September meetings of note

Some meetings coming up in September that are of interest to Alexandria transportation advocates:

- The Transportation Commission meets the evening of the 7th at City Hall (usually starting at 7:30pm). On the agenda will be discussion of transit Corridor C, the Beauregard/Van Dorn corridor, and the recommendations made by the High Capacity Transit Corridor Work Group. This meeting will be considered the Transportation Commission's public hearing on the subject, and city residents are invited to speak on the corridor.

- On Thursday, September 15th, the High Capacity Transit Corridor Work Group will hold its next meeting, discussing Corridor A (Route 1/Potomac Yard). This meeting will be 7pm in the multi-purpose room of the Charles Houston Recreation Center at the corner of Patrick St and Wythe St.

- Following up on the Transportation Commission meeting, City Council will be holding their own public hearing on the Beauregard/Van Dorn Corridor on Saturday, the 17th, at 9:30am.

- Later in the month, City Council will be discussing bikesharing and the possibility of bringing Capital Bikeshare into the city at their meeting on September 27th.

Lastly, if anyone is interesting in helping the Alexandria BPAC take bicycle/pedestrian counts as part of the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, our next count dates are September 15th (5-7pm) and September 17th (noon-2pm). Please contact Dan McNulty at dmcnul91@gmail.com for more information.

Seriously?

And during rush hour (5pm) to boot.

VDOT decided to close the Route 1 path connector to Washington St/Mt Vernon Trail/Wilson Bridge, in order to do maintenance on the light poles on the bridge over Cameron Run. This in-and-of-itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they chose to do it during evening rush hour, when there are a fair number of people bicycling home to Huntington along the path. Nevermind that it prevented being able to count bikes and pedestrians this evening as part of the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project.

There was just barely enough room to squeeze by the trucks on a bicycle, and I doubt the workers even noticed me, but to "follow the rules" here put a big inconvenience on bicyclists and pedestrians using the connection. Neither of the two possible detour routes is particularly safe, and both add additional distance that is longer than the connection itself. The somewhat-safer/more-likely of the detour routes, to the south around Belle Haven Country Club, adds a mile-and-a-half extra distance (a full 30 minutes for the average pedestrian), has segments along both Fort Hunt Rd and Belle Haven Rd that lack shoulders and sidewalks, and involves a dangerous, unsignalized crossing of heavy rush-hour traffic on George Washington Pkwy.

If VDOT really needed to shut down the path, so be it. But do it during mid-day, when you're affecting the fewest possible path users. They wouldn't close down a highway ramp during rush hour for normal maintenance...why close down a bike/ped path with no decent alternative?