C Street goes through a pair of redesigns

It's been some time since I last covered the C Street NE Rehabilitation Project. In that time DDOT has held three meetings and presented three new designs for the road, which will include grade separated cycletracks. GGW has a long write up on it, but basically, they presented a 65% design in February that got extensive community buy in, but unbeknownst to everyone, DDOT staff identified problems with the traffic analysis. The next month they recommended some changes based on the traffic analysis and presented those in April. At which point the various stakeholders expressed dismay, to put it politely (ANC 6A voted unanimously in opposition to it, for example). DDOT went back to the drawing board and came back with an update in June that seems to have less opposition. 

That's not to say it has no opposition. ANC 6A had a few concerns. They worry the new design is less safe, because it will allow higher speeds. They worry that in order to reduce congestion at rush hour, they are creating a street that will encourage speeding for the rest of the day. And they were unhappy with the sudden change in design.

Some of their more specific concerns were that

• They don't like the way the sidewalk on the southside of C crosses 17th at a diagonal
• They want no right turn on red in the school zone (near Elliot-Hine). 
• They would like left turn signals for Eastbound at Nineteenth (19th) Street NE and
  Westbound at Seventeenth (17th) Street NE
• They want the lane width to be capped at 10' (some of the lanes are 11')
• On the 1900 block of C Street NE, DDOT has proposed a row of flex-posts
  to separate the bicycle lane from the parking lane. They'd like the bicycle lane be raised above the parking lane, creating a permanent barrier between cyclists and parking/traffic.
• They want raised and textured crosswalks
• They would like a bike box on the south side of 19th facing north
• They believe the bus stops in the westbound direction should load in the travel lane, rather than pulling-in to a bus stop.

The permanent barrier is a good idea, one many people brought up and one that I think Sam Zimbabwe wrote down during the meeting. As I recall, raising the bicycle lane is problematic though.  It involves relocating the existing drainage inlets. That's expensive and can disturb the root system of the existing trees since it requires excavation. That's not something that's insurmountable but there is a high cost for that benefit. 

There is some controversy about the validity of the traffic analysis with Toole Design, the original contractor, expressing a belief that no modifications from the February design were needed. I can't say. But I do think that the time when the ANC and other stakeholders needed to find out that a change was coming was in February, not April. They should have had a stakeholder meeting, presented their analysis and talk to them about some of the ideas they were considering to address the report. People can handle change, but they don't like surprises. 

The April design didn't really change things for cyclists, but to their credit WABA got involved and advocated for a more Vision Zero friendly design because they didn't think it protected pedestrians enough. Pedestrian safety may not be in their vision statement, but as a member I'm glad to see them widen their scope in this case. Ironically the June design does make the cycletrack slightly worse (between 19th and 20th)

Most of the changes from February to June are on the north side and I'll highlight a few. 

In order to get two lanes through the transition to C, the green space to the NE of 16th and C had to be narrowed and that resulted in moving the cycletrack a little. I like the new placement better than the old one. 

On the north side, the cycletrack between 20th and 19th was raised above the street level and separated by a green buffer. In the new design, cyclists will drop down to street level west of 20th and then back up west 19th; and they'll be separated from parking by road markings and flexiposts.

The designs not perfect. I'd rather see some dedicated bus lanes for example. But it is a big improvement and the suggestions from ANC 6A would make it better. I still look forward to them making this road better. 

 

Comments

[Jacob Mason]

There is some controversy about the validity of the traffic analysis with Toole Design, the original contractor, expressing a belief that no modifications from the February design were needed.

We constantly forget that traffic analyses are nothing more than predictions, based on a very limited amount of information and a LOT of assumptions. There is nothing particularly scientific about them other than that they assume that people in cars act like water in pipes, which is ridiculous on its face. People are humans and make decisions based on the conditions facing them. If you make it easier to drive, more people will do it, and if you make other modes relatively easier than driving, people will choose those modes. It's not rocket science or engineering even, although the people who get paid big money to run these models would like you to think so (I used to do it myself).

Or more briefly, "If you plan for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places."

[drumz]

Even if the current traffic conditions on C street are the basis of comparison you gotta think about the changes once the area starts changing around RFK with the new parks and everything. Makes even less sense for C street to be a giant freeway offramp then.