The bicycle racks at Rosslyn Metro Station are once again filled with bikes that never leave at night. The bike rack is down to just a few empty spaces commuters can use.

During September 2006 I reached out to Dan Tangherlini and the metro board members at a WMATA Town Hall Meeting requesting that bike racks be monitored and long term, abandoned bikes be tagged and removed a few days later making room for commuters to park their bikes. You can see this posting further down in this section of the NRCA Forum.

On November 30, 2009, I sent the following request about the bike rack situation as part of an email to Paul Bumbry, Rail Transportation Customer Service Manager as a follow up to Metro's regular inspection of the Rosslyn station:

The bicycle rack at Rosslyn Station is almost complete full of bicycles when the metro closes. These bicycles, generally, are stolen and abandoned bikes. There are few spaces left for commuters to park their bikes. The community asks that bikes be tagged and those bikes where tags remain after 48 hours be removed from the metro station freeing up space for biking commuters. Side note: I thought we had the monitoring of bikes made part of the WMATA standard operating procedure at the Rosslyn Metro Station several years ago. We are still having to call attention to the abandoned and stolen bike situation. Can this be made part of WMATA's operation so that at the end of each month bikes remaining at station closing time are tagged and those with tags are removed after 48 hours? If this procedure isn't acceptable what does WMATA propose? At this time it seems you are doing nothing to keep abandoned bikes from accumulating in the station unless we complain.

I also sent this email on December 4, 2009, to Capt. Brian Berke. Capt. Berke is responsible for the 2nd district police unit which includes Rosslyn:

This past Monday we asked WMATA to tag and 48 hours later remove abandoned bicycles at the Rosslyn Metro Station. The bike rack inside the station is full of bicycles that are not being claimed by commuters by the end of the day. As a result, only 2 or 3 spaces remain in the rack for commuter use. This has been on ongoing problem our community has repeatedly reported. Unfortunately, WMATA Police do not have a standing procedure to monitor and remove abandoned and stolen bicycles. The community has to request action, which we did this past Monday. The reason I am sending this email is to let you know about this situation and that Arlington Police may be interested in checking these bicycles against any list of stolen bicycles you might have. There could very well be a number of stolen bicycles that have ended up in this bike rack. Would you please pass this email on to the person in Arlington County Police that deals with stolen property recovery? Let us know if the community can be of any assistance,

On Dec 4, 2009 Capt. Berke responded back:

Thank you for keeping me up to date on this issue. Auxiliary Police Lieutenant Heather Hurlock is our main point of contact for bicycle registration and stolen bicycles. I know that she has checked this location in the past. I am copying her on this response so that she is also aware of the latest. Regards,

Also on Dec 4, 2009, Paul Bumbry responded back:
I apologize that the oversight of the Rosslyn bike racks has declined over time. I have contacted the station manager and have a call into my Transit police contact to re-define our process for ensuring these racks are being utilized appropriately. I will contact you once I have all of the information I need to proceed and to resolve this matter once and for all.

There are a number of bike commuters that live in North Rosslyn and quite a few more that live in surrounding areas. We will update this area as we hear back from WMATA and Arlington Police.