New Paint on the Custis Trail near Ballston today!

[bentbike33]

Nice they could get around to it. This section has not had a centerline since it was repaved 3 or 4 years ago (maybe longer?).

[mstone]

Oh, I thought after the paving it had been reconfigured to a luxurious wide lane in my direction

[dasgeh]

They seemed to have painted a center-line down the entire Custis. Yay!

It’s a broken line (i.e. not solid) the entire way – even leading up to the blind curves. Less yay…

[bentbike33]

@dasgeh 148319 wrote:

They seemed to have painted a center-line down the entire Custis. Yay!

It’s a broken line (i.e. not solid) the entire way – even leading up to the blind curves. Less yay…

Also, the new dashes don’t seem to be reflective, or at least not as reflective as the old underlying paint.

[JustinW]

And new paint in other places, too! Bluemont Trail, for example, and even that little-used 4 Mile Run Trail underpass under George Mason Drive. Better than it was, certainly. Kudos.

[Steve O]

@dasgeh 148319 wrote:

– even leading up to the blind curves. Less yay…

The problem with this is that one person’s “leading up to the blind curve” is another person’s “after the blind curve.” It’s impossible with a single line to differentiate which direction one is traveling.

[ursus]

@Steve O 148333 wrote:

The problem with this is that one person’s “leading up to the blind curve” is another person’s “after the blind curve.” It’s impossible with a single line to differentiate which direction one is traveling.

Agreed. So they should use the more restrictive of the two if they can’t paint two lines. That’s what is done on the W&OD.

[huskerdont]

When I saw these dashed lines last night, my first thought was that one would not be able to interpret them as denoting passing zones, as with two-lane road striping. My second thought was that some would no doubt still interpret them this way, but they wouldn’t be people of good judgement anyway.

Also, I went across the Pocomoke/Potomac flyover of I-66 to check out the new paving. While it’s not a very long stretch from Quantico to McKinley, it was in terrible shape before; is very nice now and nothing on the bike got broken or jarred loose.

[Steve O]

@ursus 148342 wrote:

Agreed. So they should use the more restrictive of the two if they can’t paint two lines. That’s what is done on the W&OD.

On the curvy Custis it would be pretty much solid all the time.
I’m ambivalent on this idea, because if it switches from dashed to solid, it’s not clear what the line should mean. What does solid mean? Don’t pass? But on the far side of the curve it may be clear sailing to pass.
Does it suggest that the only places to pass should be where sightlines happen to be good in both directions simultaneously? That would be weird.
My sense is that on a trail like the Custis it would alternate so much between dashed and solid it would be essentially non-understandable by riders. It would just look like arbitrary switching, which would be no different than having it be consistently one or the other.
And it would also then embolden another group of riders to yell about something else: “Hey! Don’t pass on the solid line!” even though you’ve already crested the middle sister and can see all the way to Quincy St.

[vern]

@dasgeh 148319 wrote:

They seemed to have painted a center-line down the entire Custis. Yay!

It’s a broken line (i.e. not solid) the entire way – even leading up to the blind curves. Less yay…

Honestly, is there even one cyclist out there who is determining how and when to pass based on how the center-line is painted?

[bentbike33]

@vern 148356 wrote:

Honestly, is there even one cyclist out there who is determining how and when to pass based on how the center-line is painted?

Yes, the ones that ride in the dark without any lights.

[dasgeh]

Dashed certainly implies it’s ok to pass.

Either they could paint two lines in the vicinity of curves, or they could do all solid around curves, and rely on people to realize if they have a good sightline. If nothing else, the change in the center-line should make some think “huh, that’s solid, can I really pass safely” and since there isn’t a legal standard behind it, if the answer is yes, that’s cool – just pass on solid.

There are plenty of stretches of the Custis (most of the eastern half) where dashed is appropriate.

[Tim Kelley]

FYI–In a meeting this morning Kevin said that things weren’t quite finished yet.

[mstone]

@Tim Kelley 148367 wrote:

FYI–In a meeting this morning Kevin said that things weren’t quite finished yet.

oh man, we’re all holding our breath now! are they going to connect the dots? add more lines? cartoon drawings? The suspense is killing me!

[huskerdont]

@mstone 148377 wrote:

oh man, we’re all holding our breath now! are they going to connect the dots? add more lines? cartoon drawings? The suspense is killing me!

Maybe the line painting machine can only do dashes, so they’re calibrating the machine to do another run of dashes to fill in the blanks between the dashes.:rolleyes:

[Author]

Posts