[zsionakides]

@chris_s 198787 wrote:

It’s a terrible plan that will burn up tons of resources at a cash-strapped agency for minimal gain because the bureaucrats think a traffic light will mar the historic viewshed.

I would like to see the northbound GW Pkwy rerouted to where Southbound Washington Blvd is now. Washington Blvd is 4 lanes wide through there and massively oversized for the amount of traffic that could even theoretically go through there. Washington Blvd’s 4 lanes would become 2 lanes each way with a separator. This would require an overpass or traffic circle on the northside of Columbia Island to reconnect to the existing GW Pkwy where Arlington Blvd crosses.

Doing this would allow the movement of the MVT to where the GW Pkwy is today getting it out of the flood plain and allowing a 2 way path under the Memorial Bridge. It also gets rid of hotspot 8, which is probably the highest speed one there.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 198752 wrote:

I was not involved as I have never lived in Arlington, but my impression was that there was significant pushback from the politically influential country club, and getting the connector (tied in with emergency vehicle access) was considered a big win by everyone in the bike community.

Getting a path all the way around a private club sounds really hard – Virginia code tends to protect property owners, and even when one is asking for a zoning waiver the concessions asked for have to be relevant.

The connector was negotiated in exchange for expanding the ANCC’s clubhouse. That type of negotiation isn’t much different than negotiating proffers with any development. Getting a connector all the way around to Columbia Heights would have significantly more utility than just Arlington View.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 198751 wrote:

There was no land sale to ANC — This is a taking by the federal government. My understanding is that the push came from staff — yes, we’ve spoken up in support of ArlCo staff but ArlCo staff has been pushing for the separated facilities this whole time. (There had been negotiations for a land sale but they were ended when Congress put the taking in a federal statute).

Any taking requires reasonable compensation even if put in federal statute. In general the preference is going to be for negotiating a sale, vice having to go through litigation to get it. The condemnation basically locks Arlington into negotiating a deal or taking their chances in court.

This is similar to homes being taken by the State for a highway or other public project. A property owner can’t simply refuse a sale. They either negotiate or go to court and get a settled agreement, which may or may not be more favorable.

[zsionakides]

Condemnation goes through a court, so it’s still in DODs interest to negotiate a deal. The condemnation limits the county’s ability to walk away, but not to negotiate.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 198730 wrote:

The Columbia Pike was a HUGE lift that involved convincing the DoD to include the cycletrack in the project. It’s different tradeoffs than reallocating space from parking, but it took serious leadership to get the cycletrack in the plans. It was not easy. (Also, fun fact: It’s not Arlington’s money. DoD is building as compensation for taking VDOT’s land.)

The county had plenty of leverage in the land sale and didn’t use it initially. Considering DoD agree to the cycle track after the fact, I’m sure they would have agreed early on with little push back considering it’s a very small part of the overall costs. Instead Arlington had to come back and ask for the cycle track later. It’s Arlington’s money in terms of value for the land and not getting better value for it.

It’s the same issue with negotiating with ANCC. Arlington could have came out with a much bigger ask – say an easement for a path all the way around the course or allowing legal usage of the road through the club for cyclists which would have huge benefits – but they limited the ask to a small path.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 198706 wrote:

21st street is in Ward 2. Bike advocates in DC have noted that DDOT has aggressively delivered bike infra in Ward 6 (strongly pro bike CM Allen) and Ward 2 (CM Jack Evan’s effectively neutered, and most ANCs pro bike.)Not so much in wards 3, 4, 5, and especially 7 and 8.

Wards 2 and 6 cover downtown, the mall, and most the major employment areas in DC. Increasing bicycle accessibility in those employment centers is key to increasing bike commuting and should eventually drive greater demand in the residential oriented outer wards.

OTOH, Arlington and Alexandria have done almost nothing for cyclists in the employment centers, focusing more on their trail networks, which end short of where commuters need to go.

[zsionakides]

@dbb 198671 wrote:

See the attached two drawings. Looks like 10 foot combined sidewalk/path on each side.

Might have to amend my comments to FHWA

[ATTACH]21283[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21281[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]21282[/ATTACH]

Note the two left turn lanes from Joyce to Columbia Pike and the slip lane from Columbia Pike onto Joyce

Looks like they kept the 35mph speed limit, which IME is 45-50mph on that road. They really should road diet Joyce just for that.

The side paths are tolerable, though a separate cycle track should really be considered with the new cycle track coming to Army Navy.

[zsionakides]

Joyce St under 395 between Army Navy and Columbia Pike doesn’t have a PBL or trail. There’s a wide side path for about half the length, but the rest is beat up sidewalks or riding in very high speed traffic. That part of Joyce should be road dieted with the low traffic volumes and high speeds, but I wouldn’t count on that, particularly if DOD has a say in the matter.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 198630 wrote:

I think we should remember where we are in the process: we are defining goals for the Vision Zero program to start to develop an action plan. This isn’t the action plan. “Strive to” makes sense for goals, particularly when we’re talking about things like “ensuring safety for all users”.

I often stand up and say Arlington should be doing better and moving faster in order to spur behavioral change. But it’s not fair to say that “almost every bike lane project in the county is heavily water downed by the time it gets to execution, to the point where it only serves highly confident riders.” Quincy Street is a seriously good project. The part south of Washington (north of Washington will be revisited next year) is fully buffered, and Arlington has been tweaking when they see the need to. There should be money to turn “buffered” into “protected” in the CIP. That’s not watered down. And it’s actually convincing people — including senior leaders in the County — that PBLs work and that biking is a real way to get around.

Veitch is good, Wilson is good, Eads is good. I would ride with kids on all of those. There are more coming in this year’s batch of repaving. In the past year, there haven’t been many other projects built. Of those designed, yes, there have been some disappointments. But more wins than disappointments.

And I will pit the cycletrack along the realigned section of Columbia Pike by ANC against the 20/21st NW cycletrack any day. That is an excellent design that Arlington staff fought hard for and got.

Again, I think we can do better. This next CIP provides a serious opportunity to get funding to move faster. I think if we can get the money, we have the staff that will design good projects.

Quincy St was watered down before it even got to the public for discussion – it had gaps in even the most bike friendly design which was not even up to NACTO standards, which it’s supposed to be per the actual plan the county adopted. I would not let my young children ride on what came out of that design.

Veitch is good. Wilson is mediocre and short. Eads is hit or miss and has gaps.

The Columbia Pike cycletrack was easy as it didn’t require making any tradeoffs, except investing money in the corridor. 20th/21st takes away a lot of street parking in a dense area and it’s getting built. When Arlington builds something like that along Crystal Drive, Walter Reed Drive, or somewhere else that requires real leadership, then I’ll believe it’s getting real. Until then, it’s the same leadership that can only do easy projects, and often not even that.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 198624 wrote:

1. The “common perception” is false, and AFAICT is just dishonest rhetoric from NIMBYs (and they usually just claim no one at all is riding in them)

Also I wonder if you actually believe that “lycra” = recreational? Lots of people commute to work in lycra, and plenty of people make recreational rides in regular clothes. The equation is pretty much something done only by people ignorant of, and generally hostile to, biking.

2 There is no where in the USA (in fact I think few places in the English speaking world) where there are not gaps in the network, bad intersections, or door zone lanes.

3. The most heavily used bike lane in the region, 15th Street in NW DC, has a number of challenging intersections, and its design has been critiqued by many riders. Nonetheless it is crowded to the point of justifying nearby parallel PBLs

4. Unprotected bike lanes are typically justified as general traffic calming – but also provide connections to better bike infra (making the latter more heavily used) They also often place hold for better infra. On 1st Street SE for example unprotected lanes came first, and will soon be replaced by PBLs. They are also trivially cheap to install. So not much is really needed to justify them, unless of course you heavily value the higher motor vehicle speeds that accompany undieted roads in the places where unprotected bike lanes are typically installed.

If Arlington were building PBLs across the county similar to 15th St NW, that would be a massive evolution from what they are doing today and I probably wouldn’t have much issue with the weak language in the Vision Zero document. The reality is almost every bike lane project in the county is heavily water downed by the time it gets to execution, to the point where it only serves highly confident riders.

Even though DC has issues with getting some of their PBLs going, the ones they do build are pretty good and tend to be contiguous. You look at projects such as 20th/21st NW or P St SW and those types of projects are almost never even proposed in Arlington, let alone built.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 198619 wrote:

Which bike lanes in Arlington or Alexandria (or DC for that matter) do you think are not used for transportation?

In Arlington I routinely use the Eads street lanes, and the Long Bridge Drive lanes, as part of my commute. I use lanes on 34th street in Fairlington to ride to synagogue. I use the King Street lanes in Alexandria to ride to Old Town for any number of reasons. I use the bike lanes on Eye Street in DC as part of my commute, and see lots of other people doing so.

There’s a common perception that many of the bike lanes are largely used for recreational riding by the lycra crowd, vice transportation. This is going to happen where there are gaps in the network or the lanes are unsafe (e.g. door lane zone or a lot of mixing at intersections). If you look at the bike counter data on unprotected bike lanes, most all of them are extremely low, and barely justify their existance.

[zsionakides]

@wheels&wings 198609 wrote:

I filled out the Goals-of-Vision-Zero questionnaire last night. As others note, the six goals are wishy-washy, all about striving, e.g. for data collection. Stop “striving” and just do it, Arlington!

They try to please everyone… “strive to ensure safe transportation, no matter how you get around,” rather than seeking to protect the most vulnerable road-users (pedestrians, bicyclists, other micro-mobility users). Those driving 4000+ lb cars and SUVs will survive in Arlington, no matter what. The language reminds me of “share the road” signs, as if we’re all equally at risk.

Also the goals speak of protection as a “community-wide responsibility,” which seems evasive… we should be focusing on concrete steps the County can take to improve safety… enforcement, signaling, protected lanes, right-on-red restrictions, etc.

And they say their initiative is about striving to serve every Arlingtonian in a way that meets their unique needs. Huh? Not sure what they were smoking when they wrote that.

This type of language is what a lack of leadership looks like. Either there’s no buy-in from senior leaders on vision zero or those senior leaders have no ability to lead themselves. Considering vision zero was passed by the board and based on the project execution I see in general, I would assume it’s a lack of leadership ability.

The big issue with lacking leadership is you see all these transportation projects where they only go partway in regarding bike/ped safety (e.g. bike lanes ending abruptly mid-block, signs instead of stop lights or all way stops, etc.). These “solutions” end up satisfying no one as cyclists and pedestrians aren’t given a safe facility and drivers are inconvenienced without seeing benefits (e.g. a bike facility they would actually use or a place they would like to walk around). The statement that the bike lanes built are for the lycra crowd ends up with a fair amount of truth to it, as they become recreational facilities instead of transportation ones.

If the county wants to lead, they need to go all in with the strategy, whatever that is. If we’re going to greatly increase bike usage, then actually build the facilities to do so. If cars and buses are going to be the strategy, then they need to stop pretending it’s otherwise.

[zsionakides]

I’d assume either rebuild schedule will necessitate the closure of the 4MR trail underpass, with a best case scenario that the adjacent sidepath on S Glebe stays open. In the complete closure option with the south side sidepath open, it wouldn’t require stopping. OTOH, if that sidepath gets closed off, this will not be a fun detour.

I’m surprised they are insistent on keeping 4 lanes. There’s no need for 2 lanes eastbound and it’s just a waste of money building a wider bridge to accommodate.

[zsionakides]

@semperiden 198025 wrote:

Yeah. I commute through here every day and I am not quite sure how this is better both aesthetically and functionality wise. The pools were even worse after it was first built, so I am really hoping it has something to do with drainage that they will fix at the other side of the fence.

I don’t think it’s a drainage issue, though widening the path may have left less surface area to absorb rainwater. The asphalt has been really uneven since day 1, making me think it’s a mix of grading and low spots on the path that collect water. Just poor construction in general there, and makes me wonder about the quality of construction in the development they are building.

[zsionakides]

Riding through this evening with the rain, you can see just how poorly this job was done. There were three large pools of water, one of which was at least a foot deep, at different points in the new section, which are from obvious grading problems in the construction. Considering there weren’t pools of water under Mt Vernon or Glebe Road on 4MR, I imagine this will be a lot worse in bigger rain events.

I thought this project was done poorly to begin with, but what came out of this is worse than what was there before. The developer either did this on the cheap or had no idea what they were doing.

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