Bicyclists tell us what their commute in Tysons is really like

This article was first published on September 23, 2019. As conversations about bicycling continue to shift to the forefront, especially during the pandemic, we wanted to share this article with you again. Also, here is the follow up to this piece.

Some of them fall, and get back up. Some of them get hit, and get back up. Some of them navigate scenarios that would make most of us throw in the towel. Nope, we’re not describing boxers, but rather people bicycling around Tysons, Virginia, a notoriously car-oriented “edge city.”

Tysons is essentially a suburban office park that was built around cars. But now, in an effort to transform into a bona-fide city, it’s working to integrate other modes of transportation into the grid. Part of the vision for how Tysons will grow, as explained in its comprehensive plan, calls for “a redesigned transportation system with circulator routes, community shuttles, feeder bus service, and vastly improved pedestrian and bicycle routes and connections.”

There are plans in place to improve upon Tysons’ biking infrastructure laid out in a master bike plan, which was first established in 2011. FCDOT has spent about $300 million to date on pedestrian improvements around the county, which includes bicycle, pedestrian, and bus stop improvement projects. (We reached out to the county to find out how much was spent in Tysons specifically, and will update the article when we receive that information.)

But the real test of bikeability is always how safe people feel pedaling on the road. So I decided to talk to a few locals who bike to work.

Bike commuters keep calm and pedal on

Brian Price has commuted from Chantilly, Virginia to Tysons for work nearly every day for the past five years. His commute is about 15 to 20 miles each way. For him, understanding where he is going is pivotal to getting around on a bicycle.

“It took me a while to develop routes and understand certain roads to find places to cut through. I just try to get really creative,” Price said. “You’re spending a whole lot of time on Google Maps. I am still evolving my routes after all that time.”

As an experienced cyclist and former racer, Price is comfortable with getting through the city, but he said he understands the difficulty of transforming a car-centered city into one for bicyclists.

“I think the solution is to bulldoze the whole thing and start over,” Price said. “Despite the intention, you have this culture. You have crazy amounts of traffic and crazy amounts of lanes and a culture where you are trained to drive as fast as you can.”

Which is not to say that Price won’t stop bicycling. In fact, he has continued despite having been struck twice by drivers, once on Gallows Road in Tysons.

“It was scary,” Price said recalled about the crashes. “It’s basically twice I’ve been flirting with death.”

Despite it all Price is still able to see some positive growth for bicyclists: “I do see progress being made. I see bike lanes in front of these new buildings. It’s baby steps.”

Chip Boyd, who has been riding from Herndon, Virginia into Tysons for five years, has had a similar journey. He first started bicycling three miles to the Metro, but soon he expanded his ride from home all the way to the office.

A lot of Boyd’s trek uses the Washington and Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) to get into the city. It’s once he’s inside Tysons when things start to get hairy.

“Tysons is weird,” Boyd said. ”It’s like they want to put bike lanes in but they forget to finish them. They have these bike lanes that start, go on for 100 yards, and then they stop for no reason…I am glad there are bike lanes but I really wish they would continue.” On some streets, a bike lane will start and then abruptly stop, “and they put you right back onto the street,” he added.

Both Boyd and Price told me they want to see more continuity around planning the bike lanes.

Things are getting better—slowly

Yvette White, an Annandale resident and board member of the Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, bikes to work in the Tysons/McLean area. She has seen how the area has transformed for bikers over the years.

“If you’re in the center of Tysons like Westpark as a walker you are fine, but as a bicyclist, it’s quite intimidating because they have so much of the road dedicated to cars and not very much space dedicated to bicyclists,” White said.

White has been biking consistently since 2016, and comes to Tysons often. While things are not quite where they need to be for bicyclists, she says “It’s much better than it was 10 years ago.”

As the county works to improve the infrastructure, interest in bicycling as an alternative to driving to work is increasing.

“I don’t know if people are encouraged because of the way that Tysons is developing, but I do think that the Northern Virginia area is seeing a lot more cycling,” Boyd said. “I know more people at work who want to bike to work.”

What has been your experience biking in Tysons?