Adapted and reposted with permission from Greater Greater Washington. The original published on GGWash.org on August 2nd. Less than three weeks later, a vehicle overturned at Connecticut and Cumberland.
Less than a week after that, a driver crashed into a tree at a bus stop at Connecticut and Macomb.
Pat Jakopchek is the commissioner representing ANC 3F07.
by Pat Jakopchek
Residents along DC’s Connecticut Avenue want the city to study ways to make it safer, including removing the current reversible lane, adding a protected bikeway, and/or otherwise changing the traffic patterns. Mayor Muriel Bowser has set a goal, Vision Zero, to eliminate the district’s traffic-related deaths by 2024, and fixing this vital corridor could move the city closer to this target.
Connecticut Avenue runs from the White House north into Maryland, connecting the National Zoo, the city’s biggest hotel, and scores of DC’s businesses and residents. Each day, approximately 35,000 motor vehicles plus many cyclists and pedestrians travel the thoroughfare.
As many people try to cross to reach businesses and neighborhoods on both sides while many more try to travel north-south, this major artery is also a safety risk. This year, a three-vehicle crash overturned one car. Some Van Ness residents have declared that their neighborhood “isn’t safe for walking.”
Resident Peter Krupa reported a cyclist got a concussion on Connecticut Avenue just recently, and it’s not an isolated incident:
nice work to whatever motorist turned left from NB Connecticut Ave. onto Tilden in front of an oncoming cyclist. guy locked his brakes to avoid a crash and now he has a concussion. #bikedc
— Peter Krupa 🌹 (@peterkrupa) July 27, 2018
this is the third crash i've seen on Connecticut Ave. in two weeks. last night i saw a van try and speed through a yellow in the leftmost lane as another car tried to turn left from the not-leftmost lane.
— Peter Krupa 🌹 (@peterkrupa) July 27, 2018
A reversible center lane sends cars one way in the morning rush and the opposite in the evening. While it was created to add car capacity, it’s also become a safety threat. Confused drivers frequently take the lane in the wrong direction.
Cyclists traveling the corridor have to tangle with multiple lanes of fast-moving cars, turning cars, and parked cars, or take much more circuitous routes. Council member Mary Cheh (Ward 3) called for a protected bikeway on Connecticut Avenue at an oversight hearing for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT).
Adding bike lanes and otherwise revamping Connecticut Avenue would make the road safer for people biking and walking, and represents a prime chance to move toward the city’s Vision Zero goals. Transit and bicycles take up less space than single drivers in personal vehicles, and boosting the former could help move more people through the corridor.
Previous studies have looked at the area only piecemeal
To date, DDOT has never released a comprehensive examination of the entire corridor. The department’s last significant study of Connecticut Avenue looked at Cleveland Park in 2013. Before that, DDOT most recently looked at a section of the road further north in Van Ness a full decade earlier in 2003.
The 2011 Rock Creek West II Livability Study studied Connecticut Avenue from Van Ness to the DC border at Chevy Chase Circle, and identified dangerous hotspots for vulnerable road users up and down the corridor. Incredibly, the study’s “focus areas” for traffic calming improvements did not include any segments of Connecticut Avenue. Given the safety issues uncovered by this study, it’s long past time for us to discuss changes to this arterial.
Throughout the corridor, DDOT’s aim to “move traffic efficiently” can compete with initiatives to increase the safety of other transportation modes like cycling and local neighborhoods’ desire for greater walkability.
Much of the streetscape also has untapped potential to protect our environment by adding green infrastructure, removing existing impervious paving, and adding new plant landscaping. Similarly, efforts that could help capture hundreds of millions of dollars worth of local neighborhood retail spending by improving pedestrian and cycling connections, revitalizing public spaces and better organizing the identity of the corridor largely remain in their planning stages.
Simply put, the information our communities need to help one of our city’s most important streets reach its full potential is either incomplete, out-of-date – or both. That’s why some communities are asking DDOT for a better vision for Connecticut Avenue.
Two ANCs call for a study
In the last few months, ANC 3F and ANC 3C passed resolutions requesting a comprehensive study of Connecticut Avenue from Woodley Park up through Chevy Chase Circle.
The resolutions ask DDOT to analyze a wide range of potential improvements that could be made to the street. These include changes to the rush hour reversible lanes policy, establishing protected bikeways, and improving traffic management on Connecticut Avenue and surrounding streets.
The resolutions don’t include specific demands or requests. They simply ask for the agency to explain consequences and benefits various changes would entail, with the goal of improving the quality of life for all of the people who live, work, and travel along Connecticut Avenue.
DDOT is already studying Connecticut Avenue from Dupont Circle to California Street, and has floated two potential options to make it friendlier for cyclists: either a two-way protected bikeway on the east side of the street or one-way protected bikeways on each side. These lanes would connect to a bike lane being studied for 20th, 21st, or 22nd streets from Dupont Circle to the National Mall.
But without studying the rest of the corridor, DDOT will be in the dark about the best way to continue these lanes northward — whether two-way lanes on one side of the street should turn and connect to Columbia Road, or one-way lanes on each side of it might continue across the Taft Bridge towards Woodley Park.
That’s why a detailed examination of our options to improve Connecticut Avenue is so important. It would help answer that question and so many others.
Want to help boost pedestrian safety, walkability, and the economic vitality of this crucial corridor? Join with ANCs and neighbors and sign our petition: ask DDOT to take a comprehensive look at what a better Connecticut Avenue could look like. Sign the petition.
Pat Jakopchek the chair of ANC 3F and a member of the Van Ness Main Street board.
Roberta Carroll says
Some of the data cited in this piece is very, very old. The car that hit a tree at the corner of Macomb and Conn. must have been 20 years ago. There are few major accidents compared to how many people use the road per day. Conn. Ave. is a major transportation corridor that is not sufficiently marked when the lane changes occur. There should be green arrows and red arrows on the lanes and then no one will be confused. If you take this transportation corridor away what will you replace it with? Commuters will still drive and they need a safe road to travel on without bikers. Let the bikes use Rock Creek Park as their North-South route. There are also no red and green lights to slow the biker down. Plus getting bikers away from cars is healthier for the biker who will not be breathing in those fumes from the cars. There are way more cars (35,000) compared to bikers as you will not see 35,000 bikers any day of the week. It would be a disaster to put bikes on Conn. Ave. and very unsafe for the biker.
David says
“The car that hit a tree at the corner of Macomb and Conn. must have been 20 years ago.”
No, it happened on August 27, 2018.
Tracy J. says
There are plenty of contemporary examples of major Connecticut Avenue crashes. Here’s another.
September 4, 2018 at Connecticut and Newark.
Paul says
I read occasionally calls for eliminating the reversible lanes on Connecticut and never read about the alternative. Where I live in Forest Hills, I look at the alternative that would be chosen first if the lanes were not available: the street in front of my front door. No one can prove that the traffic would not funnel down my street, which was not built to support it, and would cause far more calamity than the writers of these pieces imagine are caused by Connecticut Avenue’s lane structure.
Those who fantasize about ending the reversible lanes need to step back. Way back Face reality. The people who commute on Connecticut have decided they have no other choice. Adding bike lanes would make the situation worse, not better. Imagining that somehow public transportation will suck up vast numbers of commuters whole will abandon their cars have never considered that in reality public transportation in the DC / Maryland corridor serves a very limited population.
Bad ideas like the study suggested by the author do not deserve to be funded. Connecticut is not horribly broken. This is a congested urban area. People need to get to work. Forest Hills and Van Ness in particular are not oases or quaint villages crying for protection from the invaders from Maryland — they are part of a much larger, complex city. If you don’t like it, move to Loudon.
Roberta Carroll says
Well said, agree.
Green Eyeshades says
Thank you to ANC 3F for passing unanimously its resolution requesting a thorough DDOT study of the main traffic thoroughfare in our neighborhood. The resolution was passed unanimously (six to zero) by the ANC commissioners, after it was passed unanimously (nine to zero) by the ANC committee dealing with those issues (streets & sidewalks).
The first resolving clause of the resolution states as follows:
“NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that ANC 3F requests that
DDOT conduct a comprehensive study of current Connecticut Avenue traffic patterns that broadly evaluates the potential consequences of any potential changes in policy and also considers a wide range of potential improvements or changes that could be made, including but not limited to changes to the rush hour reversible lanes policy, establishing dedicated bicycle lanes, and establishing other dedicated lane options ….”
So far, comments here have focused only on the parts of the resolution addressing “rush hour reversible lanes policy” and “establishing bicycle lanes,” but there is much more to the resolution than those two issues, as shown by the plain text of that first clause and at least three other resolving clauses.
Bicycle riders use Connecticut Avenue in both directions during rush hour and at all other times of the day. That is a fact. Face that fact.
Adding at least one protected bike lane on Connecticut Avenue would vastly increase the number of bicycle commuters, and other bike riders. I would resume riding a bicycle on Connecticut Avenue if I had a protected bike lane.
A protected bike lane could be placed to the curb side of whatever lane remained available for parking during non-rush hour times. Adding a protected bike lane would certainly affect traffic on Connecticut Avenue, but a DDOT study and a DOEE study are definitely necessary to measure how much impact the bike lane would cause, including the impact on accumulation of vehicle emissions.
The reversible rush-hour lane does in fact cause frequent accidents, regardless of whether bicycles are on the road. So does the car wash waiting line just south of Albemarle Street on the west side of Connecticut. The car wash waiting line also endangers pedestrians on the weekend, because the line of cars waiting for the car wash wraps around the intersection of Albemarle and Connecticut on the west side of Connecticut, blocking the cross-walks. Those are facts.
CJ says
Everyone keeps talking about the traffic study and the bike lanes but there is another factor that has not been mentioned and that is the continuing decline of the Metro system. There are far more cars and cyclists because no one wants to take the metro because it is so unreliable. Personally I would be driving myself if the cost for parking at work was in line with my metro costs. But unless and until metro can improve you’re going to see this increased volume of traffic and not just on Connecticut.
99 says
None of these pro commuter comments mention the high speeds at which drivers travel, particularly when heading north during rush hour. These drivers run red lights with blatant disregard for laws or danger to pedestrians, bike riders, and other drivers. Many cities have found ways to calm traffic and aggressive drivers. We can do that here and there is no reason not to study the traffic.
John H Saunders says
I am a regular cyclist and avoid Connecticut like the plague. Marking bike lanes on Connecticut is a bad idea. It will only increase the danger by adding additional riders to the Avenue and further irritate drivers, increasing aggressive behavior. There are alternatives to the East in Rock Creek Park, and to the West, e.g. 36th -39th Streets, etc that I routinely use. These routes are not without their challenges as well but are significantly more safe. It’s worth the extra 2 minutes.
By the way if the City Council wishes to increase traffic flow and safety, they (and all jurisdictions) should significantly ramp up the requirements for a driver’s license. Memorizing the rules and passing a totally unchallenging driving exam are far too insufficient. I see totally careless and unprepared drivers on a routine basis. A computerized simulation test needs to be implemented where the driver is faced with people running red lights and stop signs, cyclists cutting in front of your vehicle, car doors flying open, tree limbs falling, pedestrians on their cell phone stepping into the street against the light, motorists swerving into your lane, not using turn signals, turning right from the left lane, turning left from the right lane, etc. etc.