Bollards: A mini bike rodeo around every corner

[eminva]

Well said, Mark.

I love that one commenter thought the bollards would slow down some of the speedier cyclists. Fat chance. My worst near miss on a bicycle was at the W&OD and Sandburg last summer — while going eastbound, I was rolling slowly behind a jogger through the intersection, with the plan of passing him after the intersection and bollard. A couple of faster cyclists behind me decided to blaze through, despite another cyclist coming from the opposite direction. One of them ran over the bollard, it detached from the collar and went flying into my front wheel.

Now that I am noticing them, I see quite a few out in Fairfax County, too, although I suppose we have bigger challenges around here.

Liz

[mstone]

@eminva 23021 wrote:

Now that I am noticing them, I see quite a few out in Fairfax County, too, although I suppose we have bigger challenges around here.

It seems standard to put them at every access point and road crossing for every park trail in Fairfax, generally the padlocked kind that allow park service vehicles to pass. (Which kind of implies that the trails can, in fact, support the weight of the occasional car.) For extra bollard bonus points, you’ll sometimes find bollards at forks in trails which already have bollards at the trail heads. Few things beat finding a useless bollard at 90 degree turn on an uphill in the middle of the woods.

[Rootchopper]

The commenter on the Patch website thinks that bollards stop reckless, speeding cyclists. If this is true why don’t we put sharp points on the top of the bollards or give them razor sharp edges. That’ll fix ’em.

Yesterday’s cycling accident on the bridge connecting Rosslyn to the Mount Vernon Trail occured right next to a flexible bollard located at the base of a hill. If you don’t want heavy vehicles on the bridge why not put up a road sign instead?

[TwoWheelsDC]

Emergency vehicle access. Case closed, remove the bollards.

This (admittedly spurious) argument is enough for DC to not protect the Penn cycletrack, so why isn’t it good enough to get ArlCo/FFX/Alexandria to take down the bollards? Just yesterday, emergency crews had to drive out onto the CCT to rescue a guy from the canal. Can’t do that with bollards implanted everywhere. If cyclist safety isn’t enough to get bollards removed, surely emergency access (and the potential for some fiendishly delicious litigation) could be sufficient motivation?

[JorgeGortex]

Because from what I can tell many of the maintenance guys who drive the huge trucks that drive up/over these bridges don’t have the IQ to realize their several ton trucks will damage the bridges. Its what happened on the WO&D several years ago b/c Arlington crews were driving over them regularly…. sad but true.

@Rootchopper 23047 wrote:

The commenter on the Patch website thinks that bollards stop reckless, speeding cyclists. If this is true why don’t we put sharp points on the top of the bollards or give them razor sharp edges. That’ll fix ’em.

Yesterday’s cycling accident on the bridge connecting Rosslyn to the Mount Vernon Trail occured right next to a flexible bollard located at the base of a hill. If you don’t want heavy vehicles on the bridge why not put up a road sign instead?

[Author]

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