Extending the Met Branch Trail to K Street

The Greyhound bus station located just north of Union Station, and across the street from the southern terminal of the Met Branch Trail (MBT), closed this week. It would be nice if the new building included an extension of the MBT to K Street.

Currently the MBT ends at L and is connected to the street by stairs. When the plot north of L is developed, a ramp will be built from the terminus to the corner or L and 1st.

A trailhead built at K could have some advantages over one at L. If the trail continued at it's current height across L and then begin a gradual descent down to K it would avoid a switchback. A direct connection to K. Stairs could remain and there still could be stairs to access L, giving two connections instead of 1. And it would create one more grade separated crossing. 

If the development that will take place on the plot builds all the way to the railroad tracks, as the building across K Street did, that may preclude a trail extension, but they could limit the lost space by building above the trail (which admittedly would mean the trail would be closed on 3 out of 4 sides). One could say the same of the building north of L street, but it would look weird, so it would make more sense along the railroad than along the street. The greyhound site developers could cut a deal with the north site to take over their obligation in exchange for what it might cost them, and it would reduce the setback from the road for that building.  Of course, even better would be two ramps.

There's a lot of reasons to think this won't happen, not least of which is that DDOT has basically already negotiated the current deal, so don't hold your breath, but when the MBT plan was created, no one knew that the the Greyhound station might be demolished. Things might have gone differently had this lot been empty then. 

Comments

[Ren]

I'm no genius but I had a heck of a time finding the MBT from Union Station.

[Richard Layman]

I thought I remembered reading that the owners of this property did discuss extending the MBT across the property, including something in this blog.

Maybe not:

http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2012/05/noma-greyhound-station-to-be-mixed-use.html

But since NoMA BID is doing a parks plan, I can't imagine this couldn't be addressed.

[Richard Layman]

Ren, sadly the signage to point people to the MBT, and the lack of gateway signage is a real problem.

[SJE]

Do we want to extend to K street, or is another street better? It appears that the long term plans are to make other streets the main E-W bikeway, at least further West.

[Purple Eagle]

SJE, I assume you are talking about the cycle tracks on L and M downtown; but those streets are less than ideal for cyclists traveling east of Mt. Vernon Square. L is not continuous across North Capitol and cyclists using M would need to navigate through a convoluted and very congest intersection with NY Ave. I think a lot of cyclists use K to continue east of Mt Vernon Square.

[SJE]

Good points Purple Eagle. I wonder if DDOT have considered where L/M cycle tracks would end up. Making a continuous E-W route would be ideal, IMO: easier to navigate, easier for cars who only have to cross the cycle tracks once.

[Kolohe]

You could make it R. It's most of the way there already. And it facilitates making bike to work day and talk like a pirate day the same day. Synergy!

[JeffB]

R St NW seems to me to be pretty narrow and it runs through largely residential neighborhoods with parking on both sides.

Right now when a motorist is parallel parking the presence of the bike lane provides additional road space for other motorists to pass (if the parker is on the left side) or for the parker to not obstruct through traffic (if the parker is on the right side).

If you went with a cycle track and floated the parking off the left side then motorists would loose that 4 feet or so of road space for squeezing by.

I dislike cars ever entering the bike lane for their convenience but I think it is legal for them to do so provided there isn't a cyclist.

R is an example of a bike lane that was shoehorned in and didn't take away anything from motorists.

It's a great westbound cyclist path and with only a single lane of vehicle traffic motorist speeds are very reasonable. I think I prefer for cycle tracks be concentrated on the busier, faster multi-lane streets.

I think as we go forward DDOT will be faced with having to make decisions to take away current road space from motorists. Better have a stiff drink to get their courage up.

[Kolohe]

JeffB thanks for the reply though I was (mostly) joking.

Though what I do realize is when I'm reading 'Cycletracks' I'm maybe just thinking 'Bike Lanes'. This was one of two posts yesterday where I conflated the two.