MVT in the vicinity of DCA

@creadinger 164208 wrote:

Has this come up yet, or has anyone noticed that there seems to be a lot of broken glass in certain parts of the trail recently?
…
I just hope this isn’t a thing now.

Sadly, it is a thing. Broken glass on the MVT has been reported for the past 2 months with efforts spent entirely on clean-up but no enforcement.
July 2017 Road & Trail Conditions: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?12095-July-2017-Road-amp-Trail-Conditions/page5
August 2017 Road & Trail Conditions: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?12179-August-2017-Road-amp-Trail-Conditions

@Rootchopper 164217 wrote:

This has been going on for the last couple of months. Bobco85 is right. The glass is nearly always on one of the trail bridges or underpasses where glass can be smashed against a wall. I don’t know if someone is throwing the bottles out of a car. Hitting the bridges on the fly would be hard to do. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but I saw two bicyclists fixing flats this morning.

Shredded paper, french fry and ketchup packaging, piles of cigarette butts, and, lately, beer bottles. I’ve seen these things for many years on the trail between the old “A” terminal and Gravelly Point. In the 90s, the mess regularly extended as far north as the 14th St. Bridge ramp. I think it’s all the same hard luck character. I don’t think it comes from cars. It is someone walking the trail late night or early morning.

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@creadinger 164260 wrote:

whoever the hell has jurisdiction

That would be the George Washington Memorial Parkway unit of the National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/gwmp/learn/management/staffandoffices.htm

I suggest you contact them. A lot.

I call them so much I am probably known as “that guy” around the office. “You sound like that guy that calls every time there is single piece of glass on the bike path?”

There was glass on two of the bridges and two underpasses this morning. Komorebi and I stopped to talk to an NPS employee at Gravelly Point who said that he’d call it in to Tony. He also told us that a cyclist ended up with a broken collarbone this week when the cyclist went off the trail to pass people in the grass and ended up hitting a hidden hole in the grass. I seem to recall someone else on the forum posting about a similar situation a while back.

@Judd 164266 wrote:

There was glass on two of the bridges and two underpasses this morning. Komorebi and I stopped to talk to an NPS employee at Gravelly Point who said that he’d call it in to Tony. He also told us that a cyclist ended up with a broken collarbone this week when the cyclist went off the trail to pass people in the grass and ended up hitting a hidden hole in the grass. I seem to recall someone else on the forum posting about a similar situation a while back.

Talking to the NPS guys emptying trash is how I have gotten the best information.

Glass everywhere this morning.

Call NPS frequently.

@gibby 164297 wrote:

It’s clearly not an easy situation unless you can stake out a dozen cops…

what, like when NPP decide to enforce the stop signs at HP?

@Bilsko 164312 wrote:

I’ve flatted twice because of the glass along the bridge (back in May and June!).

I’ve been doing a thorough check of my tires ever day or two since this started, and I hope other MVT riders are doing the same. Last night I pulled 6 shards of glass out of my back tire (along with a piece of metal…), and 2 from the front. It’s a new record–usually it’s only 1-2 little pieces each day or two. I have some pretty major gouges too in the back which all appeared after April, which glass and sharp stones have been getting re-embedded into. I’m a little ticked since it looks like I’ll have to change out my rear tire well before the tread wears down due to the gouges.