NOVA Parks Hearing in e-bikes

[lordofthemark]

@zsionakides 187466 wrote:

I submitted comments to the master plan, and submit comments on other projects as well. Most of my comments on the master plan were around the types of facilities being proposed, as very few of them actually meet NACTO guidelines. There are better designs used in other countries that could be adopted and provide safer bike facilities without sacrificing auto mobility and parking. The use of sharrows and narrow striped lanes next to park cars should not be endorsed by any advocacy group and should not be put on maps as “safe” bike routes, when they are not safe for the majority of citizens. The only way to get bike share up in any significant amount is end to end protected facilities for cyclists of all ages and abilities; not just trails, and not bike lanes to nowhere.

Please be so kind as to read the Shakespeare quote above.. Submitting comments is great and I encourage it but it’s not exactly being in the trenches.

You want parking protected bike lanes in place of door zone lanes? So do I and so does every bike advocate I know. But there are places where a door zone bike lane fits but a pbl does not. Because gutters can be under parking, but not part of a bike lane. Also because as I hope you agree, a parking protected bike lane requires day lighting at intersections to be safe. But some areas on street parking is scarce. Now we can say get rid of parking anyway. Have you ever gotten in the face of some guy who doesn’t bike and thinks driving is freedom and has never read “The High Price of Free Parking” and told him that parking is going to get harder for the sake of cyclists? Whom he thinks are either A. Reckless scofflaws B Entitled elitist hipsters or C. Simply nonexistent

Meanwhile door zone bike lanes are more attractive to most riders than a street with no bike infra. And just as safe 8n places with little parking turnover.

We could also discuss the locations and utility of sharrows but unless you’re going to join those of us in the trenches I’m not sure I want to bother.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 187496 wrote:

You want parking protected bike lanes in place of door zone lanes? So do I and so does every bike advocate I know. But there are places where a door zone bike lane fits but a pbl does not. Because gutters can be under parking, but not part of a bike lane. Also because as I hope you agree, a parking protected bike lane requires day lighting at intersections to be safe. But some areas on street parking is scarce. Now we can say get rid of parking anyway. Have you ever gotten in the face of some guy who doesn’t bike and thinks driving is freedom and has never read “The High Price of Free Parking” and told him that parking is going to get harder for the sake of cyclists? Whom he thinks are either A. Reckless scofflaws B Entitled elitist hipsters or C. Simply nonexistent

I actually agree with much of the resistance to removing parking, though more in residential areas. This can have real effects on real estate value and its not unreasonable for property owners to want to protect those values. However in areas such as Ballston, Crystal City, and Pentagon City with large volumes of off-street and low priced hourly parking, it’s quite reasonable to pull on-street spots to put in bike ways. In residential areas where traffic volumes are much lower, I believe there is a lot of opportunity in re-striping travel lanes or moving some of the two-way streets to one-way to accommodate safe biking facilities.

@lordofthemark 187496 wrote:

Meanwhile door zone bike lanes are more attractive to most riders than a street with no bike infra. And just as safe 8n places with little parking turnover.

I don’t ride within the door zone of bike lanes, and highly discourage others from doing it. The risk is too high of getting hit, thrown into the travel lanes, and ran over by a car, even in low parking turnover areas. You’re much safer just taking the lane and making cars pass you correctly.

@lordofthemark 187496 wrote:

We could also discuss the locations and utility of sharrows but unless you’re going to join those of us in the trenches I’m not sure I want to bother.

I’m not against sharrows as a communication’s reminder tool to drivers that cyclists are about. What I’m against is using sharrows to create “safe” bike routes, when they are absolutely not safe for anyone who is not an experienced rider. Even worse is putting the sharrow routes on the bike comfort map and advertising the routes as somewhat comfortable routes for any age. A couple examples are roads such as Walter Reed or Army Navy Drive which have speed limits of 30mph with a lot of commuter traffic, and a lot of drivers going well in excess of those speed limits.

[lordofthemark]

You seem to be unaware that door zone bike lanes are often implemented by local Dots to calm traffic, largely for the benefit of pedestrians. Who are far more numerous than riders, as one learns when doing advocacy. I will not argue here about the studies which show streets with door zone bike lanes no more dangerous for riders than streets with no treatment, but will simply note that IME on streets with no bike infra and heavy traffic most inexperienced riders will ride in the door zone anyway (and parkers are less likely to look for a rider when there is no bike lane) if they will ride at all.

If your concern is maps there are opportunities in advocacy work to talk about maps – my concern is more with what gets built.

But from my own experience one person buying an ebike and using it every day (enabled by being able to make part of their ride on MUTs) does more for safe on Street accommodations than pages and pages of nattering on this forum.

[dasgeh]

@zsionakides 187466 wrote:

I submitted comments to the master plan, and submit comments on other projects as well. Most of my comments on the master plan were around the types of facilities being proposed, as very few of them actually meet NACTO guidelines. There are better designs used in other countries that could be adopted and provide safer bike facilities without sacrificing auto mobility and parking. The use of sharrows and narrow striped lanes next to park cars should not be endorsed by any advocacy group and should not be put on maps as “safe” bike routes, when they are not safe for the majority of citizens. The only way to get bike share up in any significant amount is end to end protected facilities for cyclists of all ages and abilities; not just trails, and not bike lanes to nowhere.

Great. Submitting comments is a great start.

I need to read the latest draft, but no draft that I saw called for any paint-only bike lanes. It may have said that sharrows could be used on low-speed residential streetsto indicate where there’s a bike boulevard. It certainly did not endorse “bike lanes to nowhere”. Quite the opposite — the draft plan indicates that we need to build out the network, and identifies where that needs to happen. Most of the routes are along major corridors — Lee, Wilson, Pike, Mason, Glebe.

My biggest criticism of the latest draft that was put out was not it was not transparent. It would indicate where we wanted “improved” bike facilities, and would say that all new bike facilities should comply with NACTO, but wouldn’t explicitly say “put PBLs here”.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 187709 wrote:

Great. Submitting comments is a great start.

I need to read the latest draft, but no draft that I saw called for any paint-only bike lanes. It may have said that sharrows could be used on low-speed residential streetsto indicate where there’s a bike boulevard. It certainly did not endorse “bike lanes to nowhere”. Quite the opposite — the draft plan indicates that we need to build out the network, and identifies where that needs to happen. Most of the routes are along major corridors — Lee, Wilson, Pike, Mason, Glebe.

My biggest criticism of the latest draft that was put out was not it was not transparent. It would indicate where we wanted “improved” bike facilities, and would say that all new bike facilities should comply with NACTO, but wouldn’t explicitly say “put PBLs here”.

A quick example that’s in the already funded project list is the Crystal Dr bike lane. Per NATCO standards that facility should be a PBL or bicycle path based on Crystal Drive’s traffic count, but they have just have a bicycle lane planned. Another one is the proposed “marked” bicycle lane on Lee Hwy between Veitch and Lynn, that implies striped and not protected, which is not within NATCO standards for a multi-lane road of that speed.

The bike “lanes to nowhere” comment is a general comment I have about the order that major projects are undertaken. My view is that any sizeable project should connect to an already existing used bicycle facility to ensure it’s being used. Otherwise it drives the narrative about unused bikes lanes taking up space for general travel lanes. A recent example I can think of is the buffered/protected lanes put on Van Dorn St in Alexandria between King and Braddock. Neither end connects to any other bike lane, so only confident riders are going to use them, which does almost nothing to increase overall ridership.

[dasgeh]

@zsionakides 187729 wrote:

A quick example that’s in the already funded project list is the Crystal Dr bike lane. Per NATCO standards that facility should be a PBL or bicycle path based on Crystal Drive’s traffic count, but they have just have a bicycle lane planned. Another one is the proposed “marked” bicycle lane on Lee Hwy between Veitch and Lynn, that implies striped and not protected, which is not within NATCO standards for a multi-lane road of that speed.

The bike “lanes to nowhere” comment is a general comment I have about the order that major projects are undertaken. My view is that any sizeable project should connect to an already existing used bicycle facility to ensure it’s being used. Otherwise it drives the narrative about unused bikes lanes taking up space for general travel lanes. A recent example I can think of is the buffered/protected lanes put on Van Dorn St in Alexandria between King and Braddock. Neither end connects to any other bike lane, so only confident riders are going to use them, which does almost nothing to increase overall ridership.

The already funded list shows projects that are not being proposed by this plan, but that are already in the works. To change from striped to protected would be a new, separate project, and I believe Crystal is one of the corridors for better facilities. I’ll double check.

Lee was clearly a mistake. That should have been a two-way protected cycletrack on the north side of westbound Lee from Lynn to Cherrydale. I am reasonably confident it will come back.

As far as the order of projects, Arlington generally builds projects where feasible. So, e.g., when Washington Blvd was being repaved, they put in the bike lanes. There was no bike-specific project that drove that. You’re left with an unconnected network that way. But the alternatives are:
– lobby for a large pot of money to tackle bike-only projects (more power to you in doing this, but budgets are tight, and the next opportunity you have to change the capital budget is summer 2020). OR
– not put in bike facilities when doing other projects. I don’t think anyone wants that.

[lordofthemark]

@zsionakides 187729 wrote:

A quick example that’s in the already funded project list is the Crystal Dr bike lane. Per NATCO standards that facility should be a PBL or bicycle path based on Crystal Drive’s traffic count, but they have just have a bicycle lane planned. Another one is the proposed “marked” bicycle lane on Lee Hwy between Veitch and Lynn, that implies striped and not protected, which is not within NATCO standards for a multi-lane road of that speed.

The bike “lanes to nowhere” comment is a general comment I have about the order that major projects are undertaken. My view is that any sizeable project should connect to an already existing used bicycle facility to ensure it’s being used. Otherwise it drives the narrative about unused bikes lanes taking up space for general travel lanes. A recent example I can think of is the buffered/protected lanes put on Van Dorn St in Alexandria between King and Braddock. Neither end connects to any other bike lane, so only confident riders are going to use them, which does almost nothing to increase overall ridership.

The Van Dorn buffered lanes are in space created by a road diet done to improve safety for all users, including drivers and pedestrians. The reality is that bike infra in Alexandria is usually a side benefit of traffic calming. It will continue to be so until we have a much larger constituency of riders (which is why we need ebikes, scooters, etc). Timing is determined heavily by the repaving schedule, in order to limit costs and inconvenience.

BTW the Van Dorn lanes feed into service lanes at the King Street end.

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