CaBi Quest Arlington - 81 stations in one day

On a lovely fall day last November, I set out on a quest to visit all 81 Capital Bikeshare stations in Arlington, VA.

Here's the video I made of that quest:

Arlington County's new "wayfinding" signs going up.

Within the last two weeks or so, Arlington County has restarted its placement of signs along the multi-use trails.  I am very pleased to see that, for the most part, they meet the first and most important criterion of a sign--to tell you where you are.  My previous post on this issue criticizes "wayfinding" signs for not adhering to this extremely simple and common sense dictum.

I also blogged last year when the County piloted a few of these signs.  Based on what I am seeing, it seems some of the issues I raised are being noted.  So far, these signs are a big improvement over anything I have previously seen pretty much anywhere.

Arlington County begins posting new trail "wayfinding" signs

Arlington County has started installing the first of the 250 "wayfinding" signs it has planned for along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor (as detailed here).  I have blogged on trail signs in the past--mostly negative, because they either tend to not exist or fail to function well.

So it's great that these are finally going up.  I'm sure I will have criticisms (see below), but signs of almost any kind are better than the absence of signs.  So all in all, this is a great step forward.

 I took pictures of them and their exact locations are shown on this map:

This one is mounted on the sound wall at the entrance of the trail  It is excellent that the signs indicate the name of the trail.  In the past, this has often been a problem.  Signs would point towards destinations but would fail to tell you where you were.  Now someone using Google Maps and given the direction "Turn Right on the Custis Trail" will have confidence they are in the right place when they reach the trail.
The East Falls Church distance indicator is swapped with the one on the sign below.  This sign is actually closer to East Falls Church than the sign below, but indicates that it is farther away.
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Solving the Lynn Street/Lee Highway Bike/Car Conflict

The intersection of Lee Highway and Lynn Street in Rosslyn, where the Custis Trail crosses Lynn St., has been the subject of great scrutiny lately. (GGW reported on a recent meeting at this very intersection.)  This is one of the most dangerous intersections for cyclists in the Greater Washington area. By reconfiguring the exit ramp for the Key Bridge, this conflict can be entirely removed, dramatically improving safety while also potentially improving traffic flow.  (This post has been cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington, including a number of reader comments.)

The problem at this intersection is traffic turning right from the I-66 off-ramp onto Lynn Street traveling towards the Key Bridge.  This traffic has a green light at the same time as the pedestrians and cyclists have the cross signal. There are two lanes of right turning cars (and sometimes cars in the third lane turn right illegally). By shifting the Key Bridge traffic to the north of the Custis Trail crossing, this conflict will be eliminated.

CentralSpace in Rosslyn demonstrates cooperation between developer and local organizations to create a positive community amenity

There's a nice little urban space in Rosslyn that is a good example of how several organizations working together can make a small but positive impact on the urban form.  It's called CentralSpace, and it's pictured here.  What would typically be a weedy, fenced-in lot awaiting groundbreaking has been transformed into a usable, aesthetically interesting urban space.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen

Yes, replacing street car parking with bike parking is a good idea.

Over the last week there has been a small controversy regarding the expansion of Capital Bikeshare into Arlington County, VA.  In particular the Arlington County GOP has complained that as many as eight metered parking spaces have been replaced with CaBi stations.

This is virtually a non-issue.  Prior to this, 100% of street parking in Arlington was for cars; now it's maybe 98-99%.  That still seems remarkably unbalanced toward automobiles.  Watch this video (yours truly appears near the beginning).




The contention that replacing these parking spots with bikeshare parking costs the county money and is a bad idea is wrong in so many ways.

Shaping the City

I regularly read Roger Lewis's column, Shaping the City, that appears about every other week in the Washington Post. I always find it interesting.

This last week the article was titled: Lessons of Arlington's Urban Development Needn't Be Just History. Here are a couple of excerpts to whet your appetite for the whole article:

"The phenomenal metamorphosis of Arlington County's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, among the region's most dramatic real estate transformations, teaches a timely lesson: Successful urban
revitalization requires long-range planning and long-range public investment that sparks private investment."

"The Rosslyn-Ballston corridor is a work in progress, although millions of square feet of buildings already have been developed, mostly since the 1980s. Its urban design is not flawless, and much of its architecture is less than exemplary. But the corridor functions well. It offers pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, on- and off-street bicycle lanes, plazas and mini-parks. It takes less than 10 minutes to walk between any two adjacent Metro nodes on the corridor -- Rosslyn, Court House, Clarendon, Virginia Square and Ballston. People there can get along without cars."

"Why does visionary planning seem to be a thing of the past? Can America no longer afford to undertake farsighted initiatives. . ."

Enjoy!

We're #2. Do we do it to ourselves?

Today's Washington Post reported on the annual congestion rankings put out by the Texas Transportation Institute, and the DC area tied for 2nd with an average of 60 hours of congestion for peak period commuters.

What caught my eye, though was this tidbit:

"You feel helpless," an Arlington resident was quoted, who drives between Rosslyn and his job in downtown Washington.

Huh? Helpless?!? He DRIVES from Rosslyn to his office on 15th St. NW! I guess that's his prerogative (maybe), but then he has no right to whine about the traffic and claim that he's "helpless." He could freaking WALK to his office in 45 minutes or less. It's at most a 15-minute bike ride--maybe less. He could squeeze on a metro train for 6-7 minutes from Rosslyn to McPherson Square. He could also get a Metrobus to Farragut Square and walk a couple of blocks.

He complains, but he is also actually part of the problem. Remember, when you are sitting in traffic, you ARE the traffic, too. He's doing both himself and everyone else a disservice by not figuring out all his choices, which are many.

What more can we do? Here's a guy with half a dozen options who still chooses to sit in traffic for a 3-mile commute. No one's going to build a new bridge between Rosslyn and DC, nor add any more roads between the river and his office. Widening I-66 won't make any difference to him. The only thing that would improve his drive is if fewer people were driving. But if he's unwilling to get out of his own car, how can he expect everyone else to stop driving, too? He's his own enemy.