Making it easy for people to bike year-round is a great way to reduce the need for car trips.With a new program to plow snow from bike paths, the work of BikeArlington in Arlington County, Virginia has been recognized as a national leader with a feature in today’s Washington Post.
“Arlington County has committed to clearing trails,” said Tim Kelley, operations manager for BikeArlington. “That’s been a huge thing — really, just in one season we’ve gone from being lumped in with everyone else to becoming a national leader in snow clearing.”
In January, after a snowfall, many people who commute by bicycle were pleasantly surprised to begin their trips only to find plowed bike trails – in a county that is connected particularly well by a network that loops out of Washington D.C. through all of Arlington’s busiest corridors.
Thanks to the transportation demand management (TDM) work of BikeArlington, the education and outreach arm of Arlington County Commuter Services, data collection about how many people are taking bicycling trips helped the organization determine that plowing was needed to make sure this substantial portion of citizens was being served well for their mobility needs.
Reporter Bettina Lanyi’s article continues:
With the permission of the County Board, Parks and Recreation and transportation departments started clearing the paths this winter, using two special snowplows narrow enough to fit the width of the bike trails.
To read the Washington Post‘s full article, click here.
Photo by M.V. Jantzen.