FABB Blog

 

Economic Recovery bicycle projects in Fairfax

America Bikes has published a list of Ready to Go Bike and Pedestrian Projects. How does Fairfax County fare? You decide. There are two projects on the list, the first of which doesn't appear to be ready to go, since that column isn't checked in the listing:

• Fairfax Co—Centreville Bikeway: $500,000
• Fairfax Co—Lake Fairfax County Park trail Overhaul: $2,500,000

Off-road cyclists should be happy with $2.5 million going to the trail in Lake Fairfax Park. The Centreville Bikeway is a section of an abandoned road, Bobann Drive in Centreville that can be used by cyclists coming from south of I-66 to get to the Stingfellow Road Park and Ride Lot.

It sure would have been nice to have some on-road projects included in the list. It's somewhat of a chicken and egg problem; without funding, the necessary design and right of way acquisition (if needed) and other preliminary work won't get done for bike lane projects, and yet that work needs to be done before a project is considered shovel-ready. However, we think there are many opportunities for adding bike facilities to roads simply by adding paved shoulders to roads used by cyclists such as Idylwood Road between Husrt St and Idyll Lane.

The Fairfax County Parkway Trail has never been repaved and is in terrible condition in many locations. Seems like repaving that trail could be done tomorrow with adequate funds. If you have ideas for bicycle projects that could benefit from stimuls funding, the Commonwealth of Virginia wants to know about them. posted by Bruce Wright at 5:17 PM permalink