My Morning Commute

[TwoWheelsDC]

Beat the bus again, even though today it had a 30 second head start. The intersection of Westmoreland and Kirby at school drop-off time is my trump card. Gawd, what a mess that intersection is…People sit with their kids on Westmoreland for what I’d wager is at least 10-15 minutes, right outside Longfellow MS, just so they can drive into the parking lot and drop their kid at the curb. Your kid can’t get out and walk that extra 200ft to the school?? If parents either did that, or drove a couple hundred feet past the school, there’s a super wide shoulder they could stop at and traffic problems would go away…but no, they have to back up traffic for a half mile just so little Timmy doesn’t have to walk on that icky public sidewalk. THE HORROR.

Oddly, Haycock Elementary, right up the street, doesn’t seem to have this problem.

[mstone]

@TwoWheelsDC 83104 wrote:

Beat the bus again, even though today it had a 30 second head start. The intersection of Westmoreland and Kirby at school drop-off time is my trump card. Gawd, what a mess that intersection is…People sit with their kids on Westmoreland for what I’d wager is at least 10-15 minutes, right outside Longfellow MS, just so they can drive into the parking lot and drop their kid at the curb. Your kid can’t get out and walk that extra 200ft to the school?? If parents either did that, or drove a couple hundred feet past the school, there’s a super wide shoulder they could stop at and traffic problems would go away…but no, they have to back up traffic for a half mile just so little Timmy doesn’t have to walk on that icky public sidewalk. THE HORROR.

Oddly, Haycock Elementary, right up the street, doesn’t seem to have this problem.

Most schools discourage this practice because a surprising number of kids get hit by parents racing in and out of the parking lots. Sad but true.

[jrenaut]

@mstone 83106 wrote:

Most schools discourage this practice because a surprising number of kids get hit by parents racing in and out of the parking lots. Sad but true.

It’s really sad that we’ve gotten so car-centric that our solution to dangerous, illegal behavior is not to stop the behavior, but to move the vulnerable human beings further away.

[jrenaut]

Oh, yeah, my morning commute. I had to transport an almond macaroon torte with chocolate frosting to work for the monthly birthday celebration, so I was a lot slower than usual to avoid bumps. 14th Street has days when it’s just a complete disaster, and today was one. But I chatted with a cyclist around K, and a nice woman who correctly predicted I’d be faster than she was let me go ahead of her at 14th and PA. And it’s gorgeous out. And my torte survived.

[cyclingfool]

@jrenaut 83112 wrote:

It’s really sad that we’ve gotten so car-centric that our solution to dangerous, illegal behavior is not to stop the behavior, but to move the vulnerable human beings further away.

Not all that different from the mentality that if we have traffic congestion problems, the solution is to add and widen roads rather than stop building suburban subdivision style housing as far as the eye can see and strip malls galore w/ little thought to the provision of transit/biking options or reconsidering shitty land use policies. But I digress…

[jrenaut]

@cyclingfool 83114 wrote:

Not all that different from the mentality that if we have traffic congestion problems, the solution is to add and widen roads rather than stop building suburban subdivision style housing as far as the eye can see and strip malls galore w/ little thought to the provision of transit/biking options or reconsidering shitty land use policies. But I digress…

It’s funny how the solution is always, “Let’s make it easier for people to ride their bikes more places”.

[cyclingfool]

The answer doesn’t have to be bikes, though I’m partial to them. It should certainly be part of the mix. But at the very least it seems we should actively be discouraging people from living 30+ miles from where they work or at least take measures to internalize some of the social and environmental costs associated with a decision to do so. Other important elements of the solution, denser development and better transit, for instance, tend to promote environments conducing to cycling, so it’s practically a win-win by default.

[vvill]

@mstone 83106 wrote:

Most schools discourage this practice because a surprising number of kids get hit by parents racing in and out of the parking lots. Sad but true.

I’m always amazed at how regimented the rules are about dropping off/picking up kids from schools, but it makes sense given the driving habits around here. (I grew up riding buses to/from school that were the same as any other bus.)

Schoolchildren on a bus! Bright yellow! OMG! STOP! Change all the traffic patterns!
But anyone else on/around a bus? Pedestrians? Other road users? Screw em’! I’ve had a few unpleasant situations at bus stops when I had to get a bus to work (due to injury from bike crashes, ironically). Bus pulled over? Let’s cross the double yellow with zero visibility and zoom by at 40mph because there’s no chance someone getting off the bus could be in the vicinity. Darn buses just clog up the roads. :rolleyes:

[Subby]

My kids have gone, will go, or do go to school at Longfellow MS. TwoWheels is correct in his assessment that the intersection of Kirby and Westmoreland is an absolute cluster that time of the morning. The crazy thing is that a TON of kids walk to that school (our oldest walked every day), and there is also bus service. Part of the problem is that Longfellow has the middle school GT program for McLean, so you have a lot of kids from the other side of 123 (which is normally served by Cooper MS) driving their kids over, via Westmoreland southbound. Probably more of an impact, however, is that since both roads are major neighborhood commuting arteries, you have a lot of parents dropping their kids off on their way to work. I don’t really have an issue with this because, at least in my case, it means more time with my kid in the morning (on the days I drive)*. Anyway, instead of going straight on Westmoreland, you have a ton of cars waiting to make that turn into a SINGLE entrance point at the school. Once you turn in to the school, you have to cross the bus lane, so a police officer is often stopping traffic so that a bus can get out. Also – you do see parents letting their kids out of the car all the time before getting to Longfellow, I think that doesn’t reduce volume because they still continue through the intersection on the way to work.

The bottom line is that the current infrastructure does not support rush hour traffic (try crossing Kirby via Westmoreland going southbound at the evening rush – traffic is sometimes backed up all the way down to KGRC or McLean LL). If they widened Westmoreland to add a turn lane into the school and changed the entrance point at the school, it would make a huge difference.

FWIW, Haycock is a lot different because you have two different access points. And it has improved a ton since they added entrance and exit points to their lot on Westmoreland (which came with a new bike lane…yay!)

* My 13 yo has special needs and can not walk or bike to school on his own, otherwise he would do the same as his big brother did. He qualifies for bus service even though the school is less than a mile away and usually takes the bus.

[vvill]

@Subby 83129 wrote:

FWIW, Haycock is a lot different because you have two different access points. And it has improved a ton since they added entrance and exit points to their lot on Westmoreland (which came with a new bike lane…yay!)

Yes! I love that bike lane.

The solution as a cyclist is obviously to commute via Powhatan instead of Westmoreland.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@vvill 83132 wrote:

Yes! I love that bike lane.

The solution as a cyclist is obviously to commute via Powhatan instead of Westmoreland.

I’ve done that quite a few times…unfortunately it adds quite a bit of time in the morning, and now that I have class after work two days a week, I have to avoid the big hill on the way home. My solution in the morning is to just stay in the right lane heading north on Westmorland and filter to the front of traffic at the light at Kirby (that’s how I beat the bus). Evenings usually aren’t a problem, as I roll through after the school pick-up, but usually before traffic gets bad on the south side of Westmoreland.

[dasgeh]

@cyclingfool 83117 wrote:

The answer doesn’t have to be bikes, though I’m partial to them. It should certainly be part of the mix. But at the very least it seems we should actively be discouraging people from living 30+ miles from where they work or at least take measures to internalize some of the social and environmental costs associated with a decision to do so. Other important elements of the solution, denser development and better transit, for instance, tend to promote environments conducing to cycling, so it’s practically a win-win by default.

Affordable housing is also important to the mix.

[Subby]

@vvill 83132 wrote:

The solution as a cyclist is obviously to commute via Powhatan instead of Westmoreland.

You can also cut through that town house development.

[dasgeh]

… was gorgeous. And I didn’t hijack anyone.

[vvill]

@TwoWheelsDC 83137 wrote:

Evenings usually aren’t a problem, as I roll through after the school pick-up, but usually before traffic gets bad on the south side of Westmoreland.

@Subby 83143 wrote:

You can also cut through that town house development.

I made a new segment for the Westmoreland commuters among us!

[Author]

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