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Looking for motivational photos to encourage more walking and bicycling? Here are two from a VDOT facility showing a lot of people on foot:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19882[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19883[/ATTACH]

http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/american-legion-bridge-reopens-following-overturned-tanker-along-interstate-495

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@semperiden 188919 wrote:

Add a lane from South Glebe Rd from 4MR trail to S Walter Reed. Or at least from 24th Street to S Walter Reed.

These would be great. But if I interpret the map correctly, the blue roads are not on the paving schedule but rather happen to serve as boundaries between maintenance zones. Glebe would be VDOT territory anyway.

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@zsionakides 188922 wrote:

The width of a PBL would matter more here. A narrow PBL with the lost space from the gutter could be really hairy to ride up, maybe worse than the current conditions. Ideally they would get ride of the median islands or the parking lane …

If space is an issue, a road diet with median removal is a nice solution. I have never seen any traffic congestion going up that hill. As long as thru-vehicles can get around those who are waiting to make left turns, there is no need for a second thru lane. We could add the second vehicle lane in the downhill direction near the bottom of the hill to maintain southbound capacity through the signal at 4MR.

@zsionakides 188922 wrote:

… then you could easily fit in a cycletrack or a shared used path in conjunction with the existing sidewalk up to Pollard.

I oppose converting this bike lane into any sort of two-way facility (e.g. a cycletrack or MUP). Adding high-speed downhill bicycles to the mix on that side of the road would be extremely dangerous.

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@dasgeh 188906 wrote:

Military Road north of Lee is far too wide — narrow the road and provide good, continuous bike lanes (maybe protected – I’m actually not sure how many driveways we have there).

Given the terrain, perhaps climbing lanes (both directions leading away from Vacation Lane) and downhill sharrows (both directions toward Vacation Lane)?

Not sure why this street has a 30MPH speed limit, but it should be redesigned somehow to support 25 instead.

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Clarendon “Circle”:

It is unclear how much of this intersection the 2019 paving plan encompasses, but a painted bike lane through the intersection connecting eastbound Wilson into eastbound Clarendon would be really helpful. Especially for those cyclists who come from eastbound Fairfax and jump onto the sidewalk at Northside Social in order to do that awkward box turn to reach eastbound Clarendon Blvd. Eventually I hope to see a fully continuous bike lane on Wilson/Clarendon all the way from Seven Corners to Rosslyn; this would be an importance piece of that puzzle.

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A PBL (well daylighted at the intersections) would make the Superman Hill climb much more comfortable (Walter Reed northbound from W&OD to Pollard).

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Extend the Wilson Blvd road diet west to the county line (McKinley).

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Sort of. The new road Jeff Todd Way is also open to the public. It has a sidepath and zero intersections between Pole and Telegraph. I have never ridden on it though, so I can’t vouch for its condition.

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https://www.belvoir.army.mil/allaccess.asp

Note also that most of the other gates are closed on weekends, which means you won’t be able to exit through them either. (On the plus side, Beulah Road going past the golf course is quite a blast when there is no thru traffic.)

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@Emm 188635 wrote:

a driver’s insurance company is saying since they had a green light to turn, the walk signal shouldn’t have been on, therefor it’s not the driver’s fault they hit and injured a pedestrian.

Green arrow or green circle? If a circle, the driver certainly has no case. But an arrow would imply that the turning vehicles have ROW, and walk signals shouldn’t be directing pedestrians to cross in conflict. However I’m pretty sure I have seen some signals that do exactly this. I believe one example is in Georgetown at M and 33rd NW, where the ped signal on the north side of M comes on while eastbound M has both a green circle and an arrow. If nothing else, it seems like very dangerous engineering, but I have no idea how such a situation should be treated legally when the inevitable collision occurs.

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This is an example of why contributory negligence reform is necessary. Because despite the fact that the collision would obviously be the fault of the driver, it’s hard to be confident that a jury of twelve drivers wouldn’t find you 1% liable, just for existing on a bicycle where someone wasn’t expecting one.

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I would have a very difficult time spinning a version of events that would place any blame on you for this hypothetical incident. (If anything, your maneuver both makes you more visible AND gives these drivers extra space in which to stop before hitting you. Not that the extra space should be necessary, since it is a red light with a crosswalk after all!)

But perhaps that is why I am not a lawyer.

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You may be right. Back when VA-27 trail access required riding through the 9/11 Memorial I would frequently see tourists with cameras there, and I never saw police attempt to stop that.

But since the signs that prohibit photography don’t indicate any distinction and are themselves located on various public roads, I’d be more inclined to approach the police with just an oral statement about my history of interactions with this driver, rather than to volunteer video upfront.

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@Crickey7 188259 wrote:

Do you wear a GoPro? I find it helps with harassers if I point to it and shout that they are being filmed.

That move might backfire on the Pentagon reservation.

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@dasgeh 188218 wrote:

I disagree. People feel more comfortable in protected infrastructure, and many won’t ride without protection. Thus, it’s our (read: the County’s) responsibility to make the protected infrastructure we build as safe as possible. To do that, we need solid barriers and no parking near conflict points.

I think we agree more than we disagree. I agree with both of these points. Where separated infrastructure is installed, it needs maximal visibility. Daylighting can help; ideally there would be no parking in between at all.

I simply challenge the notion that proliferation of PBLs is the best approach (presuming that our long-term goals are to simultaneously maximize vulnerable road users’ mobility and safety while minimizing our collective transportation carbon footprint). Yes they increase ridership a bit today. But we cannot make a truly substantial impact unless we focus our attention on the elephant in the room: the car culture of speed, distraction, and negligence.

@Steve O 188210 wrote:

[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]

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