Custis Trail Users Have My Sympathy

I don’t know what was up today, but the bike traffic on all the MUPs seemed very high. And that’s a good thing! Not so many runners/walkers on the W&OD/4MRT/MVT, except for the group of 15 or so runners who turned south on the the W&OD after coming off the bridge from the softball fields in Bluemont Park. While the temperature was relatively warm, I thought the fog/mist and drizzle would have deterred more people. This was about the second busiest I have seen this year.

@Rootchopper 16893 wrote:

Today I took my car to the dealer and rode from North Arlington to Rosslyn. I could have sworn it was bike to work day. The bike traffic was incredible.

What time were you on the trail? I usually end my commute by 7:30am and haven’t seen things too packed, although that may change with the really nice weather for the rest of the week.

@Rootchopper 16893 wrote:

I Then I came to six bikes waiting to enter the Intersection of Doom at Rosslyn circle This is NUTS!!!!! We all made it across but only a couple of the cars turning toward the Key Bridge made it through the light. No wonder accidents happen here.

Theoretically, I wonder what the authorities would do if there comes a time when there are so many cyclists/peds crossing at the infamous Rosslyn intersection on a daily basis that cars really can’t make the turn during rush hour. Then what?!

Similarly, if enough cyclists start using the MUPs on a daily basis, will that force the peds off?

I think at some point, cycling saturation will require the authorities to finally start thinking like the Europeans in terms of building cycling only trails.

I left my house in Falls Church about 6:20 am and made it to work in downtown DC about an hour later. I specifically left early to beat the rush and hope I can beat the rush in the aftenroon since I am on my slow bike and don’t feel like taking the alternate route. The fog/mist/drizzle was surreal, worst I can remember but kind of fun to bike in. The bike traffic was pretty light.

I did notice a big increase in joggers though. I theorize that there are fewer peds that use the Custis Trail as a commuting route so that there are fewer peds on it around 7:30 to 8:30 am when most bikers use it. But earlier, there may be more peds jogging before they then drive to work in their Prius. Why not just bike to work in the first place?

I like seeing tons of bikes but not tons of peds. It takes too much effort focusing on passing gaps and everything else, it’s as much attention as driving in heavy traffic. I wish there was a bike only path or that they would adopt some highly restrictive rush hour ped rules (like no leashed dogs, no walking two abreast etc.). I would hate walking that having bikes whoosh past my shoulder all the time, I’d be worried about getting hit by a bike if I was walking two abreast there.

@JeffC 16911 wrote:

hope I can beat the rush in the afternoon

you can never beat the rush in the afternoon.

@JeffC 16911 wrote:

I like seeing tons of bikes but not tons of peds. It takes too much effort focusing on passing gaps and everything else, it’s as much attention as driving in heavy traffic.

Riding in with the other 75 riders on the TJROW yesterday was a bit challenging navigating DC streets and narrow bike lanes. It took a lot more attention than I usually put in to riding, and was slower. It was a LOT more fun though. I would be happy to share the trails with those folks every day of the week.

I know this sounds trite, but the worst day on the Custis is still a million times better than the %^&* traffic I deal with on my car commute from McLean to DC. Sure, plowing over a kid is your outlier worst case scenario but everything else is really just a minor annoyance compared to sitting in traffic on suburban feeder streets, wanting to claw your eyes out.

I didn’t think the Custis was that bad today. I was on it around between 7:35 and 7:45 this morning and from 5:35 to 5:45 this evening. Granted, I tend to ride in the road up the Hill from the Marriott, but even so, not bad.
Hains Point, on the other hand, was a mixed bag this evening. There weren’t too many pedestrians or cyclists, but the buses were snarling things up pretty thoroughly in spots.
Still, it was lovely and it most definitely beat being on Metro. I had the pleasure of being on it during the day and noticed how they had tried to make up for the inoperable escalators at Metro Center by pasting cherry blossom cutouts all over the turnstiles. I’m sure that was a great consolation to the folks who were almost thrown down the long escalator that suddenly stopped without warning while they were at the midway point.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to run home yesterday instead of riding, and doubly for the heck of it, I started counting bikes that passed me and whether or not they gave an audible signal. I was running without headphones or music, and it was about 5:30 PM when I hit the trail.

Between the Custis “on-ramp” at Fairfax and the junction of the W&OD and Van Buren Street in Falls Church, I was passed by 27 cyclists, 12 of whom made some kind of audible signal before passing – 44%.

I ran back about 7:00 AM today and in the same stretch, I was passed by 11 cyclists, of whom 3 made some audible signal before passing – 27%.

Obviously, these are just two bits of random data, but I figured I’d share anyway.