Saturday, June 4, 2011

14th St Bridge to GW Parkway Bike Trail Detour Still Wanted

The detour that won't die
Fence opened allowing access to what was a temporary detour

When construction work closed off the regular route (now restored - see photo below) a presumably temporary detour was put in that was eventually paved (see photo above). Now that a detour isn't needed, the Park Service has installed temporary fencing along the top of short "cut-through" to prevent its further use, but people who like the idea of a shortcut (perhaps cyclists, perhaps walkers/runners) keep opening the fence up. Last night when I rode home, it was closed. By now I'm sure it's open again.

DSCN1849
The USPS "authorized" route

It would make sense, I think, to have stairs (or something bicycles wouldn't try to use) instead of the old detour to pull some of the foot traffic away from the busy intersection (admittedly not busy at this time of the morning) shown in the photo above. In the meantime, we have this silly situation where there is a "sometimes" option that wasn't very good as a detour and isn't any better as a shortcut for combined bicycle-foot traffic.

I didn't get a photo of it, I'm sad to say, but one morning a cyclist had ridden up the cut-through only to realize that the fencing closed him off, and instead of disconnecting the fencing (or turning around), he had put his bike over the fence and was in the process of climbing over to join it. Hmm . . .

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