Monday, April 15, 2013
Oak Street road diet being striped this week
The very successful road diet projects in Reston on Lawyers Rd and Soapstone Dr have proven to help reduce crashes and lower vehicle speeds. Kudos to VDOT for implementing another road diet project. From the VDOT press release:
“ROAD DIET” COMING TO OAK STREET
Eliminating lanes is a gain for motorists and bicyclists
“We are making smarter use of the wide pavement on Oak Street,” said VDOT traffic engineer Randy Dittberner. “By taking away the second travel lane in each direction, we make room for left-turn lanes, dedicated bike lanes, and on-street parking. All these features will help eliminate the most extreme speeders and improve safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.”
The project begins east of Gallows Road where Oak Street is 40 to 48 feet wide and two lanes in each direction, which is much more capacity than needed to handle 3,000 vehicles a day. The pavement freed up by removing one lane in each direction will instead be used for new left-turn lanes, designated parking on the south side of Oak, and bike lanes in each direction.
Residents have been concerned about traffic conditions and speeds on Oak Street for some time. With the support of residents and local officials, designed a road diet and was able to incorporate it into a paving project
About two-thirds of drivers on Oak Street exceed the 30 mph speed limit, and nearly 15 percent of vehicles travel over 40 mph. One of the benefits of road diets is a reduction in the fastest speeds.
This is VDOT’s third road diet project in northern Virginia. Diets on Lawyers Road and Soapstone Road in Reston have resulted in fewer crashes and reduced speeds.
Update 4/17/2013: Here is a photo of Oak street ready to be restriped with bike lanes.
 |
| Photo: Justin Antos |
Labels: oak street, road diet, vdot
Friday, August 20, 2010
Oak Street bridge open with new bike lanes
As we mentioned yesterday, the Idylwood bridge over the Beltway is now closed. Most cyclists avoid this bridge because it's narrow and carries lots of traffic. An alternative for cyclists is the Oak Street bridge (map). It was closed for a year but is now open and as you can see from the photo, has a paved shoulder for cyclists. You can also see employees putting on the finishing touches to the bridge.
You can almost see that the bike lanes disappear at the end of the bridge, but Oak Street usually carries little traffic and is very bikeable. Cyclists coming from the W&OD Trail often use this bridge to avoid riding on Gallows Rd from the trail. While the bridge is now used as an alternative to Idylwood, traffic should drop off when Idylwood bridge construction is completed in February 2011.
Getting bike accommodations on HOT lanes bridges was a major goal of FABB. We worked with the county, VDOT, and the private contractor to encourage them to include bike facilities shown on the county Trails Plan. While not ideal in some places, there will be bike facilities on most of these new bridges. The next challenge will be to connect the new facilities on the bridges to bike routes on both sides of the Beltway.
Labels: bike lanes, hot lanes, oak street
Monday, May 4, 2009
Oak Street bridge to close for a year
A popular bike route from the W&OD Trail to Gallows Road, which includes using the Oak Street bridge to cross the Beltway, will be closed for a year starting on Sunday, May 10 as part of the Beltway HOT lanes project. The route is also used by people coming from other areas to the east of the Beltway including Great Falls and the Pimmit Hills area. See a map of the bridge. According to Dr Gridlock, it will be close from May 10 until Spring 2010.An alternative is to use Idylwood Road which is very bike-unfriendly or to continue west on the W&OD Trail to Gallows Road. To avoid a narrow section of Gallows Rd. when headed north, you could instead turn right on Sandburg St. before reaching Gallows Rd. There is low traffic but a climb to Idylwood Rd. Cross Idylwood Rd and then turn left on Elm Place to get to Gallows Rd.
Labels: hot lanes, idylwood road, oak street
