DDOT has not made it clear in its public meetings and communications about the next steps of its Connecticut Avenue safety study, but the design phase now under way is to include more opportunities for public input. Those include its October Connecticut Avenue walkthroughs.
I attended parts of two of the three walkthroughs, joining the group leaders and attendees between Veazey Terrace and Davenport Street on October 11th, and from Davenport to Nebraska on October 17th. DDOT representatives were collecting comments on parking and loading issues on each block, and explaining possible solutions.
The walks had 20 or so participants each time. I saw Ward 3 Council candidate Matt Frumin and ANC 3F candidates Andrew Koval, Ryan Cudemus-Brunoli, Courtney Carlson and Rona Walters. Most of the participants were residents of the apartment buildings lining the avenue, and were knowledgeable about how the street is used. DDOT consultants were taking copious notes.
Among the concerns raised were the impacts of planned bike lanes on each side of Connecticut Avenue. Participants wondered how they might affect loading zones for and deliveries to residents from small businesses, parking for landscape and other workers who need access to the apartment buildings, and access to bus stops, particularly for those passengers with mobility issues.
Access for emergency vehicles also came up. Jami Milanovich, a transportation engineer with Wells Associates and the lead consultant on the project study, handled most of the questions. She described a bump structure along the bike lanes that emergency vehicles could easily cross.
I asked DDOT’s Ed Stollof about an issue with the process: We have not been well-informed about what the design phase entails, including how and when the community would be asked for further input. He replied with a list of elements to be included in the preliminary and final designs, then provided more detail in a later exchange.
At intersections: The plans include removing slip lanes, adding left and right turn lanes, adding or modifying crosswalks, and adding curb extensions, medians and pedestrian refuge islands. Stollof said they were also looking at adding pedestrian signals, such as HAWKS, and adjusting pedestrian crossing times.
At bus stops: Changes would include moving stops, and adding safe boarding accommodations such as platforms at the same level as the sidewalks. There may also be signs, street markings and traffic calming features on the approaches to the stops.
In parking and loading areas: DDOT is looking at adding ADA-compliant parking spaces including provisions for wheelchair access, and revising parking locations and durations. In other words, we could see more short-term parking. Stollof said the design team would also be revising parking and loading plans based on the comments from the walkthroughs.
I did not get an answer to my question about the input process. DDOT community relations specialist Christian Piñeiro, at ANC 3F’s October 18th meeting, talked about the public engagement process thus far, and his presentation included a slide that mentioned public meetings “at strategic points in the design and construction process,” but he did not provide any specifics about future opportunities for public feedback.
DDOT also has yet to detail how it will engage the senior community on their Connecticut Avenue safety needs. DDOT’s Stollof said the management of senior residences along the avenue had been contacted about the study. However, Chevy Chase House, Regency House, Sunrise Senior Living and Forest Hills of DC told me and community member William Sittig that they did not know about the plan for bike lanes. Nor did Northwest Neighbors Village and Cleveland Park Village.
I passed this information along to the Mayor’s Office of Racial Equity, which is performing a “racial equity impact analysis” of the project, currently set for December release. This is the first DC transportation project to undergo such a study, and is to include impacts on seniors and people with disabilities.
Piñeiro’s ANC presentation included a new slide on how bike lanes might be designed with pedestrian safety in mind:
It says:
The project will adopt a design approach that will bolster pedestrian safety by:
1. Implementing marked crosswalks at bicycle lanes at key locations, using high visibility markings.
2. Utilizing strategic signage to alert cyclists to the presence of pedestrians.
3. Ensuring clear sight lines at accessible parking spaces by meeting ADA aisle width requirements.
4. Using bicycle traffic calming techniques at targeted locations, where warranted.
“This is not a bike lane project,” Piñeiro said. “I know that’s kind of a big piece of the pie but it’s really just a safety improvement project at the core of what we’re doing. It’s taking one stretch of road and seeing how we can make it useful for all modes of transportation.”
Piñeiro’s presentation also listed potential locations for DDOT traffic calming reviews on neighborhood streets due to concerns about cut-through traffic. Those include Reno Road at 41st Street, Chevy Chase Parkway, Nevada Avenue, Utah Avenue, Broad Branch Road/Beach Drive, Linnean Avenue and Albemarle Street.
Paul Harrison says
Thanks for the comprehensive update Marlene. Anyone trying to walk across Connecticut or pick something up from a store can tell you that this street doesn’t work well for the community now. Vacant Van Ness storefronts are just one symptom.
The DDot study is our once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the commercial strip heart of our community.
Everyone should contribute constructively, As your article shows there’s lots of opportunity and lots of designing left to make Connecticut better for residents, walkers cyclists, stores, and drivers.
Rona Walters says
Thank you, Marlene, for posting the thorough and thoughtful first-person account of the DDOT-sponsored walk along Connecticut Avenue. I participated in the two days where the section of Connecticut from Veazey Terrace to Legation was under review. DDOT management and staff, and their consultants, listened carefully, asked probing questions, and noted the issues that the neighbors have with the conceptual layout of the safety and bicycle-lane changes to Connecticut that Marlene outlined in her article, in particular how parking and loading would work.
I know that over the past few years there has been give and take within ANC 3F and the other ANCs along Connecticut Avenue, and the ANCs all voted to support the proposal to reconfigure the Avenue to improve its safety and add lanes for bicycle traffic. There has been enthusiastic support, and enthusiastic opposition to the conceptual design that was presented to the public in June 2022, which was the latest in a series of concepts presented in the last few years.
I have spoken with hundreds of residents of ANC3F06 over the past several weeks, which was my goal to fully understand their views on the Connecticut Avenue project. Among these neighbors, there is considerable skepticism about the concepts DDOT provided to date, and there is a strong desire to get things right. Enthusiasm is a good thing, but my view is that the coming months will be critical. The project will soon enter the detailed design phase, which will lead to contracting and construction, and then we will all have to live with the result.
Whoever is elected to the ANCs in Forest Hills and elsewhere in Northwest, in the upcoming general election (November 8) will have an obligation to open their ears to ALL of our neighbors’ concerns and needs, and maintain a healthy and probing skepticism to ensure DDOT gets this project right. Connecticut Avenue is our area’s most important main street — so I encourage everyone with a point of view to be part of the conversation with respect for one another. I promise that I will.
RP says
Listening to the whole community means also listening to those two-wheel users and advocates who you and those who are associated with the “Save Connecticut Avenue” website and the Krucoff campaign decry as “the bike lobby”. I would encourage you to pause that rhetoric, which only serves to continue the grouping of cyclists as “the other”.
Consider watching Not Just Bike’s video about “cyclists”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMed1qceJ_Q&t=120s
DavidJonas Bardin says
Copious note-taking and soothing words are all well and good. But only deeds will ultimately count. Will DDOT significantly revise its initial Concept C ideas? Or will it add minimal features, at most, but basically hunker down in defense of its original ideas?
One test could be DDOT response to issues Jessica Lee found, in March of this year, when she investigated a couple of blocks of DDOT’s existing K Street protected bike lanes. She found safety issues confronting pedestrians, bikers, and a wheelchair-bound, African-American, Metrobus user. That gentleman also accused DDOT of racial discrimination.
— Is DDOT doing anything to improve that K Street situation? Or to justify it?
DDOT’s already-constructed protected bike lanes seem to match its initial Concept C ideas for Connecticut Avenue.
Green Eyeshades says
Looks like you missed this story in Street Sense Media in May 2022:
https://www.streetsensemedia.org/article/k-street-residents-reinitiate-the-conversation-about-protected-bike-lanes/
Street Sense referred to the “wheelchair-bound, African-American, Metrobus user” that you referred to, but then revealed that DDOT already has a remedy on the way for Metrobus users:
“In early 2023, the city plans to install dedicated bus lanes on K St. NW that would physically separate bus routes from other vehicle traffic. These protected bus lanes would eliminate the need for bus riders such as Roberts and Rodgers to cross bike lanes when getting on or off buses, reducing the likelihood of the near-collisions with cyclists they described.”
Meanwhile, who is “Jessica Lee” and where did she publish what “she investigated” about the “existing K Street protected bike lanes?”
RP says
She is the person behind the “Save Conn Ave” website, and she published a long youtube video there a moth or so back about this, which was overdramatic about a cyclist “blazing by on a $3k bike scaring a pedestrian”. In reality, it was some commuter riding by on a beat up old low-end Bianchi at a leisurely pace.
LM says
The “remedy” DDOT is proposing is for the proposed K St. transitway, not the existing K ST. bike lanes that the disabled persons are against. DDOT acknowledged there are problems with the existing bike lanes on .K St (1st St NE to 7th St. NW) and went back out to investigate and try to problem solve. They came up with band-aid solutions to some of the problems like adding signage. Other more serious problems they couldn’t solve without removing the bike lanes. That is the solution but DDOT refuses to consider that. As you can see in the picture, the blue handicap spot requires one to cross the bike lanes.
Green Eyeshades says
No source.
David Jonas Bardin says
I did miss the STREET SENSE article you link.
It is very interesting. Written by Hajira Fuad and dated May 11, 2022, it focuses on a wheelchair-bound, “four-term Advisory Neighborhood Commission member who is up for reelection this year, [who] said his handicap had never stopped him from getting to work.” He is Kevin Rogers (misspelled “Rodgers”) of ANC 6E.
STREET SENSE sets out vivid summaries of protests by Commissioner Rogers and others (and of debating responses). For example, STREET SENSE writes: “In a press release, [Rogers] expressed concern for how protected bike lanes, which include a physical barrier between motor vehicle traffic and bicylists, would impact ‘low-income Black residents who are largely senior and many handicapped.’”
According to STREET SENSE, Commissioner Rogers “demands that the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) conduct a full impact report on bike lanes in D.C. and the safety risks they carry for pedestrians.” That’s a sensible demand, in my opinion.
Green Eyeshades interprets this STREET SENSE article — which I urge readers to consider in its entirety — as stating DDOT’s plan in “early 2023” to install dedicated bus lanes that would physically separate bus routes from other vehicle traffic. “These protected bus lanes would eliminate the need for bus riders … to cross bike lanes when getting on or off buses, reducing the likelihood of the near-collisions with cyclists …” according to STREET SENSE.
One commenter, thinks Green Eyeshades misinterprets the City’s “early 2023” plan and intentions.
Be that as it may, it seems to me that boundless enthusiasm for bike lanes — and all the more so for protected bike lanes — may becloud bicyclist associations, City Council members, DDOT planners, and the Mayor’s office into going along with installing miles of protected bike lanes cheaply, but unwisely, by using the curb as one of two concrete, cyclist-protection, walls. Let’s disenthrall ourselves of know-it-all pre-conceptions. Let’s listen to each other, civilly.
— I will follow-up with a link to Jessica Lee’s 10-minute video, which includes her March 2022 interview with ANC 6E Commissioner Kevin Rogers.
David Jonas Bardin says
You can find a link to the Jessica Lee 10-minute March 2022 K Street Video at: https://youtu.be/KOtjlrc6Y74
I respectfully suggest you watch and listen to it for what you can learn without worrying about pejorative comment FHC posted. (Tempers seem to run hot.)
If you go back to Green Eyeshade’s link to STREET WISE May 2022 article you can access and read it too.
Jean G Santa Maria says
Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough report. And thanks you Forest Hills Connection for your interest in making this available,
Diana Hart says
One aspect that has not surfaced is a necessary distinction between recreational bikers and commuter bikers. We’ve all seen tourists on bikes, including more than a few in family formation.
Livia Bardin says
I watched RPP’s recommended video.. it is a slick, professional product with a nice acknowledgement at the end to those who paid the narrator. It effectively addresses a question not under dispute here: that bike lanes are safer for bike riders. It incidentally shows several examples of well-planned, well-constructed bike lanes. It doesn’t address the specific issues we are confronting about Concept C. It doesn’t address the question of why DDOT is planning to install on Connecticut Ave a system it has acknowledged doesn’t work on K St. According to Street Sense, DDOT will make changes on that stretch of K St like those we are seeking here — access for loading and unloading (both people and goods) at buildings that don’t have driveways, access to buses that doesn’t require boarding and exiting into bike lanes, and parking enough to meet the needs of residents who are not able to walk long distances. RPP asks us to listen. I ask the same of RPP.
Green Eyeshades says
We should be focussing on the obscure new terms or concepts illustrated on the DDOT infographic that Marlene linked to in the main post.
The DDOT graphic is here:
https://i0.wp.com/www.foresthillsconnection.com/site2/wp-content/upLoadImage2012/2022/10/Connecticut-Ave-DDOT-plans-map.png?ssl=1
That graphic lists two new elements in the key at the bottom (right side): Pedestrian Refuge Island (black rectangle), Parking Clearance (blue star), and, most perplexing, a new thing that sounds more like an engineering to-do list than a design element: “Analyze intersection for approach realignment” (green triangle).
The refuge island seems straightforward. But what is “Parking Clearance?” Is that a design element or is that an engineering analysis?
Finally, what the heck is “Analyze intersection for approach realignment?” And has DDOT done any such analysis as part of any other major project?
For our Connecticut Avenue, there are only three green triangles. One at 24th Street just north of Calvert, which appears to be the exit from the kiss-and-ride for the Woodley Park Metro. Then there is one at the Nebraska Avenue intersection with Connecticut, and one at the Chevy Chase Parkway intersection with Connecticut.
I drive on and around and across the Avenue a dozen times a week and I have no idea what an “approach realignment” would be.
Could DDOT be deciding whether to close the kiss-and-ride exit at Woodley Metro?
Why isn’t there a green triangle at the kiss-and-ride exit from our Van Ness UDC Metro stop?
Marlene quoted “DDOT community relations specialist Christian Piñeiro” as saying “This is not a bike lane project,” but the top caption on the DDOT infographic says “Protected Bike Lanes — Corridor Wide.” So who is he kidding?
David Jonas Bardin says
Amen.
We have to focus on details.
Your analysis of obscure terms for stretch south of Calvert Street is eye-opening.
Could you similarly analyze obscure terms for stretch north of Calvert Street?
Green Eyeshades says
The green triangles appear at only three intersections, and DDOT’s graphic explains nothing about what DDOT intends to build or what traffic rules DDOT intends to change to “Analyze intersection for approach realignment.” I am mystified.
DDOT’s graphic did not enumerate the “Parking Clearance” but I counted 14 of them, including one just east of the Avenue on Albemarle (not clear whether at intersection with 32nd or at curb cut for Italian Pizza Kitchen). But DDOT said nothing about what it will build or prohibit to achieve “Parking Clearance.”
The “Pedestrian Refuge Islands” seem self-explanatory and we should all clamor for more “refuge” for pedestrians! All of the eight refuge islands appear next to red left hand turns (just north or just south of the turns). But why does DDOT propose adding only eight refuge islands, when it’s adding “up to 17” left hand turns and 14 “Parking Clearances?”
There is no text suggesting a design relationship between parking clearances and refuge islands, but it does seem obvious that left turn lanes can be hazardous for pedestrians, so giving walkers a refuge island at those locations has some rational basis.
Nothing on DDOT’s graphic explains how these dozens of new design elements or traffic rules will interact with protected bike lanes.
FHC says
Watching DDOT present at ANC 3/4G’s 11/14 meeting. Ed Stollof explained that “parking clearance” refers to the areas 25 feet from an intersection. They want to remove parking within that section due to visibility issues. Not explained: visibility for whom.