Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Too Many People - Too Little Room - Danger on the Trails #arlingtonva @arlingtonva @arlparksrec

Last night I have heard that there was a serious accident on the Custis.
I went through the Custis from Rosslyn to Lyon Village just before 7 pm.  At that time, a jugging club was FLOODING the trail with participants.  It was CRAZY.  They were jogging three wide.  They were jogging on the left, into oncoming traffic.  They were not heeding passing calls.
In any transportation artery, there is a point where the amount of traffic exceeds the capacity of the artery.  Last night, that jogging group was dumping more traffic on the Custis than the Custis could handle.
This needs to stop.  The Custis (and the WOD, and the MVT) are narrow trails.  They pretty much afford one lane in both directions, and a center passing lane.  On the whole, most people on the trails are very well behaved.  But when the trails are overwhelmed, a serious accident is all but inevitable.
And this applies to everyone: joggers, cyclists, dog walkers - who ever.  No group should be permitted to have "events" on the trail that overwhelm the trail.  There is a safe maximum capacity to the trails and when it is exceeded, someone is going to get hurt.
I have worked with a volunteer group that used to do 5Ks on the WOD.  And no matter how hard you coached people, and no matter how many event marshals you used, with a crowd that large there was always people who did not follow good trail etiquette, creating extremely dangerous situations.

Arlington trails are a marvelous and vital resources.  They are shared by walkers, joggers, cyclists, skateboarders, and others.  Any time one group floods the trail with traffic, they create a dangerous situation for everyone else.
This needs to stop.

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