Washington Blvd repaving thru Westover

[scoot]

@accordioneur 188141 wrote:

I’m with Dismal – I think there are better uses of the government’s resources than creating redundant infrastructure on what will always be an unpleasant cycling route. My guess is that given the superior alternatives already available, a Washington Blvd cycletrack/PBL/whatever would see too little use to be worth the investment.

If I understand correctly, I don’t think lordofthemark is arguing for any specific bicycle infrastructure at all, but broadly for a mindset that gives more weight to the needs of local people in and around communities like Westover, and less weight to those who merely wish to speed through such places in their cars.

Yes this street is a poor fit for a cycletrack, for all the reasons mentioned previously on this thread. But that doesn’t mean it should be sacrificed on the altar of vehicular throughput. Just as W&OD is a superior alternative for thru-cyclists in the area, so too is I-66 available for drivers. Narrower lanes, raised pedestrian crossings, and/or lower speed limits could make a big difference. There is no reason that cyclists, even slow ones, couldn’t or shouldn’t be made to feel welcome sharing the road in this space.

The larger point: If we can’t overcome political and bureaucratic roadblocks to achieve even baby steps like traffic calming in Westover, what hope do we have in the larger fight for the long-term health of our planet?

[lordofthemark]

@scoot 188145 wrote:

If I understand correctly, I don’t think lordofthemark is arguing for any specific bicycle infrastructure at all, but broadly for a mindset that gives more weight to the needs of local people in and around communities like Westover, and less weight to those who merely wish to speed through such places in their cars.

Yes this street is a poor fit for a cycletrack, for all the reasons mentioned previously on this thread. But that doesn’t mean it should be sacrificed on the altar of vehicular throughput. Just as W&OD is a superior alternative for thru-cyclists in the area, so too is I-66 available for drivers. Narrower lanes, raised pedestrian crossings, and/or lower speed limits could make a big difference. There is no reason that cyclists, even slow ones, couldn’t or shouldn’t be made to feel welcome sharing the road in this space.

The larger point: If we can’t overcome political and bureaucratic roadblocks to achieve even baby steps like traffic calming in Westover, what hope do we have in the larger fight for the long-term health of our planet?

Broadly this. Although my concerns extend ( here and elsewhere) beyond direct provision of transportation to larger issues of urban form and housing supply, my concern here is largely with the weighting of walkability versus accommodation of the auto. Despite Arlington having in the past been a model, I think in some ways they are failing to go the next level (perhaps their attention is elsewhere now, with studies of Lee Highway and Four Mile Run Valley ongoing). I also find many people both cyclists and bike haters tend to assume road diets and lane diets that create bike lanes are done so principally for the benefit of cyclists, and don’t see the larger complete streets and traffic calming context.

[Steve O]

@accordioneur 188142 wrote:

I hereby withdraw my proposal to build a wall along the southern border of Arlington.

Wait! But wasn’t Alexandria going to pay for it anyway?

[DismalScientist]

When did I say I was against traffic calming? Raised crosswalks would be fine. I think narrowing the street wouldn’t be a good idea given the parking situation. I don’t think one block of wider lanes really leads to speeding and I think speeds are generally lower through Westover proper than the rest of Washington Blvd.

I would think that communities like Westover are what people should be promoting. It’s walkable with many small businesses. Parking is available for more distant shoppers, but it is not as car dependent as most business centers.

[scoot]

@DismalScientist 188157 wrote:

When did I say I was against traffic calming?

@accordioneur 188141 wrote:

I’m with Dismal – I think there are better uses of the government’s resources than creating redundant infrastructure on what will always be an unpleasant cycling route.

I am sorry, I did not mean to suggest that you (or anyone else here) opposed traffic calming. My intent was to push back on the defeatism I read in the bolded phrase. I believe it is possible to transform any busy street into a place that is pleasant for cycling. And it doesn’t require any bicycle-specific infrastructure to do so in places like Westover, just a willingness to acknowledge and fix the real issue: too many speeding cars.

[lordofthemark]

@DismalScientist 188157 wrote:

I would think that communities like Westover are what people should be promoting. It’s walkable with many small businesses. Parking is available for more distant shoppers, but it is not as car dependent as most business centers.

That is fair kinda. But it depends on context. Its inside the beltway, and as noted before, two metro stations are just over a mile away. It has something of a connected street grid (which provides the parallel bike routes some mentioned). Perhaps ped improvements without lane narrowing will work for Westover – but I hope elsewhere in inside the beltway NoVa (and similar places elsewhere in the region) we aim for something more walkable and less autocentric than this in places that have as much potential. I think we will need to if we are really going to make major progress on reducing per capita VMT.

[accordioneur]

@scoot 188206 wrote:

My intent was to push back on the defeatism I read …

One man’s defeatism is another’s realism.

[Steve O]

@lordofthemark 188207 wrote:

That is fair kinda. But it depends on context. Its inside the beltway, and as noted before, two metro stations are just over a mile away. It has something of a connected street grid (which provides the parallel bike routes some mentioned). Perhaps ped improvements without lane narrowing will work for Westover – but I hope elsewhere in inside the beltway NoVa (and similar places elsewhere in the region) we aim for something more walkable and less autocentric than this in places that have as much potential. I think we will need to if we are really going to make major progress on reducing per capita VMT.

Although I think that overcoming the car culture may be the hardest thing of all.

I was once walking up McKinley Road to Westover. I could see the Post Office. A person came out of her house and got in her car as I walked by. A moment later she passed me on her way to park at the Post Office.
In fairness, she beat me there by almost a minute, so there was that time savings.

(Also, I suppose that may have been her first stop on a series of errands, if I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.)

[Steve O]

@accordioneur 188208 wrote:

One man’s defeatism is another’s realism.

[FONT=&quot]“[/FONT]The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.[FONT=&quot]”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]– Michelangelo[/FONT]

[zsionakides]

@scoot 188145 wrote:

Yes this street is a poor fit for a cycletrack, for all the reasons mentioned previously on this thread. But that doesn’t mean it should be sacrificed on the altar of vehicular throughput. Just as W&OD is a superior alternative for thru-cyclists in the area, so too is I-66 available for drivers. Narrower lanes, raised pedestrian crossings, and/or lower speed limits could make a big difference. There is no reason that cyclists, even slow ones, couldn’t or shouldn’t be made to feel welcome sharing the road in this space.

If you go by NACTO standards, you’d need to drop traffic volumes under 1,500 and drop the speed limit to 25mph to justify a shared road experience for cyclists. I believe Washington Blvd is upwards of 10-15k vehicles daily, so any shared solution is unlikely, barring making the road local only.

The need for a cycletrack, PBLs, or a separated bike path (this would be ideal) is due to the traffic volume, not just the speeds on the road. Even if you could slow average traffic speeds to 20mph, it would still make most average cyclists uncomfortable with cars constantly passing them.

[lordofthemark]

@zsionakides 188211 wrote:

If you go by NACTO standards, you’d need to drop traffic volumes under 1,500 and drop the speed limit to 25mph to justify a shared road experience for cyclists. I believe Washington Blvd is upwards of 10-15k vehicles daily, so any shared solution is unlikely, barring making the road local only.

The need for a cycletrack, PBLs, or a separated bike path (this would be ideal) is due to the traffic volume, not just the speeds on the road. Even if you could slow average traffic speeds to 20mph, it would still make most average cyclists uncomfortable with cars constantly passing them.

Does the NACTO standard apply to one block sections though? In Alexandria on middle King, we have a short section in between the phase 1 bike lanes (south of Janneys) and the phase 2 buffered lanes, where we use sharrows – while I would love for that gap to be filled, I am not sure it violates NACTO standards (the speed limit there is 25MPH, but the volumes are considerable, I think)

[dasgeh]

@NickBull 188112 wrote:

Not because of any lack of bike paths, but because no one commutes on Washington Blvd. If you want to commute, you commute on the W&OD or Custis, where you’re less likely to get killed. If Westover is your destination, then it’s easy enough to get there on back roads coming from the bike paths or through the neighborhoods.

@DismalScientist 188113 wrote:

Why is it necessary or even desirable to make comprehensive, safe and comfortable bike infrastructure everywhere for folks like Isabella and simultaneously eliminate what I consider appropriate and desirable riding conditions for my type of riding?

They are building a school IN WESTOVER. And yes, most people don’t bike on Washington because it sucks to bike there. But it’s the flattest and most direct route through that area. Many people don’t bike because of the hills, and because the current routes are complicated and hard to follow. This is about expanding the number of people who bike. We won’t do that by relegating bikes to hilly, indirect, hard to follow routes. That’s why we need safe comfortable bike infrastructure everywhere.

If you still want to take the road, you can. But we need numbers, which means building infrastructure for the greater number of people who would ride on PBLs than the people who do ride like Dismal.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 188212 wrote:

Does the NACTO standard apply to one block sections though? In Alexandria on middle King, we have a short section in between the phase 1 bike lanes (south of Janneys) and the phase 2 buffered lanes, where we use sharrows – while I would love for that gap to be filled, I am not sure it violates NACTO standards (the speed limit there is 25MPH, but the volumes are considerable, I think)

None of King St meets NACTO standards. With King St’s traffic volume, they should have PBLs, not buffered lanes, unprotected lanes, or sharrows. King St feels like such a missed opportunity to build an end to end safe bike facility across Alexandria, all the way to the water and the MVT.

[lordofthemark]

@zsionakides 188214 wrote:

None of King St meets NACTO standards. With King St’s traffic volume, they should have PBLs, not buffered lanes, unprotected lanes, or sharrows. King St feels like such a missed opportunity to build an end to end safe bike facility across Alexandria, all the way to the water and the MVT.

If bike advocates, or T&ES had insisted on that we would likely have gotten nothing. It ended up going to the Council as you will recall, I am sure.

[dasgeh]

@scoot 188206 wrote:

I am sorry, I did not mean to suggest that you (or anyone else here) opposed traffic calming. My intent was to push back on the defeatism I read in the bolded phrase. I believe it is possible to transform any busy street into a place that is pleasant for cycling. And it doesn’t require any bicycle-specific infrastructure to do so in places like Westover, just a willingness to acknowledge and fix the real issue: too many speeding cars.

This is where thinking about Isabella may lead to a different outcome. I agree most adults can get comfortable biking through what are essentially parking lots — slow moving cars, even with lots of turning movements (into and out of parking spaces).

But introduce kids in the mix, and there’s a different calculus. It would be a stretch to get elementary age kids to evaluate all the possible sources of danger with parking cars. Then there’s the height issue — at the BAC/Phoenix meeting, we heard from one teenager who rides a lot that she fears drivers just can’t see her around parked cars because she’s not tall.

So, yes, too many speeding cars is an issue. But too many parking cars is also an issue for design that truly works for all.

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