Friday Morning Commute - Arlington Boathouse

Good morning

• The National Park Service has  issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) based on an Environmental Assessment the agency conducted for the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail's Kenliworth Section. With funding in place thanks to a TIGER grant, this was the last planning milestone for the project. "Design of the trail segment is to be complete at the end of this summer with construction starting by the end of 2012. Completing construction by 2014 will involve building five bridges, raised pathways and multi-use paths."
• Legislation before the DC Council will "allow the city to strike agreements with developers under which residential parking permits could be denied to tenants in some buildings yet to be constructed. Potential dwellers would have to swear off residential parking as a condition of sale or lease, meaning they would have to forgo owning a car or pay for private parking to avoid summonses." Part of what makes this possible according to Harriet Tregoning: Capital Bikeshare.
• The Capital Crescent Trail has been reopened.
• The Park Service is studying possible locations for a community boathouse on the Virginia side of the Potomac. "In August 2002, the National Park Service (NPS) released a study entitled Facility & Site Analysis (feasibility study) for a Boathouse on the Potomac River in Arlington County and Vicinity." The four locations proposed by that study - two on the waterfront near Key Bridge, one south of the CSX/14th Street Potomac River Bridges, and one on Daingerfield Island, south of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport - might have an impact on the Mt Vernon Trail. There will be a meeting on this and the re-initialization of the EIS process on July 24th at the Washington-Lee High School Cafeteria.
• Fairfax County is in talks to add Capital Bikeshare or some other bike sharing to the county by 2014 - in time for the Silver Line opening. They would test it in Reston and then expand it to Tysons Corner.

Comments

[Kolohe]

I don't see how that parking plan can be implemented without running afoul of the principle (if not the laws) surrounding equal protection.

[Michael H.]

Fairfax has some work to do on making Tysons Corner more bike-friendly. But I hope they go ahead with the bike infrastructure improvements as well as Capital Bikeshare in the coming years.

Better bikeways, CaBi and the new Metro Silver Line could help cut down on the number of short local car trips in the Tysons Corner area. It'll be interesting to see how it all works out.

[Purple Eagle]

I read the FONSI document on the new trail. Good news is that they plan to construct the bridge over the Anacostia as part of the first phase of the project. What's less clear is how useful the bridge will be as a transportation element. The document describes the bridge tying into the path that leads to "Holly Spring Rd" in the Arboretum. Currently the Arboretum is only open from 8:00 to 5:00, and the gate leading to the path by the river closes at 4:30. In addition, one cannot exit/enter the Arboretum at the old M St/Maryland Ave gate. A cyclist headed for downtown from the new trail would need to leave the Arboretum at R St and then head south on Bladensburg Rd.

The planning document discusses the benefits of the bridge in terms of recreational/community access to the Arboretum from the east side of the river. It makes no mention of the potential commuter route.

This bridge will be much more useful under one of the following scenarios:

1) The arboretum re-opens the M St gate (I am guessing it's been closed for several decades at least, given its appearance) and extends its hours, at least to something like 7:00a - 6:00p.

2) alternately, NPS could construct a bridge over the small tributary that separates the arboretum from Langston Golf Course, and then route a trail through the golf course along the tree line.

Maryland Ave leads to the starburst intersection (H/Benning/Bladensburg), and from there it would be relatively easy to use K St, which appears to be a popular route for cycling now in spite of having no designated bike lanes/sharrows, etc.

[Froggie]

Regarding Fairfax County and Capital Bikeshare, we have at least one development project in Huntington that would be interested in a CaBi station should the county join the program. Would tie into the stations proposed in Eisenhower East/Carlyle in Alexandria with the two tied together via the new bike bridge at Telegraph Rd.