In the beginning was the deed!

[lordofthemark]

(Apologies to Goethe, Le Carre, and the authors of both parts of the bible)

I know its early to think about FS2018, but this may take some discussion and some time, so here goes. Besides when its this hot, why not talk about FS?

I have been thinking of setting up a side bet/reindeer game. Something around bike advocacy. But giving a prize for sitting at meetings (or similar) would exclude all the folks who don’t want to sit at meetings, plus its not any harder to sit at meetings in the winter.

So I was thinking about how, when we build infra, one of the complaints thrown in our face it that its not ridden alot (even where the infra is really there for traffic calming). I would love to see more riders using that infra, showing the flag, etc. Advocacy by riding around, IOW. Some of y’all already do that, but I thought it could lead to a nice contest. And I recall a side bet last year where strava segs were created for different parts of the Arlington Loop, our wonderful coders created code to count how many times people rode in them, and an award was given for that. I was thinking I could create segments for a bunch of the more controversial recent infra expansions, hopefully the coders could use the same code as for the Arl Loop contest, and we would be good to go.

Of course I would want advice on what segments to include. For Alexandria I would do the two parts of middle King Street (Janneys to the Cedar, and TCW to Janneys) maybe the Van Dorn lanes, and maybe Cameron and Prince (and Royal?) For Arlington the new lanes on Wilson? Not sure what recent controversial lanes needing more ridership there are in the other jurisdictions.

I am also open to the idea that this should not be done, because NIMBYs MIGHT accuse us of gaming the data. Though I presume bike counts are not being done during FS? I also realize that some people may ride in the general travel lanes on these segments, and there may no good way to exclude those – not sure if that would be so extensive that the whole thing wouldn’t work, or just that some segments might need to be excluded. Or that the coding is harder than I think.

At this stage, I am looking for general feedback. TIA.

Topic

[lordofthemark]

@Steve O 168064 wrote:

(ftfy) I’m offering kudos for people who use the word “who” instead of “that” when referring to humans.

Staff has suggested changing “who” to “that”, but Council has stated that (sic) a study is needed first, and several people have testified against the change, (and the Alexandria Times has editorialized against it) on the grounds that the City has had enough change, that its being done on behalf of greedy developers, and that it might impact parking. BPAC is glad that at least the Council has not nixed the change without study.

#lifeinAlexandria

[dasgeh]

I need to update the Arlington list, as Quincy didn’t get repaved but another (very short) part of Quincy did:

In Arlington:
– Quincy but only from 13th St N and 17th St N
– Washington bn Sycamore and McKinley (assuming VDOT is done with the repaving; bonus points for taking the lane eastbound you-know-where)
– Wilson bn Manchester and Emerson
– S Eads bn Army Navy and Glebe (i.e. the whole thing)
– S Hayes bn 15th and where it becomes 18th
– S 18th bn where it was Hayes to Eads
– Crystal Dr bn 18th and Airport Access [correct me if I’m wrong on that one — the “saved” bike lanes]

[lordofthemark]

Okay there are existing strava segments for the the controversial parts of King (NB) and for Cameron. Not for the SB bike lanes on King, nor for Prince. I guess I don’t want to really do one for the SB lane south of Janney’s, where many FS participants would probably prefer to take the lane, but I do think a SB segment on King from TCW to Janney’s would be good, and one on Prince.

I will review the suggested Arlington segments later.

[Judd]

@lordofthemark 169219 wrote:

Okay there are existing strava segments for the the controversial parts of King (NB) and for Cameron. Not for the SB bike lanes on King, nor for Prince. I guess I don’t want to really do one for the SB lane south of Janney’s, where many FS participants would probably prefer to take the lane, but I do think a SB segment on King from TCW to Janney’s would be good, and one on Prince.

I will review the suggested Arlington segments later.

Strava won’t be able to tell the difference between using the bike lane and taking the lane. I’d suggest that creating a segment would encourage checking out the infrastructure even if one does take the lane.

I’m excited for this challenge since it will give me an excuse to explore lots of infrastructure I haven’t used yet.

[lordofthemark]

Quick update – progress on this is being made. I have made a spreadsheet of all the places I want segments, and have identified existing segments for the places in the City of Alexandria (still working on Arlington and DC) The existing segments are pretty much all shorter than I want (I care about the whole piece of infra, not the ride to the crest of a hill) so I may make new ones anyway, though I suppose in some places riding most of the infra will do.

I have NO places specified in Fairfax, or in Maryland. If people in those places know of any that would fit the bill for this (controversial pieces of seg infra) please let me know very soon, or this will be an Arlington/Alexandria/DC game.

[FFX_Hinterlands]

Yes, In Reston there’s Lawyers Road, Soapstone, Colt’s Neck, Glade, Twin Branches (?). These all have some sort of bike lane.

[creadinger]

@lordofthemark 169612 wrote:

Quick update – progress on this is being made. I have made a spreadsheet of all the places I want segments, and have identified existing segments for the places in the City of Alexandria (still working on Arlington and DC) The existing segments are pretty much all shorter than I want (I care about the whole piece of infra, not the ride to the crest of a hill) so I may make new ones anyway, though I suppose in some places riding most of the infra will do.

I have NO places specified in Fairfax, or in Maryland. If people in those places know of any that would fit the bill for this (controversial pieces of seg infra) please let me know very soon, or this will be an Arlington/Alexandria/DC game.

Is there a Maine Ave segment for the finished PBL? I’m curious as to how many cyclists take a lane on Maine instead of the PBL, but I suspect the right, southbound lane of Maine would be too close to Strava to distinguish them. The northbound lanes may be far enough away though?

I’ve only taken the PBL once. Northbound when Maine Ave traffic was backed up to the Arena Stage.

[vern]

@FFX_Hinterlands 169614 wrote:

Yes, In Reston there’s Lawyers Road, Soapstone, Colt’s Neck, Glade, Twin Branches (?). These all have some sort of bike lane.

North Shore now also has a bike lane for most of it’s length.

[bentbike33]

@creadinger 169615 wrote:

Is there a Maine Ave segment for the finished PBL? I’m curious as to how many cyclists take a lane on Maine instead of the PBL, but I suspect the right, southbound lane of Maine would be too close to Strava to distinguish them. The northbound lanes may be far enough away though?

I’ve only taken the PBL once. Northbound when Maine Ave traffic was backed up to the Arena Stage.

Strava allows for way too much GPS error in crediting segments to distinguish between the main travel lane and seg infra. As an example, consider ArLoopCCW2 which is defined on the W&OD along Four Mile Run Drive. On this ride I get credit for the segment even though I was riding in the rightmost eastbound lane of Four Mile Run Drive (this was when the W&OD interchanges were under construction), about as far away as I could get from the trail while remaining on the parallel road.

[lordofthemark]

@FFX_Hinterlands 169614 wrote:

Yes, In Reston there’s Lawyers Road, Soapstone, Colt’s Neck, Glade, Twin Branches (?). These all have some sort of bike lane.

Were (are) any of the bike lanes controversial? I am willing to add a non-controversial segment for geographic balance if people really want (and then I would certainly need to do the same for Maryland) put would really prefer to make this about segments with at least some controversy (I am including Van Dorn, which did not stir up as much as King Street, but which I recall getting at least some pushback)

[Sunyata]

@lordofthemark 169619 wrote:

Were (are) any of the bike lanes controversial? I am willing to add a non-controversial segment for geographic balance if people really want (and then I would certainly need to do the same for Maryland) put would really prefer to make this about segments with at least some controversy (I am including Van Dorn, which did not stir up as much as King Street, but which I recall getting at least some pushback)

I know the Glade lanes were very controversial (and still are according to a friend who lives off Glade). The new paint at the intersection of Glade and Soapstone was an issue as well, but the Soapstone lanes have been there for a while, if I recall correctly.

[lordofthemark]

@Sunyata 169654 wrote:

I know the Glade lanes were very controversial (and still are according to a friend who lives off Glade). The new paint at the intersection of Glade and Soapstone was an issue as well, but the Soapstone lanes have been there for a while, if I recall correctly.

Is that this project ?

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fcdot/bike/gladedrive-streetimprovements2017.htm

Is it completed? What are the endpoints?

I will be happy to include it.

[lordofthemark]

I will also add the 500 block of T Street and 1900 block of 6th street NW, contraflow lanes in LeDroit Park. Hattip Greater Greater Washington.

[LhasaCM]

@lordofthemark 169815 wrote:

I will also add the 500 block of T Street and 1900 block of 6th street NW, contraflow lanes in LeDroit Park. Hattip Greater Greater Washington.

Good call. I was going to ask if you had any minimum length requirements…

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

[lordofthemark]

@LhasaCM 169816 wrote:

Good call. I was going to ask if you had any minimum length requirements…

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

I don’t but Strava does (as I found out trying to create a segment for the part of Washington Blvd in Arlington between Nash and McKinley). Looks like T Street and 6th street will be out, as a result.

Its a lot easier to create segment where there is a recent ride I know of, and don’t have to scroll and scroll looking for ones to edit. I have done all the riding I need for the NoVa segments. I may not have time to ride the entire lenghts of the L and M street PBLs though (there are segments on them already, but not as long as I want) by NYE. If anyone can either ride them soon, or if they have rides already done and can post links to the rides here, I would appreciate it.

[Author]

Replies