Anything related to transportation, including cars, traffic, other modes of transport, and so on.
The new High-Intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK) light is now up at James Madison Drive. I’m writing this post based on a bad experience I had with the other HAWK light, just up the street at Maple and Pleasant (Post #225.)
The issue is the timing of the walk signal. I think there needs to be a long lag between when the HAWK light turns red, and when the walk signal comes on. In this post, I will explain why. Continue reading Post #260, James Madison Drive HAWK light
Corrected 5/22/2019 for my mixing up Park Street and Center Street in Google Maps satellite view.
My earlier contention (Post #232) is that 11 people can park legally on Wade Hampton now, and that, looking at the diagram of the future Wade Hampton, with the majority of it striped to accommodate three lanes at the end, almost all of that parking would be eliminated.
The Town, as reported by the developer, says otherwise. In particular, the report was that no parking would be eliminated on the side of the street across from 380 Maple West.
What’s the correct explanation? Somebody has to be wrong here. At this point, the easiest way to resolve those two views is to suggest that the diagram of the street, as offered by the builder, is incorrect. As long as you take away almost all the lane striping that is shown, and make the street more of a free-for-all, then you can plausibly claim more-or-less no loss of parking on the west side of Wade Hampton.
To be clear, you have to assume that the lane striping on the 32′-wide Wade Hampton will be nothing like the striping on the 32′-wide Park Center Street, as it meets Maple. Even though the setup (one lane incoming, two lanes outgoing) and width (32′) are the same. And even though the striping on Park Center Street is almost identical to the builder’s diagram. But if the Town stripes Wade Hampton as it did Park Center, all streetside parking would be eliminated.
So, I could be dead wrong. But I had some help getting there. To get to the Town’s reported position: you have to ignore the Builder’s drawing of Wade Hampton, you have to ignore the real-world example of Park Center Street at Maple, and you have to ignore one legal space on Wade Hampton that nobody uses anyway. And if you do that, and leave most of Wade Hampton as a free-for-all, so that we can drive down the middle of the road as we see fit — then you can see that the Town’s reported claim of no parking loss is credible.
Detail follows:
Continue reading Post #238: Wade Hampton Parking, revisited (error fixed 5/22/2019).
I got an email today from a reader asking about the sidewalks. Specifically, is the Town going to keep the sidewalks open as developers build the three (four? more?) MAC buildings on Maple?
Turns out, all I can say is, that’s a great question, I can’t even come close to an answer, and please start asking the Town about this. This has the sound of one of those decisions that might (e.g.) be made by Fairfax County months before we even know there’s a decision to be made. It would be nice to think that the Town of Vienna was on the case and acting on our behalf.
Sidewalk closure on the west end of Maple will (e.g.) inconvenience students walking to Madison. If 444 closes the sidewalks, students walking to Madison from my neighborhood will first have to walk away from Madison (to Nutley/Courthouse or to Maple/Pleasant HAWK light), cross the road, and the continue to Madison. Not the end of the world, but clearly a disincentive to walking.
For those of you who are already confused, merely by the title, I’m talking about the Maple Avenue traffic study. That official title is why I keep referring to it as the (thing formerly known as the) Maple Avenue traffic study. For the official title, I literally cannot remember all the buzzwords in the correct order.
I’m eventually going to have a lot to say about this, but here I’m just going to say two things. First, the study, as scoped, is fundamentally inconsistent. Briefly, if taken at face value 1) it’s impossible to predict traffic 10 years ahead, so we’re not going to do that and instead 2) we’re going to talk about “multi-modal strategies” that could only have significant impact decades into the future. Second, I’m going to do my own analysis of these issues. That part will take a while.
Continue reading Post #228: Maple Avenue Corridor Multimodal Transportation and Land Use Study
The Town has made much about closing curb cuts (parking lot entrances) along Maple, under MAC. And the consultants for the (thing formerly known as the) Maple Avenue traffic study (post #223) duly echoed this with extended reference to the many curb cuts on Maple.
At various times, these curb cuts have been blamed for a) slowing traffic, b) increasing vehicular accident rates, and c) endangering pedestrians on the sidewalk. For the moment, let me put aside truth versus fiction in these claims, and ask a simple question:
If these Maple Avenue curb cuts are such a clear public menace, why hasn’t the Town already started getting rid of them? The Town owns the sidewalk. How can our elected officials idly stand by, when the menace of excess curb cuts stalks the Town, threatening our prosperity and our very lives?
That was sarcasm. But it’s a legit question. It’s a question that I naively asked. Seriously, if curb cuts are so bad, why don’t they close some of them? And the answer to that shows you exactly how proponents of MAC zoning will tell you only what they want you to hear. And not the full story.
After some research, my conclusion is that, practically speaking, the only way the Town can close a curb cut is to stuff a whole bunch of high-density housing on the lot behind it (i.e., MAC rezoning). And so, the only practical way to close a curb cut is to have a more people turning on and off of Maple, during the rush hour periods.
Once you figure that out, then it’s clear that the full effect of “closing curb cuts on Maple” is not the rosy picture painted by the Town. You have to pay for that curb cut closure by adding to traffic turning on and off Maple. Anyone who tells you that “getting rid of curb cuts” is an unalloyed positive for the Town is pulling your leg. To put it politely.
In fact, I’ll up the ante on this. If a property owner voluntarily agreed to allow it, the Town could close a Maple Avenue curb cut. So, with all the mayhem now being attributed to curb cuts, has the Town done anything at all about them? Has the Town systematically pressured Maple Avenue property owners about closing Maple Avenue curb cuts? Has it offered (e.g.) a property tax incentive for closing off curb cuts? Has it identified the ones apparently associated with high accident rates and developed policies targeting those specific locations?
In short, if this is such a problem, then has the Town done anything whatsoever to address it? Other than to use it to flack MAC?
Detail follows.
I took the Fairfax Connector bus down Maple Street last night, to run an errand at the other end of town. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. I’m hooked. This is not your grandfather’s city bus.
In this post, I am first going to go through the mechanics of it. E.g., link to the website that does the real-time tracking of the buses. Then give you my impressions.
Continue reading Post #225: Take the bus, edited PM 4/3/2019
This is a continuation of the prior two posts, same data source. I’m just going to put up three maps showing 2018 reportable accidents along Maple. The number of reportable accidents involving bicycles or pedestrians is tiny compared to the total number of car crashes annually on Maple. As with the prior maps, a “reportable” accident is one involving injury or at least $1500 in property damage.
This is a continuation of my prior post, same data source. Bicyclists who get hit by cars along Maple mostly do so when riding in the roadway. Secondarily, while riding in a crosswalk. Over the period 2015-2019 (to date), there was one reportable accident involving injury to a bicyclist who was on the sidewalk, crossing a driveway along Maple Avenue.
As in the prior post, the blue dot marks the accident scene. Same minor caveat applies: The DMV only plots the accident location when they have GPS latitude and longitude data but they appear to have that information for most if not all accidents in Vienna.
This page is an introduction to some easy ways to view traffic accident data in Virginia, including interactive maps showing the exact location of each accident via Google Street View. The point is that you can look at at all pedestrian injuries along Maple for the past five years to see that the sidewalks along Maple are not dangerous. You incur some small risk when you cross the road. The risk of vehicular injury while walking down the Maple Avenue sidewalk appears to be negligible.
Continue reading Post 214: Accidents involving pedestrians along Maple Avenue
I attended the 7 PM 3/26/2019 meeting of the Town of Vienna Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC). The BAC reports to the Town’s Transportation Safety Commission (TSC), and from there to the Town Council.
This BAC matters, in the context of MAC zoning, due to the Town’s much-hyped multi-modal transportation study, aka, the traffic study. “Multi-modal” means that in addition to cars, that study will include travel by bus, bike, foot, and possibly other means. Our Town government bike experts should matter in the ensuing discussion.
I recorded the meeting, and if you click this Google Drive link, your browser should open up an audio player. (If not, you can download it and listen to it.) Many parts are unintelligible as speakers frequently did not use microphones. Click here to get to my index of that recording (what was being discussed, when) is in this post, below.
In theory, the Town will post its own recording, but if so, I have yet to figure out where they are going to post it. Click here to see my final section on Town governance for a further discussion.
Otherwise, the first part of this post is about Capital Bikeshare. Continue reading Post #211: Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, 3/26/2019
