Introducing the Arlington County Bicycle Comfort Level Map

[dplasters]

@americancyclo 123050 wrote:

I think you’ve done a great job taking all the suggestions and nits very graciously!

Also, boston is hard to read a looks like a bus map.
Austin is ok, but takes forever to load.

The Fairfax City Bike and Trail map that just came in the mail. It is horrible. This is well done. Always room from improvement, but well done. Keep up the hard work, if I’m lucky it will rub off down 66/29/50.

[CaseyKane50]

Some nits on Army-Navy Drive.

– the map indicates that the bike lanes run in both directions from about 20th Street to Joyce Street. However, the northbound bike lane begins just before the Army-Navy Country Club and ends at Lynn Street. Southbound the bike lane begins at Joyce and runs just past the entrance to the country club.

– the posted speed limit on Army-Navy drive is 30 miles an hour (it really should be 25,)

– given the speed and the length of the bike lanes, I would suggest that only the section of Army-Navy Drive with the bike lanes should be marked as easy

– some sections of Army-Navy without the bike lanes are quite narrow, especially between the entrance to the country club and 28th Street. Car drivers that feel the need to pass either pull into the on-coming lane or pass quite close to bike riders, given the speed and the narrowness of the road, this section should be marked > easy.

– while the hills on Army-Navy Drive are not exceptional, riders do have a short climb southbound after Joyce Street and northbound riders have a gradual, but steady climb from 28th Street to Lynn Street. For new riders or those at the outer edges of the age range, they might like to know about these hills.

[bobco85]

I made some adjustments on the colors, keeping in mind that the green really does stand out. The red is a little less pronounced, too. I’m not too keen on the yellow-green and goldenrod for the comfortable and less comfortable roads, but I hope that the green is easier for a new person to follow.

full map
[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9465&stc=1[/IMG]

zoomed in portion
[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9466&stc=1[/IMG]

map legend
[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9467&stc=1[/IMG]

[scoot]

@Tim Kelley 122944 wrote:

@scoot 122941 wrote:

I’ll follow up with a list of specific nit-picky comments.

Thank you! An email to info@bikearlington.com would be helpful.

Done. Spent way more time on that than I had budgeted for it

[scoot]

@Tim Kelley 122987 wrote:

@lordofthemark 122977 wrote:

but – this being 2015 and all – really what we should have is an interactive tool – wherein you put in weights (this could be done with words, and the machine would turn it into weights) of how important to you traffic volume/speed is, hills, and things like turns and visibility and other things that tend to matter when you are riding quickly. You would then get your own personalized comfort map. I mean would that be that hard to code?

Didn’t RideTheCity do that when it first started? They had the triangle with the dot you could move around to change the distance/hills/traffic attributes of a route. Not sure why they don’t anymore. Looks like they do have a “rate the route” option now.

I remember seeing that; that was a neat idea. The current options of Safer / Safe / Direct route are far more vague. And the directions don’t seem accurate either. RideTheCity tells me that I should jump from S Joyce up to the I-395 exit 8C off-ramp when going from Penrose to Long Bridge Park! I guess that’s what I get for choosing “Direct”…

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9473[/ATTACH]

Trimet is using the adjustable triangle (weights quick vs. flat vs. bike-friendly), but it’s only for Portland:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9474[/ATTACH]

[Tim Kelley]

@CaseyKane50 123058 wrote:

Some nits on Army-Navy Drive.

– the map indicates that the bike lanes run in both directions from about 20th Street to Joyce Street. However, the northbound bike lane begins just before the Army-Navy Country Club and ends at Lynn Street. Southbound the bike lane begins at Joyce and runs just past the entrance to the country club.

– the posted speed limit on Army-Navy drive is 30 miles an hour (it really should be 25,)

– given the speed and the length of the bike lanes, I would suggest that only the section of Army-Navy Drive with the bike lanes should be marked as easy

– some sections of Army-Navy without the bike lanes are quite narrow, especially between the entrance to the country club and 28th Street. Car drivers that feel the need to pass either pull into the on-coming lane or pass quite close to bike riders, given the speed and the narrowness of the road, this section should be marked > easy.

– while the hills on Army-Navy Drive are not exceptional, riders do have a short climb southbound after Joyce Street and northbound riders have a gradual, but steady climb from 28th Street to Lynn Street. For new riders or those at the outer edges of the age range, they might like to know about these hills.

Thanks! That probably means the regular bike map is incorrect on the bike lanes too. Funny how no one ever caught that!

We’ll have to consider changing the designation for it–there is a speed differential, but it doesn’t have a ton of overall volume outside of rush hour, does it?

Marking the hill by Joyce is a good idea.

[Tim Kelley]

@bobco85 123070 wrote:

I made some adjustments on the colors, keeping in mind that the green really does stand out. The red is a little less pronounced, too. I’m not too keen on the yellow-green and goldenrod for the comfortable and less comfortable roads, but I hope that the green is easier for a new person to follow

Even toned down, the red still jumps out quite a bit? That may just be one of the issues with the existence of those roads.

The two colors of green are fairly subtle–not the easiest to distinguish between. And I think the less comfortable green makes those roads feel easier than they should be. At that level folks are already mixing with traffic quite a bit. Maybe try different thickness of lines?

And what about all the red-green color blind folks?

[KLizotte]

@Tim Kelley 123160 wrote:

Thanks! That probably means the regular bike map is incorrect on the bike lanes too. Funny how no one ever caught that!

We’ll have to consider changing the designation for it–there is a speed differential, but it doesn’t have a ton of overall volume outside of rush hour, does it?

Marking the hill by Joyce is a good idea.

No, the traffic volume is quite light on Army Navy west of the S. Joyce intersection but ART and metro buses do use it. There is a stretch where cars have to pull into the other lane to pass cyclists (basically where the bike lanes end). East of S. Joyce, Army Navy gets a lot more volume and dealing with the multiple lights, entrances/exits from the Mall, etc. are a PITA.

[KLizotte]

Any chance that all the roads in AC could eventually have a color assigned to them? Doesn’t have to be done all at once, just over time. I recognize that it may make the map look cluttered but it would be very useful, esp for those not familiar with AC or are new to cycling. Trying to get from A to B only using blue routes (and perhaps green routes) can be quite a challenge if you only stick to those on the existing map.

[Tim Kelley]

@KLizotte 123166 wrote:

No, the traffic volume is quite light on Army Navy west of the S. Joyce intersection but ART and metro buses do use it. There is a stretch where cars have to pull into the other lane to pass cyclists (basically where the bike lanes end). East of S. Joyce, Army Navy gets a lot more volume and dealing with the multiple lights, entrances/exits from the Mall, etc. are a PITA.

So, west and south of Joyce, should it stay easy?

[Tim Kelley]

@KLizotte 123167 wrote:

Any chance that all the roads in AC could eventually have a color assigned to them?

Probably not. As you suspected, the map would be way too cluttered, and the white lines are intended to be “easy” but don’t need to be called out since they aren’t important connections. If you identify white lines that you think should go blue let us know and we’ll take a look.

[KLizotte]

@Tim Kelley 123168 wrote:

So, west and south of Joyce, should it stay easy?

I guess that depends on whether Blue entails cyclists feeling comfortable having cars pass them while having to take the lane (or staying in the right 1/3 of the lane). There is a narrow stretch where I keep a constant eye on cars coming up behind me to make sure they see me and are moving out of the way. Then the road opens up and this is less of a concern. I think that bottleneck is the issue; it probably seems more troublesome than it would normally only because one suddenly encounters it after using a nice wide bike lane.

Heading west/south along Army Navy:

[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9477&stc=1[/IMG]

End of bike lanes:

[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9478&stc=1[/IMG]

Narrow part of street:

[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9479&stc=1[/IMG]

[dasgeh]

@KLizotte 123176 wrote:

I guess that depends on whether Blue entails cyclists feeling comfortable having cars pass them while having to take the lane (or staying in the right 1/3 of the lane). There is a narrow stretch where I keep a constant eye on cars coming up behind me to make sure they see me and are moving out of the way. Then the road opens up and this is less of a concern. I think that bottleneck is the issue; it probably seems more troublesome than it would normally only because one suddenly encounters it after using a nice wide bike lane.

I remember this part as being tricky the few times I’ve taken it. Would definitely move it to medium.

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 123171 wrote:

Probably not. As you suspected, the map would be way too cluttered, and the white lines are intended to be “easy” but don’t need to be called out since they aren’t important connections. If you identify white lines that you think should go blue let us know and we’ll take a look.

Similar to KLizzotte, my suggestion was to outline the currently white roads in blue, so they’ll stick out more. At the very least, the legend should make clear that all/most of the white roads are comfortable/easy/blue

[scoot]

@Tim Kelley 123163 wrote:

Even toned down, the red still jumps out quite a bit? That may just be one of the issues with the existence of those roads.

I think they stand out because they’re long, direct, and continuous. Not really because of the color scheme.

The fact is that one usually has to use circuitous routes and add mileage to find comfortable routes for utility cycling. Which illustrates just how far we still need to go before we have a transportation network that is truly accommodating to people who would like to get around by bicycle.

[Author]

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