Construction debris in Greenbelt bike lanes

@ronwalf 27117 wrote:

Seeing the lines they’ve laid down, I have little confidence this circle will be a boon to cyclists. It seems to keep all of the downsides of the old configuration, and adds in two more traffic merges for cyclists.

Yeah, a car tried to squeeze me off the roundabout into the path of a bus that was in the right turn slip lane coming out of the station this morning.

But I have to say, it is slowing cars down a little. Unfortunately, cars still think they have the right of way going straight through (I actually think through traffic is supposed to yield to traffic in the circle).

But on balance, I’m not sure if it’s going to be worse for cyclists, but it certainly doesn’t seem like a big improvement. It’ll still be a scary intersection for all but the most alert cyclist — message to Grandma and the kids: “Don’t even think about cycling to the Metro.”

If it does eventually succeed at slowing the through cars down, that should be better for pedestrians. And it should be better for drivers who park at Metro — it shouldn’t back up as much for rush hour drivers coming out of the station.

@Bicyclebug 27704 wrote:

Have you seen the new concrete curb they put in at the circle? It looks like they removed the bike lane and made the sidewalk double wide but only until the 495 overpass where things go back to normal. I was pretty miffed about this and tried to get a better look on my way home today. They haven’t laid down the sidewalk concrete yet so I’m holding out hope that this may be a short segment of separated bike lane (similar to that by REI). As long as there is an access point for cyclists coming from the metro than this may be ok (once drivers figure out they need to yield to those already in the circle (!!!!), of course).

There was supposed to be some sort of ramped bike lane/sidewalk think on the east side I think. I’m going to the Greenbelt advisory planning board meeting tonight and I’ll ask again. -Jeff

They recently installed a curb cuts on the northbound sidewalk so that slower cyclists could poach the sidewalk if they want. They’re actually referring to this as a bike sidepath, although it looks to be an ordinary sidewalk to me. Maybe they’re planning some markings.

The curb cuts need to be made doublewide, or else entering or exiting this sidepath (sidewalk, whatever) has to take too severe an angle, which makes it more dangerous.

We also need a curb cut right at the roundabout, so that slower cyclists exiting the Metro could just go straight across and enter the sidepath (sidewalk, whatever) directly from the circle and get out of traffic.

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