Bike Unfriendly Curb Cut on Walter Reed Project

[Judd]

@Steve O 190716 wrote:

Someone take a look next time, but I am pretty certain there is 10 feet or more between the power pole and the new pole with the beg button (not in this street view).
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I am also pretty certain that this suggestion was made at a Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting long before the project was started, probably by me.

I’ll see if I can get a rough measure on the way home. It didn’t seem quite 10 feet wide to me But wide enough to have put in a connection I also seem to recall a manhole cover in that space.

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[zsionakides]

@zsionakides 189881 wrote:

I didn’t get photos, but it looks like the crossing of the slip lane on Arlington Mill Drive to the refuge area will be at road grade and not a raised crosswalk like shown in the project documents. That means the school buses and other trucks who currently don’t stop for pedestrians and bikes can continue their practice without having to slow down in the future.

I took photos of the “raised” crosswalk and it’s basically not raised at all. If I had to guess, there’s about 3″ of grade difference and it’s over such a long distance, you could drive through there at full speed without slowing at all for the crosswalk. They also appear to have made the area wider to drive through since the plastic bollards were taken down. Approaching the slip lane, drivers can now cut across the striped, non-bollared area before the refuge which happened to me while I was crossing.

I already wasn’t impressed by the execution of this project, but the County has actually made that crossing less safe and more burdensome to cross than it was before.

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[zsionakides]

Now that the crosswalks are striped, you can see that the SW corner of Walter Reed and 4 Mile Run requires either navigating a chicane or going outside the crosswalk to actually get to/from the shared use path on Walter Reed. This would be hard to properly navigate on a regular bike and not possible with a trailer

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[Judd]

Taken two days ago. The poles for the crosswalk buttons are going up.

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[zsionakides]

@Judd 190964 wrote:

Taken two days ago. The poles for the crosswalk buttons are going up.

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They added beg buttons to the W&OD crossing. They better not be planning to actually turn them on, as that would be a big downgrade in service for trail users.

[Judd]

@zsionakides 190970 wrote:

They added beg buttons to the W&OD crossing. They better not be planning to actually turn them on, as that would be a big downgrade in service for trail users.

These buttons can often make crossing roads easier for people with vision impairments. The project website doesn’t seem to have specifics on any changes to signals.

[scoot]

@Judd 190973 wrote:

These buttons can often make crossing roads easier for people with vision impairments. The project website doesn’t seem to have specifics on any changes to signals.

The auditory info I hear at some crosswalks must be very helpful. But the buttons?

[Judd]

@scoot 190978 wrote:

The auditory info I hear at some crosswalks must be very helpful. But the buttons?

The buttons contain an arrow indicating the direction to cross, which is valuable when buttons are located on the same pole and relying on sound alone would make it difficult to tell which crossing has the right of way. The arrow is high contrast (usually white arrow on black housing) which is easier to see for individuals who are not completely blind. Pushing the button typically gives a warning of the current status of the signal. Most of the ones in Arlington now say “Wait”. If you hold the button down for about a second it often will tell you what street your at. In this case it should be “Wait to cross Walter Reed Drive at South Four Mile Run. Wait!” Most of the recently installed ones that I’ve seen say wait continuously until the pedestrian signal changes and then they either beep or give an audible “Walk sign is on across Walter Reed Drive.”

[dasgeh]

@Judd 190981 wrote:

The buttons contain an arrow indicating the direction to cross, which is valuable when buttons are located on the same pole and relying on sound alone would make it difficult to tell which crossing has the right of way. The arrow is high contrast (usually white arrow on black housing) which is easier to see for individuals who are not completely blind. Pushing the button typically gives a warning of the current status of the signal. Most of the ones in Arlington now say “Wait”. If you hold the button down for about a second it often will tell you what street your at. In this case it should be “Wait to cross Walter Reed Drive at South Four Mile Run. Wait!” Most of the recently installed ones that I’ve seen say wait continuously until the pedestrian signal changes and then they either beep or give an audible “Walk sign is on across Walter Reed Drive.”

The County has the ability to make the ped signal come one whenever the traffic signal comes on, but still have the button there to activate the audio. So for most users, the button does nothing. For the vision impaired, the button tells the box to make a sound when that direction has green. Arlington has this in a few places, and this should be the set up on the W&OD.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 191090 wrote:

The County has the ability to make the ped signal come one whenever the traffic signal comes on, but still have the button there to activate the audio. So for most users, the button does nothing. For the vision impaired, the button tells the box to make a sound when that direction has green. Arlington has this in a few places, and this should be the set up on the W&OD.

This may be a best case scenario.

The beg buttons at Barcroft and on the 4MR trail at Walter Reed are inconsistent depending on whether the light cycle got triggered by cross traffic. I’m ok with the audio portion for visually impaired individuals, but the button triggers themselves need to go and the light be always on when the parallel street has a green light. Even better would be leading pedestrian indicators, particularly with the aggressive left turns from 4MR onto Walter Reed.

[chris_s]

@zsionakides 190915 wrote:

I took photos of the “raised” crosswalk and it’s basically not raised at all.

I checked in with the Project Manager about the raised crosswalk:

“Construction looks finished, but it isn’t. There is more work and several corrections to come. The raised crosswalk is one of them. There was a grading error.”

Stay tuned.

[Judd]

@chris_s 191847 wrote:

I checked in with the Project Manager about the raised crosswalk:

“Construction looks finished, but it isn’t. There is more work and several corrections to come. The raised crosswalk is one of them. There was a grading error.”

Stay tuned.

Thanks for emailing. It’s been on my to do list. It appears that this contractor has had to rework multiple things on the project.

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[consularrider]

At noon today there was a tree down right at the 44.5 milepost on the W&OD in Purcellville. It was nasty with poison ivy vines.

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[chris_s]

@zsionakides 190915 wrote:

I took photos of the “raised” crosswalk and it’s basically not raised at all.

E-mail today from the Project Manager:

Later this week, weather permitting, the contractor will begin corrective construction work associated with the S. Walter Reed Drive Improvement Project. This will include addressing the raised crosswalk at the slip lane on S. Arlington Mill Drive and replacing portions of curb and gutter on the north bound side of S. Walter Reed Drive, among other items.

[Brandon]

So unfortunately it looks like they DID make this a beg button at the S Walter Reed Dr intersection. I was stopped and waiting for the crosswalk this morning and the 4MR traffic got the green but no crosswalk light, even with no left turn traffic and light. I almost missed it while chatting with another cyclist. So make sure you push that button when you get there . . . 😡

[Author]

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