Arlington Plans to Remove Bike Lane on Crystal Drive

[chris_s]

Proposed cross section from the Sector Plan:

Food for thought:

1) Drop to a 7′ parking lane, 10′ travel lanes, 10′ turning lane, 11′ transit lane and BAM there’s 5′ for a Northbound bike lane.

2) If Crystal Drive can do without that curb lane during both rush hours, why does it need it back the rest of the time? Why not 24hr bus/bike lanes? Then at least cyclists only have to mix with buses and not full-on car traffic.

[mstone]

@chris_s 124269 wrote:

2) If Crystal Drive can do without that curb lane during both rush hours, why does it need it back the rest of the time? Why not 24hr bus/bike lanes? Then at least cyclists only have to mix with buses and not full-on car traffic.

because cars

[TwoWheelsDC]

If 7th St. in DC is any indication, “transit lane” actually means “cabs and Maryland drivers lane.”

[bobco85]

That transit lane should be a bus/bike only lane 24/7. Also, they can paint it (red, perhaps?) to signify that it is not a lane of travel for drivers.

[PotomacCyclist]

I rarely ride there midday but traffic isn’t that bad in the evenings. As of now, I would see this as only a minor issue. But perhaps others have different perspectives.

[LeprosyStudyGroup]

@chris_s 124269 wrote:

Proposed cross section from the Sector Plan:

Food for thought:

1) Drop to a 7′ parking lane, 10′ travel lanes, 10′ turning lane, 11′ transit lane and BAM there’s 5′ for a Northbound bike lane.

2) If Crystal Drive can do without that curb lane during both rush hours, why does it need it back the rest of the time? Why not 24hr bus/bike lanes? Then at least cyclists only have to mix with buses and not full-on car traffic.

When I first saw this graphic I thought it was just a bunch of people dropped down into the bottom of an earthen pit ala NES era raiders of the lost arc and I thought…yeah that seems about right.

[consularrider]

@LeprosyStudyGroup 124309 wrote:

When I first saw this graphic I thought it was just a bunch of people dropped down into the bottom of an earthen pit ala NES era raiders of the lost arc and I thought…yeah that seems about right.

So, kind of like Arlington’s version of the “Big Dig”?

So, on the general topic, I never found the bike lanes on Crystal Drive to be particularly useful and am generally “taking the lane” through that area or riding the service road back way from the Crystal City connector at the Water Park to 26th St.

[bikepedantic]

@consularrider 124314 wrote:

So, on the general topic, I never found the bike lanes on Crystal Drive to be particularly useful and am generally “taking the lane” through that area or riding the service road back way from the Crystal City connector at the Water Park to 26th St.

They aren’t great lanes. But they’re what we have, and the only facility my wife will use. None of the other bike solutions in the area appear anywhere close to being installed, and none of them connect to the Crystal City Connector/MVT.

But more importantly, DES is removing an existing bikelane, and not to make way for something better. That’s a bad precedent in itself, normally seen only under the leadership of the Rob Fords of the world. It’s a bikelane that leads directly to one of the busiest trails in the region. But also, they’re doing it quietly, without considering impacts at all, examining alternatives, or providing any immediate mitigations. Take a look at the slides describing the proposed restriping: https://projects.arlingtonva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2015/09/DES-Crystal_Drive_Proposed_Restriping_and_Repaving_Plan_Sept_2015.pdf

Even if you agree that biking in a part-time bus lane is an acceptable substitute (i definitely don’t, but did anyone ask?), you can’t look at this action and feel great about your preferred neighborhood bike facility. Unlike the sophisticated analysis that went into turning a vehicle lane into the bus lane, there was no apparent consideration given to the existing bike lane. It’s just going away. Not even to make space for the bus lane, it is so all the other existing lanes can be widened.

Moral of the story: If a study will cover a street with a bikelane, you can’t assume like i did that your existing bikelane will be granted the same bias toward the status-quo as other modes.

[lordofthemark]

Wait the the 23 foot sidewalk includes space for trees, and sidewalk cafes, right? It isn’t really a 23 foot side walk. Because if it were I am sure that less confident cyclists will take it. In fact, I am guessing that even with the trees and cafes, a bunch of people on bikes will end up taking it.

I mean unless Crystal City recovers and grows to the point where a wide sidewalk is absolutely filled with pedestrians, a la Manhattan. But I’ve already spent two days praying for messiah to come.

[dasgeh]

@lordofthemark 124321 wrote:

Wait the the 23 foot sidewalk includes space for trees, and sidewalk cafes, right? It isn’t really a 23 foot side walk. Because if it were I am sure that less confident cyclists will take it. In fact, I am guessing that even with the trees and cafes, a bunch of people on bikes will end up taking it.

I mean unless Crystal City recovers and grows to the point where a wide sidewalk is absolutely filled with pedestrians, a la Manhattan. But I’ve already spent two days praying for messiah to come.

The problem is that less confident cyclists can, do and will take the sidewalk. BUT we get lots of complaints about that and there’s a movement to ban bikes on the sidewalks of Crystal City. I’ll reach out to the PAC, because they should be aware that if this happens, there will be more cyclist-pedestrian conflict, not less.

But with these huge sidewalks, there should be a better solution than this.

[chris_s]

@lordofthemark 124321 wrote:

It isn’t really a 23 foot side walk.

Because that’s from the Sector plan, that sidewalk condition is the “ultimate build-out condition” and doesn’t happen until basically every single building Crystal Drive has redeveloped. So in some spots right now it may be that wide, but in many spots it is way, way narrower. The curb-to-curb is mostly already set though, is my understanding.

[bikepedantic]

@lordofthemark 124321 wrote:

Wait the the 23 foot sidewalk includes space for trees, and sidewalk cafes, right? It isn’t really a 23 foot side walk. Because if it were I am sure that less confident cyclists will take it. In fact, I am guessing that even with the trees and cafes, a bunch of people on bikes will end up taking it.

I mean unless Crystal City recovers and grows to the point where a wide sidewalk is absolutely filled with pedestrians, a la Manhattan. But I’ve already spent two days praying for messiah to come.

There are no 23 foot sidewalks now, i believe that’s their plannery aspirational view of some future streetscape. This 6-8′ paver sidewalk is typical today: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8577304,-77.0491279,3a,75y,9.16h,74.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRLLAm1iml5kTXdQYGRqfyg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[dasgeh]

Is the turn lane necessary? What are the utilization rates for the parking garages in the area?

[bobco85]

Out of curiosity, I checked out the Bicycle & Pedestrian Counter data on the Bike Arlington site: http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/biking-in-arlington/counting-bikes-to-plan-for-bikes/counter-dashboard/

Here is what I found for the past full year (9/14/2014 at midnight through 9/13/2015 at 11:59 pm) for bicycles only:

[TABLE=”class: grid, width: 800, align: left”]
[TR]
[TD]Counter Location Category[/TD]
[TD]Annual count[/TD]
[TD]Annual daily avg[/TD]
[TD]Weekend count[/TD]
[TD]Weekend daily avg[/TD]
[TD]Weekday count[/TD]
[TD]Weekday avg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Crystal NB Bike Lane at 18th (being removed)[/TD]
[TD]16540[/TD]
[TD]45.3[/TD]
[TD]3915[/TD]
[TD]37.3[/TD]
[TD]12625[/TD]
[TD]48.6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Crystal SB Bike Lane near 23rd (being kept)[/TD]
[TD]25402[/TD]
[TD]69.6[/TD]
[TD]6283[/TD]
[TD]59.8[/TD]
[TD]19119[/TD]
[TD]73.5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Crystal City Connector[/TD]
[TD]183762[/TD]
[TD]503.5[/TD]
[TD]51018[/TD]
[TD]485.9[/TD]
[TD]132744[/TD]
[TD]510.6[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

If I am reading the data correctly, it appears that commuters would be more greatly affected by the proposed changes as the counts are higher during the work week.

[DrP]

@dasgeh 124327 wrote:

Is the turn lane necessary? What are the utilization rates for the parking garages in the area?

The road should have been turned into one lane in each direction and a turn lane a while ago. The major backups are people turning left (or double parked in front of the FedEx place or some of the restaurants). Since they started the transit lane and blocked off that travel lane, there have been big (for the road) backups in the evenings northbound as folks try to turn left at 18th and others want to go straight.

I think making the transitway bikes and transit buses ONLY 24/7 is the way to go, if they won’t put in a separate bike lane. However, I do not see how to put in a northbound bike lane if they make the transitway available to cars for part of the time. If the bike lane is on the right of the transitway, then the bikes get blocked (possibly hit) by the buses for every stop (presumably the current plan could allow thw bike to go around when stopped). If the lane is between the transit way and the car lane, and the transitway is open to cars for part of the day, then that will cause issues.

So, e-mailing des and the board the way to complain about this? I might be able to get several biking coworkers to write too.

[Author]

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