All-ages-and-abilities bikeway map for Pentagon/Crystal Cities

[bikepedantic]

There’s A LOT going on in 22202 right now, and there’s a good but fleeting chance to transform our little corner of Arlington into a world-class city for bicycling by people of all ages and abilities.

All of the development going on offers a chance to get bike facilities installed on streets in a fraction of the time/effort/$$$ that it would take the County to go through the traditional planning/budgeting/design/construction process. However, development moves fast, and we’ve had trouble getting staff and developers to acknowledge the requirements of the Bike Element of the Master Transportation Plan.

So, I put together this map showing:

*Existing protected bike lanes and trails (in black)
*Committed, planned, design, under construction PBLs and trails (in gray)
*Future feasible opportunities (in red). I am populating the notes field for each block with some more details on how I think each is feasible. Also, not everything listed in the Bike MTP is listed in this layer, and not everything in this layer is in the MTP.
*Low stress local streets. Again, some subjectivity applied here, and this is included more for the sake of context.
*Unprotected bikelanes (in yellow), that have little short term chance of graduating to protected (IMO)
*Private developments in the pipeline

Besides showing the tremendous potential to build our area into something really special in a very short amount of time, I hope that it provides a resource for folks to consult when they hear about a new upcoming development (like the second phase of HQ2), they can look at this map and see some possibilities for future bike facilities on/around that property.

Questions/suggestions/edits welcome!

Topic

[zsionakides]

Joyce St under 395 between Army Navy and Columbia Pike doesn’t have a PBL or trail. There’s a wide side path for about half the length, but the rest is beat up sidewalks or riding in very high speed traffic. That part of Joyce should be road dieted with the low traffic volumes and high speeds, but I wouldn’t count on that, particularly if DOD has a say in the matter.

[dbb]

@zsionakides 198664 wrote:

Joyce St under 395 between Army Navy and Columbia Pike doesn’t have a PBL or trail. There’s a wide side path for about half the length, but the rest is beat up sidewalks or riding in very high speed traffic. That part of Joyce should be road dieted with the low traffic volumes and high speeds, but I wouldn’t count on that, particularly if DOD has a say in the matter.

Please let them know. That part of Columbia Pike and Joyce is currently under design. Info is at https://flh.fhwa.dot.gov/projects/va/vastanc-1/ and the comment period is open till 26 Feb. Comment form is at https://flh.fhwa.dot.gov/projects/va/vastanc-1/documents/ANC-DAR-Public-Hearing-Comment-Sheet.pdf

I had four comments, including the intersection of Joyce and Columbia Pike. Feel free to crib my comments. JBMHH is Joint Base Myer and Henderson Hall.

Signal Timing at Columbia Pike and Joyce

Because the cycle path and sidewalk will be on the north side of Columbia Pike, the intersection of Columbia Pike and Joyce will present safety risks for cyclists and pedestrians. Because of the decision to favor traffic from Joyce to westbound CP, the design shows the sole crosswalk across CP on the east side of the intersection. Using that crosswalk will require stopping traffic heading eastbound from Joyce as traffic on CP. A green left turning phase for Joyce simultaneously with a right turning prohibition will be necessary. This will prevent right turns at speed from Joyce which will jeopardize individuals in the crosswalk.

While the plan suggests the newly constructed Nash Street will support traffic in and out of JBMHH, what provisions will be implemented to prevent vehicles to and from the base from using Orme (or another residential street)? Consideration is necessary as it is likely motorists will use any street they see as convenient.

Will there be a staging area just outside the gate to JBMHH on Southgate for taxis, TNC vehicles, and dockless bikes and scooters? Given the limits on base access, designing and constructing such a staging area will reduce the impact on both base access and the surrounding community.

Please confirm the requirement for a continuous run of sidewalk up the Columbia Pike grade. The sidewalk will have about 1200 feet of uninterrupted 6% grade. That seems to be inconsistent with the intent of the ADA and with FHWA goals. Please see https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/civilrights/programs/ada/ada_sect504qa.cfm#q3 For pedestrians not using the parking lot at the Air Force Memorial, this will be an access barrier.

[bikepedantic]

@zsionakides 198664 wrote:

Joyce St under 395 between Army Navy and Columbia Pike doesn’t have a PBL or trail. There’s a wide side path for about half the length, but the rest is beat up sidewalks or riding in very high speed traffic. That part of Joyce should be road dieted with the low traffic volumes and high speeds, but I wouldn’t count on that, particularly if DOD has a say in the matter.

Thanks, i’l doublecheck the Col Pike realignment plans to see if they’re matching the sidepaths on Joyce.

[dbb]

See the attached two drawings. Looks like 10 foot combined sidewalk/path on each side.

Might have to amend my comments to FHWA

[ATTACH]21283[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21281[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21282[/ATTACH]

Note the two left turn lanes from Joyce to Columbia Pike and the slip lane from Columbia Pike onto Joyce

[zsionakides]

@dbb 198671 wrote:

See the attached two drawings. Looks like 10 foot combined sidewalk/path on each side.

Might have to amend my comments to FHWA

[ATTACH]21283[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21281[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21282[/ATTACH]

Note the two left turn lanes from Joyce to Columbia Pike and the slip lane from Columbia Pike onto Joyce

Looks like they kept the 35mph speed limit, which IME is 45-50mph on that road. They really should road diet Joyce just for that.

The side paths are tolerable, though a separate cycle track should really be considered with the new cycle track coming to Army Navy.

[dbb]

That’s weird. One of the drawings (dwg 61) shows 35 mph northbound on Joyce and another (dwg 67) shows 25 mph southbound. Given the rather short run of Joyce, that seems strange. Columbia Pike shows 25 mph.

The comment period is open and operators are standing by. Please let both FHWA and Arlington know your thoughts.

[dbb]

Some additional thoughts. I just sent these to FHWA. Feel free to crib.

Why is there a different speed limit for the two directions on South Joyce? The drawings show the stretch of Joyce heading towards Columbia Pike as having a speed limit of 35 mph and the opposite direction having a speed limit of 25 mph. Please reconsider the suggested speed limits, given Columbia Pike is shown as 25 mph. Having a portion of Joyce at 35 mph will encourage speeding on Columbia Pike.

The side paths on the north side of Columbia Pike have a 8 foot sidewalk and a 10 foot cycletrack. At the intersection of Columbia Pike and Joyce, the 18 feet of side paths (8 and 10 feet) become a single 10 foot path on the east side of Joyce. Because this east side path is likely to pick up the bulk of the bicycle and pedestrian traffic from the north side of Columbia Pike, there is a strong chance the “necking down” of the paths will induce conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians. Please take a look at the accommodations for pedestrians and cyclists along Joyce.

[Kolohe]

First of all, I like the work. Good job and good start.

This may be nitpicky (but I think it’s also how bike infrastructure goes from ‘good’ to ‘blah’ to ‘unacceptable’ between planning to execution to sustainment phases), but I’d just say that not all the black lines are equivalent.

An example of something I would like any policymaker to keep in mind if they’re looking at this map – but also coming into this totally new – is that stretch at Gravely point between the parking lot and the place maybe 100 yards to east where the congestion on nice days finally clears out some. That stretch imo, is not good for ‘all ages & abilities biking’ simply because of widely varying speeds on the trail (from too fast to stopped completely) of both bicyclists and those on foot.

There’s long been talk/plans of putting in a double path / bypass thru this, but it’s definitely something I would want a neophyte ‘action’ person to be aware of the problem (as well as issues elsewhere on the map) and not just see ‘ok already existing trail, nothing is needed here’

But of course, that could very well be beyond the scope of what you’re trying to achieve here. (i.e. interacting with developer and county personnel, so NPS peeps might as well be on their own planet)

[SpaceJockey]

@dbb 198704 wrote:

Some additional thoughts. I just sent these to FHWA. Feel free to crib.

Why is there a different speed limit for the two directions on South Joyce? The drawings show the stretch of Joyce heading towards Columbia Pike as having a speed limit of 35 mph and the opposite direction having a speed limit of 25 mph. Please reconsider the suggested speed limits, given Columbia Pike is shown as 25 mph. Having a portion of Joyce at 35 mph will encourage speeding on Columbia Pike.

The side paths on the north side of Columbia Pike have a 8 foot sidewalk and a 10 foot cycletrack. At the intersection of Columbia Pike and Joyce, the 18 feet of side paths (8 and 10 feet) become a single 10 foot path on the east side of Joyce. Because this east side path is likely to pick up the bulk of the bicycle and pedestrian traffic from the north side of Columbia Pike, there is a strong chance the “necking down” of the paths will induce conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians. Please take a look at the accommodations for pedestrians and cyclists along Joyce.

Makes perfect sense if there is a photo-ticketing machine on the 25MPH side. In recent news AAA pulled support for DC traffic enforcement, which it deemed predatory for income generation and not in the interest of public safety.

[bikepedantic]

@Kolohe 198758 wrote:

This may be nitpicky (but I think it’s also how bike infrastructure goes from ‘good’ to ‘blah’ to ‘unacceptable’ between planning to execution to sustainment phases), but I’d just say that not all the black lines are equivalent.

An example of something I would like any policymaker to keep in mind if they’re looking at this map – but also coming into this totally new – is that stretch at Gravely point between the parking lot and the place maybe 100 yards to east where the congestion on nice days finally clears out some. That stretch imo, is not good for ‘all ages & abilities biking’ simply because of widely varying speeds on the trail (from too fast to stopped completely) of both bicyclists and those on foot.

Thanks! Great comment, not nitpicky at all. The primary thing I was trying to capture with the map was ‘level of traffic stress,’ or the degree to which people feel at risk of getting hit by a car. The MVT scores well in that regard, but to your point, isn’t somewhere i’d feel great about letting my kid ride, because the ‘trail level of service’ (Trail LOS) is so low (it’s too narrow to handle its high multimodal demand).

You’re right, my primary target in this exercise is developers and county staff and residents who are interested in pushing progress with the on-street program. But at some point, I probably will try to dig up some data to measure the Trail LOS and put that in there (existing MVT fails, we all know, and i’d love to see that bypass happen)

[Author]

Replies