasing, especially our fair weather friends. Even now that it is dark, late and cold when I go home, I normally see half a dozen others from the county line on, whereas it used to be rare to see one.

As for the town of Vienna itself, it is hard to say if more people are biking around to do errands and such. It hasn’t caught on quite so well as in downtown DC or other places. I would love to see that change over the next few years.

Liz

I have also been riding the Custis/W&OD pretty much every day for the last five years and it is really hard to say if numbers are increasing. When it is warm out I would say that there are a few more bicyclists out, but nowadays numbers seem to be dropping off pretty quickly. The one thing I have noticed as of late is that there aren’t too many people out there doing more than 15mph or so consistently. Maybe the weather is slowing people down?

It’s the other side of town, but I’ve been commuting down East Capitol St. daily for almost 3 years now, and I’m definitely sensing an uptick. This summer was particularly busy, and then especially as it’s gotten colder the past 6 weeks or so, a lot of people are persisting through the cold.

In years past, morning temps in the upper 30s would usually mean I’d have the bike lane to myself, but alot of folks are still out there this year.

My frame of reference is limited, since I’ve only been seriously commuting a little over a year. But on the east side of DC, from Capitol Hill into NE DC and out into Prince George’s county, it seems to me like a dramatic increase is happening. I felt like I was the only one out on two wheels a year ago at this time — now there’s quite a bit of company on the roads and trails. Capitol Hill seems to be a booming bike area. The MBT isn’t crowded, but there’s almost always another rider in sight ahead and behind. The Arundel Road/Varnum/Allison Street cut through from DC to Hyattsville seems pretty active lately. I’m seeing far more well-let, brightly colored “serious looking” commuters than last year.

I felt pretty slow this morning in the 28 degree weather, but looking at my GPS, it was mostly in my head.

I have been commuting the same route since 2007, from Falls Church City on the W&OD to Custis, to Mt. Vernon to 14th St. Bridge to the Mall. I have noticed a definte uptick this last year, 2011. There was somewhat of an uptick in 2010. My employer had to triple the number of indoor bike racks since 2007 to accomodate the increase in riders from then to now, admittedly they only had a few racks back in 2007 though.

Frankly, I kind of like it now that the joggers and fair weather bikers are gone even though it was 27F this morning. While I don’t commute all 11 miles one way to DC every day (even when the weather is nice), I can only manage one or two days per week in winter although I do ride most days the 1.5 mile to the EFC Metro where I rent a locker. I find that winter riders usually always announce they are passing.

As much as I enjoy riding, I think without more improvements, it is just overall less enjoyable when the weather is nice than now because it is too crowded. I even started taking streets in the afternoon when the weather is nice rather than the trails. I feel like the level of attentiveness I must give to avoid incidents is very high, it seriously requires almost as much attention as if I were driving a car on the beltway. It’s nice in winter to be able to let my mind wander while riding and not be focused solely on avoiding peds and other bikers.

This morning was definitely sparse. Doesn’t Arlington have a new monitoring system in place that you can check in on. Would be interesting to compare Mon-Tues and today.