Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
Spandex-clad bikers, have you set your watches daybooks multi-year calendars to Winter 2021? That's when the impressive structure you see above will gracefully sweep above Wiehle Avenue and the gridlocked traffic below it, allowing you to continue your Herndon-Vienna sprints along the W&OD unimpeded at Mach 2.
Never mind that this really should have been built 20 years ago. Now that the county approved its construction back in ought-twelve, things are really cranking on this project! You may wonder, silly rabbits, why it would take five-plus years to build a bridge. But look at the shoddy, substandard dreck you get when you try to rush things:
This is what happens when you try to finish something in just over one year. Total garbage. Besides, You can't ride a bike up 100 flights of stairs.
Okay, so maybe you can build the world's largest shopping mall in three years. But is it elite? We thought not. Last we heard, parking's free there. Enjoy your Sbarros, rubes!
Here's another, almost as impressive bridge that took under five years to build. Why would ours take longer?
AWWWWWW YEAH, substructure medallions! Bet the Chinese didn't think about that when they were rushing to build that aesthetically inferior, substructure medallion-free eyesore in Aizhai. Though in honor of our careful, responsible construction timetables, we'd suggest this medallion logo instead:
Our BFFs at Reston Now point out that the $10 million overpass will take longer to build than usual because a bunch of utility poles need to be relocated. Still, given that approval for the project came in 2012, that means a nine-year wait for an overpass that was sorely needed even before the arrival of Metro made Wiehle uncrossable during rush hours (except when traffic is completely stopped).
All that, for a bridge that won't even be level, maybe, the end.
A few other things that took less time to build than the Wiehle Avenue pedestrian bridge will take:
ReplyDeleteGolden Gate Bridge (4,200 feet main span; 8,981 feet total length): 52 months, January 1933 to May 1937
George Washington Bridge (4,760 feet): 48 months, October 1927 to October 1931
The Pentagon (29 acres of floor space): 16 months, September 1941 to January 1943
On a related subject, rumor has it that Boston Properties will turn the ELITE portion of the W&OD that runs through RTC into a toll bike path.
ReplyDeleteThis is a serious issue. Once a week I see someone nearly get hit by a passing vehicle as they inch out onto Wiehle at the suggestion one lane of stopped cars. The problem is that not everyone is paying attention to why the lane next to them is stopped when they're trying to make the green light. Sadly I think someone will actually have to be killed before the county moves faster on this needed overpass.
ReplyDeleteThe WO&D was my commute route for years. Crossing Wiehle is easy, but takes patience.
ReplyDelete2-3 minute traffic lights at every intersection compress traffic into sweating, white-knuckled wads. Between wads there are 1-2 minutes of empty road. I could cross in hands and knees without danger.
Danger comes if one lane of the four stops because a cyclist has put a tootsie on the zebra. A Prius dutifully halts. (Why do nice people always drive featherweight cars?)
But human pustules with SUVs and cell phones whiz by in the other three. A foot past the sheltering fender of the Prius one is squashed like a bug.
So wait for the gap.
Not sure why dingleberries think it's a good idea to ride their stupid bikes (basically a children's toy) in the middle of rush hour traffic. You have one jerk on a bike holding up 30 people on their way home from work. Other morons decide to ride north on whiele ave during rush hour traffic. People zoom pass them with inches to spare, I love it! I can't wait to see some idiot in his little spandex shorts take a flying leap over the barrier and land on the side opposite Lake Anne. Stay off the roads during rush hour!
DeleteOnly one jerk on a bike? Count yourself lucky. When the Spandex Posse goes out for its late Tuesday afternoon mass rides, as it did today, I remember how they would block Fairfax Connector buses and everyone else who had the misfortune to be stuck behind them as they took up the entire lane of Glade pedaling along at 20 MPH.
DeleteSo yes, stay the hell off the roads during rush hour you spawn of Spandexed spastics!
Like anything else in Reston, it takes years to get something done.
ReplyDelete