Vienna Residents Want More Bike Routes, According To Survey

Vienna residents are ready for more bike routes in town – now, it's just a matter of putting infrastructure in place to support them, says a survey conducted this summer by the Vienna Bicycle Advisory Committee.

“We are trying to make the Town of Vienna a more bike-friendly community,” said Cristina Janoski, co-chair of the Vienna BAC. “Ninety-five percent of the people that responded to this survey basically said that it is either important or very important that the Town of Vienna add more bike routes.”

The 12-question survey was distributed online and answered by more than 350 Vienna residents, business owners and employees.

More bike routes would provide more environmentally friendly ways for people to travel in Vienna, Janoski said, and would eliminate some of the traffic backups that seem to plague Maple Avenue regardless of the time of day.

“We in N.W. Vienna by Madison High School have no real good/safe way to get down to the bike path. It would be wonderful to somehow designate paths along Nutley, Lawyers, Orchard and Church/Ayr Hill Streets to facilitate [the] bike path and town,” wrote resident Shani M. “It is really unsafe riding with my 6-year-old son on the road down to the town."

Maple Avenue was the most requested spot for a bike route by residents taking the survey.

The other top five most requested streets were:

1. Maple Avenue
2. Church Street
3. To Tysons Corner
4. Cottage Street
5. Lawyers and Tapawingo Roads

In addition to asking about bike routes and signage, the survey asked where bike racks were most needed in town.

“People are saying that if you had more bike racks in town, we’re more apt to run errands [or] go to a restaurant by bike,” Janoski said.

The top five most requested locations for bike racks, according to the survey, were:

1. Giant
2. "Shopping Centers and Strip Malls"
3. "Grocery Stores"
4. "Other Businesses In Vienna"
5. Magruders

The BAC will appear before the Vienna Board of Architectural Review on Thursday to ask for an approval of a streamlined process for businesses to obtain bike racks.

The committee is also working on a map of Vienna highlighting more bike routes that could be added.

For some residents, bike routes are not just a matter of convenience or traffic – it's also about safety, they said.

"I bicycled across the country," wrote resident Antoine M in the survey. "Yet the only place I've been hit was by a driver on the bicycle trail crossing a road in Vienna in broad daylight."

Click here to see the complete survey results and comments from respondents. 

You can also see the full PDF of the survey in the media player above.