FABB Blog

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is looking to recruit volunteers to help count non-motorized road and trail users in September as part of an annual national data gathering project. No previous counting experience is necessary, and voluntary in-person training and digital training materials will be provided. This opportunity is suitable for those under age 18. The minimum age to volunteer is 14 and those under 16 need a parent with them.

Volunteers for the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project will play a critical role in: 1) building a robust and public database of pedestrian and bicycle use; and 2) identifying local and national trends in biking and walking. These counts are essential for advancing active transportation because they inform planning and engineering professionals on the diversity of our transportation and recreation habits. 

Counts in September will be conducted at the following locations: 

If you are interested in being part of future bicycle and pedestrian counts, please apply to Nicole Wynands at 703-877-5625 or Nicole.Wynands@fairfaxcounty.gov.

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is currently looking for volunteers to help with a bike and pedestrian count at two locations in Reston (Colts Neck Rd at the elementary school and Twin Branches at the pool). These roads are getting repaved in a few weeks and will receive new bike lanes and crosswalks. We would like to gather before and after pedestrian and bicycle data to better determine the impact of the infrastructure improvements.

The counting dates are June 6-11, 6am to 9pm. We will break up the counting period into 3h shifts: 6-9am, 9am-12pm, 12pm-3pm, 3pm-6pm, 6-9pm. On street parking is available at both counting locations if you prefer to count from the comfort of your car.

Please let me know if you are interested in participating, and which day(s) and shift(s) you would like to take on. Shifts will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.

We will send out training materials on how and what to count by the end of this week. We will also set up a volunteer sign up form for this opportunity in the Fairfax County volunteer system so that volunteers can be covered by insurance and log their hours.

Fairfax County Bicycle Program staff are looking for volunteers to help count bicyclists in locations around the county on Sept. 15 & 17. Please consider helping out on one or both of those days for 2 hours.

The county plans to install a number of automated bike counters similar to counters installed in Arlington County. Thanks to Reston Bicycle Club and FABB the county now has a moveable bicycle and pedestrian counter. But until there is a network of counters in place the county wants to collect some baseline manual counts. FABB has done volunteer counts in the past and the county will use that data to supplement their counts. 

As the saying goes, "If you don't count bikes, bikes don't count." VDOT conducts regular motor vehicle counts, and they have estimates for the average daily traffic on most Fairfax Roads but they have almost no bicycle or pedestrian counts. It's very encouraging that the county is undertaking this project.

From Fairfax County:

Fairfax County is participating in the annual National Bicycling and Pedestrian Documentation Project and is looking for volunteers to help out with counting bicycles and pedestrians on Thursday, September 15 from 5-7pm and on Saturday, September 17 from 12-2pm.

The intent of the count is to gather information about bicycle and pedestrian traffic in Fairfax County to better measure the positive benefits of investments in sidewalks, trails, on-street bicycle facilities and Capital Bikeshare.

Volunteers that have not previously participated in bicycle and pedestrian counts are strongly encouraged to attend a training session on September 8 at 6.30pm. Counting and training locations will be announced shortly. Training materials are also available online.

To volunteer, please sign up here.

When work on the section between the W&OD Trail and Sunrise Valley Dr is underway, it will be very difficult for bicyclists to bypass the work area as there is no grassy median over the Toll Road and just south of there, so plan your trip accordingly. The trail should be open before 8 a.m. and after 4 p.m.

There are few detours in that area; the trail is a critical north-south link for a reason. During the most recent volunteer bike count at that location on May 8, during the evening rush, 5-7 p.m., 46 bicyclists were counted. As a side note, there were 362 bicyclists in that two-hour period on the W&OD Trail, nearly 100 more than in the Sept 2013 count during the same period.

See the VDOT page on the trail work for details.

The procedure is straightforward. At each location we count cyclists who pass through the intersection, noting direction of travel. The main goal is to get an overall count of all cyclists who pass through the intersection. This way we can track bike travel over time to determine whether use is increasing or decreasing and to try to correlate the trends with changing conditions.

While we sense that the number of people who travel by bike is growing, without counting we can only guess whether that perception is true. Arlington County has a very successful automated bike counting system supplemented by volunteer counts. They have used the numbers to help justify plowing snow from trails in the winter. 

We hope the county eventually establishes a bike counting program, perhaps once the bike program is actually funded. In the meantime, FABB will continue our small-scale counting effort.

W&OD Trail counts - It's surprising that there are no automated counters on the W&OD Trail in Fairfax County. Arlington County has several. The trail is the most popular bicycle facility in the county and we'd like to show that usage is increasing.

Chain Bridge/Westmoreland Dr - Bike lanes were striped on Westmoreland a few years back and we want to track usage over the years.

George Mason Blvd/University Blvd - We'd like to know if bike use is increasing at Mason. They are a Bicycle Friendly University and have added bike lanes and good bike parking over the past several years. Students are currently in session. The spring count period recommended by the documentation project often doesn't work for Mason because students are usually on break. 

Sunrise Valley Dr - With the coming of Metrorail to Reston, we expect bicycle usage to increase. We want to get some counts before rail comes to see if there is an increase afterwards. We also want to count on Soapstone Dr because bike lanes were installed there a couple of years ago.

We hope to have some summary data together in a week or so.

John Pickett, a federal economist, mounts the 20-year-old red touring bike that he’s dubbed “the Mule” just before 7 a.m. outside the shed behind his home in the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County. Over the past decades, he’s put more than 33,000 miles on its odometer, and he’s ready to add 15 more.

As the rising sun breaks over the Potomac River, Pickett pedals northward along the Mount Vernon Trail. He is one of the Washington area’s growing number of bicycle commuters, and he’s due at work in Rosslyn in about an hour.

Getting into his rhythm near Dyke Marsh, the 57-year-old Pickett barely notices passing a brown wooden post. He has no sense of breaking a light beam, but this is where the National Park Service first detects — and counts — him.

It happens over and over again to Pickett and the approximately 2,000 others who use the trail each day. As they bike, run and walk the 18.1-mile path, they unknowingly trip a series of sensors. Those dozen sensors are connected to counters, which over time will tell a tale of who is using the route and at what times.

In the traffic-snarled capital region, where transportation alternatives are becoming increasingly important, this bike and pedestrian route and others like it across Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District have become “a secondary nervous system” for commuters.

“We know a lot about cars,” said Ralph Buehler, an associate professor of urban affairs and planning for Virginia Tech who has consulted with the Park Service. “Suddenly, we have data that enlarges what we can see about how bicyclists and pedestrians behave.”

Bike-friendly Arlington County, which works closely with the National Park Service, has placed the newest sensor, an expensive, state-of-the-art, French-made device, on the trail near Reagan National Airport.

Unlike older counters, this one can distinguish between humans and machines, using an induction loop embedded in a double-diamond pattern in the pavement. It senses when a bicycle passes over. That is paired with a passive infrared sensor that notices the direction of travel when a warm body passes by, creating a disturbance much like a boat’s bow wave. That minute-by-minute information is wirelessly uploaded each quarter-hour to a central database and sent to the county daily.

While pedestrians and bicyclists share the trail, reports show that two-thirds of the users are on two wheels. No one knows how many are commuter, but bright red Capital Bikeshare bikes are popping up with regularity.

That rent-by-the-hour bike program started with 100 stations in the District and 14 in Arlington in 2010. It now has more shared bikes in circulation — 1,890 — than any other region in the country, having just flown by the 4 million trip mark, with 22,000 members and expanded networks in the District, Arlington, Alexandria and, soon, Montgomery County. Bike commuting in Arlington has more than doubled between 2006 and 2011, and the D.C. Department of Transportation estimates an average of 87,000 bike trips per day in the region.

A bi-monthly publication of Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling

www.fabb-bikes.org

WABA's BikeFest - Purchase tickets by May 2

BikeFest, WABA's annual party and fundraiser, will be held on Friday evening, May 3 at Eastern Market in DC. This a way to support WABA while having a good time dancing to live jazz and swing music, playing card games, and checking out the BikeBuild contest. Tickets are $45 for WABA members and $55 for non-members. Ticket sales end on May 2. Tickets will not be available at the door.

Bike to School Day - May 8

Bike to School Day is being celebrated at more than 30 schools in Fairfax County this year. The event raises awareness of the need to create safer routes for bicycling and walking and emphasizes the importance of increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, reducing traffic congestion, and concern for the environment. The event builds connections between families, schools, and the broader community. The event also highlights the need for teaching bike safety skills in our schools. Visit the Bike to School Day site to find which Virginia schools are celebrating the event. If your school is not participating this year, contact your principal and other parents and start organizing for next year.

Bike to Work Day - May 17

Now is the time to sign up for Bike to Work Day,  which is Friday, May 17. Whether you are a new bike commuter or an experienced one, signing up for Bike to Work Day is important because the numbers are used as one measure of the growth of cycling over the years. Choose from the many events held around the DC Metro area, including several in Fairfax County: Burke VRE Station, Fairfax Corner, Herndon, Merrifield-Mosaic District (new), Merrifield-W&OD Trail, Collingwood Park (new), Reston, Springfield Metro at Walker Lane, Tysons Corner Center, and Vienna. There is also a Fairfax City pit stop. We plan to have a FABB rep at each of these events to provide route information, answer questions, and to ask people to sign up for our e-newsletter.

Tour de Fat returns on June 1 - Volunteers needed

Tour de Fat is returning to DC on June 1. The free event is a full day of fun bike-related activities starting with a bike parade, costumes preferred. The event will again be held at The Yards Park on the banks of the Anacostia River two blocks from Navy Yard Metro station and Nationals Park. The goal of Tour de Fat is to celebrate bicycling and to raise money for local advocacy groups including FABB. FABB will receive a percentage of the proceeds so your participation will help us raise money.

To get a flavor of the event see our blog post about last year's event, including videos of the bike parade and the "bike pit" that features trick bikes. You can also enjoy live music, games, food, and beverages. The main sponsor is New Belgium brewery.

FABB will be working the wristband/ID booth again this year and we need more volunteers. We check the IDs of people who want to drink beer to make sure no one is underage. To sign up visit our Volunteer Spot page, enter your email address, and choose the June 1 event. There are 3 shifts. We need 2 more for the morning shift (10:00-1:30pm), 1 more for the overlapping shift (11:00-2:30pm), and 7 for the afternoon shift (1:30-5:00pm). Volunteers receive 2 beverage coupons and a t-shirt.

Fairfax County Parkway Trail repairs

VDOT has funds to begin to repair major sections of the Fairfax County Parkway Trail. While we think that most of the trail needs repaving, repairs of some of the more badly damaged sections is a start. Last year FABB conducted an assessment of the condition of the trail as we reported in our April-May 2012 Newsletter. That information was used as the basis for a study done by VDOT to determine where to make the repairs. We hope the work will be completed this year.

Bike Counts - Volunteers needed

FABB has conducted bike counts the last couple of years. We see more and more cyclists on the roads and trails but we don't have data to back up that observation. We want to know if more people are riding on the bike lanes on Gallows Road and whether more cyclists are using the W&OD Trail during rush hour and on the weekend. We've begun counting cyclists at a few locations around the County and we need volunteers to help. The count dates are Thursday, May 9 from 5-7pm and Saturday May 11 from 12-2pm. The locations where we need volunteers are: W&OD Trail at Gallows Rd, W&OD Trail at Maple Ave/Rt 123 in Vienna, Sunrise Valley Dr at South Lakes Dr in Reston, Saintsbury Dr at Vaden Dr near the Vienna Metro station, and Chain Bridge Rd at Westmoreland St in McLean. To volunteer visit Volunteer Spot, click on one of the two dates, and sign up.

Upcoming Events

We encourage everyone to ride your bikes and promote bicycling when you attend these events.

Friday, May 3 - WABA's BikeFest

Saturday, May 4 - Vienna Bike Safety Awareness Day and bike rodeo

Sunday, May 5 - Marshall Road ES Bike Rodeo

Wednesday, May 8 - Bike to School Day

Thursday, May 9 & Saturday, May 11 - Volunteer bike counts

Wednesday, May 15 - FABB Monthly Meeting

Friday, May 17 - Bike to Work Day

Saturday, June 1 - Tour de Fat

Wednesday, June 19, FABB Monthly Meeting

 

They use a combination of in-ground loop detectors and infrared beam to collect data on trail usage, both pedestrians and cyclists (ok, the occasional deer might get counted as a pedestrian also). There is a huge amount of data being collected by these counters, and it will become most useful once several years worth can be compared.