Columbia Pike Bike Boulevards: The Closest We Will Ever Come to Biking the Pike
Level of Effort: 10 minutes, at home in your PJs
Deadline: Sun 10/20 11:59pm

For a variety of reasons, good and bad, Columbia Pike is being completely rebuilt without any dedicated bike facilities.  Instead, parallel routes are supposed to exist for bikes just north and just south of the Pike, the Columbia Pike Bike Boulevards.  These routes have never been fully connected, but the County is finally looking and creating a long-term cohesive plan for these routes.

It's critical that we tell the County that the bike boulevards need to be signed, traffic needs to be calmed, major road crossings need to be addressed, and gaps need to be filled!  Very little has changed since bike4thepike fought for these things in 2018!

Suggested Feedback

We think the following are all critical to making a cohesive Bike Boulevards network:

  1. Gaps must be addressed.  Right now the 12th Street Bike Boulevard disappears between Barton and Wayne St (or between Cleveland and Scott Street if you don't like to ride through private parking areas)
  2. Major road crossings must be addressed.  Crossing Glebe at 9th St and Walter Reed at 9th are both harrowing.
  3. Traffic must be calmed.  9th Street is already starting to see enough cars that we question whether a bike boulevard is an appropriate treatment.  We fear that the much-needed road crossing improvements mentioned above will also lead to increased car traffic.
  4. Wayfinding must be dramatically improved.  With so many twists and turns, following these bike boulevard right now is a challenge.  We suggest some sort of pavement marking to augment traditional signage.
  5. The sidewalk on Columbia Pike between the W&OD and Dinwiddie is insufficiently wide and far too close to traffic to safely handle two-way bike and pedestrian traffic.

Share this feedback via the online map anytime before 10/20, and add your own experiences as well!

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