Crosstown Study lays out three concepts, comments due today

At the 2nd workshop for the Crosstown Multimodal Transportation Study, DDOT presented three concepts over the three geographic areas, each with a different set of winners and losers. They're accepting comments on the concepts (click on "Take a Survey") through today which will inform their next workshop on June 9th.

The Crosstown Multimodal Transportation Study (Crosstown Study) is a study of improvements along Michigan Avenue/Irving Street corridor designed to address safety concerns, optimize mobility and operations, and improve efficiency for all modes along the corridor. The Study area follows Irving and Michigan from 16th Street NW to South Dakota Avenue NE.

Following the first workshop, DDOT came up with three concepts over three sections of the corridor, and the survey asks for comparisons and general feelings about each concept in each section.

All the concepts include improved intersections throughout the corridor, bike facilities from one side to the other, transit improvements for at least part of the way, a redesign of the Irving/North Capital cloverleaf and the simplification of the Michigan Ave/Park Place/Hobart/Columbia Road Clusterfuck by turning it all into a street grid. But how these things are done differ from one concept to the other.

Concept 1 could be considered the "direct bike" option. It creates a seamless bicycle connection along Harvard and Michigan Avenue from one side to the other with a two-way cycle track along Harvard and Michigan until Monroe Street, and then bike lanes to South Dakota Avenue. Transit improvements would be limited to the Western Section. The southern loops of the cloverleaf are retained and the street grid at Park Place is the most rigid.

Concept 2 is the MoveDC option. It creates a pair of one-way cycle tracks on Kenyon and Irving, combining into a single two-way cycletrack on Irving between Hobart and Michigan. Then it uses a combination of a shared bike/bus lane, existing bike lanes, new bike lanes and sharrows to zig-zag across the corridor. Transit improves go as far east as Brookland, Irving keeps its curving diagonal shape west of the Washington Hospital Center and only the NW and SE loops of the cloverleaf are retained.

Concept 3 is the balanced option. It starts on the west end with a two-way cycletrack on Kenyon from 16th to Irving, transitioning to a shared use sidepath along Irving and Michigan. The sidepath would have a gap from Monroe to 10th, and cyclists would instead use the existing bike lanes on Monroe and new ones on 12th to get back to Michigan. Dedicated transit lanes would stretch from 16th NW to the eastern intersection of Michigan and Irving; the west side of Irving would now loop back to Michigan, but with the grid rebuilt west of it, and most of the cloverleaf would be removed.

From a bike standpoint, I'm not sure which one I would choose. In the western section, I like concept 2 the best, because I feel like a pair of 1-way cycletracks creates less conflict and confusion. In the central section I like the shared-use path from concept 3 best - especially if it's on the north side of Irving where there will be less conflict with driveways.

But in the eastern section, why not combine all three? Bike lanes from Monroe to 10th; a shared use path along Michigan to South Dakota (though I worry about driveways and intersections); bike lanes on 12th and sharrows on the zig-zag from Randolph to 14th.

Based on the online poll (at the time of writing), Concept 2 is much more popular than the others except on the east side where Concept 1 wins. Almost every idea is well received except for transit in shared lanes along Michigan Avenue.  

Comments

[Uptowner]

Driveways & intersections can be designed for. Check out the following from the Netherlands:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/but-we-have-driveways/

[washcycle]

They can be. But it would be far outside the norm for DDOT to do this at one intersection let alone across a 2.2 mile corridor.

[Uptowner]

True, but they never will unless we push them to do it. The C St NE design is promising on this front, with level crossings at many of the side streets, so cars must drive up and over the bike lane and sidewalk, instead of making cyclists and pedestrians drop down.