TheWashCycle

9 recently funded projects will help make the region more bikeable

The COG's Transportation Planning Board recently approved 15 projects to share in the $857,266 of funding from the federal Transportation Land Use Connections (TLC) Program.

TLC provides short-term consultant services to local jurisdictions for small planning projects that promote mixed-use, walkable communities and support a variety of transportation alternatives. The program provides consultant assistance of $30,000 to $60,000 for planning projects, and up to $80,000 for design or preliminary engineering projects.

Of those 15 projects, at least 9 have a bicycle component. They are

District of Columbia -- Independence Avenue SW Transportation Assessment

Local and federal agencies are collaborating to improve connectivity, multi-modal use (walking, biking, transit, and curbside uses), safety, and the quality of the pedestrian experience traversing north-south between the National Mall and the SW waterfront and neighborhoods, and east-west along Independence Avenue SW.

Arlington County -- Micro-Mobility Transit Hub Prototype

This design project will develop plans for a prototype installation of a micro-mobility hub that can be added to high ridership transit stops and stations. Micro-mobility refers to transportation options that are often shared like bikes or scooters used for short trips. The prototype should include parking/docking and battery charging facilities for bikeshare, e-scooters and other shared micro-mobility devices, components for parklets, public art, informational displays, accommodations for people with disabilities, and seating/waiting areas for transit passengers.

Prince George’s County -- Cool Spring and Adelphi Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Improvement Project

There is a lack of infrastructure to facilitate bicycle and pedestrian connection between the Cool Spring Neighborhood and the Purple Line station at the University of Maryland Campus. The project will develop preliminary engineering designs for a separated pedestrian/bicycle facility along Cool Springs Road and a crossing at Adelphi Road.

Prince George’s County -- Riggs Road Neighborhood Bicycle Boulevards Project

This project will develop design plans for bicycle lanes and shared use roads on several local streets in the Langley Park area. The project will greatly improve pedestrian and bicycle access to the future Purple Line station.

City of Takoma Park -- Maple Avenue Complete Street Design

Maple Avenue is a well-traveled neighborhood street connecting residents and visitors to schools, jobs, housing and recreation, while also providing linkages to the Takoma Metro station and the Sligo Creek Trail. This TLC project will redesign Maple Avenue as a complete street which prioritizes pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users in order to provide safer, more convenient, and more comfortable travel for all users.

City of Bowie -- Feasibility Study for Pedestrian Overpass over Maryland Route 214

The proposed crossing would be a crucial segment of The Bowie Byway recommended in the city's Trails Master Plan and the Countywide Master Plan trail shown the 2006 Bowie and Vicinity Master Plan (Collington Branch Stream Valley Trail). It will link the neighborhoods of Ternberry and Collington Ridge and South Lake to the Pointer Ridge neighborhood and the Hall Road transit hub and public library.

City of Frederick -- Rails with Trails Phase 3 Bypass Design

The Bypass will connect an existing shared-use path through the Clemson Corner neighborhood with the northern end of the shared-use path now undergoing final design and construction ("Phase 2").

East Street Rails with Trails will create a north-south bicycling spine for the City of Frederick connecting its downtown MARC station with neighborhoods and regional shopping destinations to its north before continuing beyond to the town of Walkersville.

Fairfax County -- Fairfax County Parkway Trail and Cross County Trail Connection

The Fairfax County Parkway Trail runs for 28 miles through communities from Reston to Lorton, while the Cross County Trail runs for over 40 miles through Regional Activity Centers including Annandale and Fairfax. The county seeks assistance to design a shared use path connection between these two trails, to improve a gap where pedestrians currently travel in a narrow roadway.

Town of Herndon (Fairfax County) -- Shared Micromobility Feasibility Study

The study will analyze current trends and future needs in shared micromobility like Capital Bikeshare, e-bikes, scooters, and others, specific to the Town of Herndon, and provide implementation recommendations for a shared micromobility system that best connects those working, living, and visiting Herndon to transit, trails, and activity centers.

In addition, the North Capitol Cloverleaf Urbanization Study: Replacing Highways with Human Scale Infrastructure could create some bike facility within the area currently used by the cloverleaf. The 2010 feasibility study did. 

CWL 2018 #3 Alexandria to Dumfries

This is the only utility corridor on this list to stretch into Alexandria, and it then heads south across Fairfax where there are already short trail segments on the corridor.

On the east end, the corridor starts just inside the beltway at the water treatment plant and then moves into the same corridor as the Beltway. This is not impossible for a trail to navigate, but it would mean placing a trail in between a freeway and its ramps, or other facilities, on top of what is now a drainage ditch.  And at least one bridge would be needed over Hooff Run. It's probably not worth it, even if it does create a connection to the Eisenhower Avenue Metro.

Getting across the Beltway there would be very difficult too. Better to just use the trail on Eisenhower and the ramp to Telegraph Road. But it's nice to have options.

From there, the corridor - now in Fairfax County -  becomes a lot easier to use all the way to S. Van Dorn Street. In fact for most of the way between S.Van Dorn and Rose Hill there's already a trail. Between Van Dorn and Hayfield the corridor runs along Manchester Boulevard and over some parking lots, making it harder to adapt, but at Hayfield another trail picks up (and diverts along a spur to Kingstown Village Parkway) and the corridor becomes easy to adapt all the way to I-95 and the railroad line east of it. The spur is also adaptable up to that point.

Interestingly, a bridge for either of those over the railroad would create a connection to the Fairfax County Parkway Trail. 

There's no way to cross I-95 by bike between Rolling Road and the Franconia-Springfield Parkway (and maybe that should be fixed) but once on the west side it again becomes a good corridor all the way to the Occoquan. One small section has a trail on it and the corridor is criss-crossed by trails in the South Run Stream Valley Park. It also connects with the Cross County Trail, some sidepaths along Pohlick, Ox and Silverbrook Roads and another corridor that goes to Middleburg, VA. On the downside, crossing some of the roads would be unpleasant without grade separation. 

On the other side of the Occoquan, in Prince William County, the corridor gets more difficult with lots of water crossings, another crossing of I-95 and some wetland issues. But certainly parts could be adapted.  There are two parallel corridors in that part of the County that lead to the Possom Point power plant - the other one goes to Idylwood -  and it might make sense to focus on the other one first, or to find a way to use parts of each. Along the way it intersects another corridor, and then there are a few other lines that come out of Possom Point. 

CWL 2018 # 5 Idylwood to Dumfries

The first corridor on the list to reach inside the Beltway on the Virginia side is a corridor from the W&OD Trail at Idylwood to Possom Point in Dumfries. The 27-mile long corridor has a sizeable barrier in the south end at the Occoquan and I can't imagine a bridge being built there at any point soon.

The corridor starts near where the W&OD Trail crosses the Beltway. There it intersects with the power lines that run along the W&OD, though at this spot they're separate. About 1000 feet of trail would connect them. In the map below the W&OD is in blue and the corridor in green.

The corridor inside the Beltway might seem like an opportunity - running between two trails with another in the middle, but there are so many barriers to deal with. On one end is the W&OD trail, on the other is the Cross County Trail and in between is the Arlington Boulevard Trail; but getting between them is the trick. A trail through the corridor would need to navigate the golf course at Jefferson District Park,Lee Highway, the Arlington Boulevard interchange, Gallows Road, the Beltway and the Little Turnpike interchange.

To get to Arlington Boulevard, a trail could follow along the corridor and on the north side of the golf course - with some protection from stray balls like what has been done at Paint Branch in Maryland - and then along Shreve road to an at-grade crossing at the controlled intersection with Lee Highway. Then to the trail along the retaining pond to Fairview Parkway, across that on the crosswalk and onto the other side to connect to the Arlington Boulevard Trail via the sidepaths and other trails in the area. 

It would then cross Arlington on the existing trails and then return to the area adjacent to the Beltway, navigating around the edge of the parking lots in the corridor to Gallows where the nearest crosswalk is a few blocks away at Woodburn Elementary. Perhaps that could be fixed some day. Once across Gallows it would need to find it's way back to the corridor and then, ideally, at a point across from Accotink Park cross over the Beltway on a new bridge to the Cross County Trail.

Once on the other side of the Beltway it could use the Cross County Trail to get to Braddock road. Then use the Lake Accotink Trail to get to get to Rolling Road.   Rolling Road would get the trail over the railroad tracks and back to the corridor. 

South of Rolling Road a trail would be pretty easy to build on the corridor all the way to the Occoquan. There are 3 big roads to cross (Ox Road, Fairfax County Parkway and Old Keene Road) but there are options to make those crossings. Several trails cross here - the Fairfax County Parkway Trail, a trail along South Run and one along Ox Road. Just before getting to the river it intersects with the corridor between Middleburg and Lorton. 

I don't know if a bike/ped crossing of the Occaquan makes sense here (or at the Corridor that crosses just a little to the east of it) but if it did, it wouldn't be too hard then to extend it to Mnniefield Road in Woodbridge. Farther south becomes much more complicated. 

So outside the Beltway, the trail is easier to build, but with less benefit. Inside, there's lots of benefit, but it's hard to build.