New Bike Lanes on Slaters Lane in North Alexandria

Photo by Thomas Sheffer who writes

Slaters lane, a major Mount Vernon Trail access point for north Alexandria got a major push towards bike safety this week with the addition of a designated bike lane both east and west. Big move for the city deciding to give up one west lane of traffic to accommodate! This is a great addition for the communities of north old town and south del ray to make for a safer connection to the MVT, especially for morning commuters!

And look, no door zone.

Comments

[Kolohe]

This made it a heck of lot easier to pass up the line of cars at morning rush.

The only quibble is that you're still pinched between the traffic and this median http://goo.gl/maps/VCY5C when trying to cross the parkway to get to the MVT.

[Jonathan Krall]

Thanks for posting this. If you like and use these lanes, please consider sending a "thank you" to city council. They passed a Complete streets policy last year and city staff are positive about implementing it. However there is opposition that generally says "we need to save space for cars because there will be more cars in the future."

Local politicians don't get a ton of e-mail, so just a few messages go a long way.

[Greenbelt]

Nice roadside weeds.

[T]

@Kolohe, usually it's easiest to just get to the front of the line and then run the light since the green comes to those heading westbound first.

[Roy]

My occasional ride down the MVT to Rustico just improved

[Kolohe]

"then run the light"

Scoflaw cyclist!!1!!1!!!

:)

(yeah that's what normally I do too, it's just today the timing was that I got to the intersection when the light in the Eastbound direction had already been green for a bit and was red by the time I got to the NB parkway 'service road'. So I just went up onto the sidewalk and waiting for the service road traffic to clear before making the left)