Arlington Boulevard runs just over twelve miles from the National Mall in Washington, DC to Fairfax City, VA, crossing several jurisdictional lines and the Potomac River along the way. The thoroughfare connects more than 100,000 people living in adjacent neighborhoods to offices, retail, parks, schools, and government services. What it lacks is a consistent, high-quality bicycling route. We came up with an analysis of what it would take to solve this problem.

As you can see in the map above, much of an Arlington Boulevard bicycle route already exists. On-road paths and wide service roads with little traffic run parallel to many sections of the road, but they don’t connect to each other. 1.3 miles of bridges and 8.1 miles of protected bicycle lanes (or on-road shared-use paths) would create a continuous trail, 22 miles in length, on both the north and south sides of Arlington Boulevard. Investing in linking this piecemeal infrastructure into a continuous trail corridor—and linking that corridor, in turn, to the regional trail network, would unlock the full potential of the corridor as a place for people, not just automobiles.

We put together a details analysis of the current infrastructure and recommendations for connecting and improving the network.  You can explore the full document here:

Arlington Boulevard Trail Concept Plan

We also have a limited number of paper copies of this document. If you’d like a copy, please send us an email.