Enforcement action on the CCT at Little Falls Parkway

[Terpfan]

@cvcalhoun 127528 wrote:

As many of you know, there has been a police officer stationed at the intersection of the Capital Crescent Trail and Little Falls Parkway, who has been handing out warnings to cyclists who fail to stop at the intersection. The action was taken in response to a recent crash involving a cyclist in the crosswalk getting hit by a motor vehicle. A friend who was a witness to the accident talked to the police officer, who told him the following.

1. The officer is monitoring both cyclists and drivers who don’t stop, not just cyclists. However, she’s seen a lot of cyclists who don’t, and no drivers who don’t. (Come on, guys, you can do better than this!)
2. She is giving warnings only to those who blow through the intersection, not to those who slow down enough to look both ways. (My friend was one of the latter, and was not given a warning.)
3. One of the issues is that right now, the sun is directly in the eyes of motorists going east on Little Falls during prime morning commuting hours. Thus, they really are having a hard time seeing cyclists on the crosswalk. This appears to have been the problem for the motorist involved in the crash.
4. Consideration is being given to instituting a four-way stop at that intersection, so that motorists would have to stop even if there were no pedestrians or cyclists in the crosswalk. The idea is to alleviate the problem described in 3, by having motorists stop even if they don’t see someone rather than only if they do.

Much to my friend’s relief, the police officer also said that the victim of the original crash had a serious concussion, but surprisingly few other injuries. Even the apparent broken clavicle at the scene turned out to be only a sprain, not a break.

On number 1, on days I drive into work, I sometimes will pop over River Rd to Little Falls Parkway to come up to Bethesda Ave from behind (I have a weakness for Bethesda Bagels). Anyway, every time I do this, I don’t see any vehicles stop and I almost always see a trail user waiting. So I don’t buy the cop’s point. But I do agree that folks do blow it. I’m not quite sure why they never built a bridge like they did over River.

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