ANC 1C tabled their vote on the Columbia Road bike lanes last night.
This 1 mile section of bike lanes creates a continuous on-street bicycle facility through Adams Morgan and it connect various disconnected sections of bike lanes along Columbia Rd. Furthermore, the Columbia Rd. bike lanes would complete the connection to bike lanes / sharrows on Adams Mill Rd to Woodley Park and the sharrow bike route on the new 18th Street (once the Adams Morgan Streetscape Project is completed).
Kristen Barden, Executive Director of the Adams Morgan Partnership, voiced support for bicycling by mentioning the Partnership’s sponsorship of a Bike to Work Day pit stop. However, this support was tempered over concerns of lost of parking spaces–especially in the 1700 block of Columbia Rd in front of Safeway–and the inconvenience and disruption of traffic for the construction of the bike lanes.
About four parking spaces would be lost. Sometimes as many as 150 cyclists use the road and the bike lane project would only take a few days. The next meeting is likely to occur on August 1st.
I was surprised to hear this go back to the ANC's transportation committee, at this stage in the process, and I emailed my ANC commissioner and the committee chair. Both said that the plans presented last night were substantively different from the plans that they had seen before.
The ANC hasn't yet posted their minutes, so I don't have much information on how strongly the Adams Morgan BID objected.
Posted by: David R. | July 08, 2011 at 02:07 PM