Arlington County’s commitment to 11 bicycle-safety goals set in 2019 came under question at a recent meeting of the Bicycle Advisory Committee.
“We’re really not meeting the targets,” Gillian Burgess, a member of the committee that advises County Manager Mark Schwartz on bicycle issues, said at the meeting last week.
Burgess pressed active-transportation planner Brian Shelton on whether the goals remained on county leaders’ priority list.
“I’m sort of surprised every year that these targets are not mentioned in the budget — at all,” said Burgess, who also chairs the Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission.
With many of the targets not being met, “is this presentation you’re doing for us just a checkbox exercise, and it doesn’t go any further?” Burgess asked. “Is this information being presented up to management?”
Shelton said staff in the Department of Environmental Services, where he works, are paying attention.
“There is an effort to do our best in meeting the progress targets,” he said.
Continuing her questioning, Burgess suggested pushing staff to become more aggressive in elevating concerns up the leadership chain.
“If there’s other things you guys think are outside your specific wheelhouse … is that getting raised, is it getting escalated?” she asked. “Is there something we could do to help?”
While Burgess’ questioning was the most intense, other committee members also weighed in on concerns about goals not being met. The discussion likely could have gone on longer, but committee chair Cynthia Palmer opted to move forward to another presentation scheduled that evening.
County Board members in 2019 incorporated a 66-page bicycle element into the county’s Master Transportation Plan. As part of that document, 11 separate performance-improvement metrics were set:
- Reduce bicycle-crash injury rates per 10,000 residents by at least 5% per year.
- Provide bicycle-safety education to at least 75% of Arlington Public Schools’ K-12 students by 2025 and 100% by 2030.
- Increase the number of adult participants in bicycle education and encouragement events, such as Bike to Work Day, by at least 5% per year.
- Complete 75% of the planned Low Traffic Stress Bicycle Network by 2025 and 90% by 2030.
- Provide a low-traffic-stress bicycle route within a quarter-mile of at least 80% of all households by 2025 and 95% by 2030.
- Achieve an 8% bicycle commute mode share by 2025 and 12% by 2030.
- Have at least 10% of K-12 students bicycling to school by 2025 and 15% by 2030.
- Increase the number of bicyclists counted on specified trail and street facilities by an average of at least 2% each year.
- Reconstruct or repave at least 4% of multi-use trail miles each year.
- Provide covered bicycle parking spaces at 100% of transit stations and schools by 2030.
- Expand access and use of Capital Bikeshare, with the number of unique users increasing by 5% annually.
The goals were seen as aspirational at the time, and no one envisioned the disruption to daily life that would occur with the onset of the Covid pandemic just a year later.
At the committee meeting, concerns were raised not just about the county government’s commitment to the goals, but also that of Arlington Public Schools.
Reporting on APS efforts has been “inconsistent” and currently only 11 county schools per year provide bicycle-education instruction. As a result, the school system seems to be falling well short of the goal of having 75% of students receive classwork in bicycle safety.
Shelton said questions about why are best asked of school leaders.
“There’s not much that I can do,” he said. “I have no say over their program.”
In 2024, police recorded 39 vehicular-bicycle crashes countywide, down from 52 in 2023. Since 2018, annual totals have ranged from 69 in 2019 to 33 in 2020, when vehicular traffic fell substantially during the pandemic.
In 2024, three of the crashes were considered severe or critical, and the vast majority, 30, involved vehicles and bicycles colliding at an angle to one another.
Shelton said most occurred during the afternoon and early evening and a majority occurred in or adjacent to an intersection.
