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Politics & Government

Does This (Road) Diet Work?

VDOT seeks user input on redesign of Lawyers Road near Reston Parkway

If you drive or bike on the stretch of Lawyers Road between the southeast part of Fox Mill Road and Myrtle Lane, you're doing more than getting from one place to another. You're participating in an experiment.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) would like to know what you think.

VDOT is conducting an online survey through Sunday about its  "road diet" for Lawyers Road. The road diet is a first for Northern Virginia, a place where traffic engineers and residents usually see the need to add lanes of traffic.

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Here, though, VDOT a year ago dropped the number of driving lanes from four to two. Now the section of road, which carries about 10,000 cars a day, has two driving lanes -  one middle lane used for left turns from both directions and two bicycle lanes.

"While removing travel lanes seems unusual, these types of reconfigurations are known to reduce crashes, improve safety and enhance mobility for bicyclists and motorists,"  Randy Dittberner, VDOT traffic engineer, says.

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VDOT has estimated that the new road alignment would result in 20 percent fewer crashes, but does not yet have statistics for the year. Statistics will be important as VDOT evaluates the new design, but also highly valuable are the opinions of those who use the road, VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris said.

"We want people to tell us whether it (the road diet) was useful and successful," Morris said. Survey results will determine, among other things, "whether we should do (something similar) in other places."

Bruce Wright, chairman of Fairfax Advocates for Better Biking, votes yes.

"In the past, I avoided the road because of high-speed traffic and the fact that there was no paved shoulder," said Wright, who lives near South Lakes High School.  But now, Wright bikes via Lawyers to the Fox Mill Shopping Center or to a paved trail along Reston Parkway (north of Lawyers) and West Ox Road (south of Lawyers). That, in turn, can get him to the Fairfax County Parkway and all over Fairfax County.

"I used them (the Lawyers bike lanes) this past weekend to get to a show at the Expo Center (in Chantilly) and saw several other cyclists on the bike lanes," Wright said. "If we want to get more people on bikes for short trips, we need to make our roads safer for them."

Wright said he thinks VDOT has done a good job, but for safety's sake he would make the improvement of changing the road's painted median into a more tradition median with curbs and grass in between it.

"This would prevent people from using the center lane, which should be for turning only," not for passing other motorists as sometimes happens now, he said.

He said he hopes VDOT will extend the bike lanes further, at least all the way to Reston Parkway on the west side and to Twin Branches Road on the east side. In the meantime, though, he said he has seen "many people riding and even walking in the new bike lanes."

Fionnuala Quinn, also a member of FABB, is among the converts.
"I do use the lanes," she said, "and would never have used (Lawyers) road on a bike before."

 

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