Dedicated bike traffic light installed on Custis Trail

[OneEighth]

Resistance is futile?

[5555624]

“Hopefully this will stop bikes from blowing the intersection and getting rammed by cars.”

You’re kidding, right? Sorry, but the people that didn’t stop a month ago, will not stop now. I’ve stopped at that light twice, yesterday and one day last week, both times in the late afternoon. Last week, one bike blew by going west. (I recognized the commuter and I know he never stopped before, either.) Yesterday, two bikes, ran it, one going west, one going east.

[bArlington]

The problem of these intersections is not solved by placing inane bike stop-lights on bike paths. The problem of these intersections needs to be solved by fixing the intersections.

* Asking a biker to stop on a hill climb… is asking for the biker not to stop. This is a challenging hill. Stopping makes it more difficult. The incentive of the biker is to keep going.
* The traffic lights are designed wrong – in that that at Lee Hwy and Scott Road, the light turns full red for all traffic going West, even though it is doing so simply for traffic on Scott turning left/west on Lee Hwy – there are no cars on Scott going South. This means there is no reason for the bikers to stop as there is no traffic in front of them. Confront this enough times and you train the bikers to not stop. The real solution here is to give Scott Rd a left-turn green arrow going West, while permitting the biker traffic to keep flowing.
* It is also bad design to have a bike path which has five road crossings is the space of what about a third of a mile. If you ask the bikers to stop, then the bike path has no value to them – and you just push them out into the road. Which would be dangerous.

This whole section of the Custis trail is in desperate need of redesign. The crossing at Lynn is almost like playing russian roulette. This morning when I was there with a pack of bikes, no bike wanted to take the lead across Lynn.

If this is “bike friendly” arlington, then we need real solutions and not silly ones. The bike traffic lights are silly solutions. The first day those lights are enforced, the bike traffic will be in the street and we will have a real mess. Not sure whose idea this was but it was stupid.

[barbnDC]

Very well said bArlington!

[Justin Antos]

I agree that the majority of cars on Scott are turning left/west onto Lee Highway, so an all-red for the trail is not necessary. I think the problem can be helped by adding a phase to the light, after Scott gets a green, where Scott left-turners get a green arrow, Scott straight-throughers get a red, and Custis trail gets a green?

[bArlington]

CUSTIS TRAIL ALERT Police out enforcing new (stupid, idiotic, moronic) bike traffic lights this morn @BikeArlington @DCTrails @Wash_cycle

[bArlington]

It’s kind of ironic I think that yesterday I received a survey from BIKEARLINGTON asking how to promote biking in arlington, and today the popo is out issuing tickets to bikers at a traffic light that by designed is flawed and unnecessary. As I stated in my response to the survey, the number one way to promote biking in Arlington is good bike infrastructure. Bike traffic lights that unnecessarily turn red, stopping bikes on a tough uphill climb, at an intersection where there is all but no car traffic – this does not promote biking in Arlington.

[baiskeli]

@bArlington 5460 wrote:

CUSTIS TRAIL ALERT Police out enforcing new (stupid, idiotic, moronic) bike traffic lights this morn @BikeArlington @DCTrails @Wash_cycle

Well, no, they’re enforcing the stop. There’s a signal there that cyclists need to follow even if the bike light wasn’t there.

[baiskeli]

@bArlington 5461 wrote:

It’s kind of ironic I think that yesterday I received a survey from BIKEARLINGTON asking how to promote biking in arlington, and today the popo is out issuing tickets to bikers at a traffic light that by designed is flawed and unnecessary. As I stated in my response to the survey, the number one way to promote biking in Arlington is good bike infrastructure. Bike traffic lights that unnecessarily turn red, stopping bikes on a tough uphill climb, at an intersection where there is all but no car traffic – this does not promote biking in Arlington.

Yeah, saying that bikes should be able to run reds isn’t going to work out.

[Author]

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