January ’16 – Trail Condition: That time they predicted mind-boggling amounts of snow
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CaseyKane50.
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January 12, 2016 at 3:51 pm #1044912
Tania
ParticipantIt’s ridiculous to expect/demand the trail be rebuilt (or re-done) in spots that are perfectly safe at reasonable speeds. I brake for tight turns when I drive too.
Oh wait. We’re entitled cyclists. Braking is unnecessary. Yield is a dirty word. Strava times trump all!
January 12, 2016 at 4:07 pm #1044916huskerdont
ParticipantI don’t think it’s asking too much to request to have trails reworked in problem areas where accidents occur. Departments of transportation do this all the time with roads, even if it’s driver error or rulebreaking that cause the accidents, because it’s in everyone’s interest to reduce accidents, injury, and deaths. You also have to factor in the role of the innocent victims of accidents–the people who weren’t speeding and who were following the law but were injured by someone else’s rulebreaking.
However, since it’s unlikely in this case that the trail will be improved–Arlington is doing well just to repave occasionally–I’ll just continue to pay more attention in problem spots and go about my business. I will note that I have dodged many a bullet here, even so–people coming around the curve fast on the wrong side, people entering up the cut from Lee Highway without looking, people walking on the wrong side of the trail in the blind spot. I don’t know how often accidents happen so maybe it just feels unsafe, but I’ve seen an ambulance leaving here while the rider’s bike was still lying on the ground.
As Steve O stated, a better mirror setup would help some and wouldn’t cost as much as widening the trail and removing the light post on the outside of the curve.
January 12, 2016 at 4:09 pm #1044917DrP
ParticipantJust looked at the hourly weather predictions for today from weather.gov. By 4pm the wind gusts are to be 40mph and going up from there. I hope that was a mis-entered value as a few hours ago they didn’t predict that until quite late tonight. The ride home will wither be really fast or really slow (and possibly not in a anything resembling a straight line.).
This will be fun*!
*For some definitions of fun.
January 12, 2016 at 4:14 pm #1044919NickBull
Participant@Tania 131917 wrote:
It’s ridiculous to expect/demand the trail be rebuilt (or re-done) in spots that are perfectly safe at reasonable speeds. I brake for tight turns when I drive too.
Oh wait. We’re entitled cyclists. Braking is unnecessary. Yield is a dirty word. Strava times trump all!
I agree. But even if you are going slowly (e.g heading away from DC in the right lane, staying as close to the wall as you reasonably can) you can still get plowed into by some idiot who is coming down the hill fast and decides to pass on the blind corner. I ring my bell like crazy here, either direction.
Steve’s suggestion of actually-useful mirrors is probably the most practical, though these tend to attract vandals. Speed bumps on the downhill? But these could cause more accidents than they prevent as people lose control hitting an unexpected bump.
There are also people who try to merge onto the bike path from the sidewalk right here, insane as that might seem. So a barrier to prevent that would be useful, with a sign pointing to the actual entrance.
Nick
January 12, 2016 at 4:30 pm #1044921Tania
ParticipantI love that the trail has mirrors in blind spots (I do agree the one there isn’t much help and trail ninjas, like vampires, have no reflection in mirrors). There was a jogger heading west yesterday afternoon as I came down the hill to that corner so I hung back behind her until we were both around the bend and then I passed. There are several spots on the Custis where I slow down, look and wait if necessary.
My building installed mirrors in our underground parking garage because there were so many fender benders (and fights, apparently) as people took corners too wide etc. People still drive like idiots but at least now I can see them coming. My parked car has been hit three times so my expectations are low.
January 12, 2016 at 6:16 pm #1044938Steve O
Participant@Tania 131902 wrote:
Or, you know, people could slow down.
Given that peds have been hit here, you can be riding as slowly as walking and still get hit.
January 12, 2016 at 9:34 pm #1044967mstone
Participant@Tania 131917 wrote:
It’s ridiculous to expect/demand the trail be rebuilt (or re-done) in spots that are perfectly safe at reasonable speeds. I brake for tight turns when I drive too.
Oh wait. We’re entitled cyclists. Braking is unnecessary. Yield is a dirty word. Strava times trump all!
Why should bike/ped infrastructure be built to a lower standard than car infrastructure? It’s entitlement to expect the engineers to consider human factors and safety?
Also, waving around a bunch of ridiculous stereotypes (strava? really?) in an attempt to avoid the actual point verges between the silly and the stupid.
January 12, 2016 at 11:53 pm #1044975hozn
ParticipantI think Tania’s point was that sometimes you should just slow down. There are plenty of roads/curves (in Arlington) with equally bad sight lines. If cars want to cross the yellow line going around curves, accidents will happen. Not sure why we should insist that cyclists and joggers need to have special trails that accommodate folks ignoring the painted “slow” signs and riding in oncoming lanes … ?
That curve isn’t great but it wouldn’t make my top 50 list of places I would be likely to be killed while cycling in Arlington county.
January 13, 2016 at 12:43 am #1044976mstone
Participant@hozn 131981 wrote:
I think Tania’s point was that sometimes you should just slow down.
Of course you should, did ANYONE suggest anything else, or can we consider the straw man dead?
Independent of whether any individual cyclist has chosen the right speed is the question of whether the turn is appropriate for one of the most heavily used trails in the area, or whether good engineering principles would suggest that the design is deficient. Roads aren’t designed based on “well, if everyone behaves I guess it won’t kill anybody”, they’re designed based on “these are the standards for a safe road”. When roads are substandard they go on a list and get rebuilt. It’s not entitlement to think that it isn’t reasonable for substandard cycling facilities to simply go on a list of “shit that the department of cars doesn’t care about”.
January 13, 2016 at 1:12 am #1044980hozn
ParticipantI guess I fail to appreciate how dangerous this corner is if people 1) stay in their lane and 2) proceed slowly [as instructed]. Are people riding slowly around the corner and right into the back of slower traffic?
Maybe they should a speed limit in place and start ticketing cyclists. That is, after all, what they would do for cars.
January 13, 2016 at 1:33 am #1044987lordofthemark
ParticipantWe generally build roads straight, so that cars can go fast, safely. Sometimes we don’t. It tends to depend in costs, volume, and alternatives. I am not suggesting the benefit cost for straightening the Custis is either positive or negative, but I agree with Mstone that the idea of improving the infra here is not invalidated by the need to slow down meanwhile. Where the Custis stands in the list of Arlington priorities, you may debate (I note that the Custis is heavily used by people from Falls Church and Fairfax, while say the Hoffman Boston connection is mostly of interest to Arlingtonians. I am also not familiar with other locations where the Custis could be improved.
January 13, 2016 at 1:45 am #1044989mstone
Participant@hozn 131987 wrote:
Maybe they should a speed limit in place and start ticketing cyclists. That is, after all, what they would do for cars.
Roads have minimum design speeds, which include things like minimum curve radius and superelevation. So do trails…and the custis fails to meet modern standards.
January 13, 2016 at 2:02 am #1044994hozn
Participant@mstone 131996 wrote:
Roads have minimum design speeds, which include things like minimum curve radius and superelevation. So do trails…and the custis fails to meet modern standards.
In practice there are plenty of roads in the county/state/country that surely do not adhere to any minimum curve radiuses, so to say that cyclists are not treated like cars sounds a bit exaggerated. I maintain that if cars were causing accidents because they were going too fast and driving around corners in the oncoming lane, the response would be to enforce the rules, not redesign the road.
Luckily as cyclists we get effectively zero enforcement and the option to ride on sidewalks, bike paths, and streets. But don’t worry, we’ll complain as loudly as possible if we ever see a car double parked in the bike lane — or, heaven forbid, a jogger. It’s hard to understand why the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of entitled pricks.
January 13, 2016 at 2:26 am #1044996lordofthemark
Participant@hozn 132001 wrote:
In practice there are plenty of roads in the county/state/country that surely do not adhere to any minimum curve radiuses, so to say that cyclists are not treated like cars sounds a bit exaggerated. I maintain that if cars were causing accidents because they were going too fast and driving around corners in the oncoming lane, the response would be to enforce the rules, not redesign the road.
Luckily as cyclists we get effectively zero enforcement and the option to ride on sidewalks, bike paths, and streets. But don’t worry, we’ll complain as loudly as possible if we ever see a car double parked in the bike lane — or, heaven forbid, a jogger. It’s hard to understand why the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of entitled pricks.
Roads fail to meet standards because they were built before the standards were in place, or are built in mountainous terrain. And we will blast through mountains to create an interstate up to standards. Or dug a tunnel.
As for speed enforcement on trails, that would presumably require a force of trained bike cops patrolling the trails. I’m eager to see that.
Oh, and we cannot ride on sidewalks in downtown DC, or in the commercial parts of King and Union in Old Town.
All the local jurisdictions seem to agree that increasing bike mode share is a good thing. And that improving infra is a way to do it. The I66 project, though most tolls will go to pay for highway improvements and transit, will also help pay for bike infra. Mostly folks have talked about the Rte 50 trail, but if there is an opportunity to improve the Custis, why not?
And if we are going to have bike infra, it should be useable. Not blocked by delivery trucks, especially in places where they have alternate accommodations.
So while I am not sure I agree with Mstone on this particular priority, I do not agree that attempting to get improved infra makes us entitled pricks.
I note that my position on this has not changed since getting into biking in the last three years or so.
January 13, 2016 at 2:32 am #1044998lordofthemark
ParticipantToday someone wrote in the AlexandrIA Times suggesting that the population of the City be capped, to avoid worsening congestion from more cars. While I think he exaggerated the extent of congestion, it is true that for someplace like Alexandria to grow and provide more housing close to regional job centers, we need to improve all non auto modes.
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