Stone Road Park and Ride Full

I wandered the aisles around 8:35am (just before the 8:40 departure of FC 442) and there was but one parking spot left. (The two cars pictured are probably going to find that one spot already full.) Maybe I don't pay a lot of attention to the parking situation because I prefer to bike to the park and ride, but it seems like it's been quite a while since the Stone Road park and ride has been at capacity.

Ironically, on the way to Vienna, Interstate 66 seemed surprisingly uncongested -- with no backup within sight of Nutley Street as the bus got off toward the Metro station.

Photo by the author.

Bicycle Parking at the Colonnade at Union Mill

I was at the Colonnade at Union Mill today. Bicycle parking is very poor at this shopping strip. The only store with a bicycle rack is Giant Food (and props to them for that). That one rack is pretty far from the ends of the strip and is only convenient if you're riding to Giant or the shops next to Giant. I do like getting groceries by bicycle, but, frankly, that's one of the more complex tasks to accomplish by bike. On the other hand, many of the other shops are excellent candidates for bike-by errands.

If you wander behind the parking strip, you'll notice what I presume to be employee bikes locked to pipes behind the building. Actually, putting bike parking in the back of the stores at the end (like Panera) isn't a terrible idea, but parking that's somewhat hidden or cabled to the building's pipes is not recommended.

With a large residential area (Union Mills and Little Rocky Run), Centreville High School, Braddock Park, and good shared-use trails along Braddock Road so closeby, there's no reason why bicycle parking shouldn't be more existent and prominent. Maybe the Colonnade should do what Centreville Square did with a bicycle parking rack on an actual parking spot.

This is a good strategy because bicyclists are treated the same as other customers (not second-class shoppers), and the parking spot's prominence close to the storefronts highlights to other customers how nice a ride to the Colonnade might be in the future. People might bike to the Colonnade not because they don't have a car but because they want to ride a bike. Good bicycle parking is attractive and fun, but if you have to lock up to a sign, that's not attractive and and not fun.