Arlington Plans to Remove Bike Lane on Crystal Drive

[PotomacCyclist]

Nothing to add here. I just want to bump the new spam thread off the top of the forum index.

[dasgeh]

@chris_s 124251 wrote:

Feel free to express any thoughts you have to des@arlingtonva.us and countyboard@arlingtonva.us

So a little birdie told me that it might be helpful to have general public pressure to (re)open the dialogue of the best solution here. So an email to the above with something along the lines of:

Quote:

I understand that Arlington County is planning to remove a bike lane when it repaves Crystal Drive later this year, without a timeline for building the replacement called for elsewhere in Crystal City. Such action seems like a step backward in terms of promoting cycling in this otherwise bike-friendly county. Doing so would also likely add to more people riding bikes on the sidewalk of Crystal Drive, which has been an safety concern in this pedestrian-heavy area.

I understand that this change is called for in the Crystal City Sector Plan, but that plan is premised on the construction of a streetcar line. Since the plans have changed for transit in Crystal City, it seems like we should open a dialogue about the best transportation options for Crystal Drive before we repave it, so that we don’t have to spend additional County money restriping in the near future.

It would be helpful to have a broad push on the County Board to get County DES to the table to talk about a solution here. We might be able to get a 24/7 transitway without it, but we probably can’t get something better than that.

[PotomacCyclist]

Transitway Community Meeting on Oct. 8

County staff will hold a community meeting next week to provide an update on Crystal City Potomac Yard Transitway construction and proposed operations and plans to repave and restripe Crystal Drive (see a description of the restriping proposal on the transit lanes page).

Date: Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015
Time: 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Location: Renaissance Inn, 2800 S. Potomac Ave., Arlington, VA 22202 (Studio B on 2nd Floor)

http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/VAARLINGTON/bulletins/11cbe1d

***
Coming Soon – Repaving of Crystal Drive

Before the Crystal City Potomac Yard Transitway opens, the County will repave Crystal Drive between 15th and 26th Streets. The paving is expected to begin in the next few weeks and will last for several weeks, weather permitting.

Milling and paving operations may be performed at night in selected areas to reduce the impact on traffic, and some lanes may be closed to traffic during this work. The repaving will begin at 15th Street and then head south toward 26th Street.

When paving dates are confirmed, we will send out notifications through this email update, the Crystal City Civic Association and BID, and other channels.

http://transportation.arlingtonva.us/transit-lanes/

[bikepedantic]

Thanks for the heads-up! Naturally, i have a competing work obligation, but here’s a list of questions I sent DES and the County Board:

*Why can’t the planned part-time bus lane be designated within the existing pavement-marking cross-section?

*Why does DES designate the bus lane to be part time in the off-peak, when capacity for motor vehicles is needed the least?

*Why does the September 2015 project analysis go into great detail about how the redesign is still appropriate from a congestion standpoint, but makes no mention of whether or not a bike lane deletion is still appropriate?

*Are the lane widenings still justified, given stagnant Crystal City occupancy and traffic volumes in the intervening five years?

*With Arlington seemingly done with streetcar planning, will a transit lane still need to run curbside?

*At what point does design begin on a replacement facility for bicyclists to travel north through Crystal City to get to the Mt Vernon Trail?

*Did you know that 184,000 bicycle trips per year travel through the Crystal City spur to the Mt. Vernon Trail?

*Why did DES not address the loss of a bicycle travel lane in its documented Categorical Exclusion submittal?

[dasgeh]

The relevant County staff will be at Monday’s Arlington BAC meeting (7pm, 2100 Clarendon Blvd, 3rd floor – agenda coming tomorrow)

[bikepedantic]

Update – Apparently, DES has a revised proposed restriping plan for Crystal Drive. Unclear if this means a reprieve for the northbound bike lane, but we’ll all find out next week https://twitter.com/ArlingtonDES/status/649953739562975232

[chris_s]

@bikepedantic 125402 wrote:

Update – Apparently, DES has a revised proposed restriping plan for Crystal Drive. Unclear if this means a reprieve for the northbound bike lane, but we’ll all find out next week https://twitter.com/ArlingtonDES/status/649953739562975232

Hopefully we’ll find out at BAC on Monday and then we’ll know whether we need to show up with pitchforks on Thursday.

[PotomacCyclist]

Bumping this up, above the latest spam thread.

[chris_s]

@chris_s 125404 wrote:

Hopefully we’ll find out at BAC on Monday and then we’ll know whether we need to show up with pitchforks on Thursday.

Folks should show up to the Thursday meeting, but you can probably leave your pitchfork at home! Arlington DES brought an alternate striping plan to Bicycle Advisory Committee last night that would retain the northbound bike lane. It won’t be the widest bike lane of all time, but it is what is possible at this time – all of the other lanes have been shrunk to Arlington’s minimum allowed width and the timeframe we’re currently looking at doesn’t leave any time for further exploration (they’re scheduled to start paving on October 10th).

So if you can, stop by the Thursday meeting and voice your support for the alternate striping plan that retains the bike lane!

Date: Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015
Time: 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Location: Renaissance Inn, 2800 S. Potomac Ave., Arlington, VA 22202 (Studio B on 2nd Floor)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9784[/ATTACH]

[Steve O]

@chris_s 125577 wrote:

Folks should show up to the Thursday meeting, but you can probably leave your pitchfork at home! Arlington DES brought an alternate striping plan to Bicycle Advisory Committee last night that would retain the northbound bike lane.

I was there last night, and I’d like to give a big shout-out to Arlington staff. They clearly burned some midnight oil being responsive to the people who ride bikes and who expressed concerns about these changes. Kudos and thanks to Larry Marcus and his staff.

[Tim Kelley]

@Steve O 125590 wrote:

I was there last night, and I’d like to give a big shout-out to Arlington staff. They clearly burned some midnight oil being responsive to the people who ride bikes and who expressed concerns about these changes. Kudos and thanks to Larry Marcus and his staff.

The kudos were appreciated, and were read at a Transportation Engineering and Operations staff meeting today!

[dasgeh]

Did anyone make it to last night’s meeting? Any report?

Thanks

[dasgeh]

Did anyone make it to last night’s meeting? Any report?

Thanks

[bikepedantic]

@dasgeh 125845 wrote:

Did anyone make it to last night’s meeting? Any report?

Thanks

Dennis Leach gave a very good presentation about the revised striping plan, why they did the revisions, they showed a VSSIM computer animation of operations, and talked about proposed transit-exclusive hours and enforcement. I didn’t hear any complaints, or even pointed questions, about the revised cross-section of the striping plan, and several of us spoke up with much praise for the quick and responsive work to revise the plans. Milling is scheduled to begin tonight in the northern section, so here’s hoping…

OT – proposed transit exclusive hours for the transitway are going to be only 3 hours for each of the morning and evening peaks. Crowd seemed a bit split on that

[PotomacCyclist]

Link to the presentation from the meeting:

http://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/10/DES-CCPY-Transitway_Community_Meeting_Construction_and_Proposed_Operations_October_2015.pdf

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