Take Action: Important Bike Stuff in Ballston, Pentagon City, Rosslyn and Cherrydale!

[sjclaeys]

@rcannon100 191919 wrote:

The interesection is about to be a pedestrian path for a brand new school – the school formerly known as HBW. Seems like a good reason to improve pedestrian crossings and kill right turns on red.

Sure, another improvement after the HBW program leaves. If the intersection was good enough for the HBW middle and high schoolers, then its good enough for the snow flakes that will be attending the new middle school. (Note, this is sarcastic. I fully support efforts to improve the safety of school children.)

[dasgeh]

On Military:

• Nacto calls for PBLs
• The situation is complicated by residential driveways.
• Also complicating the situation is Arlington County is still working out the kinks of having PBLs beside SFHs — how to do trash, etc. I think they’ll get there, but this maybe isn’t the project to go to the mat for when there’s this issue [see Quincy].
• There’s a plan to do a green striped bike lane through the Five Points intersection — can’t hurt to have comments saying we need that.
• It would also help slow traffic & protect kids if there were real traffic control at Vacation & Military. We won’t get that in this project, but good to get that note in.
• However, there’s a stretch between two churches — no reason not to do PBLs there.

On Lorcom:

• Nacto calls for PBLs
• See above re: residential.
• The real question here is: currently, we have a bike lane northbound/downhill and sharrows southbound/uphill. But generally you choose a bike lane up hill if you have to choose one. However, there is a stretch of the sidewalk on the northbound side that would be immediately beside traffic if you switch the bike lane & sharrows.
• As an alternative, you could have an uphill bike lane for the entire stretch, and a downhill bike lane to protect the sidewalk if you allocated space away from parking for about a block and a half.

[rcannon100]

@sjclaeys 191921 wrote:

Sure, another improvement after the HBW program leaves. If the intersection was good enough for the HBW middle and high schoolers, then its good enough for the snow flakes that will be attending the new middle school. (Note, this is sarcastic. I fully support efforts to improve the safety of school children.)

[huskerdont]

Maybe it’s just me being selfish and my type of riding, but I actually wouldn’t want PBLs on Military. With the downhills you can go as fast as the cars, and I think it’s safer to have more space available to maneuver than just the narrow allotted PBL space.

And no, I don’t want to slow down.

[Tania]

@dasgeh 191922 wrote:

On Military:

• Nacto calls for PBLs
• The situation is complicated by residential driveways.
• Also complicating the situation is Arlington County is still working out the kinks of having PBLs beside SFHs — how to do trash, etc. I think they’ll get there, but this maybe isn’t the project to go to the mat for when there’s this issue [see Quincy].
• There’s a plan to do a green striped bike lane through the Five Points intersection — can’t hurt to have comments saying we need that.
• It would also help slow traffic & protect kids if there were real traffic control at Vacation & Military. We won’t get that in this project, but good to get that note in.
• However, there’s a stretch between two churches — no reason not to do PBLs there.

On Lorcom:

• Nacto calls for PBLs
• See above re: residential.
• The real question here is: currently, we have a bike lane northbound/downhill and sharrows southbound/uphill. But generally you choose a bike lane up hill if you have to choose one. However, there is a stretch of the sidewalk on the northbound side that would be immediately beside traffic if you switch the bike lane & sharrows.
• As an alternative, you could have an uphill bike lane for the entire stretch, and a downhill bike lane to protect the sidewalk if you allocated space away from parking for about a block and a half.

The SO lives on Lorcom so I bike on it a lot. Actually, now, I’ve amended my ride to avoid it as much as possible. The bike lanes are a joke and no one does the posted speed limit of 30, especially during rush hour. The pedestrian crossings are also routinely ignored. (It’s almost just like Gallows Road, where I live)

The biggest improvement that could come to Lorcom is better speed control. I’m not sure how to effect that given it’s already pretty narrow and twisty-ish. The people who live on Lorcom are fine with bikes and are used to them. It’s the drivers who use Lorcom as a way to get to Spout Run/GW (avoiding the tolls on 66) that cause the issues.

[Judd]

@huskerdont 191935 wrote:

Maybe it’s just me being selfish and my type of riding, but I actually wouldn’t want PBLs on Military. With the downhills you can go as fast as the cars, and I think it’s safer to have more space available to maneuver than just the narrow allotted PBL space.

And no, I don’t want to slow down.

You can still go fast and take the lane for the downhills. I highly favor a PBL on Military even though I wouldn’t use it on the downhills. Any time I’m in a bike lane and moving the same speed as traffic I move in to the general travel lane to allow additional room to avoid road imperfections.

There’s lots of people that might ride a bike on Military if it felt super safe and I’d like to see them out there experiencing the same joy I do from riding a bike.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[scoot]

On Military between Marcey and Old Glebe, I am constantly going back and forth between the bike lane and the general travel lane. On a weekend when recreational bike traffic increases, I frequently both pass and get passed by same-direction bicycles. If the bike lanes were cordoned off by parked cars and/or bollards, all this maneuvering would be either unnecessarily dangerous or impossible.

To accommodate a variety of riders, you need a design for bike lanes that allows for a quick lane change between the general lane and bicycle lane almost anywhere along the lane.

[dasgeh]

@huskerdont 191935 wrote:

Maybe it’s just me being selfish and my type of riding, but I actually wouldn’t want PBLs on Military. With the downhills you can go as fast as the cars, and I think it’s safer to have more space available to maneuver than just the narrow allotted PBL space.

And no, I don’t want to slow down.

As mentioned, people like you can take the lane.

The PBLs would be for people like my kids, who would bike to Potomac Overlook, the Cherrydale Library, Taylor ES (and events held there), the churches on Military/Lorcom (and events held in them), etc. in PBLs. I’ve said it a million times, but families like mine, who have navigated Arlington just fine when our kids were little and could be on our bikes, are forced into cars when the kids get bigger if there’s no safe, direct infrastructure for the kids to ride on. And they want to ride — they enjoy it, and they take this whole “carbon footprint” thing seriously.

[dasgeh]

@scoot 191939 wrote:

On Military between Marcey and Old Glebe, I am constantly going back and forth between the bike lane and the general travel lane. On a weekend when recreational bike traffic increases, I frequently both pass and get passed by same-direction bicycles. If the bike lanes were cordoned off by parked cars and/or bollards, all this maneuvering would be either unnecessarily dangerous or impossible.

To accommodate a variety of riders, you need a design for bike lanes that allows for a quick lane change between the general lane and bicycle lane almost anywhere along the lane.

This is not that section of Military, FYI. It’s by the Cherrydale Library.

But to your point, you don’t need to switch between the bike lanes and general travel lanes. You want to pass slower bike traffic. Your only option now is the switching, but with a PBL, the options are either to build the PBL wide enough to accommodate passing, or for faster riders to take the travel lane. Yes, you may end up behind a slower rider unexpectedly, and have to wait until an intersection to pass but… so? I hope we get to the day where congestion in bike lanes/trails is a reason people choose not to bike, but we’re so far from that day, I’ll risk it.

[huskerdont]

@Judd 191937 wrote:

You can still go fast and take the lane for the downhills. I highly favor a PBL on Military even though I wouldn’t use it on the downhills. Any time I’m in a bike lane and moving the same speed as traffic I move in to the general travel lane to allow additional room to avoid road imperfections.

There’s lots of people that might ride a bike on Military if it felt super safe and I’d like to see them out there experiencing the same joy I do from riding a bike.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I get ya. It’s not like I’m going to oppose them. I just think it’s easier to go from the bike lane to the travel lane, like Scoot says, without the bollards. The folks on the Sunday rides I do do this, for instance. But whatever is done, I’ll adjust to it.

BTW, Military is already so much safer than it was when I first started biking here that maybe I just don’t notice it as that dangerous. It used to be 4 lanes in many places and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people got to 50 mph. People with Maryland plates, of course.

[Judd]

@huskerdont 191944 wrote:

I get ya. It’s not like I’m going to oppose them.

I’ll buy you a beer if you submit comments supporting it. [emoji12]

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[huskerdont]

@Judd 191946 wrote:

I’ll buy you a beer if you submit comments supporting it. [emoji12]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good thing I can afford my own beer then.

Actually, not that opposed to it. Just looked at the site and it’s just from Lorcom to Vacation. Doesn’t affect the zoom-zoom at all. My bad.

[Author]

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