Opinion

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By: Gillian Burgess

Over Labor Day weekend, thousands of people enjoyed Arlington’s awesome network of safe, pleasant bike trails. Too often, however, the routes connecting our beautiful trails to the cafes, coffee shops and retail in the more urban parts of Arlington do not feel safe and comfortable for most people to bike on. Thousands of people stick to the trails and miss out on a lot of what Arlington has to offer.

The Bike Friendly Ballston wants to change that: The Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s Arlington Action Committee is calling on Arlington County to build protected bike lanes on North Quincy Street between the Custis Trail (along I-66) and Glebe Road.

Protected bike lanes provide the experience of biking without cars, but at a fraction of the cost of building a trail.

Most protected bike lanes, like the ones Arlington already installed in Pentagon City, flip the painted bike lane and the parking lane, so that the streetscape become sidewalk, curb, bike lane, then a buffer, parked cars, moving cars and the double yellow line — with the reverse order for traffic traveling in the other direction.

Some protected bike lanes, like those on 15th Street NW in D.C., put both bikes traveling in both directions against one curb, so the streetscape is sidewalk, curb, two-way protected bike lane, buffer, parking, one direction of moving traffic, the other direction of moving traffic, parking, curb and sidewalk.

To install a protected bike lane, the county needs only to put down some paint, put up a few flex-posts and add signage. When a street is repaved, installing protected bike lanes is practically free.

On Quincy, protected bike lanes would give people a low-stress route from the Custis Trail into the heart of Ballston. They would also connect to 5th Street North, which ends just before Quincy and Glebe, and is a great neighborhood road to bike on through Ashton Heights and Lyon Park.

By replacing the painted bike lanes that currently appear and disappear on this stretch, they would give people who do not feel comfortable riding a bike alongside moving cars the opportunity to connect to Washington-Lee High School, the Central Library and surrounding parks, and all of the shopping, dining, and coffee available in Ballston.

Protected bike lanes on Quincy would be good for everyone using Quincy Street. Because protected bike lanes feel safer, people would bike on the sidewalk far less, leaving the sidewalks free for people walking. Having a clear space for bikes would also reduce the complicated and confusing interactions that currently take place between people driving and biking on Quincy, especially around Washington Boulevard, where the current bike lanes suddenly disappear.

Protected bike lanes are also good for business. Already, about four times as many people bike on the Custis Trail as bike on Quincy. With a safe option, people would be enticed to enjoy all of the amenities Ballston has to offer. And study after study shows that people on bikes shop locally more often and spend more locally overall than people in cars. A quick stop at Buzz is easy on a bike, when you don’t have to worry about parking your car.

This proposal was brought to the County Board in February, and the entire Board was supportive of the project (discussion starting around nine minutes in the video). In March, the county manager told the board “we can do it” (discussion starting around 1:17 in the video). This month, we should finally get to see some plans.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee is set to meet with county staff to walk through some options next week (Monday, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. on the Quincy Street side of the Central Library) and the Arlington Action Committee will meet with county staff the following week (Monday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at a yet-to-be-determined location). Both meetings are open to the public.

Bike Friendly Ballston already has the support of over 600 people, most of the businesses along the route, and two surrounding neighborhood associations. You can find out more and lend your support by heading to http://www.waba.org/advocacy/campaigns/bike-friendly-ballston/.

Gillian Burgess is the current chair of Arlington County’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, the founder of Kidical Mass Arlington, and the former vice chair of APS’s Multimodal Transportation and Student Safety Special Committee. She lives in Cherrydale with her husband and three children.

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com. 

By: Abby Raphael

Arlington is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, with a median 2016 household income of $110,900. Yet 8.8% of all Arlington residents live in poverty, with an income of about $24,000 or less for a family of four. Twelve percent of Arlington’s children live in poverty. Arlington must address the effects of this economic inequality, particularly on our children, in a coordinated way so that all children and families can be successful.

During the last school year, nearly 8,000 students in Arlington Public Schools (APS), 30% of all APS students, were eligible for free or reduced price meals. Families of four with an annual income of about $45,000 or less qualify for this program.

While Arlington students across income levels score well on standardized tests, there remains a relationship between socioeconomic status and achievement that should be addressed. For example, in 2015-16, 71% of economically disadvantaged school students in Arlington passed the English standards of learning tests (SOL), compared with 87% of all Arlington students. For the math SOL, the pass rates were 73% versus 87%.

National efforts to address achievement gaps as part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have focused on standardized testing, charter schools, and national standards, known as the Common Core. Diane Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education and NCLB proponent, concluded in a recent New York Times article that these efforts have failed. Ravitch wrote that one of the main causes of low student achievement is poverty and “[w]hat is called ‘the achievement gap’ is actually an ‘opportunity gap’.”

So, how do we address childhood poverty and the opportunity gap to help all students achieve at higher levels?

First, we must recognize that this is a responsibility of the entire Arlington community and not just APS. Through a shared vision and coordinated efforts of County government, APS, non-profits, businesses, the faith community, and individuals, we can make a real difference. This is the power of collective impact: a model that brings people together in a structured way to achieve positive results.

Community schools, a form of collective impact, bring together school and community resources for children. They integrate academics, health and wellness, social services, and family and community engagement to improve student achievement for all students, especially low-income students. Carlin Springs Elementary School is a community school, supported with federal funding. In addition, Barcroft Elementary School, Gunston Middle School, and Wakefield and Arlington Mill High Schools are community schools, with staffing from Communities in Schools of Northern Virginia, part of the national non-profit network, Communities in Schools (CIS).

CIS was founded 40 years ago by Arlingtonian Bill Milliken, who writes in The Last Dropout that to be successful, students need: “a one-on-one relationship with a caring adult; a safe place to learn and grow; a healthy start and a healthy future; a marketable skill to use upon graduation; and a chance to give back to peers and the community.”

Whether assisted through CIS, federal grants, or other similar programs with track records of success, community schools bring existing community resources together to provide greater opportunities for students and families. National research shows that the community school model works for all of us – improving attendance and performance on standardized tests, reducing behavioral problems, and reducing the dropout rate.

In Arlington, we have many non-profit organizations, faith communities, businesses and individuals partnering with APS and County government that do excellent work to help low-income students. They provide mentors, tutors, food, after-school programs, and more. However, these efforts need to be coordinated in a more systematic way to identify which students have the most need, evaluate what efforts are most effective, and best match the community’s existing resources with those needs.

To best serve our low-income students and families, and to be equitable, Arlington should expand the community school model from five schools that now have it to all schools with significant populations of students eligible for free or reduced price meals. This requires additional staffing to leverage the community’s existing resources, coordinate efforts, establish and monitor measures of success, and communicate effectively.

As APS and County government leaders consider their priorities for the coming budget, I urge them to expand community schools, which have demonstrated effectiveness in improving outcomes for low-income students. Such a strategic investment aimed at economic inequality will benefit the entire community. 

Abby Raphael is co-Chair of Arlington’s Project Peace Prevention Committee, which addresses domestic violence and sexual assault. She also serves as a member of the Board of the Arlington YMCA and the Second Chance Advisory Committee. She was a member of the Arlington School Board from 2008-2015, including two terms as Chair, and is a former Arlington Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney.