There’s a new zebra in town, a couple of miles north of the Zoo.
ANC 3F05 Commissioner Manolis Priniotakis tells us: The District Department of Transportation has finally put in an additional marked zebra crosswalk at intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Fessenden.
For years, the lack of street markings but presence of a pedestrian signal at the southern crossing, not to mention a sign instructing walkers to cross only in the presence of a signal, created a confusing situation. Requests for this crosswalk earlier this year had encountered a response that Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) required curb cuts on the east side of Connecticut, which did not have any. Persistence appears to have paid off.
Before the new crosswalk, the view from the west side of Connecticut Avenue. (photos by Manolis Priniotakis)
The view of the new crosswalk from the east side of Connecticut Avenue.
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Bob Summersgill says
I think there was a missed opportunity here. The cross walk, instead of being perpendicular to Connecticut Avenue, could have been painted close to 90 degrees to make the crossing distance as short as possible. Think of the new crosswalk as the hypotenuse of a right triangle. A crosswalk could have been painted along the long leg of that triangle, shortening the distance that must be crossed. The CAPA study recommends that. http://www.capa-dc.org/
Sam Hoben says
I tend to think the lost opportunity was the design of the Fessenden/36th Street intersection itself.
Every morning we observe frazzled motorists doing dangerous things to get through the intersection, often oblivious to the children pedestrians around them. A big part of the problem is that a whole light sequence can get stuck behind one driver waiting to turn left onto Conn. Ave.
Putting on my amateur road planner’s hat, what seems to be required (and what I thought was happening given all the earthworks going on…) would have been to widen by a foot or two the part of Fessenden St adjacent to the triangle to create a turning lane. That would allow the traffic going straight ahead or turning right to get past.
That might reduce the frustration on show (honking, lurching, speeding up to get through orange lights) and make the intersection feel a little safer for the large numbers of pedestrians sharing this intersection.
Marjorie Rachlin says
It’s an improvement. Thanks to Commissioner Manolis.
Bob Summersgill says
I wrote that wrong. The cross walk is not perpendicular to Connecticut, but it should be. See the crossing at Cumberland for an example.
It is an improvement, Marjorie, just not what DDOT could be doing.
Sam, the problem with a turning lane is that we have reversible lanes. Lanes shift through out the day from 2 and 4, to 3 and 3, 4 and 2, and back to 3 and 3. We will need to get rid of the reversible lanes in order to have a proper turning lane. Alternatively, we can have signage with less than ideal results to indicate that the left lane is always a turning lane. Or as drivers, we can just treat the left lanes as turning lanes, which they functionally are, with the results we have now.
Susan Linsky says
I called CM Cheh about this as soon as the new light went up. It was a terrible pedestrian accident waiting to happen. DDOT replied that they were going to fix it. They didn’t say it was going to take 9 months.