11th Street Recreation Bridge

I called it! Sort of. 

Back in 2009 when DDOT held a presser to start work on the 11th Street Bridge I wrote

When I asked about the upstream span and the possibility of repurposing it, I was told that DDOT had not ruled that out yet. That would be a great idea. DC would save the cost of demolition and could put that towards maintenance - which would be less without car traffic. Then they could give it the High Line treatment, creating a space with plantings, art etc.. And cyclists could use that part too.

Well, everything is coming together just as I foretold (update: Except that it is the downstream bridge, not the upstream one). DPW OP will be holding a meeting on March 28, 2012, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at 1100 4th Street, SW about the potential of redesigning the bridge as the 11th Street Recreation Bridge (For more information, please email [email protected] or call202.442.8965.).

The new bridge would have space for several different activities and one of them identified is as an additional bike/ped crossing. 

Anyway, I know a lot of people claim they don't like to say I told you so...but I am not one of them. And there is a regular reader/commenter, and you know who you are, to whom I am saying - good-naturedly (and mostly because you tend to be right about these things) - "I told you so."

Comments

[charlie]

Man, that Vince Gray and his lackluster appointees never do anything cool.

But, for the love of god, don't extrapolate your predicting success to self driving cars. Or I'll tell Bertie you have your own blog...

[JeffB]

A zipline? All I can say is - wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Froggie]

Not sure why one would need another bike/ped crossing there since we're already getting one on the new local bridge. How about just removing the bridge so we have less of a tunnel effect when we paddle underneath?

[oboe]

I can see Vince Orange's 2016 campaign literature now:

"Zip Lines For Who!?!"

[Dave]

Interesting how they're showing the Res 13 plans accurately in this presentation and leaving out the smoking crater next to Stadium-Armory where Vince wants the Redskins ghost town to go.

[andrew]

What the.....

Those old bridges are being torn down because they're deteriorating, and are of a design that is now known to be inherently unsafe. They're also hideously ugly due to years of neglect.

The fantasy drawings in those rendering are also a bit misleading. The new "Local" 11th St Bridge span is considerably lower than either of the old or new highway spans. You won't be able to cross over from one to the other.

At one end of the bridge there's a large highway interchange that will regrettably be getting even larger as a result of the project. The other end of the bridge is bordered by the Navy Yard on one side, and the bridge ramps on the other side (another sad consequence of the new bridges is that the ramps take up a huge amount of land that won't be usable for anything else).

While it would have been nice to have preserved the boathouse beneath the old bridges, the opportunity to save that facility passed several years ago. Now it's just a bridge pier. The northern end of the bridge also happens to sit on/near some of the most heavily polluted soil in the DC area. It's going to be many years before you want to build a park there.

I normally love innovative projects like this, and would love to see improved access to Anacostia Park and Poplar Point. However, I really wonder if the people who dreamt this project up have ever actually visited the site in question. Virtually nothing about this seems even remotely feasible.

[Joe]

Will cyclists be forced to dismount as they are near the Kennedy Center?

Will bicycles be banned from the skate park forcing whose who want to ride to ride illegally?

[washcycle]

andrew, I'm not sure if that's the reason they're being torn down, but regardless it's totally reasonable to believe that the bridges can't handle the day to day dynamic stress of cars and trucks for much longer, but could easily handle the low-wight static stress of people art.

Having said that, it may be that the plan is to actually take the bridge deck down, and build a new activity deck on the existing supports. That can deal with some of the other issues you mentioned.

Froggie, that's something they can address. You should go to the meeting and ask that skylights or suntunnels or something be included to address that.

Joe, I think the signs requiring dismounting near the KC are down, but nonetheless I don't know the answers to your questions because I think so little has been planned. Perfect questions for you to ask at the public meeting.

[M.V. Jantzen]

Speaking of having fun with bridges... see http://flickr.com/mvjantzen/2450781558/lightbox/ that's the Penn Ave bridge; celebrating Earth Day back in 2008. And no, they did not close traffic for this.

See also flickr.com/mvjantzen/2459415514/lightbox/ & flickr.com/mvjantzen/2478359362/lightbox/

[K. Aroom]

This is strikingly similar to my thesis project for the South Captiol Street Bridge

[[email protected]]

A multi functional bridge would be a good idea. Everyone could use it to get to wherever they are going. As a pedestrian, I feel comfortable on bridges that are built to accommodate both foot and vehicular traffic- I feel safe.

Most people generally do feel secure because of how those bridges are built. I don't foresee a problem there. It's pretty easy to put in space for bicycles.

Trams can run on the regular street, with the tram line built in the road.