Health & Fitness
Bike Lanes on Soapstone Make Sense
VDOT is proposing to restripe Soapstone Drive to add bike lanes, and most people at the public meeting thought it was a good idea.
What a concept: providing some space on the road for bicyclists. At the public meeting Monday on the proposal to create bike lanes on Soapstone Drive, the audience was generally supportive of the idea.
The road has relatively low traffic volumes, which makes it an ideal location for a "road diet." The idea is to reduce the regular travel lanes from four to two and create two travel lanes and two bike lanes.
This was done on Lawyers Road, reducing crashes by 80 percent and reducing speeds above 50 mph from 13 percent to 1 percent. Travel times are about the same, and now there's space for users other than just motorists. Shouldn't our streets serve all of our residents and not just those with cars?
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One audience member said that there aren't many cyclists, so why should we devote extra space for them? That's a little like saying we don't need a bridge because we don't see anyone swimming to the other side.
As another audience member said most major cities are now providing bike facilities, and the number of people choosing to travel by bike has skyrocketed. Many of the trips we take are less than five miles. I would bet that most of the people who will park at the future Metro station at Wiehle Ave will live within about 3-5 miles. It just makes sense to provide a way for some of them to get there by bike.
