Northern Virginia is notorious for its bad traffic. Arlington County has found a way to partially alleviate the traffic on George Mason by shortening travel time for cyclists.
It’s contra-flow bike lane, on 9th Street S. off of George Mason, it is intended to shorten the half mile detour cyclists were using to avoid busy roads.
It also happens to encourage cyclist safety. It’s against the law for cyclists to ride against traffic, and this is an exception.
“It kind of pushes them over to the side of the street and allows them to come through here on what is basically a neighborhood; low speed, low volume street where we would expect cyclists to ride anyway,” said Arlington County’s Program Director for Active Transportation Henry Dunbar.
The specialized bike lane is part of Arlington’s Bike Boulevards, dreamt up in 2012 and installed in 2014.
