Arlington plan will define streets for people

Roads

Arlington plan will define streets for people

by Eric Hallstrom • December 2, 2010 10:29 am

Arlington's almost-complete Master Transportation Plan has the capability to reshape the county foremost by recognizing that streets need to serve people on all modes of transportation, not just cars.

Photo by cliff1066™ on Flickr.

For the past several years, Arlington County has been working on a new comprehensive Master Transportation Plan. Arlington first adopted its goals and policies in 2007 and has adopted additional elements over the last 3 years. Now the Plan is approaching completion with the anticipated adoption of the streets element early next year.

With this draft, Arlington recognizes that streets have competing demands and sets out a framework to manage the different users to optimize the efficiency of the network.

Arlington already has a "complete streets" policy, which has animated the development of its Master Transportation Plan. For instance, the pedestrian and bicycle components envision completion of the respective networks, increasing use and safety, and integrating the various modes of transportation.

The streets element, however, may ultimately prove to be the most significant facet of the Plan.

The introduction to the draft streets section places Arlington's complete streets policy front and center:

The street is where every element of transportation must be addressed and accommodated: pedestrians, transit, bicycles, passenger vehicles, trucks, and parking. It is also where many other aspects of public life take place, including displaying civic pride, setting the tone for public life and commerce, providing space for vegetation, and providing storm water management. The street binds and enhances a community so that the public thoroughfares serve it.

The draft eschews the acquisition of substantial new right-of-way or road-widening efforts. Instead, it proposes to more efficiently and effectively use the transportation options and resources available. In addition, it aims to enhance the viability of multiple transportation options.

The draft plan also offers several recommendations with respect to "limited access highways" such as Arlington Boulevard, the GW Parkway, and Interstates 66 and 395. These recommendations include several designed to encourage high-occupancy vehicle use, such as increasing the hours HOV restrictions are in effect, increased bus usage, use of "intelligent transportation systems" as well as consideration of variable-occupancy toll lanes and congestion pricing.

By envisioning expanded pedestrian and bicycle access to bridges, the proposal will have the effect of encouraging additional alternatives to commuting by motor vehicle.

The new "typology" of streets will guide the redesign and rebuilding of arterial streets. In particular, the draft proposes six arterial street designations. The plan anticipates that placing arterial streets into these categories will help the County achieve its goal of complete streets by more clearly identifying how particular streets fit into the overall transportation network.

The draft also provides a typology for local streets, with specific design criteria. It contemplates the criteria and appropriateness of pedestrian-oriented streets. Such streets are "characterized by shared use of the entire street area by motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists."

Overall, the draft streets element is clearly driven by the County's previously adopted general policies, including the strong support of a complete streets policy. It is only fitting that the County complete its own Master Transportation Plan with the streets element.

11 comments

Tags: Arlington, complete streets, traffic, Virginia

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Eric Hallstrom is attorney interested in political law, public policy, urban planning and music. He lives in Arlington, VA.

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Maybe they can put more medians on Military Road (without a hard curb head-on for traffic)... That's real safe...

by PFJ on Dec 2, 2010 11:24 am • link • report

I can't help but think this is all self-serving hot air from the Board. Ever tried to cross Glebe on foot near Ballston? Or Washington Blvd. between Glebe and Quincy? Not one thing has been done to make those much-used foot crossings safer. Yet how much was spent on creating and publicizing this plan of theirs?

by JB on Dec 2, 2010 11:38 am • link • report

Funny, isn't arlington suing the state to prevent tolling and HOV on 395? And I don't see the feds agreeing to do the Parkway, and good luck tolling or making Arlington Blvd HOV.

From a quick read: they are moving from 4 street designations today to 6.

A couple points: N-S roads in Arlington are still a pain for everybody. Maybe the Glebe roads should be an arterial road, rather than what it is now.

And I suspect a majority of pedestrian accidents/deaths are taking place on the "arterial" roads. Yes, there are some terrible intersections.

by charlie on Dec 2, 2010 12:20 pm • link • report

I'm with JB on this. For all the praise given to Arlington for being pedestrian and biker friendly, I'm still convinced I'll meet my end trying to cross a street here. Glebe at Wilson, Crystal City, and Washington Blvd around VA Square are ruled by cars.

by OX4 on Dec 2, 2010 3:23 pm • link • report

How about wheelchairs; most side walks and streets across the country do not do as much as they can to accommodate wheelchairs.

With sidewalks they are usually not wide enough to cover a person and wheelchair both walking beside each other going different directions. In DC for an example most of the sidewalks have tree roots, tree fences, uneven surface or just plain not enough room stopping the use of wheelchairs on a sidewalk.

With streets is usually where the cross walks are. There are two slopes for wheelchairs to enter one could be placed in the middle just in case one is blocked for whatever reason a person in a wheelchair has an option besides go back the way they came. You can see corners blocked many times when there is road construction and this causes problems for wheelchairs.

I have actually seen a wheelchair tip over and fall because they were trying to use the higher part of the sidewalk surface because the slopped part was blocked. Many times during construction they expect people to walk around it but wheelchairs cant and use nothing is done to accommodate them.

Another problem is the blockades in front of many government buildings they make it hard for wheelchairs to get around. I have even seen one in front of a bus stop how do they expect people in a wheelchair to get on/off a bus they cant squeeze between the 1 and 1/2 foot space between them.

by kk on Dec 2, 2010 5:20 pm • link • report

FWIW, the overall street classification is not new, except for the recognition of alleys as part of the network. It might not matter as much, but I really like how the Smart Transportation Guidebook redefines arterials and collectors in terms of whether or not they are regionally serving or neighborhood-community serving--e.g., US 1 is regionally serving, while Wilson Blvd. is regionally serving technically but serves primarily as a local road serving the neighborhoods and commercial districts along it.

That kind of idea is the basis of the typology for defining the local road network. What Arlington did was merge land use context into the road context, where the Smart Transportation Guidebook defines them separately.

E.g., overall the STG defines 7 land use context types, and roads according to whether or not they are regionally or local serving, and then for each category it defines roadside characteristics, roadway characteristics, and desired operating speed. (See pages 37-40 of the STG)

For a non-traffic engineer, the STG is an essential read.

I'm not sure if the ArCo way is a + or a - from the standpoint of model typology, but it communicates the same points.

http://www.smart-transportation.com/assets/download/Smart%20Transportation%20Guidebook.pdf

by Richard Layman on Dec 3, 2010 7:48 am • link • report

I don't think there is much question that Arlington has a long way to go to achieve the goal of safe and complete streets. I think it is a little unfair to criticize the Master Transportation Plan as just hot air from the Board. First, the Board hasn't voted on the streets element yet. But when they do, it will be part of a Plan designed to guide future transportation infrastructure development (and redevelopment). It is a necessary step in the right direction. Adoption of the Plan is not sufficient and there must be follow through.

by Eric H. on Dec 3, 2010 7:49 am • link • report

One thing I would like to see Arlington do in the Ballston - VA Square area to make the streets more pedestrian-friendly is eliminate the need for pedestrians to push a button to get a walk signal at intersections. In downtown DC, the walk light comes on as part of the normal light cycle, but in parts of Arlington it does not unless a pedestrian pushes a button. Presumably they do this to make the light cycles more convenient for drivers, but it is a nuisance for pedestrians. The buttons are often located well away from the normal path a pedestrian would follow, so you really have to go out of your way. It just reinforces the message that the streets are for cars and people on foot have to go out of their way to use them.

by Mike on Dec 3, 2010 10:33 am • link • report

Thanks for the fascinating article. That Western Union tower is a revelation. All the years I've lived here I never knew it existed; all you see while driving by on Wisconsin and glancing over is a welter of microwave towers--while trying not to crash the car ;-) Too bad Western Union is now only a money-transfer operation.

WTOP's station site, shown in your photograph, is still there and interesting to see. It's on University Ave about 1/4 mile east of Georgia Avenue. The curvaceous art deco building, erected in 1941, is now the transmitter site--the studios are elsewhere--of Federal Radio WFED.

John Fuller
Alexandria

by John Fuller on Dec 3, 2010 12:41 pm • link • report

I posted the above to the wrong article. Sorry. It belongs after the article on the Western Union tower. Too many browser tabs open!

John Fuller

by John Fuller on Dec 3, 2010 12:43 pm • link • report

For all the praise given to Arlington for being pedestrian and biker friendly, I'm still convinced I'll meet my end trying to cross a street here.

i often spend time harping about how Arlington, and those of us who talk about 'the smartest smart corridor in america', need to do a little bit better in acknowledging that Arlington is not biker-friendly, or at least, not nearly as biker-friendly as one might be led to believe when one continually reads about how 'smart' Arlington is. we just gotta keep banging away on 'smart growthers' and people who like to talk about 'pedestrian-friendly' places that they need to change their thinking to include bikes, and when they think/say/write 'pedestrian-friendly', they also need to think/say/write 'bike-friendly'. until we change their thinking, biking will remain a bolt-on/afterthought in (re)development.

i skimmed both the 'Bicycle' and 'Streets' plans and there seemed to be a slight progression/evolving of thinking about bikes from the older Bicycle plan to the newer Streets plan -- i.e. there's no real hint of taking bikes seriously, but they do seem to be acknowledged just a tad bit more in the more recent/Streets plan -- so that's good.

on the earlier/Bicycle plan, this jumped out at me:

Policy 2 (2): Provide high-quality bicycling facilities as part of all street improvement projects. Use marked bicycle lanes or shared Â–use lane symbols (Â“sharrowsÂ”) on arterial streets that provide access to commercial centers, schools and government facilities.

i _really_ like the 'high-quality' descriptor. this, to me, should be standard ideology for developing all public spaces, and walk, bicycle, and transit infrastructure. usually we're just like, "oh - let's put down some bike lanes in the door zone, throw these other poor people on some buses, and run these streetcars without signal priority." Building high-quality facilities, tho, can help provide that positive feedback loop/snowball effect of more/better facilities/services with increased public and political support.

of course, saying you're going to provide 'high-quality sharrows' on an arterial road is a bit like saying you're going to give Titanic passengers each a life jacket instead of a spot in a boat -- good luck out there, y'all!

The more recent/Streets plan says:

On arterial streets, treatments such as bicycle lanes that provide a dedicated area for bicycling are preferred over shared travel lanes.

That's a definite evolution in thinking. There's no mention of 'physically-separated/protected bicycle facilities' or 'cycletracks' or any of that, but the language is vague enough -- 'dedicated area' -- that they allowed themselves room for growth.

A few posts ago, the talk of revamping North Capitol NE brought a commenter to suggest that the street would likely not be changed/fixed/filled-in/whatever because it was one of the few high-speed routes into downtown DC from Maryland. that may be correct or not -- i've no idea -- but it seems clear that our conception of '(car) arterials' is changing, as it should. it is likely that there will be bike-dominated 'arterials' within the next ten years. Maybe DC will get there first, maybe Arlington, but we know Amsterdam and Copenhagen are either already there or will be soon. and cities/towns will have to decide if they want to continue to prioritize non-resident high-speed auto traffic at the expense of a livable city and safe/comfortable/convenient/high-speed(?) walk/bike travel.

by Peter Smith on Dec 3, 2010 6:35 pm • link • report