Issue on 4 Mille Run trail just before Mount Vernon

[elvis313]

I’ve reported this to Arlington County with the links mentioned in this forum but for any frequent commuters or casual riders, it might be good to get another few comments or reports into them.

“I’m a daily bike commuter from my home in Alexandria to my office in Rosslyn, VA. I use a variety of road bike lanes, roads, and bike paths to get to work. There is a problem area on the Four Mile Run stretch that I wanted to bring to your attention and recommend an improvement for safety and water quality.

At this approximate location on Google Maps (38.841183, -77.050022),

https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=38.841183,+-77.050022&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x89b7b0d3e2d648cb:0x3da999a147a0905a,38.841183,+-77.050022&gl=us&ei=HjDcUaPEMbe44APr0IDAAQ&ved=0CC8Q8gEwAA

you can find rocks, dirt, mud, and debris from where people tramp down to the trail from Potomac Ave. As this road and areas continues to develop, more people use this unapproved path to access Four Mile Run trail. As a result, bike tires are punctured by loose rocks and dirt (not to mention slipping on the loose dirt and stones) and debris wash into Four Mile Run contributing to poor water quality.

I don’t know if a path or stairs with a fence would be a good alternative but I imagine you’ve got some wonderful engineers and landscape architects in your employ who can help with a much-needed solution.

I appreciate your time and concern.

Regards,
Jasen”

Topic

[rcannon100]

Bill Cosby: “They built a street up there called Lombard Street that goes straight down, and they’re not satisfied with you killing yourself that way?they put grooves and curves and everything in it, and they put flowers there where they’ve buried the people that have killed themselves. Lombard Street, wonderful street…”

Just in case you have never had the pleasure:

[video=youtube_share;fphe_QnwSA4]http://youtu.be/fphe_QnwSA4[/video]

[ShawnoftheDread]

Eh, Lombard isn’t even the crookedest street in San Francisco.

[rcannon100]

No, the crookedest street is in Chicago :rolleyes:

[americancyclo]

@ShawnoftheDread 60993 wrote:

Eh, Lombard isn’t even the crookedest street in San Francisco.

Vermont, FTW!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0VzTJQDm2Q

[PotomacCyclist]

Picture retweeted on WashCycle today:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3521[/ATTACH]

[dbb]

The ELITE riders and walkers that have completely destroyed a couple of pieces of fencing because they can’t be bothered to wait for the construction to end are particularly galling. Its a frigging construction site! Stay the hell out!

[consularrider]

@dbb 61407 wrote:

The ELITE riders and walkers that have completely destroyed a couple of pieces of fencing because they can’t be bothered to wait for the construction to end are particularly galling. Its a frigging construction site! Stay the hell out!

I’ve seen the construction workers relacing the bent/broken fence several times since it went up. Would be nice if the ELITE would stop wasting these peoples’ time!

[dbb]

This is the work of the ELITE! Maybe a continuous stretch of barbed wire along the top would reduce elitism.

[mstone]

Did they provide a reasonable alternate route? VDOT is widening a road near me and closed the sidewalk on both sides. The signed detour adds more than a quarter mile and will for months. They simply wouldn’t conduct a project like this without finding some way to accommodate cars, (and the are in this project, rerouting the road several times) but they don’t take pedestrian needs seriously. (See also the monument interchange fiasco on the fairfax county parkway trail.) If they don’t make a real effort to provide for pedestrians during construction projects it seems a bit disingenuous to berate pedestrians for finding their own way.

[dbb]

This new ramp will provide the first formal access from the area north of Four Mile Run and east of US Route 1. Prior to this construction, trail access required crossing Route 1 or heading north for about a mile and using the Crystal City Connector to the Mount Vernon Trail.

A billy goat grade desire path had developed down this slope. It regularly caused erosion on the slope that put mud and rocks on the FMR trail.

While I’ve not seen the construction schedule for the upcoming RR (abandoned) bridge demolition, it seems that the ramp will be constructed to facilitate a detour around the construction site. I applaud the construction phasing. I think that the peds and cyclists that are breaking the fence down are demonstrating their laziness.

[PotomacCyclist]

I saw a guy who rode a mountain bike to that spot today. (His bike was leaning on the wrong side of the fence.) He was fishing in Four Mile Run.

[KLizotte]

@mstone 61438 wrote:

Did they provide a reasonable alternate route? VDOT is widening a road near me and closed the sidewalk on both sides. The signed detour adds more than a quarter mile and will for months. They simply wouldn’t conduct a project like this without finding some way to accommodate cars, (and the are in this project, rerouting the road several times) but they don’t take pedestrian needs seriously. (See also the monument interchange fiasco on the fairfax county parkway trail.) If they don’t make a real effort to provide for pedestrians during construction projects it seems a bit disingenuous to berate pedestrians for finding their own way.

Yes, folks can use the MUP that runs along route 1. It’s only a few blocks away; it leads to Potomac Yard. If they cross at the lights they can walk down the ramp to 4MR. Neither direction adds much in time or distance.

[mstone]

so it sounds like no accommodation was made? and then through sheer bureaucratic cussedness they’ll keep putting back the fence rather than putting that effort into adding a minimal accommodation for demonstrated demand?

[JustinW]

@mstone 61453 wrote:

so it sounds like no accommodation was made? and then through sheer bureaucratic cussedness they’ll keep putting back the fence rather than putting that effort into adding a minimal accommodation for demonstrated demand?

. I suspect that accommodations are made in cases of disruptions to existing, formal paths. In this case, there was no such thing. The new switchbacks will be the first true connector; the trail beaten earlier through the undergrowth was in no was a proper or legitimate path.

[dbb]

The fenced area is a construction site. I think that the builders need to protect themselves from the potential liability.

While desire lines exist, it isn’t clear why they should be maintained by the government. In many cases they exist only because the trail users seem to be too lazy to use the facilities that have been constructed. The existing desire line wasn’t benign in that it provided a source of mud, rocks and gravel that accumulated on the concrete surface of the Four Mile Run trail.

I applaud the decision to construct the ramp connecting South Crystal City to the FMR. I think it was long overdue. I would like to see trail users give the builders time to finish it without trespassing.

[Author]

Replies