Pennsylvania Avenue: Great Street

DC is starting work on an upgrade to Pennsylvania Avenue, SE as part of the Great Streets program.

The section of Pennsylvania Avenue -- from 27th Street to Southern Avenue -- will get a median, new curbs, a gutter, pavement, landscaping and upgraded utilities.

The project will also include improvement of signal operations and the construction of three rain gardens.

It won't include bike lanes, as originally planned to in 2007. Instead it will include a 10 foot wide multiuse path from Maryland to Fairlawn Avenue (most of the length).  A design with bike lanes along the whole length was among the three alternatives considered, finishing above a 5 lanes with reversible lanes design, but below the 4 lanes with a median and mutli-use trail (plan is a big pdf). I'm surprised that the bike lane option did poorly on the MOVE goal to "Create a sustainable transportation network, with many travel options" and only did well on cost. 

The plan calls for the multi-use trail to be on the south side of Pennsylvania for most of the way - from the District boundary to 28th street. At 28th Street a diagonal crosswalk will be installed and an exclusive bike/pedestrian crossing phase would be included in the traffic signal at that intersection. Then the trail will be on the north side up to Fairlawn Avenue where it will cross Pennsylvania again and connect with a signed bike route.

Most of the way the trail would be buffered from the street by an "amenity zone" of tree boxes, etc...But for a few short sections it will be right up against the street because the road is too narrow.

It doesn't look like the actual project will match the plan; namely in the L'Enfant Square area where a redesigned square was designed to create a pedestrian zone. What is being built now doesn't appear to have the redesigned square or the multi-use trail on the north side. The trail appears to end at 28th, so it's hard to say if the diagonal crossing will be included either.

Not sure why the trail was dumped in this section, but that section has a 28' median. Maybe DDOT could slim that down to 14' and add two 5' bike lanes?

BTW, I tried to get to this through an old link, but the Pennsylvania Avenue link took me to an add for Zappos. Way to stay on top of your website names, DC. Try this.

Comments

[w]

where are the dedicated and separated bikeways for the part of Pennsylvania Avenue that is actually in the city?
The Avenue has among the widest sidewalks of any major downtown street in North America and yet no one seems to be considering the safety of cyclists or of the possibility of separated and auto- protected bikeways. It would be very simple to cordon off portions of the sidewalks to enable nice bikeways on both sides of PaAv from the Capitol thru to the car-free areas around the White House. The part of PaAv west of the White House to Georgetown does not have the super wide sidewalks- but it could be made to have dedicated bikeways if a little effort & imagination were expended in the design.

Why are all of these new bike lanes or trails away from the actualy center of the city where they are needed the most? It must be some kind of timidity or political type situation- maybe the DC planners wish to avoid the minefield of arousing certain Northern Virginian congressmen who are the true rulers of the Nation's Capitol.

They do not seem to give a $hit for those of us who make our homes here. If they did- we would already have awesome bicycle infrastructure here in DC.

[JTS]

As someone who routinely bikes the entire length of pennsylvania ave to get to work, I can say without reservation that if anyone ever doubted that DC's planning policis were racist, all they need to do is drive from the Capitol building to Western Ave. Personally, this improvement was the #1 issue I felt the city needed to address. More than streetcars, more than cycle tracks, more than anything. It's about creating a community for our wards that have been neglected and paved over for so long. I encourage every cyclist to bike this route once before construction starts. If you ever needed a prime of example of stupid auto centric planning, you have it right there.

Question: why no dedicated bus lanes?

Also, congrats on scooping GGWash!

[JTS]

and +1 w's comments

[Washcycle]

@JTS, there are HOV/transit lanes over the same section where the MUT is. I just didn't mention it because that's GGWash territory. Follow the link above labeled "actual project".

@w, I think JTS hit on why they aren't working on the other sections of Penn. If you look at the list of Great Streets in DC they are in under served neighborhoods (Georgia Ave, H Street/benning road, Minnesota Ave, Nannie Helen Burroughs). Penn in the West End is not under served.

[yyz]

right on w !! thanks for your good comments, as usual.

do you (w) have your own blog or something?...