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Bike Commuter
Planning to Make Reston More Bike Friendly
An enthusiastic group of around 35 people showed up for the Reston-Herndon area bike plan meeting Thursday night. It was the second of eight planned meetings to gather input for the countywide bicycle master plan. The meeting started with a half-hour open house that gave people a chance to connect with other cyclists and to talk to the planning team.
Consultants from Toole Design Group gave a brief presentation on the plan and the purpose of the meeting. Participants split into several groups: Reston bike facilities, Herndon bike facilities, Educate/Encouragement/Enforcement, and Trails.
Each group marked up maps and listed their ideas for making the area more bicycle-friendly. The Reston group marked dangerous intersections such as Wiehle Avenue/Sunset Hills Road, W&OD/Wiehle Avenue, and several Fairfax County Parkway trail intersections.
Bike lanes were suggested on Sunrise Valley Drive, South Lakes Drive, and on Lawyers Road, extending the existing bike lanes, and signed bike routes were indicated on Village Road, North Shore Drive, and Glade Drive.
The information was collected by Toole and will used as input for developing the final county bicycle master plan.
The next area meeting will cover the Mt. Vernon, Rose Hill, Ft. Belvoir, Mason Neck, and Huntington areas, on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011, from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the South County Government Center, 8350 Richmond Hwy, Alexandria, VA in Conference Room 221 A-B, 2nd floor. Visit the project website for more information.
Friends of the Reston Regional Library
8:43 am on Saturday, October 22, 2011
Unfortunately, I had a son's football game to attend, or I would have been there. Especially since on my ride home on Thursday morning I was almost hit by cars at the same intersection twice -- different legs of it. I waited for the "walk" light, like a law-abiding citizen, and as a result was almost crushed at two different legs. The intersection is at Fox Mill and Reston Parkway. First I was going south on Reston Parkway and crossing Fox Mill, next trying to head East on Fox Mill (into the commuter lot) crossing Reston Parkway. I even looked people in the eye and they still went through the turn without yielding. If motorists don't want longer red lights while they wait for the walk signal to completely clear, they need to give the cyclists some grace and room to move when it's their right of way.
Bruce Wright
10:20 am on Saturday, October 22, 2011
That intersection is typical of many in the county, with no bike facilities and lots of traffic. Motorists who criticize bicyclists need to ride with us a few times to get a feel for what it's like to try to ride a bicycle through this type of intersection.