Arlington Resident not happy about road diet and Complete Street

In a letter from late last year, an Aurora Hills resident writes that changes made to S. Eads Street as part of a Complete Streets overhaul have resulted in a "nightmare". 

Since our arterial street has reduced capacity, the cars all cut-through our neighborhood street.  And just to be clear, we are not talking about a few cars.  We are talking over 1,300 commuters a day.

Our one lane section of S. Fern St. simply cannot handle this traffic.  According to Arlington County historical traffic counts, last performed in 2011 on our street, they measured 500 cars on a daily average. What a difference a “Complete Street” makes.  We now have approximately 600 cars who rip down the same street in a three-hour period  our school bus is dropping off children.

That does sound bad - though I'm not sure how much it's out of the ordinary. Still the only data the author gives is how much traffic has increased. Chris Slatt, in the comments, notes that "In 2016, there were zero pedestrian, bicyclist, or driver fatalities investigated by the Arlington County Police Department."

Anyway, if there really is rampant law-breaking (which is something I thought only cyclists did) then a few speed cameras and stop sign cameras should do the trick.  I would not be too surprised if there were unintended consequences, and congestion might be one, but then this is a "pilot project"

With these changes in place, County staff are monitoring roadway operations using travel times and vehicle, bike and pedestrian counts. The design of the pilot project is flexible and may change as operations are monitored. The outcome of these measures will influence the ultimate cross section of the street and may lead to additional improvements as areas of opportunity are identified.

I don't know when they plan to present their findings, and since this was done 4 years ago, I suppose they should soon, but I'll reserve judgement until then. 

Comments

[Zachary DesJardins]

If only Virginia allowed speed cameras! Ironically enough, 1,300 cars per day is still quite low, low enough in fact to meet criteria for a Neighborhood Greenway. Portland (OR) used to aim for 1,500 but recently dropped it to 1,000 which is not a lot.

[drumz]

The increase in traffic may have nothing to do with traffic calming and everything to do with Waze/Google Maps anyway. Beyond that, it's a street that goes straight through the heart of Pentagon City

Beyond that the larger issue is there's no such thing as "cut through traffic". Its all the same.

[Ampersand]

I am amused by the logic that bad and dangerous behavior by drivers can only be resolved by removing protections for pedestrians and cyclists.

[fongfong]

That is because every cyclist is bad and dangerous so that they are actually responsible for bad and dangerous actions of others. Idaho stops = speeding at 15 mph over the speed limit. We live in a world of false equivalency but thank goodness, in most cases we are not seeing DOT's ripping out too many bike lanes once installed.

[Joe F]

Need before and after traffic counts on S.Eads St to verify less traffic on S. Eads.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

Am I reading this right? 100 added cars per day, over a 3 hour period? 33 cars an hour? One added car every two minutes? That really does not seem like a lot, even on a quiet residential street. And its only 20% over the existing traffic. That does seem consistent with my own impression that Eads is not that bad at all, not bad enough to generate a lot of cut through traffic (but I am pretty much on Eads in the AM only before 7:30, so have not observed how bad it gets after 8AM)

[dbb]

To provide a bit of context, much of South Fern south of 23d is only one lane wide and motorists share that single lane. During periods of high traffic, that single lane clogs easily. The community was asking for signs on Eads and Fern that restricted traffic on Fern to local traffic only. Arlington County said such signs were inconsistent with their broader traffic plan but declined to remove similar signs installed elsewhere in the County. The problem may be exacerbated by the fact that US Route 1 has more traffic lights between Glebe and South 15th than does Eads. That makes the decision to bail from US1 to Eads a no-brainer, and the spillover into the neighborhoods is one result of that. Additionally, the very short stretch of South 23d from Eads to Clark (crossing US 1) is particularly complex and there seems to be no appetite for bold actions. The County seems to want to take an incremental approach, with 4-6 months consideration between moves. That is viewed by the residents of the affected neighborhood as intransigence by the County.

[DE]

Yes, those signs are perfectly cromulent all over the county, so not putting one up here while leaving them elsewhere is just annoying. It allows those inclined to do so to hate on both the county and cyclists.