My Evening Commute

[dasgeh]

@Alcova cyclist 109039 wrote:

On the plus side, you didn’t piss off NickBull.

My one true goal in life.

[GB]

My evening commute was multimodal and included a bike fix:

Office -> Bike -> Metro -> watch youtube video on how to fix rubbing disc brakes -> fix rubbing disc brakes -> Metro (continued) -> Bike -> Car -> Home

[Powerful Pete]

Commute on Ohio, Jefferson Memorial, one lap of Hains Point (just to make rcannon happy!), Memorial Bridge, Lynn, Custis. Nice.

Not that much ice at all, so with the exception of flintstoning on the Spout Run bridge all was good.

[KWL]

I took on the MVT and won tonight. No dabbing, no walking. Rode the whole way from Key Bridge to 4MRT. Take THAT GW Parkway management! (Made possible by contributions from Nokian and a few curses)

[slowtriguy]

I never thought I’d live to see this, but I actually witnessed an Arlington parking control officer forcing people NOT to double park across from the Ballston Metro.

I was close enough to hear the disbelief in the driver’s voice: “But I’m just waiting for my wife!” “Not here, sir. You can’t park here.”

You mean it’s NOT a block-long kiss and ride double parking zone? Could’ve fooled me.

[rcannon100]

@slowtriguy 110036 wrote:

I never thought I’d live to see this, but I actually witnessed an Arlington parking control officer forcing people NOT to double park across from the Ballston Metro.

I was close enough to hear the disbelief in the driver’s voice: “But I’m just waiting for my wife!” “Not here, sir. You can’t park here.”

You mean it’s NOT a block-long kiss and ride double parking zone? Could’ve fooled me.

Ballston is one of the busiest metro stops. One of the flaws to metro is how people interface with it once it gets suburban. Tysons has no pedestrian access. Others have massive one level parking lots (the parking is good – aggregating traffic into the city – the design is terrible). Ballston is a massive transit station. And yet there is no KISS and RIDE. They dedicated a lane there for parking – but they give you no where to go when you are picking people up – and no safe way of doing it. So yes – that lane as become a defacto kiss and ride.

Over and over these are design issues. These are infrastructure issues. People want to use the public transportation. But the design is not great. We are a one car family. We use the ballston metro all the time. I double park there all the time. There is no good alternative. They should have created a kiss and ride, like they have at the rest of the outward stations. But they didnt.

People want to use public transportation. Making it hard to do so is dumb. It’s not the patrons fault.

[slowtriguy]

@rcannon100 110040 wrote:

Ballston is one of the busiest metro stops. One of the flaws to metro is how people interface with it once it gets suburban. Tysons has no pedestrian access. Others have massive one level parking lots (the parking is good – aggregating traffic into the city – the design is terrible). Ballston is a massive transit station. And yet there is no KISS and RIDE. They dedicated a lane there for parking – but they give you no where to go when you are picking people up – and no safe way of doing it. So yes – that lane as become a defacto kiss and ride.

Over and over these are design issues. These are infrastructure issues. People want to use the public transportation. But the design is not great. We are a one car family. We use the ballston metro all the time. I double park there all the time. There is no good alternative. They should have created a kiss and ride, like they have at the rest of the outward stations. But they didnt.

People want to use public transportation. Making it hard to do so is dumb. It’s not the patrons fault.

Fair response, and sorry I was snippy in my post.

I guess I see two sides to this one.

On the one hand, Ballston is a major hub, and The Powers That Made These Decisions should have done a better job of building into it the surface transportation infrastructure to handle access. It is crazy not to have a true Kiss and Ride facility there given the amount of such traffic there. This is something that really needs to be addressed.

On the other hand, what is the point of having rules if they aren’t enforced consistently? I ride through this block pretty much every commute, and I regularly see folks — no doubt merely trying to get through their days — doing things that aren’t consistent with the rules, and that in some cases put themselves or others in danger. And I regularly see police officers there apparently doing nothing about it (that’s partially why I was so shocked tonight), which drives me nuts. Must be my idealist side — why have rules if they aren’t enforced consistently?

If it were up to me, we’d find a way to reconcile the reality and the rules. I can envision at least two end member ways to do that: either (1) the rules would be enforced to the point that folks would change their behavior to follow the rules, or (2) the rules would be changed so that folks’ behavior defined the new rules. Practical answers probably lie somewhere in between.

So: how can the reality and the rules be reconciled?

[mstone]

@rcannon100 110040 wrote:

Ballston is one of the busiest metro stops. One of the flaws to metro is how people interface with it once it gets suburban. Tysons has no pedestrian access. Others have massive one level parking lots (the parking is good – aggregating traffic into the city – the design is terrible). Ballston is a massive transit station. And yet there is no KISS and RIDE. They dedicated a lane there for parking – but they give you no where to go when you are picking people up – and no safe way of doing it. So yes – that lane as become a defacto kiss and ride.

I’d suggest picking someone up somewhere else. Ballston doesn’t have the room for a kiss and ride, that’s why there isn’t one. You can’t have TOD around a suburban commuter station.

[Powerful Pete]

Well, the downhill on the Custis heading West immediately after the bridge to nowhere, along with the overpass on Spout Run were very exciting. I walked most of it (someone with infinitely more skilled rode by me) and I watched a guy maybe fifty meters behind me eat asphalt. He seemed ok and was accompanied by another rider… they walked even more than I did following the fall.

Beyond that (and my driveway) it was all pretty darn good.

Be very careful tomorrow morning, no matter what the temperature may be, on that particular stretch of the Custis.

[kwarkentien]

@rcannon100 110040 wrote:

Ballston is one of the busiest metro stops. One of the flaws to metro is how people interface with it once it gets suburban. Tysons has no pedestrian access. Others have massive one level parking lots (the parking is good – aggregating traffic into the city – the design is terrible). Ballston is a massive transit station. And yet there is no KISS and RIDE. They dedicated a lane there for parking – but they give you no where to go when you are picking people up – and no safe way of doing it. So yes – that lane as become a defacto kiss and ride.

Over and over these are design issues. These are infrastructure issues. People want to use the public transportation. But the design is not great. We are a one car family. We use the ballston metro all the time. I double park there all the time. There is no good alternative. They should have created a kiss and ride, like they have at the rest of the outward stations. But they didnt.

People want to use public transportation. Making it hard to do so is dumb. It’s not the patrons fault.

Strongly agree. Unfortunately, this could easily have been addressed years ago when there was nothing at the Ballston station (then “the end” of the Orange line) but a giant, open-air bus depot. Arlington didn’t see clear to include Kiss and Rides at any station other than East Falls Church. (Frankly, I’m shocked that Arlington actually allowed a Kiss and Ride at EFC.) Pentagon City was originally a large, vacant lot where the mall is now. Setting Ballston and Pentagon City up with Kiss and Ride areas would have made so much sense back before all the development swallowed up those neighborhoods. I suspect Arlington’s misguided efforts at pushing transit while trying to limit automobiles at all costs is the root cause of the lack of adequate facilities for dropoffs and pickups.

[dplasters]

I’m confused. So we’re saying there is a war on cars in Arlington and it went too far?

Circle the block, find a parking spot, or just move when you get called out for double parking. Its really not that bad is it?

[mstone]

@dplasters 110071 wrote:

I’m confused. So we’re saying there is a war on cars in Arlington and it went too far?

Exactly. When I look out my window toward the ballston metro station, the one thing I don’t see is enough pavement marked for motor vehicles. Just consider how you could knock down one of the towers and put in as many as 50 or 100 surface parking spots by the metro instead of thousands of tax-paying “residents” or “employees” with 5 times as much underground parking (where the cars can’t get their necessary fresh air and sunshine!) If only the political leaders in Arlington weren’t so short-sighted, and did things more like PG county where the metro stations retain their proper role as anchors for vacant lots and light commercial/industrial office parks and there’s never a delay to whisk people from the metro in private cars on traffic-free roads. Or something.

[chris_s]

@rcannon100 110040 wrote:

Over and over these are design issues. These are infrastructure issues. People want to use the public transportation. But the design is not great. We are a one car family. We use the ballston metro all the time. I double park there all the time. There is no good alternative. They should have created a kiss and ride, like they have at the rest of the outward stations. But they didnt.

The Ballston Multimodal Project will be reworking the use of curb space around the Ballston Station and will be designating approximately a 2-car area for drop-off and pick-up. Slide 24 of this presentation has the best view of the proposed curb allocation.

[rcannon100]

@dplasters 110071 wrote:

I’m confused. So we’re saying there is a war on cars in Arlington and it went too far?

Circle the block, find a parking spot, or just move when you get called out for double parking. Its really not that bad is it?

No, we’re saying there is a war on cars…. and it did not go far enough. Instead of having a useless lane at ballston for parking by people using single mode of transportation, tin cans – that lane should be dedicated to Kiss and Ride – to promote use of the subway. We’re saying Less Parking – More Public Transportation.

Is it really that terrible. Naw. I double park there all the time. It’s not a prob. But to anyone objecting to the double parkers – its not there fault to design is dense.

[Crickey7]

I could actually feel ice forming last night. First, cute sparkliness, then tackiness, then ice, all in 10 minutes. Shifted to treated surfaces, where it stayed unfrozen for another 20 minutes. Then rode slowly.

[Author]

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