Shirlington Underpass Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Last Saturday there was a ribbon cutting ceremony opening the new Shirlington Underpass.

The new trail eliminated nearly a mile of on-street riding and difficult road crossings and offers pedestrians and bicyclists a safer, more direct path along the Four Mile Run stream. The project brings new landscaping to the stream bank and a sanitary sewer main that increases capacity and helps prevent back-ups.

I rode it shortly after the opening and it's great - and it's really a big improvement - and since I last rode by they'd added landscaping, paint and other finishing touches. Oddly, I didn't see it mentioned by the MSM, despite what an important connection this is. This is like our new Wilson Bridge.

"But isn't the Wilson Bridge opening 'like our new Wilson Bridge?'", you might ask. No. We didn't even have a way to get across the Wilson Bridge, so our Wilson Bridge is way bigger than that. The Wilson Bridge opening on Saturday is more like the original Wilson Bridge opening.

Some people took the opportunity to check out the new covered bike parking at the Shirlington transit station.

Mark Kellogg with the Arlington DOT wrote this history of the underpass.

As best I can recall, the first written advocacy for this new underpass was in 1985.  In April, when the Master Transportation Plan effort got underway, some Arlington members of the Washington Area Bicycling Association (WABA) met with Arlington staff.  This was documented in a September, 1985, letter from Bill Silverman, in which these bicyclists documented on a map some 50 recommendations for trail improvements, one of which was this underpass.  At the time, the "Arlington loop" was not yet completed, but Arlington was proceeding with plans for the bridge across the Parkway, and the National Park Service seemed committed to extending the Parkway trail from Memorial Bridge to Theodore Roosevelt Island, to close the loop.  Members of WABA and the Arlington County Bicycle Club continued to work with staff in 1985 and early 1986 to develop the bicycle element of the Master Transportation Plan.  The advocacy efforts of these bicyclists not only led to their recommendations becoming the backbone of the master plan's bicycling element, but also led to the designation of a full-time staff member for bicycling, and to the birth of Arlington's Bicycle Advisory Committee.  Some of the people involved in 1985 --- Randy Swart, Peter Harnik, Chips Johnson, Bob Hirama, and probably others --- are still involved in community efforts now in 2009 --- an amazing 25-year commitment and contribution.

The underpass was included in Arlington's adopted comprehensive plan in 1986.  Though this underpass is a key regional facility, serving much more than Arlington, funding from state and regional entities proved elusive.  The ISTEA of 1991, and specifically the Transportation Enhancement (TE) category, provided Arlington with an opportunity to get started on this, and some other trail links.  Now, there is growing recognition that transportation funding, rather than transportation-enhancement funding, is appropriate for bicycling but ISTEA and TE funding were instrumental in opening the door in the 1990s to multimodalism.

Personally this represents the first Christmas Wish List Item to be completed, and the first one that can be scratched off the list. The Wilson Bridge opening won't quite get it done (there are three missing pieces, though the connection from Water Street to Clay Drive is so tantalizing close, that you may be able to bunny hop it) - so the Met Branch Trail's new section may be next in line.

Comments

[Ian Edlind]

I personally prefer the old chain link bridge over I-395...kidding! Here's a little bit more about the underpass and what it means to arlington bike commuters: Trail Voice article on the trail