Jersey on the Potomac

I have a hard time getting too mad about this one. All the barriers do is force you to stay on the bike trail and not cut thru a parking lot. It seems reasonable that when provided a paved MUP about two feet away, NPS or whoever doesn’t want you to ride thru the parking lot.

I think the right angle turns are a fair way to slow bike traffic thru and area with a lof of people and congestion. I’ve said it before on here, if we are going to advocate for many streets to have a tight turning radius to slow cars down, that we also have to accept them when appropriate for bikes. Every bike route shouldn’t be a bike highway. There are cars, lots of peds, different activities (kayaks drop in here, fishing, etc), and bikes going thru a fairly small area here. Slowing things down a little doesn’t seem out of line to me.

I was having a hard time envisioning what Bob was talking about, since the barriers weren’t there yesterday morning when I rode through. I found out today….That’s really annoying. In the morning that parking lot is empty, so it’d definitely the easiest and safest way to navigate through there. Otherwise I have to negotiate that sharp turn, usually with a runner or two there to complicate things. I think if you ask peds, they’d also say they prefer cyclists ride through the lot rather than on that whole stretch of trail from the end of the GWMP overpass to the start of the troll.

Also, the position of the trail, trees, etc where the trail crosses the roadway makes it VERY hard for drivers to see who’s crossing. I didn’t realize how hard it was until I was driving there a few months back — even looking for peds and cyclists, it was hard to see them.

The roadway is by far the safest path through the area. There’s a barrier down this morning; I imagine it will scoot itself over by the afternoon.

@bobco85 43983 wrote:

If I had my way, I would either: 1) make the trail there wider and make the turns more curvy or 2) have the jersey barriers set up only during peak Roosevelt Island visiting hours and remove them every evening.

Or, place the barriers in such a way as to provide a safe gathering area without blocking through traffic. But sense there’s no public rationale for why the barriers are there, it’s only speculation about whether they’re for pedestrian protection vs spite against cyclists.

@rcannon100 43990 wrote:

According to official statements from NPS, that’s not why they are put there. They were put there because of construction traffic. The problem is that it has a rather significant impact on the safety of cyclists.

As would construction traffic?

Look, I’m not saying I like them. That wasn’t the intent of my original post. And when they aren’t there, I typically ride thru the parking lot, though not if the lot entrance is blocked by people stretching or riding up the other way. But I guess I just think in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me. Maybe I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. To call the danger of the barriers or the right turns “significant” just doesn’t quite add up to my experiences. The barriers are easy to see, and the turns, though tight and narrow, I’ve never seen a wreck, not that have to wait for a wreck to fix something. Again, I know it’s not ideal, and it should be fixed probably, but in the list of things on my commute I’d like to see changed, this isn’t even close to the top of the list.

1. Remove the many broken bottles on the Douglass Bridge and path to JBAB. Like, they’re everywhere.
2. Remove the sand from the base of the Douglas Bridge (courtesy of the sand/gravel place at the northwest end of the bridge)
3. Remove gravel from a continuously growing number of Arlington bike lanes, typically near construction zones (Veitch from Lee to Wilson, Fairfax by GMU campus, Wilson by Earl’s in Courthouse, etc.)
4. Pave over vertical cuts on Calrendon Blvd bike lane from basically Highland to just beyond Barton (puts my in the lane all the way thru Clarendon each morning).