[Relwal Noj]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25429[/ATTACH]

[Relwal Noj]

Was this paving work ever completed?

[Relwal Noj]

I drove by the other night and the bridge lighting was operational.

[Relwal Noj]

Howell and Saslaw will represent different districts in the 2023 senate elections. I imagine with the new redistricting bill, virtually all of Arlington County will be put into a single district – which will be represented by either Favola or Ebbin.

Sadly, this means this bill is permanently dead because there’s very little chance the dems retain the house of delegates after the elections this Nov and they deserve to lose it after passing that flawed redistricting amendment.

[Relwal Noj]

I live 600 feet away from this circle and love the improvement! It is a much more context sensitive solution to the problem here than VDOT’s original plan to re-align the trail, which was going to necessitate the removal of way too many mature trees in the park.

[Relwal Noj]

I wish they would re-open the Custis Trail underpass adjacent to Bon Air Park and Westover Park now that all that noise barrier work is complete. They’ve been rehabbing the middle of the I-66 eastbound bridge over it forever. I’m starting to see people cutting through the fence now.

[Relwal Noj]

2026 is probably too optimistic. I think they will have a very difficult time obtaining a new contractor unless the new contract is extremely incentive laden. The contractors walking off this job are very reputable.

[Relwal Noj]

I use this crossing all the time and think this will be a huge improvement for both vehicles and bikes/peds. Neither can see each other at all due to the trees/brush and parked cars. Also, drivers have no idea to expect trail users to cross here because there’s no signage or visual clues indicating there’s a major trailhead at this mid-block location.

[Relwal Noj]

@dbb 201671 wrote:

I spoke with the Dominion project manager and suggested they want to review this before the potentially longer closure in a couple of years to bring the power to the substation under the Four Mile Run.

What will the longer-term project entail? Are they burying the overhead power transmission lines?

[Relwal Noj]

@zsionakides 201547 wrote:

This design document doesn’t have a separate bike path. Have they updated it since.

Yes, you can view the February 2020 presentation at: https://highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/PublicHearingPresentation.pdf

Slide 18 shows the cross-section for the 10′-wide separated bike facility that is separated on both sides using trees from the travel lanes and the pedestrian sidewalk. Slide 23 is also really interesting because it shows how much easier the new street and trail alignment will be vertically.

The project website is https://highways.dot.gov/federal-lands/projects/va/st-anc-1

[Relwal Noj]

http://www.495northernextension.org/documents/pim032020/design_plans.pdf

The proposed grade-separated GWMP trail crossing shown on sheets 24 and 24A under the I-495 on-ramp looks pretty cool.

[Relwal Noj]

@Dewey 200196 wrote:

HB 1705 was signed by Gov Northam last Saturday April 11, source: https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=201&typ=bil&val=hb1705
This marks the end of a particularly successful year for passing bicycle and e-bike friendly legislation. To summarize, the following are now adopted into Virginia state law:

– The 3-Class People for Bikes/BPSA model e-bike legislation
– Class 1 misdemeanor for a careless or distracted driver to hit and injure a cyclist or e-bike rider on the road
– Speed cameras permitted in school or work zones
– Ban on use of handheld cell phones while driving
– Vehicle drivers now are required to stop when yielding to pedestrians, cyclists, or e-bikes at (i) crosswalks; (ii) pedestrian crossings; (iii) an intersection on a <35mph road; and no overtaking or passing a stopped vehicle giving way to other road users under these circumstances, this will enable policing problem driver behavior at intersections and crosswalks.

Good start, now hopefully the Assembly will face down the car insurance lobby next year and every year thereafter until Contributory Negligence is repealed.

Thanks for the great summary! Are these laws effective now or after July 1?

[Relwal Noj]

The W&OD, 4MR, Bluemont, and Custis Trails have all been packed lately. I talked to a Park Ranger in Bon Air park yesterday and as part of his job, he’s doing head counts on these trails and says that they’ve never been more crowded. Based on my experience using these trails for an hour per day these past 3 weeks, about 50% of the trail users aren’t making any effort at all to maintain 6′ separation, even though these trails are technically wide enough to allow for that. You routinely see two walkers walking abreast and when you have walkers approaching in opposing directions, bikers and joggers pass through between them in the area of the yellow centerline instead of waiting for the trail to clear on one side. I’m pushing a stroller, but this week, I’ve been generally walking and jogging in the grass shoulder next to the trail since my wife has an autoimmune disease. I probably shouldn’t be on the trails at all, but I don’t trust the science saying that you can catch COVID-19 outdoors and am disappointed in the lack of research on the issue.

[Relwal Noj]

These are Pre-Final plans, so they seem very far along for public comment to make any meaningful changes. One thing I noticed is that this will be an extremely steep trail (13% to 14% grade).

The project looks redundant from a ped/bike standpoint as the shared-use path along Oakwood Rd offers a much safer, more comfortable alternative that takes you to the same spot and doesn’t involve crossing a I-495 on-ramp at-grade (although this crossing will be signalized). I still wouldn’t want to hang out for 2+ min in that corner while traffic zooms past me waiting for this crossing signal.

[Relwal Noj]

I hope they stay exclusively with the docked model. Dockless seemed like a huge fad and most of those companies have gone out of business and left the DC area. I think most of that is due to the dockless bikes being stolen and damaged, neither of which is much of an issue for a docked system.

I was really disappointed with the Bike Angel system. A few months ago, I had an issue where there are two stations located 425′ apart in Courthouse. The one had no bikes and the other was full. So I took a bike from the full station to the station without any bikes and got like 2 or 3 points. Then, I walked back to the station with bikes and tried to do it again, but it wouldn’t let me take a bike out. I got really stressed out because I thought may be I had incorrectly docked the bike at the empty station and so I sprinted back to that station, but found that the bike was correctly docked. I concluded that you basically aren’t allowed to take consecutive bikes out of the same station unless you wait a certain period of time. This basically means the program is a joke because you want to encourage people to take bikes out of full stations, ride them to empty stations, and then run back to the full station and do the same thing over again.

[Author]

Posts