DDOT open house on St. Elizabeths Transportation Improvements

St. Elizabeths west campus is being turned into the HQ for the Department of Homeland Security. As such they have a Master Plan and a Transportation Management Plan. I wrote about both of those in 2009. DDOT is hosting an open house on Saturday from 10:00am - Noon at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church, 2634 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE, to discuss the tranporation improvements associated with this.

From my 2009 post.

Currently 1% of DHS employees bike to work, but they expect that to drop to 0% at the new campus with an ambitious goal of 0%. Hey, they've already succeeded. Beer and Ice Cream for everyone! If they hand out maps, work with DDOT, add showers and locker rooms and bike racks in the two parking garages they think they can get back to 1% by 2013.

"New bicycle lanes are being constructed as part of the Woodrow Wilson bridge project; however, the bicycle connections are discontinuous on the Maryland-side of the bridge. Maryland-National Capital Planning Commission has reported there are no plans to improve bicycle access on the Maryland-side of the bridge at Oxon Run.

USCG has a bicycle club for employees that bike to work. Currently less than 1% of DHS employees bike to work. The TMP has not indicated a goal for bicycle users due to the lack of safe routes in the vicinity of the site. Local planning agencies including DDOT, MNCPPC, DCOP and NCPC should work together to add bicycle paths from the vicinity of the campus to the South Capitol Street bridge and off-road bike paths to the major roads approaching the campus."

My thoughts.

1. The Bicycle Master Plan in this area is out of date by the very virtue that it didn't plan for a DHS HQ at St. Elizabeths or even a DHS, so it's OK to break out of that a little bit now. It seems DHS wants to do the bare minimum required in the plan, even though more is clearly needed. In fact they go below the minimum as the TMP doesn't mention that a path along the rail spur was in the Bike Plan, so if they really want to adhere to the Bike Plan they need to include that in more than just option 5 (and then as a bike lane). And other items have changed. The bike trail on Firth Sterling was planned when DC thought it would get the CSX tracks there. That isn't going to happen. It's likely that there won't be a bike lane on MLK - not without narrowing the road; or if there is, it will be just a climbing lane on the southbound side. So, the bare minimum elements in the bike plan won't even happen and DHS seems OK with that.

2. 0% is not a goal. It is an acceptance of defeat. 1% isn't even a goal. Not in a city where 2.3% of people bike commute. 4% by 2013 - that's a goal.

3. They could increase the number who take Metro if they encouraged (with free bikes and bike lockers) employees to ride the short distance from the Metro station. Update: Or Capital Bikeshare.

4. Why doesn't DHS consider encouraging DC and MD to connect to the Wilson Bridge. I recently had to drive down 295 and across the bridge. To connect to the bridge here is what you need.

• A short path from Overlook Avenue to the existing bridge over Oxon Cove.
• I-295 has 6-8 foot wide shoulders on the outside and similar sized ones on the inside. That's 12-16 feet extra. Shift the lanes over 2.5 feet and put a Jersey wall about five feet from the west edge of 295. That would create a 4 foot space. By no means ideal but it would work. Take that new lane from Oxon Cove all the way to the Wilson Bridge.
• Break a gap in the wall that separates the current Wilson bridge path from the shoulder and end the Jersey wall past that. Voila! Bike connection on the cheap.

5. Every Coast Guard officer I know seems to ride a bike to work, so I'm not sure why the rest of DHS can't. If the USCG bicycle club is successful, why not expand it to all of DHS?

 

 

 

Comments

[Froggie]

The Achilles' Heel of your #4 is that shoulders are required on Interstates for safety reasons. While you might get away with a reduced inside shoulder (with a waiver from FHWA, but they'll want a very good reason for it), the outside shoulder must remain as-is.

Another thing to consider: a typical Jersey barrier requires 2 feet of width.

[Jim]

And what's worse, this part of I-295 is in Maryland, where rules are not bent to faciliate cycling.

Still, the larger point it valid. There needs to be a long-term plan to eventually make a direct connection between DC and the Bridge Trail that does not involve going up and down the hill, even if it takes another expensive pedestrian bridge to do it. The users would be from all three jurisdictions so if earmarks come back it would be a candidate. But first need to boost utlity of that bridge trail from other directions.

[washcycle]

Froggie, you're nothing if not consistent. That is almost the exact same comment you made in 2009. I replied then "If you place (or more accurately center) the jersey barrier 5 feet from the edge that would take a foot from the bike area and a foot from the shoulder (because it's two feet) thus leaving the 4 foot bike area I mentioned."

I'm not sure the shoulder MUST remain as is. As you wrote "variances/waivers can be requested and made."

[Froggie]

The width of the right/outside shoulder must remain as-is. If you can convince FHWA of the need, narrowing the left/inside shoulder is what you can get the waiver for.

More realistic is something along the lines of what Jim suggested, which I've heard before...with a trail connection off the Wilson Bridge trail following the edge of the ramp from 295 to the Inner Loop, then bridging over 295 and connecting to the trail in Oxon Hill Farm.

[washcycle]

I'd agree now that that is probably the best we can hope for, but I was trying to find the lowest cost solution. THe only impediment is a FHWA rule. And you know what they say about rules...

[Froggie]

It's a FHWA rule that has a baseline in Federal law. There's a very robust vetting process involved with trying to get a FHWA waiver. And cost is not one of the allowed considerations.

[darren]

The shoulder runoff rule is because it's an interstate -- absent any possibility of a waiver, I wonder if there's any possibility of that segment of 295 being removed from the Interstate system (the rest of the road is either parkway or state route anyway) and design control given over to DDOT

[darren]

also, pandora's box on interstate shoulders was opened when states were allowed to experiment with rush-hour shoulder lanes. Not necessarily advocating, just noting.

[Froggie]

Darren, three things.

First, de-designating 295 as an Interstate isn't going to happen unless DDOT is willing to pay FHWA back for the Federal money invested in the road.

Second, much of the segment of 295 in question is in Maryland.

Third, the experiments with rush-hour shoulder lanes either involve the left shoulder (not the right shoulder), or require occasional pull-off areas (such as exists on 66 between the Beltway and Fair Oaks).