{"id":2307,"date":"2023-05-04T02:53:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T06:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2023-05-09T00:17:48","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T04:17:48","slug":"our-statement-at-the-vdot-nova-districts-spring-2023-joint-transportation-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/?p=2307","title":{"rendered":"Our Statement At The VDOT NoVA District’s Spring 2023 Joint Transportation Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nAnnual Joint Transportation Meeting for Northern Virginia, May 1, 2023<\/strong>
\nStatement of Allen Muchnick, Member of the Virginia Bicycling Federation <\/strong>
\nand Active Prince William Boards of Directors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good evening.\u00a0 I\u2019m Allen Muchnick.\u00a0 I live in the City of Manassas, and I serve on the boards of the Virginia Bicycling Federation<\/a> and Active Prince William<\/a>, statewide and sub-regional active transportation advocacy organizations, respectively.<\/p>\n

We thank VDOT for recently re-filling its statewide bicycle and pedestrian planner position and for staffing a new statewide trails office.\u00a0 We look forward to seeing those offices advance safe active mobility.\u00a0 We believe it\u2019s time to review and update both VDOT’s 2011 State Bicycle Policy Plan<\/a> and the CTB’s 2004 Policy for Integrating Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodations.<\/a><\/p>\n

I commend VDOT\u2019s NoVA District Office for initiating a study to estimate the cost to complete all locally planned but unfunded bicycle and pedestrian facilities within the NoVA District.\u00a0 While most NoVA localities have robust active mobility plans and even Vision Zero programs, Prince William County still lacks both, so its official inventory of missing pedestrian and bicycle facilities is woefully incomplete.<\/p>\n

Since 2010, VDOT\u2019s roadway reconfiguration program<\/a> has cost-effectively retrofit bike lanes and pedestrian crossing improvements on many dozens of roadways during scheduled resurfacing, especially in Fairfax County<\/a>.\u00a0 Prince William County, however, has largely ignored this enormous opportunity to improve the access and safety of its vulnerable road users.\u00a0 We urge the County and VDOT to actively implement this program in our communities.<\/p>\n

The alignment of US Bicycle Route 1<\/a> through Prince William County is a prime example where retrofitted bike lanes or paved shoulders are desperately needed.\u00a0 Although AASHTO and VDOT established this route more than 40 years ago<\/a> and a VDOT consultant re-evaluated the route\u2019s alignment through NoVA nearly a decade ago<\/a>, the bicycling conditions on several Prince William route segments are horrendous.\u00a0 For example, the County\u2019s online Bicycle Skill Level Map<\/a> labels Old Bridge Road, part of Minnieville Rd, Aden Rd, and Fleetwood Dr\u2014all lacking bicycle facilities and posted at 45-MPH–as \u201cRoads to Avoid\u201d and tags Hoadly Rd and Tanyard Hill Rd as \u201cLow Comfort\u201d.\u00a0 VDOT\u2019s 2015 Bicycle Level of Service Map for the NoVA District rated those segments similarly.<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s long past time for VDOT and the County to fix these embarrassing and potentially deadly deficiencies.<\/p>\n

To address the ongoing epidemic of pedestrian fatalities, VDOT should aggressively implement design-speed reductions and pedestrian safety improvements along its multi-lane commercial arterials.\u00a0 VDOT and Prince William should also establish safer bike\/ped crossings of I-95 and I-66 and extend the I-66 Trail, now being built in Fairfax County, over Bull Run to connect to both Balls Ford Rd and the Northern Virginia Community College\u2019s Manassas campus.<\/p>\n

In closing, we strongly support the recommended SMART SCALE<\/a>, CMAQ<\/a>, and RSTP<\/a> awards for Manassas, Manassas Park, and Prince William County.<\/p>\n

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annual Joint Transportation Meeting for Northern Virginia, May 1, 2023 Statement of Allen Muchnick, Member of the Virginia Bicycling Federation and Active Prince William Boards of Directors Good evening.\u00a0 I\u2019m Allen Muchnick.\u00a0 I live in the City of Manassas, and I serve on the boards of the Virginia Bicycling Federation and Active Prince William, statewide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,67,39,223,149,292,78],"tags":[186,247,270,303,55],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-prince-william","category-bicycling","category-pedestrians","category-prince-william-county","category-public-hearing","category-traffic-safety","category-transportation","tag-active-prince-william","tag-prince-willam-county","tag-roadway-reconfiguration","tag-us-bicycle-route-1","tag-vdot","post-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2319,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activepw.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}