The National Park Service has proposed a…significant and largely unwelcome…addition to Memorial Circle near Arlington Cemetery, and with it, some not-terrible changes to the surrounding sidewalks and trails. This is a popular connection point between Rosslyn and Crystal City (via the Mount Vernon Trail) and between Arlington and DC (via Memorial Bridge) and of course to Arlington Cemetery, so improvements would be positive and meaningful.

Public comment is open now through this coming Monday June 15th. While we certainly don’t overall support this costly vanity project, we do think it could be worth specifically calling out the positive changes to bicycle and pedestrian access. The transportation plans are complicated but advocates have identified several encouraging bits:

  1. Trail widths between Arlington Cemetery and Memorial Bridge Mount Vernon Trail are being expanded to 10-15 feet. The south side trail, for example is currently only ~6 feet wide.
  2. Crossings that currently use Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) over the lanes on Washington Boulevard appear to be upgraded to full traffic signals. 
  3. Pedestrian refuge islands and traffic signals are being added to the east and west sides of Memorial Circle where there is currently no crosswalk and an unsignalized crosswalk, respectfully.
  4. Trail crossings over Washington Boulevard on both the north and south sides of Memorial Circle are being moved closer in, thus improving visibility.
  5. Traffic lane widths appear to remain the same or be slightly reduced.

You may have additional feedback on the project’s overall validity, architecture, messaging, etc, and you are welcome to include that in your comments. Please do note that NPS reviews and filters comments for substantive input; comments that only denigrate without additional context may end up excluded from the record. Do with this information what you will.

Diagrams to illustrate the proposed changes are shown below:

A – Pedestrian/Bike movements – red is old pedestrian flow, green is new flow; NORTH IS LEFT:

B – West Side (closest to Arlington Cemetery):

C – East Side (Closest to DC):