Between you me and the lamp post

[CaseyKane50]

@Emm 126359 wrote:

I got no response. . I definitely reported it though as being broken or confusing. I see people every day hit the wrong button. I now mostly take potomac ave and not the trail because this intersection (and the ones behind potomac yard) scares me.

I can’t speak for new signs, but staff from T&ES were repairing the crosswalk buttons at Swann Avenue and Potomac Avenue this morning. I told them the buttons didn’t work down at Glebe and Potomac Avenue. They said those buttons were fixed last week. They also said that they had four more intersections to check along Potomac Avenue.

[KLizotte]

@CaseyKane50 126578 wrote:

I can’t speak for new signs, but staff from T&ES were repairing the crosswalk buttons at Swann Avenue and Potomac Avenue this morning. I told them the buttons didn’t work down at Glebe and Potomac Avenue. They said those buttons were fixed last week. They also said that they had four more intersections to check along Potomac Avenue.

Why do we even have to push a button? Why can’t the walking man be integrated into the light cycle?! One of my long standing gripes…..

[dasgeh]

@KLizotte 126579 wrote:

Why do we even have to push a button? Why can’t the walking man be integrated into the light cycle?! One of my long standing gripes…..

It can, and we were told at this month’s ABAC meeting that in Arlington there are 2 types of signals:
1) Full recall: all the signals for all directions are timed, meaning that each direction gets green for a certain amount of time, then yellow and red, while the other direction gets green for a given time.

2) Semi-automated: the main road has green until and unless a vehicle or pedestrian is detected on the side road. When a vehicle/pedestrian is detected on a side road, that side road gets green for long enough to clear the number of vehicles detected only, then cycles to yellow and red and the signal goes back to given the main road red.

For the pedestrian signal:
1) Under full recall, the pedestrian should always be in walk (or counting down) when the corresponding traffic signal has green. If you know of any intersections that don’t conform to this, please let me know on this thread, and I’ll compile a list to send to ArlCo.

2) Under semiautomated, the pedestrian signal only goes to walk if a pedestrian is detected (usually involves pushing a button), even if a vehicle is detect and the corresponding traffic signal gets green. The reason is ostensibly that, if there’s only one car on the side street, the green cycle for the one car to get through is a lot shorter than it would be for a pedestrian to cross. I pointed out that this isn’t true at all intersections (e.g. at N Monroe and Lee Hwy, cars have to go farther than pedestrians, so you could just automatically give the pedestrians) and even if it is, there are some intersections that see so many pedestrians, they should just accept the slight added delay for the main road to encourage walking/biking. If you know of any intersections that seem semiactuated where you have a case the pedestrian signal should automatically go with the actuated traffic signal, please let me know on this thread, and I’ll compile a list to send to ArlCo.

Also, ArlCo Signals staff said that NO signal along a trail should be actuated (i.e. they should all be recall). If you know of any intersections that don’t conform to this, please let me know on this thread, and I’ll compile a list to send to ArlCo.

[KLizotte]

@dasgeh 126583 wrote:

Also, ArlCo Signals staff said that NO signal along a trail should be actuated (i.e. they should all be recall). If you know of any intersections that don’t conform to this, please let me know on this thread, and I’ll compile a list to send to ArlCo.

In that case the pedestrian lights at the beginning of the W&OD in Shirlington need to be fixed since you need to hit the beg button for them to work. I’ll add them to the list.

[GovernorSilver]

@peterw_diy 126358 wrote:

On September 29 this year it appears that some kid on the bike got hit by a car while trying to cross Potomac Avenue. Now I hear you raised the issue five months earlier!?!

Oh yeah, that’s the accident I saw in that intersection, and Emm saw the same thing later, but got more info than I did. The victim was likely an adult woman.

Anyway, I stopped riding anywhere on the trail north of that intersection as a result. South of it, the trail has no more intersections with driveways or streets until the very end at Braddock, so I switch from road to trail after passing the now-infamous intersection.

[S. Arlington Observer]

@dasgeh 126583 wrote:

2) Under semiautomated, the pedestrian signal only goes to walk if a pedestrian is detected (usually involves pushing a button), even if a vehicle is detect and the corresponding traffic signal gets green. The reason is ostensibly that, if there’s only one car on the side street, the green cycle for the one car to get through is a lot shorter than it would be for a pedestrian to cross.

The problem with requiring pedestrians to push the button is that many do not understand that dynamic. I’ve seen dangerous situations at the intersection of Walter Reed and Arlington Mill Drive where pedestrians realize in mid cycle that the walk sign will not come on and proceed anyway, even though they really don’t have time then (since they stood there for part of the cycle waiting for the walk sign to come on.) The mix of systems means that people accustomed to the walk signal being automatic don’t realize that they MUST push the button in some places. (There is no signage to indicate that an intersection is such a place — one figures it out over time by experience.) Many simply assume the walk sign is broken.

When the walk sign comes on automatically there is a timer letting people know how much time they have. When it does not (and pedestrians don’t understand why it did not) they are essentially walking into the intersection blind as to the time they have to get across. This happens all the time and is a danger actually created by bad design.

As for your specific question about trails, it has been my experience that the signal where the W&OD crosses Columbia Pike does not activate unless the buttons are pushed. (Or, to put it another way, sometimes it does not activate at all with the light change.)

[GovernorSilver]

@lordofthemark 112908 wrote:

There is the terrible (and unavoidable) one at the east end of the 14th Street bridge. Though that one at least is actually supposed to move as part of an NPS project, IIUC.

[lordofthemark]

@GovernorSilver 126589 wrote:

NPS was given a grant of 200k in summer 2013 to do this. I can find no public info more recent than that.

[Steve O]

@S. Arlington Observer 126588 wrote:

As for your specific question about trails, it has been my experience that the signal where the W&OD crosses Columbia Pike does not activate unless the buttons are pushed. (Or, to put it another way, sometimes it does not activate at all with the light change.)

This specific one has been the topic of much discussion for several years (here, here, & this thread) . Finally in the spring it was placed on “full recall” such that the walk light always came on.

Sometime since then it was placed back into “actuated” mode. County staff are now working to rectify it. (Why it takes sooooo looooooooong to just flip some sort of switch is beyond me. Since it was working that way not so long ago, it’s not like it has to be reprogrammed or anything–just put it back the way it was.)

There are two issues I raised regarding this signal:
1) How do we get it working properly again? (as mentioned, supposedly this is happening)
2) How does it get institutionalized? That is, how do we keep it from being changed back again? County staff did not have an answer to this question.

[dbb]

@lordofthemark 126590 wrote:

NPS was given a grant of 200k in summer 2013 to do this. I can find no public info more recent than that.

Here were the suggestions that we crowdsourced on the forum. http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?4333-Bike-trail-at-Jefferson-Part-1-of-3/page2

[dasgeh]

@S. Arlington Observer 126588 wrote:

The problem with requiring pedestrians to push the button is that many do not understand that dynamic. I’ve seen dangerous situations at the intersection of Walter Reed and Arlington Mill Drive where pedestrians realize in mid cycle that the walk sign will not come on and proceed anyway, even though they really don’t have time then (since they stood there for part of the cycle waiting for the walk sign to come on.) The mix of systems means that people accustomed to the walk signal being automatic don’t realize that they MUST push the button in some places. (There is no signage to indicate that an intersection is such a place — one figures it out over time by experience.) Many simply assume the walk sign is broken.

When the walk sign comes on automatically there is a timer letting people know how much time they have. When it does not (and pedestrians don’t understand why it did not) they are essentially walking into the intersection blind as to the time they have to get across. This happens all the time and is a danger actually created by bad design.

As for your specific question about trails, it has been my experience that the signal where the W&OD crosses Columbia Pike does not activate unless the buttons are pushed. (Or, to put it another way, sometimes it does not activate at all with the light change.)

I tend to agree with you. Another piece of information we learned at October’s BAC: Arlington is in the process of hiring a Signals manager, and of writing a Signals policy. One would imagine they will hire someone before they fully develop the policy. Still, I encourage you and anyone else with overarching thoughts on how Signals should be programmed to email desarlingtonva.us (and be clear that your email should be forwarded to Signals)

[lordofthemark]

@dbb 126593 wrote:

Here were the suggestions that we crowdsourced on the forum. http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?4333-Bike-trail-at-Jefferson-Part-1-of-3/page2

Sigh. I was hoping the poles could actually be moved. Paving the desire path would help a bit, but not nearly as much as pole removal. I guess that moving the poles while retaining their functionality is beyond the 200k budget. But this is one of the key tight spots for regional transportation cyclists, on the main route between South Arlington, Alexandria, and even SE Fairfax on the one hand, and SW and near SE DC, and parts of downtwon in NW DC as well. And so much of the rest of those routes is (relatively) low stress, and we have this one super high stress location, where the main problem is not traffic (with the huge political headache of taking away road space, etc) but just a couple of polls.

Again, sigh. I suppose at some point we will get a bypass on the new Long Bridge, but that is many years away.

[GovernorSilver]

@dbb 126593 wrote:

Here were the suggestions that we crowdsourced on the forum. http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?4333-Bike-trail-at-Jefferson-Part-1-of-3/page2

I see that a PDF was compiled, which included the lamp post at the east end of 14th St bridge, and sent, but no mention of a response from NPS.

[CaseyKane50]

@GovernorSilver 126587 wrote:

Oh yeah, that’s the accident I saw in that intersection, and Emm saw the same thing later, but got more info than I did. The victim was likely an adult woman.

The Alexandria City Police department representative was asked about this incident at the BPAC meeting on Monday. He said that he could not find a report on it. He did ask for more information, so if you have any further details, you might want to call the Alexandria Police Department at (703) 746-4444.

Incidentally there was a crash that was reported to have happened on Mount Vernon Avenue on September 25 involving a bike rider and a car driver. The spokesman reported that what happened was a young man fell off his bike and the car driver stopped to render aid.

[Emm]

@CaseyKane50 126602 wrote:

The Alexandria City Police department representative was asked about this incident at the BPAC meeting on Monday. He said that he could not find a report on it. He did ask for more information, so if you have any further details, you might want to call the Alexandria Police Department at (703) 746-4444.

Incidentally there was a crash that was reported to have happened on Mount Vernon Avenue on September 25 involving a bike rider and a car driver. The spokesman reported that what happened was a young man fell off his bike and the car driver stopped to render aid.

How do they not have a report? Police (multiple cars if I remember correctly), a firetruck and EMS were there, I am 100% sure of that since I saw them all. Do we have contact info for this specific officer? I can probably email him a good estimate on time and date since my Strava was running. The accident likely occurred between 6 and 6:20 since I biked by the spot around 6:20 according to strava and it appeared to have happened recently.

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