I’m moving and I can’t commute by bike anymore. Help me find a solution?

[ian74]

Dear forums,

Well, looks like my bike commuting days are likely coming to a close. We’re moving. For certain reasons, my family and I are actually moving FURTHER away from my job in Maryland (Bethesda) and moving to Fairfax/Burke, VA. I live in Alexandria now and commute to Bethesda daily via MVT and the Cap Crescent, it’s safe, easy and I love it. So this puts me farther away from everything. I’m going to be living very close to the VRE station in Burke (Burke Centre, Virginia, 10399 Premier Ct, Burke, VA 22015), practically across the street from it.

So, when looking on the Googles and the interactive Bike Farifax map I find it almost impossible to find a safe route from there to Bethesda where I can grab my shuttle. For that matter I’m having trouble finding a safe passage even to the W&OD trail. When driving in the area I can’t help but notice the lack of bike infrastructure. So I come to you, humbly, for suggestions. We’ll be getting another car for me to drive.

At Friday Coffee, Steve-O and Komorebi both thought I could drive to the W&OD and ride in, but I don’t know where good places to park along the W&OD are/would be? Is it legal to leave my car parked all day somewhere along the trail? My other option is to leave my bike in a bike locker here at work and come super early and ride around this area (Rockville/Bethesda) before I start my day. I guess I can just join the gym at work and do the zumba classes, but this is not what I have pictured as a life choice I would be facing.

TL,DR version:

Moving to Fairfax but still working in Bethesda.
Can I make it multimodal? How? Where?
Give up and zumba/lift weights and get swole.

Topic

[lordofthemark]

So I assume you will be commuting by transit (since you are locating next to the VRE station) and the transit commute will be Burke->VRE->UnionStation->Marc->Bethesda? I guess you could take a folding bike and get off the MARC early and ride the rest of the way (I guess easier than riding the folding bike to a closer in VRE station?) Ride the folding bike, or a CaBi around Union Station between rail legs?

[DrP]

The VRE does allow bikes on some of the trains (last three of the morning and last three of the evening), although there are limits in the number of bikes allowed. You would need to talk to folks who do that to see how truly viable it is. You can then VRE to Crystal City or Union Station and bike from those locations (or find somewhere near those places with bike parking you can use? Not sure how possible that is).
There is a parking lot in Reston along the W&OD for commuters. A former coworker drives there and either takes the bus to Crystal City or bikes (frequently it is bike one way and bus the other). That lot expects you to be there all day (and he has returned after the metro closed too). Reston Station, I think. That is a long ride to Bethesda, however. Depending on how multimodal you want, you could drive there, bus to Pentagon, Crystal City or wherever else they have the buses go to (Rossyln?) and then bike – they allow the bikes on the buses in some manner (it might be underneath). The metro is near there too and that is now an option. There are other lots too for metro, so perhaps drive to one and take your bike.

[bentbike33]

Yes, that is among the more “cartopic” parts of Fairfax.

I don’t know about bikes on VRE, but VRE stops at Crystal City, so if you can take your bike (or get a folding bike) you could pick up your old commute route from there (after coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays, of course).

[wheelswings]

Holy smokes, Ian, I drove a carpool of gymnasts to Premier Court in Burke nearly every single night for the past several years. Heck of a commute, even from Arlington. My condolences on the move. Maybe take the VRE from Burke and keep a bike in a locker at Crystal City or one of the other stops?
Hugs from w&w, your fellow Team 6 BiPolar Bear

[ImaCynic]

How about this: Get a folding ebike like this, take VRE to CC, then jump on MVT from there? This particular ebike seems to have the range (18mi e-only, 36mi e-assist). It appears folding bikes are allowed on VRE anytime.

Certainly would be cheaper than buying another car.

[Dewey]

Hella heavy though at 66lb for that folding ebike! Bike Friday e-pakiT is spendy but weighs 26lb so when the batteries run out you can pedal like a normal folding bike.

[semperiden]

I have seen someone who commutes from Burke and parks on the w&od at merrifield. He parks here. I believe it is totally legal.

[sjclaeys]

Forget getting a folding bike, get one of these when they come on the market.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20009[/ATTACH]

[ImaCynic]

@Dewey 190114 wrote:

Hella heavy though at 66lb for that folding ebike! Bike Friday e-pakiT is spendy but weighs 26lb so when the batteries run out you can pedal like a normal folding bike.

Year, it is a bit porky, but I’m sure there are better weight/cost options out there as I just did a quick google search. This one probably has SLA cells, and Li-Ion would be lighter but also lighten your wallet as well.

[ImaCynic]

@sjclaeys 190116 wrote:

Forget getting a folding bike, get one of these when they come on the market.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20009[/ATTACH]

Why even bother with a bike at that point, just go with one of these?

[n18]

Strava heatmap.

Parking along the W&OD:

http://www.wodfriends.org/accessibility/parking/

If you want to park at Metro, West Falls Church Metro is the last metro station to park at to avoid HOV-2, as far as I know.

[DismalScientist]

HOV-2 begins at the Beltway, so West Falls Church won’t work.
For parking on the WOD, I would suggest consularrider’s driveway, or at least the cul de sac on Four Mile Run Drive near Ohio.
You might want to consider parking anywhere in (far) North Arlington and cross the Chain Bridge and use the rough hiking trail up to the Capital Crescent Trail.

[phog]

Your wife will probably kill you if you do this, but you could mount a bicycle carrier onto the back of a motorcycle, ride in free on I-66 to wherever you want to dump the MC and connect with the trail. “2×2 cycles” makes a custom bike mount for motorcycles. I use a homespun bike rack, made from a Park Tool repair clamp (vice grip, not for exotic carbon or and fancy bikes that you care about! For those use the 2×2 cycles or modify a setup meant for carrying bicycles on the roof of a car. For pics of my bike see the post by phog, here:
https://www.stromtrooper.com/dl650-dl650a-2004-2011/268809-bicycle-clamp-mount-wee-strom-2.html

I’m lazy, if confronted with your commute, I’d just take the MC all the way from Fairfax to Bethesda.

On days when I want to do a bit of cycling on my commute from West Falls Church to the Capitol, one option for me is get off at the Spout Run exit off of I-66E, park the motorcycle on the ample (for a motorcycle) street parking on the corner of Kirkwood and Lee Hwy (Lyon Village) and bicycle in from there on the Custis trail/MVT.

[trailrunner]

Welcome to Fairfax County, where the biking infrastructure is poor. I live in Springfield and have likewise struggled to find good commuting routes.

One multi-modal option is to take a bus to the Pentagon (maybe the 17x or 18x, depending on your exact location) and riding from there. I often do something similar. Another bus option is the Fairfax Connector buses.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[consularrider]

@DismalScientist 190122 wrote:

HOV-2 begins at the Beltway, so West Falls Church won’t work.
For parking on the WOD, I would suggest consularrider’s driveway, or at least the cul de sac on Four Mile Run Drive near Ohio.
You might want to consider parking anywhere in (far) North Arlington and cross the Chain Bridge and use the rough hiking trail up to the Capital Crescent Trail.

There are a couple commuters who already use the cul de sac or N 4MR Drive. Driveway is full, sorry.

[Author]

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