Good News on Infrastructure thread

[rcannon100]

@dbb 125020 wrote:

you can walk your bike …

[PotomacCyclist]

I rode around the airport a few times when I mapped the bike racks for RackSpotter. No one ever said anything. I passed by some security personnel and other airport employees. I didn’t even get any “go away” or “you don’t belong here” looks. But I stayed off the main circulator roads. I rode either on the sidewalks or on the low-traffic side roads at the airport.

[Terpfan]

Promised a screenshot or two of new lanes (need cyclist guy printed onto them still) on Beacon Hill:

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]9717[/ATTACH]

[GovernorSilver]

@dbb 125020 wrote:

The detours are only a hundred feet or so. With something short like that, you can walk your bike and call it practice for BAFS this winter.

I’m more concerned about how narrow they are – they’re like half the width of the MVT. I just submitted a message to NPS expressing my concern about the narrowness of the detours posing a hazard for two-way mixed-use traffic.

[dasgeh]

@GovernorSilver 125213 wrote:

I’m more concerned about how narrow they are – they’re like half the width of the MVT. I just submitted a message to NPS expressing my concern about the narrowness of the detours posing a hazard for two-way mixed-use traffic.

What’s the best way to submit messages to NPS?

[dbb]

I will reach out to the folks I know at the gwmp

[Anonymous]

@GovernorSilver 125213 wrote:

I’m more concerned about how narrow they are – they’re like half the width of the MVT. I just submitted a message to NPS expressing my concern about the narrowness of the detours posing a hazard for two-way mixed-use traffic.

I expect they want you to walk it. I have not been through there. But they’ve been rebuilding the wooden bridges one by one over the past couple years, and each one has come with a mulch detour and a dismount and walk your bike sign. While I generally ignore dismount and walk your bike signs (because they’re generally stupid), I actually followed these, when pedestrians were present, or bikes coming the opposite way, because yes they were narrow, and yes it would have been kind of rude to just try to push through. (I did ignore them when no conflicting traffic was present). Honestly, it is not that big of a deal. It might take you an extra minute or two. It is inconvenient and slower than normal, yes. There is also road construction on my car commute that is inconvenient and slower than normal. Being temporarily slightly inconvenienced comes with the territory of infrastructure upgrades.

[GovernorSilver]

@dasgeh 125215 wrote:

What’s the best way to submit messages to NPS?

I clicked the Contact Us form here: http://www.nps.gov/gwmp/index.htm

But I just realized Tim Kelley put up a sticky for them on the Road and Trail Conditions forum.

[GovernorSilver]

@Amalitza 125222 wrote:

I expect they want you to walk it. I have not been through there. But they’ve been rebuilding the wooden bridges one by one over the past couple years, and each one has come with a mulch detour and a dismount and walk your bike sign. While I generally ignore dismount and walk your bike signs (because they’re generally stupid), I actually followed these, when pedestrians were present, or bikes coming the opposite way, because yes they were narrow, and yes it would have been kind of rude to just try to push through. (I did ignore them when no conflicting traffic was present). Honestly, it is not that big of a deal. It might take you an extra minute or two. It is inconvenient and slower than normal, yes. There is also road construction on my car commute that is inconvenient and slower than normal. Being temporarily slightly inconvenienced comes with the territory of infrastructure upgrades.

Yeah I’ll probably just dismount and walk if it comes to that since it’s only 100 feet of detour.

That’s what I do when I encounter anyone on the narrow sidewalk connected to the Eisenhower pedestrian bridge on the Huntington side. Just too narrow to safely pass while mounted.

[worktheweb]

What gets me is that this kind of accommodation would never be permissible on the adjacent parkway. Thousands of people depend on the trail as transportation artery for cycling, just as thousands of cars do the same with the parkway. It is tiring to be treated as second class citizens yet again. They could have laid down pavement or crushed limestone maintaining the same width, but they continue to treat us as an afterthought.

I suppose it could be worse … they could have just closed down the trail. I don’t understand why a National PARK continues to favor 4 wheeled motor vehicles speeding through over those on 2 wheels or two feet who are actually visiting and enjoying the park.

[consularrider]

@worktheweb 125243 wrote:

What gets me is that this kind of accommodation would never be permissible on the adjacent parkway. Thousands of people depend on the trail as transportation artery for cycling, just as thousands of cars do the same with the parkway. It is tiring to be treated as second class citizens yet again. They could have laid down pavement or crushed limestone maintaining the same width, but they continue to treat us as an afterthought.

I suppose it could be worse … they could have just closed down the trail. I don’t understand why a National PARK continues to favor 4 wheeled motor vehicles speeding through over those on 2 wheels or two feet who are actually visiting and enjoying the park.

While I don’t like the quality of the accommodation, I look at this as being similar to the narrowed work zones with reduced speed limits that are just as frustrating to drivers and cause much larger backups.

[worktheweb]

@consularrider 125276 wrote:

While I don’t like the quality of the accommodation, I look at this as being similar to the narrowed work zones with reduced speed limits that are just as frustrating to drivers and cause much larger backups.

I understand that there are narrowed zones and reduced limits for cars, and I don’t mind slowing down in a work zone while on a bike. However, the engineers would not make those narrowed lanes for cars out of mulch, nor do they expect motorists to get out of their vehicles and push them. They expect that from us. They could do this the right way, they just actively choose not to do so.

[KWL]

Apparently the south National Airport overpass diversion is going to be an up-and-over. Why, when there is unlimited space for the detour trail would it be constructed the same $%&^^%# narrow width as the north overpass detour with its restricted space? I’m taking to Potomac Avenue until this is all over.

[lordofthemark]

Apparently the south National Airport overpass diversion is going to be an up-and-over. Why, when there is unlimited space for the detour trail would it be constructed the same $%&^^%# narrow width as the north overpass detour with its restricted space? I’m taking to Potomac Avenue until this is all over.

Since I only need to go to 4MRT, I am thinking the bypass down Eads (either via the Crystal Connector, or via the Pentagon and Boundary Channel) will be a better route (and avoids staring into car headlights SB after the time change)

[mstone]

FWIW, I believe that the mulch is there to prevent soil compaction and other surface degradation from people walking the detour, not to provide a nice surface for trail users. Using crushed stone or asphalt would have a significant impact, and NPS actually does have a duty to protect the natural resources. The road detour analogy is ok as far as it goes, but falls apart because a road detour is generally made within the road footprint, not by running the cars through a field. I’d submit that the real problem is that the MUP isn’t wide enough to shut down half at a time for repairs. Anyway, I’m not really that bothered by the mulch in an NPS context; in an urban context, refusing to take some adjacent paved space for a meaningful detour is much less defensible.

[Author]

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