VDOT bike survey

[GovernorSilver]

Thanks for posting.

Put in my 2 cents as a Huntington-based rider.

[FFX_Hinterlands]

I like that it shows Route 28 (Sully Rd), a 4-lane limited access road, as “Green” for comfortable for biking. I think it’s based on a model that measures the size of the road’s shoulder. So it gives you the chance to disagree by putting a “thumbs down” on any route that is worse to ride than their rating. Cool.

[KLizotte]

Thanks for this. I put in my 2 cents for the Pentagon City area. Took me a few minutes to figure out how they want you to input the info.

[bobco85]

I added my Mark Center area contribution to the maps by pointing out a few specific areas affecting my commute.

[mstone]

@FFX_Hinterlands 122066 wrote:

I like that it shows Route 28 (Sully Rd), a 4-lane limited access road, as “Green” for comfortable for biking. I think it’s based on a model that measures the size of the road’s shoulder. So it gives you the chance to disagree by putting a “thumbs down” on any route that is worse to ride than their rating. Cool.

I couldn’t really figure out a pattern to their choices. It may also factor in daily or peak traffic or speeds or something. I added a lot of thumbs downs and also some thumbs ups. (E.g., lawyer’s road isn’t rated very highly in the calmed section where they added the bike lanes near Reston–which also made me wonder how old their map is.)

[Kitty]

I probably spent waay to much time on this on an afternoon at work last week. The opportunity to flag things with comments and do thumbs up/down was too great an opportunity to pass up.

It especially allowed me to flag some things that weren’t on their radar apparently that Google Maps likes to label as bike routes/bike roads. Based off of my own experience, riders mapping a new route are more likely to turn to Google than some esoteric VDOT map…

[mstone]

@Kitty 122187 wrote:

I probably spent waay to much time on this on an afternoon at work last week. The opportunity to flag things with comments and do thumbs up/down was too great an opportunity to pass up.

It especially allowed me to flag some things that weren’t on their radar apparently that Google Maps likes to label as bike routes/bike roads. Based off of my own experience, riders mapping a new route are more likely to turn to Google than some esoteric VDOT map…

I mentioned to them that google had a much better idea of what was bikeable than their map did.

[americancyclo]

@FFX_Hinterlands 122066 wrote:

I like that it shows Route 28 (Sully Rd), a 4-lane limited access road, as “Green” for comfortable for biking. I think it’s based on a model that measures the size of the road’s shoulder. So it gives you the chance to disagree by putting a “thumbs down” on any route that is worse to ride than their rating. Cool.

or if there is a sidewalk near by, then the road is green for cycling! I’m looking at you, Leesburg Pike.

[Boomer Cycles]

@mstone 122056 wrote:

https://novabike.metroquest.com/

VDOT desperately needs more input. So far, the results say that nobody likes to ride with traffic, and sidepaths are always better. Also, VDOT has some sort of method for deciding whether roads are comfortable to ride on, and (as an example) the 123 cloverleaf over 66 is a great place to be a cyclist.

I filled it out for my daily commute from WOD mile 8 to downtown DC (20th & M St, NW). Thanks for posting.

[Arlingtonrider]

Done. There’s one important thing I forgot to add though, so I’m hoping others will: If they really want to determine the comfort levels of cyclists on various routes, their starting point should be the Strava global heatmap. While it generally reflects usage by more experienced cyclists, it could be enormously helpful to them, especially since it reflects actual data. So can someone please add that in their comments?

(I would hope that they know about and are using this already, but after filling out the survey and seeing what routes they thought were somewhat comfortable to ride on, I don’t think that’s the case.)

[Author]

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