TheWashCycle

Battery Lane plan includes a separated bike lane, protected intersection and improved Bethesda Trolley Trail

Developers got a second round of approval for a new Battery Lane District plan last week. The plan includes a two-way separated bicycle facility along the south side of Battery Lane, replacing the current bike lanes, and an improved Bethesda Trolley Trail (a.k.a. North Bethesda Trail). The improved trail would be in a linear park with nearly an acre of extra land, have separate paths for cyclists and pedestrian and have an addition pedestrian connection to Woodmont Avenue. 

The Bethesda Trolley Trail is a multi-use trail between Battery Lane Park and the Twinbrook Metro built primarily on the right-of-way of the old Tennallytown and Rockville Railroad. This new plan includes a few hundred feet of the trail to the NIH property. 

Previous plans called for a two-way separated bike lane on the south side of Battery Lane from Old Georgetown Road to the Trail and on the north side from the Trail to Woodmont Avenue. However, MCDOT has determined d that the south side of the street was the preferred alignment to facilitate safe and efficient travel across the Battery Lane / Woodmont Avenue intersection and Wisconsin Avenue/ Battery Lane/Rosedale Intersection, and coordinate with previously approved bicycle lanes east of the project along the 8280
Wisconsin Avenue frontage. [Note the image at top has the bike way on the north side] The applicants will also build a protected intersection at Battery Lane and Woodmont Avenue.

Plans also call for a pedestrian connection going east from Woodmont Avenue, through the rear of the properties on the north side of Battery Lane, to the Bethesda Trolley Trail. Furthermore

On Site D (below) of the Preliminary Plan, the Sector Plan recommends an expansion of Battery Lane Urban Park, referred to as the North Bethesda Trail Urban Greenway (Page 82 of the Sector Plan) and calls for this to be a green and active linear park connection between the National Institutes of Health and Woodmont Triangle. The Sector Plan recommends the expansion to be approximately 0.9 acres in size and wide enough to allow stream improvements, including daylighting of the existing piped stream, environmental interpretation and play elements. The proposed configuration of Site D will allow for an expansion of a neighborhood green as recommended in the Sector Plan, with the details of size and design to be reviewed at the time of Site Plan, as conditioned.

The Applicant proposes to enhance the existing Bethesda Trolley Trail which will separate the pedestrian and bicyclists on two separate paths. 

Because the project is being phased in, the applicant will have to implement the two-way separated bicycle facility along the south side of Battery Lane as both an interim and ultimate condition. They'll need approval of the Interim Separated Bike Lane Facility between Old Georgetown Road and Woodmont Avenue before getting a building permit. They need to build the protected intersection before getting the first occupancy permit. Approval of site plans is dependent on the design of the ultimate bike lane, and final occupancy of the sites is dependent on the construction of - or financial contribution toward - the separated bike lane. 

A new separated bike lane, a protected intersection, a trail through a wider park with a daylighted stream and a new pedestrian connection to the trail makes for a nice set of improvements in this area. 

Seat Pleasant could become a trail crossroads

Seat Pleasant, located right next to Washington, DC's eastern corner, updated their Master Plan in 2018 and while it doesn't contain many specifics, it does in general plan for a more bike-friendly city, envisioning a future with more bike lanes connecting to regional bike infrastructure and taking advantage of the planned Central Avenue Trail.

Looking at the open space plan above, it becomes clear that what Seat Pleasant might lack in current facilities, it more than makes up for in potential. Along the east side runs Cabin Branch, a green corridor which Prince George's County has identified as trail corridor in their 2040 plan. On the south side is Central Avenue, a priority corridor which should be hitting 100% design some time soon. On the east is the only piece of remaining railroad ROW from the old Chesapeake Beach railroad. And running near the north end is MLK, Jr. Avenue, a priority trail corridor and one that WABA wants to be see built sooner rather than later. There are also two metro stations just beyond the south side of town, and an Orange line station that would be only 1.5 miles away on a Cabin Branch Trail that extended to it. That's a pretty nice starting point.

A Cabin Branch Trail, which the Master Plan mentions once, isn't even really a twinkle in the county's eye, but could become a trail from Cheverly to Capitol Heights where it starts about 1200 feet from Watts Branch. The plan seems to show it only from MLK to Drylog Street, which would be a mistake, but I guess it depends on who owns the land along it between Drylog and Central.  

The plan shows the current "Chesapeake Beach Rail Trail" extended north from Crown Street to MLK and then rebranded as "Maker's Alley" - a connector along which quiet maker spaces can exist with access to nature. Unfortunately for the trail, the whole CB railroad ROW has been built on within DC, but in MD the ROW picks up again to the east where the Blue line goes under ground again.  The addition of a boundary stone park at the NE Corner with DC is a nice touch. This would create an opportunity to connect to the Marvin Gaye Park Trail, which ends only 3 blocks away, if they can coordinate it with DC. 

MLK Jr. is also built on a former railroad ROW - the WB&A, which becomes a legit bike trail farther north. It currently has some unappealing bike lanes on it, but it's a good location for a protected bikeway. And here again, coordination with DC could continue it along Dix to the Marvin Gaye Park Trail.

The rendering above shows the bikeway on Central, but nothing on Addison. That's unfortunate, because a bikeway along Addison Road (north-south) and another on Drylog Street, with its extension through "Innovation Village" to the west, would complete the network and leave everyone within a few blocks of the bike network. 

Seat Pleasant has enviable opportunities to build a bikeable and walkable town, with the chance to serve as a connecting point for the Marvin Gaye Park, Anancostia Tributary, WB&A and Cheseapeake Beach Railroad trails, but the follow through will be critical. 

Arlington's 2020 Resurfacing Projects for Complete Streets

Arlington County is accepting comments on their 2020 Resurfacing Projects for Complete Streets now through tomorrow April 21st. 

Staff have reviewed the annual list of projects up for routine maintenance and identified a subset of streets for potential projects. Community feedback about current experiences with the street segments, along with other available data, such as plan guidance and crash data, will help inform the development of concept plans.

2020 potential projects

2020 Engagement

Wilson Boulevard – N Larrimore Street to McKinley Road (Dominion Hills/Boulevard Manor)
Potomac Avenue – S Crystal Drive to Alexandria City Line (Potomac Yard)
Clarendon Boulevard – N Nash to N Oak Street (Clarendon-Courthouse/Radnor/Fort Myer Heights)

With all of these they want to Improve access and safety for people walking, biking and driving and they want to know "how you currently use the street and how you would like to use it in the future." On Potomac Avenue in particular the goal is to "Improve bike safety along Potomac Avenue and improve connectivity between Crystal Drive, Four Mile Run Trail, and Potomac Yard Trail."

2019 Engagement

N Lorcom Lane – Old Dominion Drive to N Taylor Street and N Military Road – Lorcom Lane to Old Dominion Drive (North Arlington) – These projects were open to public feedback in 2019, and moved to 2020 implementation because of construction around Dorothy Hamm Middle School.

Things they can do are paint bump outs, medians, buffered bike lanes or create painted traffic controls

Lynn Street Esplanade and Custis Trail Improvements are complete

Projects to improve the Custis Trail and Lynn Street Esplanade in Rosslyn are now "substantially complete". Work began in late 2018 to widen sidewalks and add a new on-street bike lane along North Lynn Street, widen the Custis Trail to 16 feet from its current 10 feet and make a number of other crosswalk, intersection and streetlight upgrades to improve safety and accessibility. New Lynn Street, and the Intersection of Doom, is seen below.

This was the most recent photo of the Custis I could find, which shows that it's so nice that drivers think it's a road.

Although this photo could be more recent. Relatedly, the Rosslyn Bike-o-meter is up and running again. The trail has been open since August, but not sure about Lynn.

 

New 11th Street Bridge Park design aims for better trail connections

The planners of the 11th Street Bridge Park have a new design that is intended to create better connections with the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, but the changes from the 2017 design are modest, especially for cyclists. 

It remains true that the bridge will be a poor through-travel option with the current 11th Street Bridge next door, but it will still feature a shared used path down the middle. The route on the south side will be slightly different with the path taking it's own route to Good Hope Road, instead of joining the current path as was planned in 2017. The existing path will also have bioswales built adjacent to it. Pedestrians on the other hand, will find several new connections on both sides of the river. 

A small change that might matter to cyclists is that in the old design the amphitheater would have faced the trail, with the stage adjacent to it and the audience looking towards the trail. But in the current design the stage has been swung around so that the audience is facing the water now. There is still a pedestrian access point from the amphitheater to the Anacostia Riverwalk's west bank trail. 

And while maybe not a change, just new information, the plan is to add lighting not just to the park, but all the approaches between the park, bridge and trails. 

For it's part, the NCPC seems very interested in the bicycle and pedestrian aspects and impacts of this plan. Two of their seven comments were about that or the trail connections, for example they're concerned about wayfinding. 

The revised preliminary design further promotes pedestrian and bicycle access, as both will be essential in ensuring a successful park. From the north side, pedestrians will access the bridge where it lands adjacent to the Navy Yard and the existing 11th Street Bridge. On the south side, the bridge connects to the adjacent grade, and paths and ramps allow access down to Anacostia Drive, Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Connections will allow both bicycles and pedestrians to cross over from the existing bridge to the park bridge. Thru-bicycle access will primarily be along the existing 11th Street Bridge, although a shared bicycle/pedestrian path will allow direct access to the bridge programming. Due to the activity-based nature of the bridge park design, utilizing a shared bicycle/pedestrian path through the park could become problematic when usage increases. Appropriate wayfinding and materials can help mitigate conflicts on a shared path and staff suggests the Commission request that the applicant provide additional details on the bicycle and pedestrian signage and shared path materials for inclusion in the final
submission.

In the below drawing, you can see the planned connections between Good Hope Road, the bridge and the park. These are, of course, preliminary, and NCPC wants them to work on these. It's hard to see, but there is a small pedestrian connection between the two trails about halfway between Good Hope and the bridge. 

In the below rendering, the couple in the foreground is walking on the pedestrian connection between the bridge trail and the park trail.

The next drawing gives a better view of the north side connections. The trail would continue under the park (the part now closed for environmental remediation, and then up to Water street on the parcel next to the bridge. There would be a connection between the bridge and park to the park, and another stub trail along the waterfront. It also shows the ramp and staircase from the trail to the park directly below the park.

Here's a rendering from the west bank trail.

And a rendering of the park from the east side, with the existing trail path and the park paths.

And a view of the shared use path from above, with the amphitheater below that. 

Arboretum to create new, better entrances for pedestrians and cyclists - but not right now

The US Department of Agriculture wants to make perimeter improvements to the Arboretum including upgrading and replacing fences and  gates. The two most important gate changes, at Bladensburg Road and M Street are still in the long-term plan, but not something they plan to do right now.

The US Department of Agriculture has been getting the approval it needs to make changes to the Arboretum's gates and 2.4 miles of fencing for some time now, for both aesthetic and practical reasons. 

The existing fencing and gates are in various states of disrepair and are not consistent in appearance and design due to various sections being installed at later dates from the original fencing installed in the 1960s. Portions of the existing fence, mainly along New York Avenue are located outside USNA property and it is the intent to relocate those sections of fencing onto USNA property. Also, USNA is experiencing deer entering the Property and destroying specimen plantings throughout the year, and fawns being trapped between the pickets. The project proposes to install new fencing that maintains a consistent height of 8’-0” and picket spacing set to a maximum of 4” on center. Studies have indicated that fencing of 8 feet have reduced deer infestation as much as 90%.

While replacing the fencing and moving it a few feet in might be interesting, it's not really important for cycling, but the location and condition of the gates is.

The biggest change they plan - but not now - is to add a gate on Bladensburg Road, something they've been planning to do for 20 years. Maybe they'll get to it during infrastructure week. When finished, that gate will be open to all users and become the main entrance, and the current main gate at R Street will become staff-use only. However there is some indication that they will restore and open the adjacent pedestrian gate. If they do, they should absolutely make that gate available for the general public. It will create an entrance for people who live in the Arboretum neighborhood and another way for cyclists to access the property.

The other big change is their plan to turn the M Street gate that was closed in 1992 into a non-car entry. That too will have to wait. [They say it was closed for "operational reasons" but it was closed because of crime.] 

A new perimeter M Street gate will require coordination between the National Arboretum, District officials, and local community to improve the right-of-way, which is District property, and to address potential future operational issues

The M Street entrance is likely to become the end point for the Arboretum Bridge that is to be built with the next section of the Anacostia River Trail, so it's particularly important. And in this case, the institutional support is pretty strong. Delegate Elanor Holmes Norton came out in favor of reopening. In its response to the plan, the National Capital Planning Commission recommended that the National Arboretum work with the District and local community to reestablish the M Street entrance for pedestrians and bicyclists. And others have voiced similar support over the years. It's unclear if the entrance will use the main automobile gate or the smaller pedestrian access gate adjacent to it.

Other gate modifications will happen in the short term.  The Washington Times gate along New York Avenue will change from a double swing gate capable of allowing cars through to a single span one that isn't. But currently cars aren't allowed to use it anyway. Two other service gates along NY Ave will be removed. A maintenance gate and the main gate along NY Ave will be replaced with more modern equipment. The "Azalea guard house" and gate will be removed and salvaged for future use (maybe it could become the entry gate for people coming from the new bridge). 

It's hard to get excited about the short-term change - though I don't want any more fawns getting caught in the fence, but it's the two gates that are farther out, and the bridge, that are real game changers. 

Paper: Quantifying CO2 savings of cycling

A recent paper tries to quantify how much increased cycling can reduce greenhouse gas production. 

This study shows that if levels of cycling in the EU-27 were equivalent to those found in Denmark, bicycle use would help achieve 12 to 26% of the 2050 target reduction set for the transport sector, depending on which transport mode the bicycle replaces.

Most if not all projections and scenarios conclude that measures focusing on improvement alone will fail to meet EU mid-term and long-term climate change objectives. Improvement measures are only estimated to deliver a 20% decrease in transport emission by 2050, using 1990 levels as the baseline.

In addition to technological developments and innovations, achieving the EU’s objectives will require ambitious plans which foresee an EU-wide modal shift away from individual motorized transport. Ordinary bicycles, pedelecs and bicycle-share schemes, on their own and in combination with mass transportation, all have the potential to further contribute to a much needed modal shift.

Above, where they mention "improvement measures" they mean improvement GHG efficiency within the transportation sector. Other strategies they see are avoiding, shifting and shortening.

Avoiding or reducing trips can for instance be done through integration of land use and transport planning.

Shifting is moving transportation from high GHG modes (like automobiles) to low ones (like biking and walking). Shortening is encouraging shorter trips. 

Cycling permits shorter trips, allowing a cyclist to cover a shorter distance yet still arrive at the same destination. Even when origin and destination are the same, the bicycle and, say, the car often take different routes, with the car trip being a few percentage points longer than a bicycle. This difference is because systems do not always have the same network density.

But cycling also and more importantly allows for shorter trips because of a destination switch: the concept of constant travel time budgets reveals that a change of travel time will be compensated for by a change of destination.

Reaching the EU's goals will likely require all of these strategies. In other words, fuel efficiency alone is going to get us there. 

 

R. Emmett Tyrrell and the persistent perseverance of wrongness

R. Emmett Tyrrell  is a magazine editor, book author and columnist and the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He has also spent his career being wrong about cycling, a fact made all the more surprising by the fact that he was college roommates with Steve Tesich, the screenwriter of both "Breaking Away" and "American Flyers". Of course he even found room to quibble with the film that won his friend an Oscar.

Of course, Hollywood had to tart up the "Breaking Away" story to conform with its own legends and bugaboos. The struggle of the downtrodden townies against the lordly college students never took place.

Though the bicycle race did take place, Stoyan's townies were actually members of our circle of friends, an eccentric bicycle rider of immense talent named Dave Blaze (sic) and several national champion swimmers, one quite rich. In the movie the putative townies from hillbilly families listened to opera and wore Italian paraphernalia such as ascots. That was the style, of course, of off-beat college students, not poor country boys. Only Hollywood would believe in hillbillies singing arias an d insist that rich and privileged (actually quite middle-class) students lose races to wretches of Dickensian pathos.

Tyrrell's record of anti-cyclist writing starts shortly after Breaking Away hit theaters. In 1980, writing in the Washington Post (below or here) he wrote in support of Mayor Koch's decision to remove the bike lanes he had installed a year earlier. He claimed the caused  congestion, endangered pedestrians and frightened dogs (for reals). He argued that NYC workers would be happier driving to work than they would be biking. He called bikes unstable and dangerous.

"Not only are bicycles dangerous, they are as antiquated a form of transportation as the rickshaw. In no advanced city on earth will you find civilized people cycling to work. The urban cyclist is generally a crank, either profoundly antisocial or hopelessly narcissistic and following the strenuous life in hopes of achieving immortality or a legendary sex life."

The piece earned him no friend's in the bicycling community and three years later he took to the Post's pages again, this time to attack "militant cyclists" because a writer, who was also a cyclist, was criticizing him. ["Liberals and the art of bicycle fanaticism", Jun 13, 1983] Militant cyclists don't ride for recreation or out of economic need, he wrote, but for the "ulterior motive of making moral or political statements." You know, those guys. Anyway, he continued to claim bikes are "unstable" despite the disagreement of physics. And repeated much of his 1980 article word for word - including the line about how the brakes of a Model T are better than that of a bike (I don't know either) and that they endanger pedestrians and dogs. He then goes on to call for urban cycling to be banned or curtailed.  But he never really explains how cycling connects to liberals.  

In the same article he predicted Margaret Thatcher's election would be 

If you thought he'd changed his mind as the world of urban cycling changed, you'd be wrong. In 2007 he wrote, in a bit of climate change denialism

We know environmentalists often ride bicycles and I can see why bicycles suit them. The bicyclist is the exalte' of the road. The bicyclist is neither a pedestrian nor a driver. He cycles where he damn well wants to, on the sidewalk or on the street. He flashes by with his posterior in the air. Neither stop signs nor speed limits impede him -- and he is environmentally beneficent. Automobiles have to give him a wide berth and pedestrians leap aside as he pedals past. Environmentalists adore bicycles.

So the bicycle seems to be the ultimate green vehicle. Doubtless you will be seeing more of them, despite their limited capacity for bearing bossy bumper stickers. In the present presidential campaign, do not be surprised the Democratic candidates eventually conduct their campaigns from a bicycle. Bill and Hillary will probably be seen on a bicycle built for two -- Hillary on the front seat, Bill on the back where his eyes will be free to wander.

[As one of the key people in the Arkansas Project (the "Vast right-wing conspiracy" of yore) he is contractually obligated to mention the Clinton's in all articles] By then he'd lost control of the Spectator as the result of an investigation into the Arkansas Project and Tyrrell's mismangement. 

But wait, there's more. In 2014 he sided with anti-King Street bike lane activist Frank Buckley by calling cyclists names

However, the nation’s angry bicycle riders, I fear, are going to be with us for a while. In a few years, President Obama might be back in Chicago as former President Barack Obama, organizing illegal aliens or whatever, and the gloomy riders will still be out there arrogating to themselves their “bike lanes.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton will be securely in retirement, all her dreams of presidential grandeur vanquished, and still the militant bicyclists will be riding down the middle of Main Street presuming to slow down traffic to a modest 10 miles an hour and making inscrutable hand signals to drivers in every direction.

This time around, unlike the late 1970s, their anger is seemingly unappeasable, and they have local government on their side, especially in blue-state constituencies.

Studies show that cyclists are happier than other commuters. 

These are not cyclists in pursuit of scenery and good health. If they were, they would be riding along the 35 miles of bike trails that the community has maintained for them.

They are angry, obsessive utopians who would make their anti-people campaign — their anti-freedom campaign — the first battle in an attempt to take over the way normal Americans live. They are a social indicator of unhappy times that, God willing, are about to end.

He predicted the bike lanes would not be built. He was wrong. As he has been his whole career on cycling. 

Tyrrell is now a Trump fan (Because Trump shares Reagan's distrust of the Soviet Union?) and he wrote recently about London's congestion charge and anti-pollution efforts

The present mayor, Sadiq Khan, is of the left and he shares the left's lust for power. Everything he does indicates his hankering for power. To me, a foreigner in these parts, I sense this lust in his treatment of the automobile. The mayor envisages London as a city abundant with bicycle riders and pedestrians. In his London of the future, the only automobiles will be the patrol cars of the police.

Because nothing satisfies a lust for hunger like bicycle-friendly road design. 

It's not easy to steadfastly hold wrong ideas in the face of mounting facts. That kind of wrongness takes real backbone. 

North Branch Trail construction pushed back to 2021

Construction on a couple of segments of the North Branch Trail, a trail that will eventually extend along the North Branch of Rock Creek from the Rock Creek Valley Trail to Olney, was to begin this spring or last fall, but has been pushed out to 2021.

This project includes two segments (yellow on the map above) of the trail, and together with another bikeway project, will close two critical gaps in the trail.

The first segment will extend the Lake Bernard Frank Trail to two locations along Muncaster Mill Road. At the west location it will connect to the existing Muncaster Mill Bikeway and via that to the ICC Trail. There will also be a 15-car parking lot built there (at Meadowside Lane) and the old parking lots will be restored to a natural state. The other location is further east, where a separate project will build additional segments of bikeway along Muncaster Mill and Emory Lane to the existing bikeway along Emory Lane and via that to the ICC Trail. 

The trail along Lake Frank will follow the existing unpaved trail - itself built on a formerly paved WSSC access road until just south of Muncaster Mill Road. 

Just south of Muncaster Mill Road, the proposed trail alignment climbs the densely wooded slope and emerges in a clearing created by a former residential property, where the house has long been removed. The proposed trail alignment ends at this clearing

The second segment will connect the ICC Trail to a trail along the North Branch built as part of the Preserve at Rock Creek development. That segment - yellow in the image below - was completed around 2016.

The trailhead parking lot will be along Meadowside Lane.

Construction of the Muncaster Mill/Emory Lane bikeway is scheduled for this year.  That would close a small gap on the east side route.

Once these two projects were complete, it would leave only one gap between Tobaggan Lane and Bowie Mill Road, which is less than a mile, that would need to be closed to get all the way to the planned end at Olney Laytonsville Road. It would also create a continuous connection between the ICC Trail (as limited as it is now) and the Rock Creek Park Trail system (really the North Branch Trail is part of the Rock Creek Park Trail system).