Bicycling & Walking

Bicycling and walking are healthy, inexpensive, environmentally friendly ways of getting around, and many Washington area commuters find biking or walking to work or to public transportation both practical and enjoyable. The metro area has a great system of trails and other infrastructure that allow bicyclists and pedestrians to bypass traffic and arrive at work awake and energized. Choose a topic from the menu at left to find out more.

Biking & Walking in the Washington, D.C. Area

This area is surprising bike- and pedestrian-friendly, with hundreds of miles of interconnected off-street trails and on-street bike routes. Major area trails are listed on the Biking & Walking Trails and Routes page.

Biking and walking are important modes of transportation in themselves, but they also are often the first or last leg of "multimodal" commutes and other trips. According to the 2005 Arlington County Public Perceptions of Transit Study, 72 percent of Arlington residents who use Metrorail get to the station by walking. And the number of bikes in Metro station bike racks attest to the popularity of combining bicycling and Metrorail. Another option for cyclists is to take their bikes with them on transit to use on both ends of the trip.

Area Biking and Walking Organizations and Interest Groups

There are many biking and walking organizations, websites, blogs, interest groups, and advocacy groups in the Washington, D.C. area. Many are listed on the Bicycling Links and Resources page and the Walking Links and Resources page, but we'd like to single a few out here:

• The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is one of the oldest and largest bicycle advocacy groups in the United States, and is a great resource for D.C.-area cyclists. Be sure to check out WABA's site for more bicycling news and events, commuter assistance, and more.
• WALKArlington.com is focused on Arlington, Virginia, but has lots of information of interest to other area walkers.
• BikeArlington.com is another Arlington site with lots of content and links that cyclists in the area will find useful.