Tag: bicycle advocacy

My First LTTE

I never feel comfortable doing bicycle advocacy but once again I have entered the fray. The local newspaper down here in Mount Vernon published a huge letter to the editor complaining about the new bike lanes on Sherwood Hall Lane near my house in Fairfax County.  After living in this community for 25 years, my car-obsessed county finally threw me a bone! The gist of the letter writer’s argument is that the bike lanes are incomplete and poorly designed putting bicyclists in harm’s way. Don’t chew on that bone you might choke!. 

How a bike lane makes things worse is beyond me. Here’s the response that I emailed tonight:

I read with great interest Queenie Cox’s letter to the editor opposing the new bike lanes on Sherwood Hall Lane in the Gum Springs neighborhood. As an everyday cyclist who lives ½ mile from Sherwood Hall Lane I think Ms. Cox makes some very good points. Sherwood Hall Lane in Gum Springs is a challenging place to ride a bike or walk. The problem is not bicycles, pedestrians, or bike lanes; the problem is too many cars and trucks going too fast. The problem has only grown worse as overflow traffic from US 1 spills into our neighborhood. The bike lanes and other markings on Sherwood Hall Lane are intended to help calm this vehicular traffic.

 

A little over two years ago I rode my bike on Sherwood Hall Lane on a beautiful spring day. Not a cloud in the sky. As I turned onto Parkers Lane, I could see police activity at the intersection of Sherwood Hall and Schelhorn Road. A pedestrian had just been taken by ambulance to Fairfax Hospital after being run over by an SUV driven by someone in too much of a hurry. That pedestrian was my wife. It was many painful months before she could return to work.  She wasn’t hit by a bicycle or bike lane. She was hit by a motor vehicle. What kind of community do we have where we accept this sort of thing as normal? That walking to the Post Office is literally death defying.

 

Ms. Cox concern about the safety of cyclists like myself is interesting. I doubt very much that she rides a bicycle to run errands or go to work. I do.  I am a 59-year-old who has been riding a  bike and paying taxes in this area of Fairfax County for 25 years. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see me riding to work and  to the stores on US 1 and Fort Hunt Road.  I suppose Ms. Cox would prefer it if I drove everywhere, putting yet another car on the roads. This sort of thinking is a dead end for Gum Springs and Fairfax County.

 

What Fairfax County needs is more, interconnected, high-quality bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, not less. It is my hope that the Fairfax County Bicycle Plan is implemented and expanded so that we may have a safer, healthier community.

Everyday Bicycling Is Creeping into the Mainstream

Riding a bike for everyday transportation often makes me feel like I’m on the fringe of society. Unless you live in Davis, California, bike commuting puts you in a tiny slice of the commuter pie chart. Things are starting to change.

I work in Rosslyn, which is a pretty unniviting place. Tall buildings, lots of construction, car traffic combine to make it a rather harsh streetscape. There are a few bike commuters who work here and quite a few more who pass through on their way to DC. Some of them use Capital Bikeshare.

There are two flat screen TVs in the lobby of my office building. One shows CNN. The other has information on transit. On the bottom right of the screen is a listing of the CaBi bikes available nearby. I think this is pretty cool.

Image
Bikeshare goes mainstream.

 

Tonight I went to a public meeting in which plans for the US 1 corridor from the Beltway to the Occoquan River were discussed. US 1 is a mess of bike big box stores and car congestion. And it is getting worse by the month. The plans are to put some sort of enhanced transit down the length of the corridor. This will be combined with a redesign of the land use with an emphasis on mixed use development. Bicycling and pedestrian facilities are an integral part of the thinking. (Frankly, some versions of the plans look a lot like the Rosslyn to Ballston corridor of present day Arlington. I (and most of the attendees) will be long gone (either living in a home or six feet under) by the time these plans are fully implemented. It’s refreshing to see Fairfax County openly admit it has a big problem in my area of the county. I predict that as the corridor gets more congested, local politicians are going to see some mighty angry constituents.

Image
A packed house at the US1 meeting. Lots of gray hair and bald spots. (I can say that because I fit right in!)

I had to drive to the meeting (I was running late) but another attendee came in style on a Sun EZ3 delta trike. His Bike E 2-wheeled recumbent was in need of repair, he said.

Image
Sun EZ3 recumbent. It’s a delta, meaning two wheels in back.

 

The Introverted Advocate Rides Again

(I’m a day behind in my blog. You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for today’s exciting tale.)

It was a pretty typical Wednesday in March.  Temperatures in the 40s in the morning would give rise to violent weather in the evening and overnight. I took what nature gave me and set out on The Mule for a ride to work at sunrise. The sun did not disappoint.

Errandonnee #7: The Mule at Daybreak

I was in a trance for most of my ride to work. The only notable event occurred when I passed one of the Mount Vernon Trail loonies near the airport. This was the guy who was tossing debris and yelling at the traffic on the adjacent parkway near Belle Haven Park south of Old Town Alexandria on Tuesday. Today, he was walking against traffic and waving an American flag. Henceforth I shall call him The Patriot. Come to think of it he does look a little like Bill Belichick.

The approaching storm front made for much radar monitoring in the afternoon. Work. Radar. Worry. Repeat. About 3 p.m. the ominous cello music began in my head. You could see a thin line of really nasty stuff headed toward DC. (I think we’re gonna need a bigger bike.) I hit the road just before 5 and had only to deal with a headwind mixed with few sprinkles here and there.

After much fast (well, for me anyway) pedaling I pulled into the Mount Vernon government center for a meeting regarding the re-paving and re-striping of Sherwood Hall Lane (SHL), a busy two-lane street that connect US 1 with two other north/south roads, Fort Hunt Road and the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

The bike parking was pathetic which pretty much tells you all you need to know about Fairfax County’s attitude toward bicycling. I locked The Mule to the post of a parking sign and went inside.

Errandonnee #8: The Mule Advocates

The room was half full but became packed within an hour. Mount Vernon has the highest percentage of retirees in Fairfax County and most of them seemed to be in attendance. Tables showed maps of the proposals, all of which included bike lanes on both sides of the proposed re-striped SHL. According to Charlie Strunk, Fairfax County’s bicycle coordinator, the bike lanes are part of the Fairfax County Bicycle Master Plan and are paid for out of the county bicycling budget. The road varies in width so some sections have parking on both sides, some have a middle turn lane and parking on both sides, and some have either the middle turn lane or parking on both sides of the road.

Errandonnee #8: Bike Lanes for Sherwood Hall Lane

The VDOT and Fairfax County folks in charge of the project gave a presentation about what they were doing. SHL gets repaved every ten years. The re-striping is intended as a traffic calming strategy needed for three reasons:

  • Police and local politicians had identified numerous safety concerns

  • The road is very wide which results in frequent speeding

  • Traffic volume has increased because US 1 is gridlocked during rush hour and on weekends. This gridlock is caused by the extensive residential development and an increase in commuters to Fort Belvoir to the south.

During and after the presentation, citizens commented and asked questions.  It was interesting to see how many people feel that parking in front of their house is an entitlement, even though most of them have access to on-street parking a few yards away on a side street.  Some of the audience remarks were snarky, some procedural (this is DC, afterall), a few were downright inane (“Why do you need two bike lanes?), and some were thoughtful. My favorite was this one:

“A man on PCP drove up on my neighbors lawn. If she had been in her front yard, she could have been killed! We need that parking lane as a buffer!!”

What I was pleasantly surprised by was the number of people from the bicycling community including my neighbor and fellow blogging bike commuter and Friday Coffee Club attendee Jeff who showed up in support of the bike lanes. There were three or four people from Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB). A bike commuter (She’s fast. She passes me every day.) who is a member of Potomac Pedalers spoke respectfully about the need for the bike lane for bike commuters and club rides.

Some children from Hollin Meadows School were the icing on the cake. They read a statement that explain how they wanted to be able to walk to school. They need a crosswalk and a traffic signal to do so. (Go kids!)

Shortly thereafter a homeowner said that he opposed a traffic light because it would lower his property value. That’s when I kind of lost my introversion and spoke up.

“Thank you for making these changes. I am not a member of Potomac Pedalers. I own three cars. I ride my bike to work every day and to use it to do errands on the weekends. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be able to do so safely in my neighborhood. Secondly, 23 months ago at noon on a crystal clear day, my wife had the audacity to walk across Sherwood Hall Lane. She was run over by an SUV. Frankly, I care a whole lot more about safety than about property values.”

Jeff gave me a you-done-good nod. Then he spoke. It turns out his kids go to Hollin Meadows too.

A couple other concerned bicyclists approached me. One took my contact information for a followup meeting of the Mount Vernon Bicycle Advocacy Cabal.

A reporter asked me for my information as well. (If somebody sees my name in a story, please let me know.)

The project team agreed to extend the period of public comment for one week. My guess is that they will swap some turn lanes for parking but the bike lanes will stay. Time will tell.

I walked out into the cold, dark, windy night. The temperature had dropped about twenty degrees and the wind was roaring. Thankfully, I had only ½ mile to go before home. I made it in a  breeze.

Errandonnee Summary

Errandonee #7:

Category: Work

Miles: 15

Observation: Sunrises are a drug.

Errandonnee #8:

Category: Community Meeting

Miles: 15

Observation: Thanks to the people who spoke up about the bicycle lanes at the meeting. My guess is that there were about 10 people who spoke up for bicycle and pedestrian issues.