Fairfax County Bike Lanes

[lordofthemark]

@CPTJohnC 180970 wrote:

Maybe (new) bike lanes could also be celebrated with regular rides, an internal competition who can ride the most miles on bike lanes, bike lane scavenger hunts, etc? Increased usage by regular riders may also inspire new riders to try out the on-street infrastructure.

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?12124-In-the-beginning-was-the-deed!

1. Not sure if this will be possible, given the changes with Freezing saddles IT support. Plus I would need to know about specific segments that they want ridden, and fairly soon.

2. I would also be up for a group ride to see FFX bike lanes. But please, not an attempt to do them all in one day

[mstone]

My response: the bike lane program IME is extremely weak and caves at the slightest challenge. This has lead to a fragmented system of disconnected lanes, which, yeah, makes it hard to convince people to use them. We went through a long process of creating a bike master plan, which tried to address this, but in practice there’s been almost no attempt to implement the plan or use it to explain to people why bike lanes are being proposed for specific locations.

[dasgeh]

If you build bike lanes that aren’t safe and comfortable to ride in and that don’t connect form a network of safe and comfortable infrastructure, you can’t be surprised that people don’t ride in it.

[CPTJohnC]

All true. And we can, obviously, debate the merits for the rest of the year. My position would be if you wait for perfection you often get nothing.

Most of the bike lanes in FX County are “aimed toward” destinations like transit, other bike infrastructure, or other “high density” destinations, in my experience. They’re far from perfect, but they’re (usually) better than the nothing they are replacing? I understand why many might not choose to use them (preferring to drive in cars, or use transit, instead). I certainly favor trails when they’re available. But I appreciate that there’s an effort to make some progress?

Fairfax County’s approach has largely been to use “target of opportunity” for essentially “free” bike lanes when repaving is done. Fairfax is also hampered because the state owns almost all of the roads, and won’t approve most of the “better” solutions (because the state refuses to maintain). I don’t know that I’d agree that FCDOT caves at the slightest challenge, but they certainly don’t win every battle they fight. And that’s largely because the citizenry is NOT supportive. Which means it is up to cyclists to demonstrate that the facilities are useful and not just a nuisance. The battles are similar to DC, but the cycling community has far less of a voice, I think?

The approach has led to a fragmented (but ever improving? at least growing?) network. I believe the early pilots in terms of protected bike lanes are coming, but they’re nascent at best for now.

[CPTJohnC]

@lordofthemark 180973 wrote:

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?12124-In-the-beginning-was-the-deed!

1. Not sure if this will be possible, given the changes with Freezing saddles IT support. Plus I would need to know about specific segments that they want ridden, and fairly soon.

2. I would also be up for a group ride to see FFX bike lanes. But please, not an attempt to do them all in one day

LOTM: 1) I can get the info as to what lanes are most important, I think, and pretty quickly. And I’m happy to help if I can with the BAFS side competition, though I am NOT a data guy. (Just as John or Hans. I rely on them every year.)

2) What if it included beer and donuts? No – I’m not up for what would almost certainly be a double century plus…

[lordofthemark]

@mstone 180974 wrote:

My response: the bike lane program IME is extremely weak and caves at the slightest challenge. This has lead to a fragmented system of disconnected lanes, which, yeah, makes it hard to convince people to use them. We went through a long process of creating a bike master plan, which tried to address this, but in practice there’s been almost no attempt to implement the plan or use it to explain to people why bike lanes are being proposed for specific locations.

This is no different from any other suburban jurisdiction in the region. The fact is that local DOTs always go for the lowest hanging (not the most nutritious) fruit. They follow paving schedules, and places they want traffic calming, and (at least at the beginning) where there is little opposition, rather than where it adds the most to a connected network. And we can’t push to change that priority, because there are not enough of us. (I will say though that the practice of putting unprotected bike lanes next to 45MPH roads makes for some particularly uncomfortable segments).

The positive is that at some point your conventional bike lanes do start to form a network, and you instead have a fragmented unconnected system of buffered/protected lanes.

I will also say that there are parts of FFX County where the lanes have made things a lot better. I used to live in Annandale, and some here may recall my kvetching about it. Recently I rode the lanes on Hummer to Annandale Rd to Kerns (and then took the unpainted but perfectly comfortable streets around Lake Barcroft home to Alex) and it was pretty good.

[lordofthemark]

LOTM: 1) I can get the info as to what lanes are most important, I think, and pretty quickly. And I’m happy to help if I can with the BAFS side competition, though I am NOT a data guy. (Just as John or Hans. I rely on them every year.)

So, as noted above, I was going to change the In the Beginning game to just City of Alex, but I would be happy to include some FFX segments (and I can’t say I am not pleased that someone official is thinking along the exact same line I was). To create strava segments I would have to ride the segments, so what you could do would be to ride them and create the segments.

BUT – even updating the game would mean someone would have to do coding. At this point it is not clear to me if anyone is going to step up to replace HOZN to do coding for BAFS2019 – one alternative is to only do social games that do not require strava pulls. There may be some way to reconfigure this game to not require coding, but I would need to think about it.

2) What if it included beer and donuts? No – I’m not up for what would almost certainly be a double century plus…

Beer. Donuts. Good.

Double century. 😮 I bring this up because riding all the bike lanes in a jurisdiction in one or two days is now a thing.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 180980 wrote:

This is no different from any other suburban jurisdiction in the region. The fact is that local DOTs always go for the lowest hanging (not the most nutritious) fruit. They follow paving schedules, and places they want traffic calming, and (at least at the beginning) where there is little opposition, rather than where it adds the most to a connected network. And we can’t push to change that priority, because there are not enough of us.

Yes, that all sounds well and good, but it doesn’t reflect my experience with the process. And I did push, and I (not the county, they didn’t show up) talked about the bike master plan at our community meeting, and I showed people on a map why the bike lanes they thought were useless actually mattered, and I talked about the traffic calming aspects on a road where the residents was already trying to calm traffic (there are speed bumps now, but no bike lanes) and I even got the neighborhood association to back off opposing the project based on bogus arguments flying around social media. (E.g.: striping the bike lanes would cost $100k/mile.) And the county just walked away without even engaging the people trying to make the project happen because “there wasn’t enough time”. But sure, next time they pave (whenever that is)…

Bottom line: I’ve heard a lot of talk from the county without a lot of follow through. Unless my experience was completely abnormal, I have little hope that finding a bike lane to ride in every once in a while is what’s going to fix this mess.

[trailrunner]

I live in southern Fairfax County, and have commuted to various jobs in northern VA. It’s not easy, and I’m a hearty cyclist. I’d really like some of our city planners and leaders to join me on a commute one morning.

Sorry to be negative, but the bike lanes in Fairfax County are poor (and that’s being kind). The bike paths and lanes are disconnected, don’t go anywhere useful, and do crazy things like flip back and forth with no signage. I’ve lived here over 25 years, and have seen hardly an improvement, even when there were golden opportunities when a new road was built. Yes, I have noticed new lanes, but for the most part they are still disconnected segments that don’t facilitate biking.

I’m tired of blaming someone else (e.g., VDOT), because “someone else” is always the problem, whether it is bike paths or general traffic in northern VA. You can spin it any way you like, but Fairfax County just isn’t committed.

[lordofthemark]

1. my strong impression, after four plus years of this advocacy thing, is that local DOTs have limited numbers of personnel working on bike/ped/complete streets. They have to pick their battles. And they are, rationally, going to focus efforts where there is least opposition.
2. Staff is constrained by electeds, who make judgements of voters. My impression is that FCDOT is not less committed to active transportation than their elected masters, the FFX Cty Board of Supervisors. Which in turn is almost certainly more pro biking, pro walking, pro transit, and pro urbanism, than the Fairfax County electorate at large. An electorate that is suburban, autocentric, older, and often consciously “anti-hip”.
3. Fairfax people who want change can get in the trenches and fight, or (like me) they can move to a place that is further along (though we have no shortage of frustration here). Giving up is also a legitimate choice, but I think throwing cold water on people who have not given up and are in the trenches, is less legitimate, IMHO.
4. As I said, when I last lived in FFX, conditions really did suck. Annandale now has pretty good bike infra – much easier to get to Falls Church, the W&OD, and Alexandria. Are the routes comfortable for everyone from 8 to 80, for “Isabella”? No, its an American middle (not inner) suburb with a 1950/60s layout, and the messiah has not yet come. There are however new initiatives, Mason to Metro, IIUC, some new routes into Tysons, and (I saw this myself) a bunch of new lanes in Tysons. But its a big sprawling County, with a small base of riders, distances that discourage walking, and a lot of people who want to privilege the auto in use of road space.
5. Are the lanes underused in part because many of them suck? I am sure that is so. But they are also little used because of the distances, the lack of density and the segregation of land uses. Its not mine to advocate or not in FFX (not any more) but if I can help out by aiming a weekend ride at some bike lanes, I will.

[Judd]

I would be up for doing some rides in FFX, particularly if it is to get food and then let the business know that we are so happy to have been able to use a bike lane to get there.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CPTJohnC]

@trailrunner 180993 wrote:

I live in southern Fairfax County, and have commuted to various jobs in northern VA. It’s not easy, and I’m a hearty cyclist. I’d really like some of our city planners and leaders to join me on a commute one morning.

Sorry to be negative, but the bike lanes in Fairfax County are poor (and that’s being kind). The bike paths and lanes are disconnected, don’t go anywhere useful, and do crazy things like flip back and forth with no signage. I’ve lived here over 25 years, and have seen hardly an improvement, even when there were golden opportunities when a new road was built. Yes, I have noticed new lanes, but for the most part they are still disconnected segments that don’t facilitate biking.

I’m tired of blaming someone else (e.g., VDOT), because “someone else” is always the problem, whether it is bike paths or general traffic in northern VA. You can spin it any way you like, but Fairfax County just isn’t committed.

I think LOTM said much of what I would say to reply to this, but to maybe say it a different way: Fairfax county isn’t exactly “one entity” – it’s a massive jurisdiction with a population, an elected part of its government, a bureaucracy and some externalities that impact it. The staff at FCDOT working on bike/ped is 6 people when it is fully staffed… which it rarely is. (Maybe even more interesting to me was finding out that the total portion of the FCPD devoted to “traffic safety” full time is about 5). Do they go for low hanging fruit? Absolutely because there’s still plenty of it, and because it can be done. Fighting some of those battles – worth it? Maybe. But at what cost? Is the system perfect? Far from. But I think the improvements are notable. I’ve lived in fairfax county for over 40 years, on and off. I spent much of my childhood in McLean, and I’ve lived in (the county portion) of Fairfax for 20. Are the bike lanes great? No. But if they help people bike to metro instead of drive, or bike to a bus route in 15 minutes instead of a 40 minute walk? I think that’s probably worth it. When it comes right down to it, I bitch about even the “premiere” bike infrastructure in DC – the 1st PBLs? great, except for all the cars/trucks stopped/parked in them, and the drivers turning through them without acknowledging the bike traffic that has right of way, and the other obstructions that make them less than perfect. Trails? great except every time I have to cross a street, or deal with branches not being trimmed or poor trail etiquette… There is no perfect infrastructure. There is better. Fairfax county’s is NOT in the “better” category. No denying that. But if we won’t use at least the “decent” parts of what is built, we’ll likely lose even that.

Sure – you can say “give up – there isn’t enough commitment.” But then we’ll just be going for the same low hanging fruit in 10, or 20 or 50 years. Incremental change is better, in my view, than no change at all.

[komorebi]

@Judd 181003 wrote:

I would be up for doing some rides in FFX, particularly if it is to get food and then let the business know that we are so happy to have been able to use a bike lane to get there.

In that case, you should be sure to come to the Asian food ride planned for September 23. We’ll be using the new bike lanes on Annandale Rd. I’ve been trying to find a good way to bike to The Block ever since it opened, and the Annandale Rd. bike lanes made it much, much easier to get there.

I’m happy to plan other food-centric Fairfax rides if people have suggestions for particular bike lanes to use or destinations to visit.

[LhasaCM]

@CPTJohnC 181005 wrote:

There is no perfect infrastructure. There is better. Fairfax county’s is NOT in the “better” category. No denying that. But if we won’t use at least the “decent” parts of what is built, we’ll likely lose even that.

Sure – you can say “give up – there isn’t enough commitment.” But then we’ll just be going for the same low hanging fruit in 10, or 20 or 50 years. Incremental change is better, in my view, than no change at all.

Having a somewhat more distant relationship with biking in Fairfax County than others, I do have a few observations to add:

1. I think the large and somewhat fractured nature of the county does make it more challenging to do more than the low hanging fruit, but it does seem that they’ve been trying to get more of that done with each other road project they do where possible, focusing a lot on the connections to transit hubs. Heck, even Tysons has bike lanes that make it possible for me, with the trailercycle, to get to the mall from DC with only a few really hairy moments.
2. While a lot of the county’s time/energy has been heavily devoted to the major projects in the county (Silver Line extension, and HOT lanes on the freeways), and though I’m personally biased, I think it’s been generally a good thing to have a director that is an avid cyclist (he’s ridden RAGBRAI a number of times) to eliminate some of the previous barriers to even the low hanging fruit.

[dplasters]

I’m not trying to pile on, but on the southbound gallows road bike lane around the intersection of merry oaks lane, you can literally see where the bike lane stripe/paint is worn out from cars who cut the corner and would kill any cyclist actually using the lane. Cars seem perfectly comfortable doing well over the speed limit. So clearly they could have taken a touch more space and added protection of some kind for the bike lane.

People don’t use the majority of the FFX bike lanes cause they blow.

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