The reversible rush hour lanes on Connecticut Avenue have been suspended since March 19th, 2020. For a while on Monday, it looked like that was about to change.
It started with an email sent to members of the community advisory committee for DDOT’s Connecticut Avenue reversible lanes safety study.
“I want to advise you that traffic operations on Connecticut Avenue will resume to pre-pandemic conditions, effective June 1. This means that parking enforcement and reversible lane operations will return,” wrote DDOT’s Ed Stollof. “Please let your constituencies know that these changes will occur as all pre-pandemic traffic operations throughout the City will resume.”
That the parking enforcement would resume on June 1st was well known. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the change at an April 19th news conference and it got a great deal of local media coverage. But there was no public mention of resuming reversible lane operations.
Two members of the advisory committee are ANC 3F chair David Cristeal and Bob Deyling, the chair of ANC 3F’s Streets and Sidewalks Committee. They had received a great deal of feedback from residents about the Connecticut Avenue study, most of it in opposition to the reversible lanes. And they immediately got to work.
Deyling sent the following to the DDOT project team, and then to Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh:
1) The data DDOT has collected for the study suggest there are clear safety issues with the reversible lanes.
2) The study also suggests that there is no actual need for the reversible lanes. DDOT has noted “excess capacity” with a 4-2 lane configuration. DDOT presentations have noted that even 3 lanes in each direction appears to provide excess capacity for traffic, and the study has proposed several options that involve only 2 lanes in each direction.
3) There is apparently no written analysis for the creation of the reversible lanes in the first place. At the least, there should be a detailed justification to keep them going forward, considering the clear safety issues associated with them.
Cheh responded a few minutes later with an email addressing DDOT’s interim director, Everett Lott.
“There is no demonstrated need for the reversible lanes, they are unsafe, and we are in the midst of considering two alternative designs for reconfiguring Connecticut Avenue, BOTH of which discard the reversible lanes,” Cheh wrote.
“In short, we don’t need them, we don’t want them, and they cause accidents and injuries.”
Monday evening, Lott replied to Cheh: “DDOT will not be resuming the reversible lane on Connecticut Ave. on June 1.”
ANC 3F chair Cristeal then sent a “thank you” email to Council member Cheh. He also requested clarification on rush-hour parking on Connecticut Avenue, and requested that parking enforcement be suspended until the DDOT study has been completed.
DDOT staff is currently going through public comments and preparing their recommendation, which they are to present to DDOT management by June 30th.
Joyce Stern says
I am very glad that at least for now reversible lanes will not return. They were always a threat to life and limb.
Green Eyeshades says
What a relief to have DDOT show creativity and quick response.
ANC3F has been totally on the ball about these issues for years. I am amazed to hear that “even 3 lanes in each direction appears to provide excess capacity for traffic,” and that “[t]here is apparently no written analysis for the creation of the reversible lanes in the first place.”
I hope DDOT and the Mayor ask DC Council to fully fund Build Concept C now, in the supplemental budget for this fiscal year (FY 2021) and in the budget to be released tomorrow for FY 2022, which starts October first, 2021. If the Executive does not ask for full funding, I hope our Ward 3 Councilmember will ask for full funding now.
Roberta Carroll says
The traffic is not going away and not dealing with it only makes pollution worse and drivers frustrated as they sit at red lights and cannot move. About 35,000 cars use Conn. Ave. each work day and there are no other roads that are open to taking this traffic. The reversible lanes have been in existence for years and serve the purpose of moving rush hour traffic. To pretend it is not needed is putting your head in the sand and ignoring reality. DDOT has become so political that there opinion is useless. They study a road and have no new suggestions but what the ANC is telling them. That is not good transportation policy.
Gawain Kripke Kripke says
great work!!!!
Kathy Sykes says
Fantastic and quick work by our great leaders, Bob, David and Mary Cheh.
Stephen Chapman says
Maybe it’s because I am 71, retired, and are no longer commuting back and forth by car to work downtown, but the apparently prevailing notion that reversible lanes during rush-hour are a safety threat which cause accidents is not historically correct and is only a relatively recent phenomenon. If they are a hazard today, it is due primarily to the lack of adequate and visible signage which provide clear notice to commuters of the hours that reversible lanes are in effect.
Other key factors are the ignorance of younger and out of state drivers who are unfamiliar with our decades long system of reversible lanes and, especially, those many drivers who insist upon using their cell phones during their commutes. This last factor I would imagine is a far greater danger for commuters than reversible lanes.
In any case, during most of my commuting years (early 1970s through 2012), driving by car in and out of Washington during rush hour was far less prone to bumper to bumper traffic because commuters of that era were familiar with the rush-hour lane changes (three lanes going one way and two the other depending on whether it was evening or morning rush hour). Signage was also more visible and was maintained. This changed in the early 2000s as the city failed to maintain or improve rush-hour street signage related to reversible lanes. Many of them which had lights were no longer working, and other related signage was not repaired, upgraded, or replaced. I understand that the city was considering installing new lighted signs that would be elevated above the roads, but there was a blowback from many who believed that the were “eyesores.” Perhaps not curiously, the city did continue to upgrade traffic street lights, including elevating them above the road. Elevated street lights are okay but not elevated reversible lane signage? It is clear that rush-hour reversible lanes have become more dangerous, but it is because of inadequate signage, lack of familiarity of them by drivers, and inattentive drivers.
Obviously, reversible lanes are growing out of fashion today and that’s not a bad thing because of the changing nature of commuting today: increasing numbers of people are not using their cars (if they own them at all) to get to and from their jobs, with many more relying on bicycles, rental scooters, or mass transit.
Roberta Carroll says
I agree with these comments. When traffic returns to the normal of pre covid days you will need the reversible lanes to get traffic out of downtown. Better signage and overhead light showing which lanes are open works. What you seem to want instead is traffic backed up at traffic lights, increase pollution and now you want the bikers to be beside excessive pollution. This is not an improvement to transportation.
mike says
privileging cars has only lead to quality of life decline. in dense areas, cars cannot be the solution. our area has metro trains; and we need massive use of and investment in rapid buses in dedicated lanes, as they have been developed to great effect all over the world. this will not happen, of course, as the usa cant get anything done…so the situation will only get worse.
if youre lucky you can ride a bicycle…its heavenly easy to get around by bicycle, even in the worst weather. and i’ll be 80 next year…
Paul says
I at least believe that parking enforcement during rush hour should be resumed. With parking, and cars making left turns or double parking, there is essentially only a single lane of vehicles consistently moving.
glen says
I got two $100 tickets early this week for rush hour parking — which I was told was NOT going into effect on Connecticut Ave, as has resumed in the rest of the city. Late in the week, an email from Mary Cheh’s office says, in part, “I have requested that DPW rescind those rush hour tickets already issued, but nevertheless residents should check on the status of their individual tickets for this location and contest them if they were recieved for a rush hour violation.”
Elliot says
I received a parking ticket for $100 as well on the 5200 block of Connecticut Ave. Are you going to fight it
FHC says
Big update from CM Cheh just now:
DDOT has announced that all rush-hour parking restrictions are in effect on Connecticut Avenue NW and that full ticketing enforcement will resume effective immediately (today’s announcement is available here: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/DCWASH/bulletins/2e62ca3).
When last week’s newsletter was published, DDOT and DPW had agreed to cease ticketing until the two agencies could come to an agreement on whether to conduct enforcement or not, but now that a decision has been reached and ticketing has resumed, it is important to adhere to the restrictions.
Green Eyeshades says
Thanks to @WABADC and other Twitter accounts, we can read this short letter to the editor of The Washington Post concluding “D.C. continues to talk about its Vision Zero enhancements, but Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and the D.C. Council need to follow through by funding the Connecticut Avenue protected bike lane.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/dc-has-a-history-of-not-following-through-on-promised-transit-improvements/2021/06/24/e5e453b6-d2ca-11eb-b39f-05a2d776b1f4_story.html
The letter to the editor is signed by one of ANC 3F’s commissioners, along with two other ANC commissioners from neighborhoods along Connecticut Avenue, and by a member of the DC Bicycle Advisory Council.