Automated Counters – Alexandria

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  • November 2, 2015 at 9:52 pm #1040488
    Terpfan
    Participant

    Is the one on MVT just south of the sailing marina before the trail splits toward Abingdon or around power plant? I can’t even recall if I’ve seen it. I’ll look tonight en route home if I remember. But good to see and I think it will help the local jurisdiction explain the frequent use of the trail/surrounding roads/paths.

    November 2, 2015 at 10:12 pm #1040490
    Oldtowner
    Participant

    It’s just north of the wooden bridge on the curve.

    November 3, 2015 at 1:28 pm #1040503
    Fairlington124
    Participant

    So the City fails to put any counters on the West End, save for one on Holmes Run Trail.

    Thus there are no statistics on ped and bike activity in the West End.

    Thus they have a ready-made excuse for the continued neglect of the West End.

    Brilliant.

    How about they put a counter on the King Street/395 bridge, where people still use that sidewalk despite its horrific condition and its lack of proper crosswalks on either end of the bridge. Or maybe at King+28th where I got hit by an illegal right-on-red. Or King-Quaker-Braddock where people make illegal right-on-red on a daily basis.

    November 3, 2015 at 2:36 pm #1040505
    Terpfan
    Participant

    @Oldtowner 127223 wrote:

    It’s just north of the wooden bridge on the curve.

    Oh, is it that wooden post? I think I saw it this morning. It has been there a little while. I never even thought about what it was.

    November 3, 2015 at 3:17 pm #1040511
    lordofthemark
    Participant

    @Fairlington124 127237 wrote:

    So the City fails to put any counters on the West End, save for one on Holmes Run Trail.

    Thus there are no statistics on ped and bike activity in the West End.

    Thus they have a ready-made excuse for the continued neglect of the West End.

    Brilliant.

    How about they put a counter on the King Street/395 bridge, where people still use that sidewalk despite its horrific condition and its lack of proper crosswalks on either end of the bridge. Or maybe at King+28th where I got hit by an illegal right-on-red. Or King-Quaker-Braddock where people make illegal right-on-red on a daily basis.

    We will still have manual counts twice a year, and presumably with more automated counters we can deploy our volunteer resources better.

    On the West side of town generally – while I am glad we now have bike lanes on Wheeler and on Hampton, I agree that the big items have yet to be done.

    I note that the draft bike ped master plan identifies King from Quaker to 28th as a priority project for pedestrian improvement (meaning continuous sidewalks, at a minimum, I think) King from Janneys to Menokin is a priority corridor biking improvement.

    How fast and how well those get implemented is not clear of course. I voted today for those whom I think are most likely to advance multimodalism, and hence such projects, in the City.

    I do not know the status of the King/Beauregard project – it is apparently still on the T&ES website as starting in calendar year 2015, but I see no signs of that, and I have not been to a BPAC meeting in a while. Do you have other info?

    November 3, 2015 at 3:35 pm #1040516
    bobco85
    Participant

    @Fairlington124 127237 wrote:

    So the City fails to put any counters on the West End, save for one on Holmes Run Trail.

    Thus there are no statistics on ped and bike activity in the West End.

    Thus they have a ready-made excuse for the continued neglect of the West End.

    Brilliant.

    How about they put a counter on the King Street/395 bridge, where people still use that sidewalk despite its horrific condition and its lack of proper crosswalks on either end of the bridge. Or maybe at King+28th where I got hit by an illegal right-on-red. Or King-Quaker-Braddock where people make illegal right-on-red on a daily basis.

    I think one of the difficulties of placing the ped/bike counters is that they need to be on infrastructure where vehicles are not allowed (bike lanes and off-street sidewalks/path). Another is the fact that there aren’t many bike lanes/off-street paths in a large portion of Alexandria, even if there are sharrows.

    That said, this at least will bring the number of counters to 9 which is a great improvement. Having the extra data coming in will be very useful, especially if the coordination with BikeArlington for the shared map data works out.

    I have some suggestions for locations of future counters that would help fill in some of these gaps:

    • Holmes Run Trail near Chambliss/Dora Kelley Nature Park (it would at least count me every day :) )
    • King St bike lane between Upland and Walnut
    • Old Dominion Blvd bike lane between Tennessee Ave/Glebe Rd
    • Jamieson Ave bike lane in Carlyle
    • Wilkes St tunnel in Old Town
    • Pickett St bike lane between Pegram St and Seminary Rd
    • Seminary Rd north sidewalk just east of bridge over I-395

    Until then, I’m excited to see the results we can get.

    November 3, 2015 at 3:41 pm #1040518
    Fairlington124
    Participant

    @lordofthemark 127246 wrote:

    I do not know the status of the King/Beauregard project – it is apparently still on the T&ES website as starting in calendar year 2015, but I see no signs of that, and I have not been to a BPAC meeting in a while. Do you have other info?

    Deleted from the LocalMotion webpage (Hillary Poole’s program), but remains on the TES page. The website said beginning in the Fall of this year, but I haven’t seen a gram of dirt overturned yet. Going by the project description, I assume that Phase I will be the installation of the medians, and that Phase II will be the widened sidepaths (since “Utility Relocation” falls between Phase I and Phase II).

    On a related note, a public notice is on the old hospital site at 4600 King, where the new development with Harris Teeter may go. Many people will walk there, from Park Center, Fairlington, etc. City better plan ahead for this.

    November 3, 2015 at 3:56 pm #1040519
    lordofthemark
    Participant

    @Fairlington124 127253 wrote:

    Deleted from the LocalMotion webpage (Hillary Poole’s program), but remains on the TES page. The website said beginning in the Fall of this year, but I haven’t seen a gram of dirt overturned yet. Going by the project description, I assume that Phase I will be the installation of the medians, and that Phase II will be the widened sidepaths (since “Utility Relocation” falls between Phase I and Phase II).

    On a related note, a public notice is on the old hospital site at 4600 King, where the new development with Harris Teeter may go. Many people will walk there, from Park Center, Fairlington, etc. City better plan ahead for this.

    Given that it is just now going to the planning commission (?) I am not expecting construction to happen before, what, summer at the earliest? Completion no earlier than late 2017? That is time for the intersection project to be done if they start soon. Of course if they build before construction on Alexandria Gateway gets underway, I suppose they can use the lot for storage for the intersection project, which should make things easier.

    November 3, 2015 at 4:49 pm #1040523
    CaseyKane50
    Participant

    @Fairlington124 127253 wrote:

    Deleted from the LocalMotion webpage (Hillary Poole’s program), but remains on the TES page. The website said beginning in the Fall of this year, but I haven’t seen a gram of dirt overturned yet. Going by the project description, I assume that Phase I will be the installation of the medians, and that Phase II will be the widened sidepaths (since “Utility Relocation” falls between Phase I and Phase II).

    On a related note, a public notice is on the old hospital site at 4600 King, where the new development with Harris Teeter may go. Many people will walk there, from Park Center, Fairlington, etc. City better plan ahead for this.

    Plans to improve the King and Beauregard intersection have been in the works since at least 2006.

    Last year at a city meeting, I asked about the status of this project. I was told that it was held up due to delays in the development of the hospital site. As I recall, the developer was going to be providing funding/work for the intersection improvements.

    From a non-city web site phase 1

    Construction work includes grading, curb and gutter installation and construction of retaining walls.

    Bids were due back to city on October 21. I wouldn’t expect construction to start anytime soon.

    November 3, 2015 at 5:45 pm #1040528
    lordofthemark
    Participant

    @CaseyKane50 127259 wrote:

    Bids were due back to city on October 21. I wouldn’t expect construction to start anytime soon.

    Actually this sounds like good news to me. I was not really expecting shovels in the ground in the next two months, and this at least shows the project is moving forward.

    November 24, 2015 at 10:40 pm #1041792
    CaseyKane50
    Participant

    Four of the new bike counters.

    Holmes Run Trail
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10133[/ATTACH]

    Eisenhower Avenue Trail
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10134[/ATTACH]

    Four Mile Run Trail (Alexandria side)
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10135[/ATTACH]

    Potomac Yard Trail
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10136[/ATTACH]

    December 14, 2015 at 2:45 am #1042892
    CaseyKane50
    Participant

    The remaining counters have been installed.

    Mount Vernon Trail (just south of Four Mile Run)
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10248[/ATTACH]

    Mount Vernon Trail (south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge)
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10249[/ATTACH]

    Potomac Yard Trail (north of Braddock Road)
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]10250[/ATTACH]

    I learned last week that both Alexandria and Washington will be sharing their data on the Bike Arlington bike counter dashboard

    April 8, 2016 at 4:22 pm #1050742
    bobco85
    Participant

    Now that the data from the bike counters is up and running on the BikeArlington site, I finished the video of my ride around Alexandria to visit each counter. I had done the ride in January but waited to create the video until the data was online.

    [video=youtube_share;5rqh3ScKdrc]https://youtu.be/5rqh3ScKdrc[/video]

    Note: I chose to leave in the idiot rolling through the stop sign and crosswalk at 1:29 because it was one of those “Really?” moments.

    Also, I noticed that the bike counter on the Potomac Yard Trail near the Braddock Road Metro station is not listed on the dashboard. Is that counter malfunctioning?

    April 8, 2016 at 4:32 pm #1050745
    Tim Kelley
    Participant

    @bobco85 138175 wrote:

    Note: I chose to leave in the idiot rolling through the stop sign and crosswalk at 1:29 because it was one of those “Really?” moments.

    Have you ever driven out of there in a vehicle? The sight lines are terrible.

    I used to get annoyed with people pulling out into the crosswalks, but it really is just a bad design. I’m mean I still do get annoyed, but I used to also.

    April 8, 2016 at 4:52 pm #1050747
    mstone
    Participant

    @Tim Kelley 138178 wrote:

    Have you ever driven out of there in a vehicle? The sight lines are terrible.

    I used to get annoyed with people pulling out into the crosswalks, but it really is just a bad design. I’m mean I still do get annoyed, but I used to also.

    I drive a lot. A very long time ago they taught me in driving school that:
    1) you stop at the stop line (not in the crosswalk)
    2) after determining that there’s nobody crossing in the crosswalk you should move up if you can’t see well enough to tell whether you can complete the turn
    3) at no time should you be moving past the stop sign and the crosswalk without actually stopping
    4) again, the crosswalk is not the stop line
    5) this isn’t hard

    I don’t see this as bad design, I see it as a person who habitually rolls right over the crosswalk while looking toward the left, and never even considers stopping prior to the crosswalk. Not bad design, just too lazy/important to risk losing a second or two.

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