Stop sign enforcement in Old Town

[MFC]

Police were handing out tickets at the intersection of King Street and Union, and on Union, a couple blocks south of King. Even without the enforcement, bikers should at least slow down for the stop signs and yield to pedestrians, as I’m sure most people on this forum do.

[Fairlington124]

Our good friend Hal Hardaway must have been burning up the phone lines at City Hall again…

[Rootchopper]

When a motorist kills someone in Old Town, it’s time to ticket the cyclists. Alexandria is inane.

[Fairlington124]

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2016/aug/17/alexandria-letter-ticket-cyclists/

Perennial election loser Van Fleet must be happy by this development.

Just more proof that the City would rather ticket cyclists to placate a few noisy complainers rather than charge drivers who kill people with their trucks (http://patch.com/virginia/delray/no-charges-fatal-hit-run-alexandria-report)

[lordofthemark]

Were they ticketing people who did proper Idaho’s, or more egregious offenders? (WhileI understand the case that even the latter is waste of police time, we have a harder time pushing back against that, and the police have told BPAC in the past that they focused on egregious offenders, not folks properly yelding at stop signs, but I have heard otherwise)

Also, this will happen from time to time as they assuage the Old Town complainers (with the good weather, there have been more bikes out I think). What Mr Van Fleet is asking for (massive regular enforcement by auxiliaries, etc) seems unlikely to me. And of course T&ES is responding by pushing forward the Royal Street Bike Blvd, the opposite of what Mr Van Fleet calls for. I am not sure even OTCA is ready to go to the mats to stop it, and of course some of them may realize Royal Street actually solves some of their issues.

[MFC]

@lordofthemark 145176 wrote:

Were they ticketing people who did proper Idaho’s, or more egregious offenders? (WhileI understand the case that even the latter is waste of police time, we have a harder time pushing back against that, and the police have told BPAC in the past that they focused on egregious offenders, not folks properly yelding at stop signs, but I have heard otherwise)

No idea. My guess is that this was zero tolerance, or at least formal warnings for the Idaho-stoppers, and then they will return to more lenient policies in the future. Anyone slowing down for an Idaho stop should be able to see the officers, anyway.

[Rootchopper]

What they told you doesn’t square with reality. Today I avoided a ticket because I was behind a car that rolled the stop sign. Today’s enforcement took place about a block from the recent fatality caused by a driver. Ticketing usually takes place in the morning when the streets are virtually empty. Seems like they are trying for minimum inconvenience for commuters. The way to avoid this nonsense altogther is to use Lee or Fairfax instead of Union or Royal.

[Rootchopper]

Wow. Cars roll stop signs because they see bikes getting away with it? This man is a few spokes shy of a wheel (to coin a phrase).

[bobco85]

@Rootchopper 145190 wrote:

Ticketing usually takes place in the morning when the streets are virtually empty. Seems like they are trying for minimum inconvenience for commuters.

This +1000

I think they should do crackdowns during the evenings and weekend afternoons because those are the times when there are the higher numbers of pedestrians at risk. Currently, they are only going after commuters and those getting early exercise. This will not be effective when it comes to getting weekend riders to stop blowing through the stop signs when there are pedestrians around.

[Rootchopper]

There are a disturbing number of high speed riders in the evening that blow the stop sign at Union and King. Last night I (and a couple of cyclists behind me) stopped at this stop sign for the usual random movement of cars and pedestrians to clear. (Seemed like the cyclists were the only ones actually obeying the law, BTW.) A pedestrian actually complemented us for stopping.

[GovernorSilver]

Ah, the art festival is coming up. I recall it was around the time of the festival last year that the police started cracking down on them law-breakin hooligan stop sign-runnin cyclists.

I might try Lee St. as an alternative to Union until the festival is over, unless I’m really feeling up for an adventure on Washington St.

[Judd]

I’d like to see more frequent enforcement at Union and King throughout the year of egregious stop sign running. I see a cyclist do a full speed speed weaving through cars and pedestrians stop sign running nearly 100% of the time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[notinthe18]

@Judd 145263 wrote:

I’d like to see more frequent enforcement at Union and King throughout the year of egregious stop sign running. I see a cyclist do a full speed speed weaving through cars and pedestrians stop sign running nearly 100% of the time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with this. As a cyclist who respects this stop sign, I’m always astonished at how many folks blow right through it at high speed — especially in the evenings and on busy weekends. Of course, as someone else mentioned in this thread, the times I’ve seen enforcement have been in the morning when the area’s pretty empty. I’d hazard a guess that many of the folks getting popped are not the same folks being reckless on sunny weekend afternoons. Maybe I’m wrong. (Then again, as someone else also pointed out, it’s not hard to see the cops in time to stop … so maybe they are the same folks.) (Why am I saying folks so much?)

[Zack]

The Union/King St intersection seems so normal yet people completely loose their minds there. But that being said, the city did a study a few years ago which noted that most cyclists slowed down for the intersection anyways. https://www.alexandriava.gov/tes/info/default.aspx?id=62680

APD’s motors division has not been at full strength for a while so I am surprised to see they would waste time ticketing cyclists but then again, this summarizes their attitude towards bikes. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClCkkPEWEAAWoKd.jpg:large

[lordofthemark]

As a citizen of Alexandria, it would be my preference that the City applied its traffic enforcement resources where they would get the most bang for the buck in terms of improved safety. My guess is that would be dealing with speeding and (motor vehicle) red light running and other dangerous behaviors, mostly in the western half of the City, more so than enforcement against cyclists in Old Town. That said, given that we cyclists are getting much that we want from the City, I am not inclined to make a fuss about stop sign enforcement in Old Town, though they really should focus it on really bad behavior, not people doing proper Idahos.

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