The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' (COG) 2007/2008 Regional Household Travel Survey is completed and Arlingtonians and Alexandrians can toot their own horn, or rather ring their own bike bell, as the percentage of residents from both jurisdictions who bike or walk to work is UP, UP, UP!
Arlington's bike and walk commuting mode share doubled from 3.8% to 7.6% between 1994 and the year of the report and Alexandria also doubled from 4.5% to 9.0%. These increases in both jurisdictions were due to improvements in engineering, education, encouragement, and enforcement. During these years, the bike and walk infrastructure of the county and city has improved with the striping of miles of bike lanes and new trails, pedestrian countdown signals and higher visibility ladder crosswalks, and more bike parking. There has been more education with Confident City Cycling classes, encouragement with Bike to Work Day and the BikeArlington and WALKArlington programs, and enforcement through the Street Smart campaign which places emphasis on the safety of these active modes of transport.
Kudos to Arlingtonians and Alexandrians for commuting in a cleaner, greener way.
For more information, see COG's highlights presentation on the subject. Over 10,000 households were surveyed for this report.
Paul DeMaio, BikeArlington
The truth is that from 1994 to 2008, Arlington County did not complete even *one* significant trail network expansion project. While the increase in walking and bicycling for work commutes is a positive development, the expansion of "bikeways" (including Arlington's ridiculous door-zone bike lanes) probably had little or nothing to do with it.
More important factors are the increase in transit-oriented development (resulting in more workers living near their jobs) and Arlington's now-standard site plan conditions that require secure bicycle storage and workplace showers and clothes-changing facilities in new office buildings.
There is little solid evidence anywhere that bikeways increase bicycling.
Posted by: Allen Muchnick | March 22, 2009 at 11:54 AM