Proposed stations in Westover Village

I think it is awesome that we’re getting cabi in Westover!

Maybe the owners of that f&?king boat by Westover Park will finally move that POS. If you’re going to store your unused recreational vehicles on a public street, at least park it front of your own house….

Anyway, couldn’t make the meeting on such short notice, but we did mention to our civic association member neighbor that we absolutely want CaBi in the neighborhood. In the future, I think Lacey Woods park would be a good infill location, as well as VHC.

@TwoWheelsDC 125979 wrote:

Maybe the owners of that f&?king boat by Westover Park will finally move that POS. If you’re going to store your unused recreational vehicles on a public street, at least park it front of your own house….

Unfortunately this is due to a quirk in the parking regulations. Parking in front of county-owned facilities like parks is unrestricted. That’s why you find cabs, limos, and other commercial vehicles parked there. Unless the regs are changed, you’re likely stuck with that POS.

@Steve O 126375 wrote:

AND…be ready to restock it. A lot of the people who catch the #2 bus to Ballston or EFC in the morning are going to figure out that it’s quicker to grab a bike, and the dock will be empty by 8:30 am.

VDOT is gonna have to do something to make Washington more suitable though. The hills are already a deterrent heading either direction, but the road westbound could be pretty intimidating to novices. I ride it every day and there are spots that make me a bit uncomfortable (specifically, the hill going up from McKinley, when parked cars force you into the lane). Signage to the Westover Connector trail would help too, and maybe bike share in the area would spur the county to repave that thing.

@Steve O 126375 wrote:

AND…be ready to restock it. A lot of the people who catch the #2 bus to Ballston or EFC in the morning are going to figure out that it’s quicker to grab a bike, and the dock will be empty by 8:30 am.

Capital Bikeshare is still struggling with that issue in DC, especially in the Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan/Shaw areaa. Rebalancing might be more difficult in Westover because it’s far away from the center of the bike network, even when just looking at the Arlington stations. Motivate (the operator of CaBi) set up bike corrals in DC on weekday mornings in the summer/fall, one near Franklin Square and one at Foggy Bottom, to handle the demand for dock spaces.

But they haven’t figured out what to do about all the stations emptying out in Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan/Shaw on weekday mornings. It’s tougher to get bikes out there than to set up a downtown bike corral. At the bike corrals, they remove bikes as the station fills up. They park the bikes off to the side of the station, in a taped off area. That gives them time to have rebalancing vans show up whenever they can. But when they are trying to bring bikes to empty stations, they will need to deal with rush hour traffic.

Unfortunately, I think you can expect a similar situation at the Westover stations on weekday mornings. They may also fill up quickly on weekday evenings.

There are still a limited number of rebalancing vans. I’ve read complaints about the Pentagon Row and Pentagon City Metro bike stations. The PR station fills up early on weekday evenings while the PC Metro station empties out. I don’t use those stations during rush hour that often but I do find the PR station to be full on some weekday evenings.

Maybe Motivate will continue to get more vans. But I would still be prepared for rebalancing issues in locations where there is a clear direction of travel during rush hour. (Some stations tend to get rebalanced by users, because rush hour commuters aren’t the primary users. But it doesn’t seem that will be the case for the Westover stations, if Steve O is correct.)