Chesapeake Street HAWK light on hold

The new pedestrian-activated traffic signal at Connecticut and Ellicott Street is to be activated any day now, but plans for a similar light at Chesapeake have hit a snag.

Wasim Raja, the head of traffic lights at DDOT, was ready to start the design process for installing a HAWK light at Chesapeake and Connecticut. But when he went back to double check that everything was in order, he found an error in the numbers needed to justify a signal at that location. A typo in a consultants’ report put the number of people crossing Connecticut Avenue at Chesapeake during its surveys at 24 in an hour’s time. The count had found only 12 at most.

For some reason, many pedestrians shy away from crossing six lanes of 30+ mph traffic at Connecticut and Chesapeake.

That means no HAWK signal at this intersection because the District follows federal standards that require at least a count of 20 crossings in an hour. Four studies of this intersection found the highest number of pedestrians crossing during a peak hour was 12. However, we know that demand would be higher if there were a signal here. Most people who responded to our survey last year said they don’t risk this crossing because Connecticut Avenue traffic moves too quickly.

Raja and George Branyan, the pedestrian coordinator at DDOT, will be considering other options for this intersection, which has a bus stop on the east side of Connecticut and a playground just a block away on Chesapeake.