North Arlington On Street Route — Need Advice

I normally do not ride that during rush hour. Both the left off of Fairfax or Washington Blvd onto Wilson is not nice at that time of day. It isn’t particularly fluffy any other time of day either… but I ride it anyways.

I might detour to the North down Kirkwood and cut up through there to get back on Wilson.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1703908

For that matter you could jump over to Key and take it down into town depending on where you need to go. Key is quite nice to ride on.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1703909

There’s actually a little path that goes through the apartment buildings at intersection of Key and Rhodes that can keep you on Key all the way down into Rosslyn. I use that now and then. You just have to be careful of kids and pedestrians.

Does that help? Does it get you where you need to go?

Rock on!

Pete

There is a little hill as you approch the interception, very little but enought to slow me down enough so I don’t like being in a car lane. Once I get to the top off the hill, I will either get over to the left turn lane if possible and go through the last piece of Fairfax/parking lot for the Church and coffee shop, or use the cross walks to get over there. I do not like that intersection of 10th and Wilson.

I’d definitely recommend taking the slight left into the church parking lot, then following the bike lane onto the sidewalk at Northside, and lastly using the crosswalks to get into position for the bike lane.

I asked this same question on another site a while ago, so it may also help: http://www.arlnow.com/forums/misc/biking-gauntlet-from-fairfax-drive-to-clarendon-blvd/

FWIW, that message thread led me to access this site in the first place and later (after a few months of lurking) become a member. Oh, the memories [tear]!

P.S. – Someone mentioned this in the “green bike lane” thread, but I imagine this would be a lot nicer if they did the intersection redesign with the Kirkwood intersection in mind. Here’s the link: http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/dot/page84699.aspx

Rather than taking the path between Key and Key, going eastbound, I recommend turning left at Vietch, straight across Lee onto 21st(?) and straight across Lee again on Scott, which becomes Key again.

But then again, I am “crazy” and just go down Clarendon.

@Brendan von Buckingham 31196 wrote:

By Starbucks they grinded off the old bike lane markings. They’ve shifted all lane markings to the left in order to turn the bike lane into a buffered bike lane. They’ve finished the buffered markings between Starbucks and Courthouse.

Don’t ya just love that all the crappy parts of the pavement are now right in the middle of the bike lane? I do agree about taking the car lane frequently.

Ugh, yesterday was my first taste of the side effect of the widened, buffered bike lane on this section of Wilson: driver lunacy. No matter how wide and buffered they make the bike lane it will still get blocked by buses, FedEx trucks, right turners, cows, double-parkers and you name it. Especially right at Courthouse where it seems like half the cars split across the green lane to get to the municipal parking. That’s where I move over and take the next lane, otherwise I have nowhere else to go.

So yesterday, even though traffic was crawling at 10 mph and I wasn’t splitting lanes, this lunatic woman in a Saab pulls along side of me in the left lane and starts shrieking at me to get in the bike lane and that I was “ruining it for the rest of us.” We stopped next to each other at the light at Courthouse Road. She was a machine gun of hysterical curse words that would give a sailor blush. She was so worked up she was literally bouncing up and down in her seat. There was no way she was ever going to hear anything I could possibly ask or tell her, so I just showed her a picture of my son, which I keep on my lanyard. Her response was a new one I hadn’t heard before: “You can’t make me feel bad if I kill you.” I’ve been around enough to know that’s true for the the most dangerous drivers out there, they feel entitled to no responsibility in an accident. But people usually aren’t so evil as to actually say it out loud. She sure showed me though: she peeled out at the green and raced through the merging traffic at the construction zone on Rhodes Hill at 45 mph.

The truth is, the “nicer” they make a bike lane, the more we’re expected to stay in it.

All death threats should be reported to the police. If no response from the police, write to a cycling-friendly member of the County Board.

The new buffered bike lanes with the door zone hashmarks are cool on paper but do nothing really. Sharrows would be much better to help drivers get the picture. Between the old Harry’s and the Starbucks I take the lane (I was one of the many accidents at the Starbucks – November 2009), and again from Fire Works to Summers. If anyone has a problem they can shove it.

Her response was a new one I hadn’t heard before: “You can’t make me feel bad if I kill you.”

Pull out your camera and take a picture of someone who makes a death threat.