Behold: RackSpotter – A crowdsourced bike parking tool!

[dasgeh]

Whoa! Report it to Tom Norton, APS’s srts coordinator

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 112434 wrote:

Whoa! Report it to Tom Norton, APS’s srts coordinator

That would be: tom.norton@apsva.us

[CaseyKane50]

@Tim Kelley 112463 wrote:

That would be: tom.norton@apsva.us

Thanks for the lead and address. I sent Tom a message. I will post the response.

[Tim Kelley]

@CaseyKane50 112523 wrote:

Thanks for the lead and address. I sent Tom a message. I will post the response.

Thanks for doing that. I tweeted at the high school principal and the APS main twitter account too. Even got a response from APS saying that they’d pass it along already.

Let us know what Tom says!

[CaseyKane50]

Response from Tom

I actually just saw this a few minutes ago and just reported it to our Maintenance dept.
The building supervisor at WHS has been notified and a work order has been submitted to our grounds crew. I have been told this is a priority repair and I will keep tabs on it.

Thanks,

Tom Norton
Safe Routes to School Coordinator
Arlington Public Schools
Department of Instruction

[PotomacCyclist]

I think I covered all of Long Bridge Park, Crystal City, Pentagon City and the Arlington part of Potomac Yard over the past few weeks. There might be bike racks in some of the public parking garages that I didn’t get to. I didn’t check all of them (but I did find bike racks in the 2345 Crystal Drive garage). I didn’t add any photos.

Other than that, I think the map is now complete in those areas. I’ll check Virginia Highlands Park and 23rd St. S. next weekend. Maybe Fort Scott Park and Gunston Community Center too. I think National Airport has some bike racks as well. Those are likely to be the only remaining areas east of 395 (and north of Four Mile Run) with bike racks. I don’t think there are any bike racks at Gravelly Point. I looked as I rode by there last week, but I didn’t cover every section of the parking lot.

[dasgeh]

@PotomacCyclist 113083 wrote:

I think I covered all of Long Bridge Park, Crystal City, Pentagon City and the Arlington part of Potomac Yard over the past few weeks. There might be bike racks in some of the public parking garages that I didn’t get to. I didn’t check all of them (but I did find bike racks in the 2345 Crystal Drive garage). I didn’t add any photos.

Other than that, I think the map is now complete in those areas. I’ll check Virginia Highlands Park and 23rd St. S. next weekend. Maybe Fort Scott Park and Gunston Community Center too. I think National Airport has some bike racks as well. Those are likely to be the only remaining areas east of 395 (and north of Four Mile Run) with bike racks. I don’t think there are any bike racks at Gravelly Point. I looked as I rode by there last week, but I didn’t cover every section of the parking lot.

Thanks so much. And not to minimize the hard work you’ve put in to the areas closer to the river, but looking at the map, I’m guessing there are more racks East of 395…
Are there no bike racks in the various parks East of 395? What about along 23rd? Arlington Ridge? Oakridge and Gunston? That strip mall on Glebe? Any of the churches?

[PotomacCyclist]

I already mentioned that I’m planning to check Virginia Highlands Park, Fort Scott Park and maybe a couple of the other small parks, plus 23rd St. But some of the small parks don’t appear to have bike racks based on a quick look on Google Maps Street View. (I didn’t use Street View for the other bike rack locations. But I may use it to help determine if it’s worth checking out some of the less busy areas, like residential areas.)

I’m not going to make Arlington Ridge Rd. a priority because I strongly suspect that there won’t be any bike racks there. It’s almost completely residential and I’ve found that there are basically zero bike racks in such areas (with no retail or large parks or a business improvement district).

I already mentioned Gunston. I’ll take a look at Glebe, because I did see that there are at least two bike racks there: http://goo.gl/maps/hIgGs

I hope other people might cover some of those spots too. I don’t ride over to that part of S. Glebe very often, maybe a couple times a year at most, whereas I’m in Pentagon City, Long Bridge Park, Crystal City and Potomac Yard frequently. Plus I knew there were going to be many more bike racks in those retail-heavy areas, plus several in the large park.

I wonder if there will be new bike racks near the Metroway bus stations after they are completed. Most of the stations already have bike racks nearby. The only exceptions are S. Clark & 23rd St., and Crystal Drive & 33rd St. The latter station is being built in basically an empty field. There are multiple buildings approved for those fields, but with the soft office market in Northern Virginia and Arlington, the developers seem to have put all of those projects on hold. (The market is picking up slowly. German discount grocer Lidl is supposed to be moving into the empty National Gateway I building a couple blocks from that Metroway station.) Since there are no buildings there or any other attractions, there won’t be any need for bike racks near that bus station for at least a few years.

I rode around the S. Clark & 23rd St. intersection too. The building on the NE corner of the intersection is currently undergoing extensive renovation, as a WeWork residential and office facility. I looked through the fencing. I didn’t see any bike racks. If there were any there, they were probably removed during the renovation. I would expect bike racks to be installed on that site after the renovation is complete. I’ll head over there later in the year after the building re-opens. I ride near there often, so it won’t be a hassle for me to check. Same with the other new buildings going up in the area. Those buildings are likely to have multiple bike racks, but they won’t get installed until the buildings are completed. (The new apartment buildings in Pentagon City will probably have many racks and spaces, including the Whole Foods grocery, which will be on the ground floor of The Bartlett on 12th & Eads.

I don’t know where all the churches are located. I know of a few. I see that some have bike racks but others don’t. I don’t know about all of the large apartment buildings in the area, but the older buildings don’t seem to have any bike racks at all. At least the ones I’ve ridden by. The newer buildings tend to have bike racks, especially when they also have ground-floor retail.

(On a side note, I believe the swastika graffiti on a nearby sidewalk, along Rte. 1, is still there. It’s about 50 ft to the west of the Metroway station. http://goo.gl/maps/iZgmS I’ve reported it a few times over the years and it’s still there. I think the problem is that that spot lies in between different jurisdictions. Same as the concrete lump on the road at S. Glebe and Potomac Ave. It seems that when there are multiple organizations involved at a street or intersection, things get lost in the cracks, between Arlington Co., VDOT, CCBID, NPS, FHWA, etc.)

[Tim Kelley]

@PotomacCyclist 113096 wrote:

I was already planning to check Virginia Highlands Park, Fort Scott Park and maybe a couple of the other small parks. But some of the small parks don’t appear to have bike racks based on a quick look on Google Maps Street View. (I didn’t use Street View for the other bike rack locations. But I may use it to help determine if it’s worth checking out some of the less busy areas, like residential areas.)

Take pictures of the racks while you’re out and about to include!

[PotomacCyclist]

I was kind of worried about bumping up into my monthly mobile data “limit.” (I have an unlimited data plan, but they throttle the speed if I go over a certain number for the month.) I was also concerned about the added time. Since I was covering dozens of locations on each run, photos might have added a significant amount of extra time to the overall trip. On a couple of the runs, I was riding in the evening and I don’t have a flash on the phone camera, so the photos would not have turned out well.

If we can add photos as comments, I might go back later and add photos. But it might be an extended process. Because of the data issue, I will draw out the process. Hopefully other people will add some photos too.

[bobco85]

@PotomacCyclist 113098 wrote:

I was kind of worried about bumping up into my monthly mobile data “limit.” (I have an unlimited data plan, but they throttle the speed if I go over a certain number for the month.) I was also concerned about the added time. Since I was covering dozens of locations on each run, photos might have added a significant amount of extra time to the overall trip. On a couple of the runs, I was riding in the evening and I don’t have a flash on the phone camera, so the photos would not have turned out well.

If we can add photos as comments, I might go back later and add photos. But it might be an extended process. Because of the data issue, I will draw out the process. Hopefully other people will add some photos too.

For the same reason, I take pics of the racks and wait until getting home before adding the rack locations & photos. iPhoto does a pretty good job of keeping the geolocational data for when I need to choose a point on the map.

[Henry]

I just want to say a huge “Thank You!” to PotomacCyclist, bobco85, and Chris Slatt, who sit atop the leaderboard and have collectively spotted 231 bike parking facilities across the county. Way to jump start the the initiative! Thanks again.

Henry

[PotomacCyclist]

@bobco85 113104 wrote:

For the same reason, I take pics of the racks and wait until getting home before adding the rack locations & photos. iPhoto does a pretty good job of keeping the geolocational data for when I need to choose a point on the map.

I have an Android phone. It probably has some sort of locational metadata too, but I turned off the GPS feature because it tends to drain the battery.

If I did a straight run from one end of the area to the other, I should be able to match up the photos and rack locations, by lining up everything in order. I’m also familiar with just about every square inch of Long Bridge Park, Crystal Drive and Pentagon City because I’ve ridden or run through there so many times over the last 7 years. (Until this year, I’ve run almost as frequently as I’ve biked.)

[PotomacCyclist]

I added a few of the bike racks at National Airport. I found an online map from the MWAA that supposedly shows the location of all the bike racks on the airport grounds. I had seen one of them from the MVT before. I located a couple others, but I also found 1 or 2 that aren’t on the MWAA map. I didn’t have time to get to the other racks. This time I did take photos, because I wasn’t adding that many locations today.

I thought I would get strange looks from employees and passengers because I was riding a bike at the airport, but no one seemed to mind. The shuttle bus drivers were mindful and courteous and let me pass by at intersections. One problem was when I headed down the maintenance/employee road at the old Terminal A. I was riding in the parking sections, which I thought had a clear path. But then I ran right into three chains blocking the path. I wasn’t riding too fast, but fast enough to cause a minor problem. 8-10 mph maybe? I cranked hard on the brakes, which caused me to tip over to the left and fall off. I think my past experience with clipless pedals (my 1st month with those pedals, years ago) plus my strength and agility training has taught me how to fall. I don’t stick my hand out. That’s how you break a wrist. I just hold tight and try to roll as much as I can (while limited in my movements, by being on the bike). I also try to take some of the contact in larger areas like the hip and side of the torso. I bumped my elbow slightly, but somehow there isn’t any bruising or sore spots. Only a minor scratch. I hit the pavement with a bit of a thud, but there doesn’t seem to be any serious damage. I don’t think I’ll head down that road again. It’s an employee-only area past the gate anyway.

[PotomacCyclist]

No bike racks at Gravelly Point that I could see. I circled the parking lot and rode by the picnic tables and the boat ramp.

I guess it would be up to NPS to add bike racks. They could be useful. A lot of groups use the fields for soccer and other games. Bike racks could encourage more of them to bike there. I don’t think most of the families will bike to Gravelly Point though.

If bike racks were added, I’d keep them clear from the fields and open areas. Otherwise, it would be too easy for someone to run into them. A U rack would blend in too easily with the grass and trees. A lot of people are also looking up at the planes, making it even easier to miss a U rack. Maybe areas next to the picnic tables would be ideal. People aren’t going to run around and into the picnic tables.

[Author]

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