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Yeah, ARLNOW is great, but the comment section is an unfortunately wildlife conservation zone for trolls. Bored yuppies have snark contests for most offensive comments. Originally the editor moderated the comments and actually knocked people off for being offensive – but I guess he gets more page views for his advertisements by letting people be jerks.

Personally, I loved the video!

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Yeah the trail last night was like a holiday display.

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Ouch. Gotta hurt.

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I rode one during Bike to Work day, at Rosslyn. It was incredible. Talked to a few people I have seen with them on the trails – they loved them. I am assuming one day I will be buying one in order to make it up the Arlington Hill. Yes, the problem is that there is not good review information out there on them. But there is some.

The weight of the bike only matters when you run out of gas. And yes, if you run out of gas (if your battery goes dead), you will be peddling a tank and it wont be easy.

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@pfunkallstar 9964 wrote:

Coming in from Rosslyn you still have to cross the parkway at least once to get over to the other side? Am I wrong on this one?

I am heading to the FCC in SW. I enter the GW Trail from the Custis Trail in Rosslyn – bike the GW trail to the 14th, and cross on the 14th bridge. By taking the 14th st bridge, I avoid 6 road crossings (2 West Side memorial bridge, 2 East side memorial bridge where I was hit by a car, and at least two on the Mall). It lands me by the Jefferson without having crossed a single road since leaving Rosslyn – adding more than a half mile to my commute over crossing at the Memorial Bridge. I’ll take that bargain any day.

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I gotta concur with a lot of people here.

You have to distinguish your own personal indignation, with other bikers individual judgements concerning safety. Regularly people choose different biking habits than I, for safety reasons. A big one to me is – on MacArthur Blvd bikers regularly bike in the road instead of on the bike lane. Years ago I asked why (ppl thought I was trolling. I wasnt. I ride as far away from cars as possible. ergo, on the bike path).

And the answer was perfectly sensible. The respondents said they ride in the road (slowing traffic) for two big reasons. First, the MacArthur Blvd bike path regularly has gravel and sand on it. At speed, this creates a dangerous situation. Second, the bike path – unlike the road – confronts intersections where the bikers must stop and yield right of way to the perpendicular road – where the blvd has the right of way and goes through with out stopping.

All of that made sense to me. I am an old slow rider. I choose the path. I understand when other people make choices other than me. That does not make them rude. That does not merit my indignation.

In the case at hand, two abreast on a road. Well, to start with, if I am riding on a road, I am going to take the full lane. I dont want a car passing my and squeezing me in the cars or whatever on the side of the road. And the only way to stop a car for passing you improperly is to be in the full lane…… and Two abreast is an excellent way of making sure that cars cant give you the squeeze – not giving you that 3 feet passing clearance. If I were those bikers, I would ride two abreast as a safety feature. You are more visible. You are blocking cars from squeezing you. At speed most bikers may be going in the high teens, meaning the cars are slowed…. but the cars will get there, and there will be a chance for the cars to pass when it is safe. (what is rude is car drivers who take horrendous offense at being slowed down by what, maybe 30 seconds, maybe a minute – from where they are going – and that this merits a dangerous driving)

It’s not rude. It’s a safety choice. The transportation system was not built for bikes. Thus a bike as a bastard step child needs to make decisions. Bicycle too far to the right, and you are gonna get doored, or squeezed or something. In this case, whether you would do it or not, it is absolutely a valid decision of a different biker that the safe choice is to bike in lane slowing the lane. There are a lot of things other bikers do that I dont do – they are not being rude – they have made a choice different than mine about how to bike safely.

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I saw it too – but later. All I saw was a NPS Cop with a car pulled over that had a bike rack on it. When I went by, I saw no victim or EMS. One lane was blocked.

Over years and years of biking, I have seen SO MANY pedestrian accidents at those crossings…. and SO MANY car accidents up on memorial circle on the west end. It’s really really negligent on NPS part for not doing something to solve that area.

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The trail on the north side of the bridge appears to go to the marina and the south trail seems to track around the Boundary Channel (correct name?).

I think the answer here is that it is good to be the King Pentagon. The soldier boys from the Pentagon regularly use these trails for their required physical training (great to see the desk jockeys trying to jog).

The trail on the north side does go to the marina, but more importantly, it connects to a pedestrian bridge that crosses over that spit of channel, over to Boundary Channel Drive. You can then bike over to a path along Washington Blvd and bike into the Columbia Pike neighborhood. This is actually amazingly convenient and a nice link.

The trail on the south side – staring at google maps with the “bicycling” option on – and the project map is extremely limited – looks like it will curve around the south side and connect to the bike route on the Boundary Channel Drive.

Again, all of this just creates more jogging paths for the soldier boys at the Pentagon. And what is good for the King Pentagon is probably good for us!

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So do I assume that the piece of paper “they” were trying to jam into my hands as I bike by at Lynn and Lee Hwy was the VDOT survey? What a bad idea- stationing someone down in the biie path attempting to hand they survey as people bike by.

25c for a clue: Stand on either side of Lynn St. East side and West Side. And hand the survey to people when they are stopped – not when they are moving.

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Was pleased to see the corners. Still expect cyclists to be wearing a grove over the grass when the ground firms up.

That depression! Yeah – it is one way of telling whether a cyclist has done that trail before. If they havent, they hit that depression with a jolting surprise. Otherwise, its kinda a cool moogle :p

Is there a map for where that other trail is gonna go?

Now…. any chance we can get NPSGW to remove the jersey barriers from Roosevelt??

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I would simply say Tip of the Hat to all y’all thinking about this and taking consideration. It’s a good thing to be thinking about how our biking, even when we are trying to be safe, impacts others.

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If you look at any of the roads near major highways, those roads are jammed. Roads near the beltway, near I 395, or worse, near the jersey turnpike – jammage.

Increasing capacity brings in more cars – makes it more attractive to drive. Increasing capacity would bring more cars to Westover, not less (and would destroy all the homes in Westover near I-66).

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where do you think all of these cars would go if I66 were widened?

Yup. They would go into Arlington (among other places). Increasing the capacity of roads only fosters filling that increased capacity and dumb growth. Widening I-66 would not remove cars from the side roads of Arlington (and away from bicycles), it would actually add to it. More cars on 66 mean more cars trying to jam through the 66 exchanges (Glebe Rd, Washington Blvd, Lee Hwy, Rosslyn, 110), and going through Arlington side roads. Its really simple math: More Cars = More cars (everywhere)

I mean this conversation just goes on and on. But this one question just amazes me. Where do these cars come from and go to? And this conversation always seems to end up at – the refusal of people to live where they work. And one of the big problems for Arlington is people living in Maryland who either work in Virginia or work in Wash DC. Problem is that Maryland NW does not have a good car artery. So they come over to use the GW, jamming it and the beltway up. GW is jammed, so Virginia traffic spills over to 66. 66 gets jamed up, so then 50 gets jammed. And so on in a cascading failure. This is a big problem of where people choose to live – and it is a more specific problem of how Montgomery County has gotten away with not having a highway scared through its community – resulting in Montgomery traffic coming over and jamming Arlington Roads (Arlington, on the other hand has the GW Parkway North, I-66, I-396, GW Parkway South, and Route 50 – all major thoroughfares cutting through our community). Arlington takes the brunt of a lot of other communities lousy (or privileged) planning.

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I-66 wont stay a “walled canyon” if they add the lanes they want to. It will tear down homes, parks, schools… the Custis Trail. The reason its “NO” to new lanes is so that I-66 will stay in that current walled canyon. More lanes pretty much would mean tearing down the walls and significant destruction of N Arlington.

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Yikes!

Had a similar 2 years ago. Around the Lincoln, at a cross walk, with three lanes of traffic stopped. I was the fifth bike in a pack of 5. A block away on Independence a traffic light turned green. The center car took that as her cue, released her brakes, and went straight into me.

I had a dayglo jacket, flashing LED lights, and a dayglo orange helmet. The cop, who was very nice, said “yeah, in motorcycle training, they train us that drivers never see you. Even when they are looking at you, they are actually just looking through you.”

My lesson was – you can do absolutely everything right. Lights. Jacket. Ride with a pack. Cross at a cross walk. Confirm all cars were stopped. And still get hit. That actually depressed me quite a bit. It took a while before I regained my confidence in the saddle. I changed my route to reduce street crossings; when I cross I am now hyper careful.

If you get the 600 lumen light, please remember that while it may help cars see you, it also blinds your fellow bikers. After dark and when on the bike path, please set the light to steady, not flash.

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