Crossing over Dulles Toll Rd on Fairfax County Parkway Trail is dangerous!

[mstone]

@jabberwocky 114917 wrote:

They did a really bad job repaving. They did the section north of the W&OD near my house, but they didn’t totally repave, they just picked sections (that vary from a few hundred yards to a few dozen feet) and repaved those. And the new sections are very uneven. The old trail was frankly better, at least up near me.

They repaved the sections with the worst damage. That was the first repaving since the path was built (almost 30 years for the oldest sections). We were lucky to get that much because there is no maintenance budget for trails. I think they did some of this with money from the repaving project and scrounged more from other sources. They did not scrounge enough to repave the whole thing. In general if they repaved a section, it really needed it. (Because the roadbed was disintegrating under the pavement.)

[dasgeh]

@scoot 114922 wrote:

But usefulness is all relative, right? It’s useful if it’s less dangerous than taking the lane on the Parkway. For instance, I’m not overly fond of riding on Columbia Pike, but it is especially useful from S. Orme to S. Courthouse. Further west, not so much, because there are other nicer options.

Completely agree about the relativeness up to a point, but at some point it really is too dangerous to be useful. For example, we keep talking about how there’s no way to cross the Beltway along 50. Technically, you could ride you bike on 50 to cross the Beltway, but that’s too dangerous to be useful.

Also, that point is probably personal, but if it’s too dangerous to be useful for the majority of the population, I’d say it needs to be fixed.

[mstone]

@dasgeh 114925 wrote:

Also, that point is probably personal, but if it’s too dangerous to be useful for the majority of the population, I’d say it needs to be fixed.

I’ve ridden it with kids. You need to be alert, you’ll worry constantly about them at road crossings, but it’s doable. Taking the lane on 50 with a 6 year old isn’t.

The MVT is a dangerously substandard facility; would you rather it just didn’t exist? At some point that’s the real option: if you can convince VDOT that it’s too dangerous to use, they can shut it down to avoid the liability. VDOT never wanted a trail there in the first place, doesn’t have specific funding for it, and wouldn’t shed a tear if it went away. We don’t have the political clout to change the situation, so it seems more productive to focus on other things (while trying to be aware of circumstances where it would be feasible to push for improvements).

To put this in context, look at the route 28 corridor. There are no bike facilities at all, it’s incrementally become a limited access freeway, and there’s a push to double down on that. Pushing for better facilities as they rebuild that road (again) is probably a better long-term investment than futilely complaining about the parkway. It’s a long shot, and if we got anything it would probably be as bad as the parkway trail, but if we don’t get something that entire corridor (which is a major focus for new development) will remain unbikeable for a generation.

[dasgeh]

@mstone 114929 wrote:

The MVT is a dangerously substandard facility; would you rather it just didn’t exist? At some point that’s the real option: if you can convince VDOT that it’s too dangerous to use, they can shut it down to avoid the liability. VDOT never wanted a trail there in the first place, doesn’t have specific funding for it, and wouldn’t shed a tear if it went away. We don’t have the political clout to change the situation, so it seems more productive to focus on other things (while trying to be aware of circumstances where it would be feasible to push for improvements).

No I don’t prefer substandard facilities not exist at all. I do think that fixing them should be on the list of something like a master plan. I can also see the argument that places that are substandard shouldn’t take priorities over places where there’s nothing. But again, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be on the list for fixing.

[Boo Boo]

I rode the Parkway from Fair Lakes to the WOD fairly regularly the last couple of years – it’s a nice long way home for me (adds about 7 miles to my trip to Falls Church) and perfect for spring and summer nights when I bug out of the office a bit early.

I left out the word “trail” intentionally. I’ll take the trail for the first couple of miles – enough to get across 50 and maybe as far as Franklin Farm. But the shoulder of the Parkway is a much better and safer ride between there and the WOD. Haven’t been on the trail since late November, but I had pretty much given up on it at that point between construction and poor maintenance. I hop back onto the trail at the Sunset Hills ramp crossing. Need to take the lane for a brief stretch after Sunrise Valley, but that’s way better than dealing with the awful crossing.

With kids, though….no way I’d be on the shoulder.

[Author]

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