[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 189722 wrote:

Another issue with sharrows and the VC approach generally, is scaleability. Sharrows “work” today, because there are not that many people on bikes and those who pick a route without seg infra are more likely to be faster riders. Imagine that instead of 2% mode share (5% in the District I guess) we had 10 to 20% mode share – but still lots of motor vehicle traffic. And that a large proportion of that 20% were children, elderly, people pulling trailers, etc. The conflicts with motor vehicle traffic would create issues – in some places worse than the conflicts created by seg infra.

Increasing bike mode share, even with sharrows, tends to slow down traffic a lot. Look at Union St in Alexandria or Beach Dr in MD on the weekends as good examples where cars tend to drive slow due to the large volume of activity occurring on the road; though there’s plenty of unsafe actions at the low speeds.

20% bike share on the roads would completely change how drivers behave. The risks of hitting someone would too high to risk driving fast.

[zsionakides]

@scoot 189716 wrote:

I can’t imagine anyone believing that sharrows could ever eliminate door zone riding.

I do believe that properly located sharrows can help reduce door-zone riding and by extension dooring incidents. I also believe that riders who feel safer in a travel lane than a door zone are likely to experience more motorist harassment where DZBLs are painted than they would if sharrows were painted instead. (I have no data to support the latter hypothesis, just my perception of anecdotes from my own experience.)

This is why I would prefer sharrows be painted instead of DZBLs if we’re not going to install PBLs or cycle tracks. There are some examples of painted bike lanes overseas where the driving area is narrowed to provide wide enough painted bike lanes, but that’s not what’s been installed here. Sharrows, while not good on higher speed roads, are better than narrow DZBLs and guide cyclists where to appropriately position themselves in the lane for safety.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 189684 wrote:

My sense is that while many drivers will drive close to the edge of the bike lane (which will be too close if I am riding on the left of it to avoid potential dooring) they will also generally not ride into the bike lane. When I am riding without a bike lane, whether taking the lane, or riding to the right (because its a segment where for whatever reason I am not comfortable taking the lane) the variance seems greater – some cautious drivers will pull far over, and some will pass way to close, including “punishment passes” That is why given a route choice, I will often pick a door zone bike lane route over a route with no infrastructure. Some of it will depend on what I know about parking turnover on the route. East Glebe near Commonwealth in Alexandria, is not like SB Crystal Drive in Arlington, for example. Also depends on the no infra route – some two ways have no center stripe, encouraging drivers to pull over to pass. Where there is a center stripe, and high volume in both directions (but only one lane in each direction) drivers are, I find, less likely to pull over far enough. Some one ways have sufficient bike volumes that drivers are aware and relatively patient (Abingdon in Fairlington) others, not so much.

Also of course many door zone painted bike lanes are put in for traffic calming (wide lanes can lead to higher speeds) and if that succeeds, it can make it a more desirable route.

I’m the opposite and avoid door zone bike lanes as much as possible. I’d rather ride in traffic and force cars to go around then try to look into every parked car to be sure no one is going to door me.

I get the traffic calming reasons, but there’s got to be a better use of the space than a narrow, unsafe bike lane. East Glebe is one of the worst bike lanes I’ve seen built recently and should never been built with the idea of it being a bike lane. It would be better to use the space to expand the sidewalks, maybe even to the point they would be wide enough (8-10′) to be shared-use paths that lower speed cyclists could safely use.

[zsionakides]

@scoot 189653 wrote:

So they’ll allow scooters on the highway instead?

Not on the GW Parkway, but I believe you could ride them on Rock Creek Parkway legally.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 188918 wrote:

My complete list of streets to consider:

1. Little Falls
2. McKinley/Ohio
3. Patrick Henry
4. Wilson (west of “N Arlington Mill Drive”)
5. N Park Drive
6. Lorcom
7. Military
8. Quincy
9. 7th St N
10. N Highland St (south of Key Blvd)
11. Carlin Springs
12. 5th Road South (connecting into FFX)
13. S Walter Reed, particularly up Superman Hill

I would also consider from that map:

Boundary channel from Long Bridge to the connector from the MVT
Oak St in Rosslyn for PBLs to connect with Wilson and Key
Randolph Rd in Shirlington – PBLs or a cycle track to replace the current bad bike lanes
Campbell in Shirlington would be nice for a cycle track, but a row of parking would have to be taken.

[zsionakides]

@scoot 188928 wrote:

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.

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.

I don’t think you could road diet that part of Walter Reed as rush hour traffic is pretty heavy all the way to Columbia Pike. Getting rid of the median allows for a wide enough PBL going uphill (say 6-8’ wide) and a narrower PBL going downhill.

If you get rid of the parking on the northbound side and keep the median, then there’s an 11-12’ wide facility. A cycle track would be the only thing that makes sense, otherwise it will look like a gold plated bike lane if it goes one way.

[zsionakides]

@dasgeh 188906 wrote:

I’ll start: N Quincy in front of W-L HS should have protected bike lanes

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).

Military Rd should definitely have PBLs even with the few driveways, and Lorcom Ln should put PBLs in strategically as well.

[zsionakides]

@scoot 188911 wrote:

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

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

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 188769 wrote:

Yesterday evening the bikeometer at 7th and Maine showed 320 riders, that was 6PM or so, so the number was still increasing. And that omits the riders who do not pass the bikeometer.

Still not like the NL, and I agree that Rosslyn would be better off with in street PBLs based on the Maine avenue experience. But the Maine PBL IS getting more use than some folks may think.

It was a nice day yesterday and there were lots of cyclists out of hibernation.

Crystal Drive’s NB on-street unprotected bike lane had 165 riders yesterday, which extrapolates out to 330 if you assume the same ridership southbound. That shows that isolated PBLs probably don’t get anyone riding beyond confident riders who ride in a lot of mediocre conditions already.

Unless a network of end to end protected facilities is built in Rosslyn and connects well to the Custis/MVT/110/50 trails, usage will be limited, and may not be much higher than it is now.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 188737 wrote:

The bikeometer on Maine shows around a hundred riders (and scooters?) even on bad weather days, and I think several hundred on better weather days (even though better weather days are days dealing with peds is more difficult) That is still far from what you see in the NL.

I mean lets say I see 240 in the cyclometer. A lot of folks don’t show up in the cyclometer either because their destination is in the wharf, or because they come from 7th in the crosswalk and miss it – so say, 400 riders/scooters in a day. Assume almost all are in the peak hours – say 7 to 9 AM, and 4:30 to 6:30 pm. So 50 in each direction in an hour. Less than one a minute. Hardly enough to make it feel like a “bike lane” to most pedestrians. Far far from NL levels.

100=8.33 dozen, i.e. a few dozen. The NL bike paths have thousands of riders per day. I even read recently that London had bike paths with over 13,000 riders per day, and London is nowhere near as mature a cycling city as most anywhere in the NL. A couple hundred cyclists per day just isn’t that many.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 188709 wrote:

Three cases A. The Netherlands (never been there, but have read a lot about it, seen films, etc) B. Virginia Avenue in near SE DC C. Maine Avenue in SW DC

The benefit of sidewalk level lanes is, IIUC, greater separation from traffic, with some safety advantage ( ? – maybe only when the in street alternative is not protected by parking?) and also a seperation from fumes benefit ,and no issue with the gutter.The obvious disadvantage is conflict with peds using the sidewalk level bike lane as a sidewalk.

In the NL, IIUC, peds respect the bike lanes. Because there are so many bike riders in them, it would be hard to confuse them with a sidewalk – and because since so many peds also ride, they are more aware.

In the USA this generally does not hold. However the Virginia avenue PBL works anyway, because there is so little pedestrian movement there (a neighborhood almost entirely of townhouses).

On Maine Avenue, where there is dense mixed use, the PBL works more like a MUT (but with a lot more crossings). At times of day and weather conditions with relatively few peds, its okay at a speed that allows for slowing at the crossings. At times with more peds, it requires a considerably slower speed. Clearly, in retrospect, given the success of the Wharf as a ped destination, and the culture relative to bike (and other mobility devices) in greater DC, it would have been better to have an in street bike lane on Maine.

Arlington should consider if Rosslyn will be more like the Wharf or more like Virginia Avenue.

IME in the Netherlands, there was still a lot of conflict between peds and bikes in the bike lanes, though much of that had to do with crossings and intersections. The main difference in NL is a much higher bike percentage and a real network of separated biking facilities, not small one off pieces such as Maine Ave and Virginia Ave. Until Maine and Virginia connect to larger protected bike networks, there will never be more than a few dozen cyclists using them each day, and you won’t see the PBLs respected by peds.

[zsionakides]

I’m wondering why Nash St isn’t considered as a connecting point to the Custis trail. Nash’s bridge over 66 is pretty wide and has light traffic, vice trying to get what will probably be narrow PBLs on Lynn and Ft Myer.

Putting a cycle track around the 19th St/Nash loop and a facility on Kent St should make low stress facilities on Wilson less necessary as there would be a bypass for much of the route.

[zsionakides]

@Emm 188510 wrote:

I’ve reported this and had a discussion about this intersection with BPAC’s wonderful police liaison who said they’d up patrols around here since they’ve also gotten numerous other reports, and reported it via Alexandria Families for Safe Street’s reporting tool, so that’s been done. But if you want to report via call click connect or your other channels, please do!!! The more reports the better.

And my current issue is with the Glebe Rd bridge out, this is my safest and most direct route to ParkFairfax right now, so to need to find a 3rd route option really makes me :mad:. But I agree, getting hit should also not be an option.

The Glebe Rd bridge does have one of the lanes barreled off for peds/bikes to use. Is there a reason you can’t use that.

[zsionakides]

Update: This morning when I was running by the intersection and waiting for the light, I saw and overheard five personnel from Arlington discussing the curb cut. A couple of them were not construction workers as they had office wear on under their vest and hardhat. Hopefully this leads to a fix as they were pointing out widening the curb cut and looking at where the pedestrian light is.

[zsionakides]

@lordofthemark 188289 wrote:

That it’s difficult to remove onstreet parking from an arterial suggest to me that the area is not as low density as much of the USA is. (I would also note that newer suburbs are much more likely to have arterials with more but narrower lanes, rather than one wide lane in each direction – see Ashburn for example)

The part of Seminary under study is east of I395, the City is likely to propose a road diet from 4 to 3 lanes – to discourage speeding – the limit is 25MPH but is widely disregarded – and to ease pedestrians crossing the streets – to reduce lane changing that creates crashes – to provide a center left turn lane that would expedite traffic and reduce rear end collisions – to ease people getting out of their driveways. The traffic volumes are significantly less east of Jordan than from I395 to Jordan, as much traffic from I 395 turns SB onto Jordan – it is possible that different treatments will be proposed east and west of Jordan, but I would not want to prejudice what T&ES may propose. IF a 4 to 3 road diet is done, it is very likely (and keeping with the City bike-ped master plan) that the extra space would go to bike lanes. There is no on-street parking in that area, so they would not be parking protected PBLs.

I will try not to speak of other jurisdictions, but in Alexandria at least, I strongly hold that even a mostly detached SFH area needs to have complete streets – both for the safety and comfort of residents who want to walk and bike, for the safety of residents who prefer to drive within the 25MPH speed limit, and to make it possible for people from nearby denser areas to walk and ride through it and to use transit within it. if the central “hole” of Alexandria is excluded from complete streets and traffic calming, we will fail to achieve our vision as a City. How that plays out in other jurisdictions will depend on details of geography.

On Seminary is the city looking at extending or putting a cycletrack on the north side to connect the bridge over 395. I don’t remember where the first signalized crossing is, but I believe it’s a few blocks east of 395.

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