The 2017 Comfort Map Is Out!

Are these going to be mass mailed again? I think that’s how I got my last one.

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@TwoWheelsDC 147801 wrote:

One critique I have with this map is that it doesn’t really focus on where people might be riding to once they move off the map*. Obviously, this is meant to be an Arlington map, but if you’re riding on Wilson or Rt. 50, say, and you cross into Fairfax (to go to a destination like Seven Corners), the road quickly goes from “less comfortable” to “basically horrifying.” Also, there are several places that show decent bike infrastructure or comfortable routes along Arlington’s border, suggesting there is a destination to get to, but those routes lead to nothing (Chesterbrook is a good example). So without better regional context, it would be difficult for a lot of people to use this to plan a route to destinations outside the county, or from outside the county in.

TL;DR: To make this a more effective planning map, I think it would be better to at least give the user some indication of what Arlington’s bike routes connect to in surrounding jurisdictions.

*The separate bike map sort of does this, so I think it would be nice to give some idea of how the comfort zones change once the border is crossed.

Eh, that is a general issue – do you do estimate comfort by short segment, or the entire A to B route?

For example. When I used to live in Annandale, I wanted to ride along LRT towards Alexandria. There are a few segments along LRT that are low stress – easy to ride service lanes or frontage roads, for example. Some segments higher stress – only choice is a problematic MUP, or a narrow sidewalk. Then there were at least a couple of spots where the only option was to take the general travel lane on a road with a posted speed limit of 45MPH.

To get all the way to Landmark on LRT was definitely high stress. However someone who just needed to go a short way along LRT, that happened to only include the low stress segments, could have had a low stress ride.

Since there are so many potential trip endpoints, I don’t think a map like this can tell you how stressful the overall ride is going to be. If you can’t figure it out yourself, you need some kind of app, or advice from others. I think it best a comfort map tell me the comfort level of a particular segment.

Now of course it will be more useful when neighboring jurisdictions have similar maps. ISTR hearing about Alexandria working on one?

@lordofthemark 147804 wrote:

Eh, that is a general issue – do you do estimate comfort by short segment, or the entire A to B route?

For example. When I used to live in Annandale, I wanted to ride along LRT towards Alexandria. There are a few segments along LRT that are low stress – easy to ride service lanes or frontage roads, for example. Some segments higher stress – only choice is a problematic MUP, or a narrow sidewalk. Then there were at least a couple of spots where the only option was to take the general travel lane on a road with a posted speed limit of 45MPH.

To get all the way to Landmark on LRT was definitely high stress. However someone who just needed to go a short way along LRT, that happened to only include the low stress segments, could have had a low stress ride.

Since there are so many potential trip endpoints, I don’t think a map like this can tell you how stressful the overall ride is going to be. If you can’t figure it out yourself, you need some kind of app, or advice from others. I think it best a comfort map tell me the comfort level of a particular segment.

Now of course it will be more useful when neighboring jurisdictions have similar maps. ISTR hearing about Alexandria working on one?

What I mean is, instead of a cutoff right at county lines, give some indication of how comfortable a given segment is as you’re leaving the country. Going back to Wilson, I think having the orange line transition to grey as you hit the border would give the user a sense that the comfort level of that road changes once you get outside the county. If you didn’t know better, you might assume that a route has the same comfort level in Fairfax (or Alexandria) that it does in Arlington, but that isn’t always the case.

I’d downgrade the Roosevelt Bridge crossing. It’s the scariest bike route in the area, even though it’s separated from car traffic. The path is very narrow and the barriers are very low, both to the cars on one side and the 40′ plunge to the water on the other.