Bike lane construction underway in DC with more to come

As many readers may have noticed in their rides or on social media, the District is chipping away at its list of bike lane projects. Here is a partial list of what they're planning or doing this year. 

They've already installed new bike lanes on 17th St SE/NE and L'Enfant Promenade/Banneker Circle and are working on new segments of protected bike lanes (PBLs) in Georgetown and near Catholic University. Some other notable facilities that could be built this year (or maybe are already underway) include

• A neighborhood bikeway on 8th NW between Butternut and Eastern;
• bike lanes on Alabama from 15th to Bruce Pl. SE;
• PBLs on K between 1st and 7th NW;
• PBLs on 17th between Mass and NH Ave NW; 
• a climbing lane on Cathedral from Connecticut to Shoreham, NW; 
• bike lanes on Wheeler from Alabama to Southern, SE

But there are other smaller projects and intersection improvements on the "maybe" list too, especially on 15th NW.

****They plan to start a study of PBLs on Pennsylvania Ave SE in Capitol Hill and a Great Streets assessment of that street from the Sousa Bridge to 27th Street which has a goal of providing bicycle lanes. The Capitol Hill Section was even included in a list of 6 separated bike lanes that DDOT asked to add to the region's Visualize 2045 Long Range Plan. 

The following projects will remove one or more traffic lanes to allow for separated bicycle lanes.

• Pennsylvania Ave. SE from 2nd St./Independence Ave. to Barney Circle (1.3 miles)
• 17th St. NW from New Hampshire Ave. to K St. (<1 mile)- more on this below
• K St. from 7th St. NW to 1st St. NE (<1 mile)
• K St. from 1st St. NE to Florida Ave. NE (<1 mile)
• Irving St. from Warder St. NW to Michigan Ave. NE (1 mile) - more on this below
• New York Ave. NE from Florida Ave. to Bladensburg Rd. (2.3 miles)  (not shown on the map below)

[Unfortunately,  DDOT has also requested that three segments of the planned streetcar network be removed from the Constrained Element: the Anacostia Initial Line, Anacostia Extension and the M St. SE/SW line. Not sure how this will impact the proposed bike trail along the Anacostia line]

****Soccer Stadium Protected Bike Lanes (seen above) DC Department of General Services (DGS) is building two-way protected bicycle lanes, designed by DDOT, on 2nd St SW between R and T Streets, on Potomac Ave between S Cap and 1 st Streets, and on R St between 1st and 2nd Streets. DDOT is awaiting approval from ANC 6D06 for the PBL from P to R which requires the elimination of parking between P and Q Streets.

****A sidewalk level PBL is under construction on Virginia Ave SE between 2nd and 9th Streets as part of the CSX tunnel reconstruction project. It is scheduled for completion in late 2018.

****DDOT met with the Dupont Circle ANC 2B Transportation & Public Infrastructure Committee in mid-may to discuss the 17th Street NW PBLs. Those would run from New Hampshire to Massachusetts, but as noted above, DDOT asked to extend those as far south as K in the 2045 plan. At that meeting several merchants on 17th complained that the PBL would make deliveries difficult, "invite unsafe pedestrian and bike traffic and jeopardize their businesses." (That is not true).  A former ANC Commissioner argued that it would make it hard to walk there. (That is also untrue). Some suggested that widening the 15th Street PBL could suffice. That's a good idea, but it's not a substitute for a PBL on 17th. It's as crazy as suggesting a loading zone on 15th for businesses on 17th. I'm no expert, but Duke's has an alley right behind it, why can't that work for deliveries? Anyway the resolution from the ANC was tabled.

****DDOT recently completed the 30% design of the Eastern Downtown cycletracks on 6th and 9th NW and plan to present them at a public meeting in July.

****This week there was a packed open house on the Crosstown Protected Bike Lanes. This project is several years away from completion, but if completed it will greatly improve east-west travel on the north side. DDOT is developing preliminary (30%) designs for protected bike lanes along

• Irving Street NE/NW between Michigan Avenue NE and the 400 block of Kenyon Street NW; and then on Kenyon to Warder Street

• 5th Street NW/Park Place NW between Grant Circle and Kenyon Street NW; and

• 7th Street NW/Warder Street NW between New Hampshire Avenue NW and Kenyon Street NW.

• (Later, and not part of this project, DDOT wants to extend the PBL on Kenyon as far west as 14th Street)

The boards aren't up yet, The boards are here and you can see some tweets of some of them here, here and here. Options at Irving and Michigan include a shared-use path on the south side of Michigan, a two-way cycletrack on the north side of Michigan or a shared use path on the north side of Michigan. There are also multiple options for transitioning to and from Kenyon Street; getting from Kenyon to Rock Creek Church Road; and how to transition from a two way bike lane to existing bike lanes on Park. 

****The Water Street NW PBL in Georgetown mentioned above ends at 30th, but some day could cross Rock Creek on a new bridge that might look like this (funding exists for concept design and EA):

****DDOT held a public meeting on the Western downtown cycletrack (20th, 21st and 22nd Streets NW) on May 23rd. At that meeting they noted that there are more than a dozen possible options for what that might look like, but that they are doing the legwork needed to trim that down to 3 possibilities that they will get to the 10% design phase by this summer and one of those will go to 30% design in the winter. A final report will be completed in Spring 2019. Final Design will be completed in 2020-2021 with construction starting the next year.  You can see the existing conditions, and possible configurations, here. 

****DDOT held a meeting on the Connecticut Avenue Streetscape and Deck-Over Project in late April. Protected bike lanes and sharrows are being considered in some options. [But there are no plans to run bike lanes through the old trolley tunnels :( ] Construction would not start until 2021. 

 

  

Comments

[Corey H]

It’s a far far far away project but an off street path is planned as part of the Southeast Boulevard/Bus Garage project. You can see the presentation given to ANC 6B at link below. DDOT expects to hold final EA meeting in July or September.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/to7yfg8ghgc6a6h/ANC6B_ProjectInformationSlides_20180606.pdf?dl=0