Description
A stop sign was posted about a year ago on the custis trail at the parking lot exit from the Marriott Hotel onto Lee Highway. This is a sidewalk/trail and a driveway exit...not a place where a stop sign can legally be required for pedestrians/cyclists. It's also unclear if the Arlington County is responsible for posting this sign to begin with. Cars coming out of that exit must to yield to pedestrians/bicycles and placing a stop sign on the trail only helps to legitimize failure to yield behavior from drivers. It's also unclear - is the stop sign for all trail users or just bikes? A similar stop sign at Custis Trail and Scott street was removed for this same reason.
Better yet, Arlington County should consider removing that exit from the hotel altogether. It has poor sight-lines for all users and there has been more than one crash there, especially given that drivers entering onto Lee Highway often fail to look right for foot/bicycle traffic due to the one-way nature of Lee Highway. Traffic can easily exit the Marriott parking lot (including large buses) through the existing Ft. Meyer Drive entrance/exit.
4 Comments
Jo (Registered User)
Closed Arlington County Department of Environmental Services (Guest)
Good Afternoon,
The stop sign has been reviewed recently by Arlington County Department of Transportation and it will remain. The County is actively preparing engineering plans for a future construction project to remove the west bound right lane of Lee Highway and widen the trail at this location. One of the benefits of the trail widening will be to create better visibility for both exiting Marriott vehicles and east bound bikers and pedestrians. After completion of the project, the stop sign is planned to be removed. Here is the link to the project webpage: https://projects.arlingtonva.us/projects/lynn-street-esplanade-custis-trail-improvements/
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions,
Andrew Prestwich
Executive Assistant to the Director
Arlington County Department of Environmental Services
703-228-3788
aprestwich@arlingtonva.us
KCB (Guest)
Jo (Registered User)
I'm grateful for this review by Arlington DOT and the trail widening is a great idea. In fact both bike and pedestrian traffic along that last mile of the trail is congested every morning and will likely get much worse over the years as we see more bike commuters (which we can track thanks to the counter!)
I agree that the stop sign is still a bit strange but and the intersection remains dangerous - glad that the experts are acting on it.