DDOT is hosting a public meeting on the Rock Creek Far West Livability Study. Livability studies are used to define improvements in public space that increase safety and access for all users of the transportation system.
Each livability study concludes with a list of recommendations, which can include safer pedestrian crossings, more accessible bus stops, geometric adjustments that support intersection safety, enhanced green spaces, signage for better driver information, and speed controls in sensitive areas.
This year, DDOT is studying Rock Creek Far West (not to be confused with Rock Creek West) and Rock Creek East.
RCFW is the eastern corner of DC, where the Capital Crescent Trail and C&O Canal towpath are, and where the Trolley Trail might someday run.
The meeting is tonight, 6:30 to 8:30pm at the Palisades Neighborhood Library Meeting Room.
At the Rock Creek East kickoff earlier this month, they presented a bike and pedestrian crash map for the area.
And a map of existing and planned facilities.
The area has Beach Drive on one side and the Met Branch Trail on the other. There are plans for a sidepath along 16th; bike lanes on Kalmia, Blair, 3rd and 14th and a cycletrack on New Hampshire.
The Vision Zero heat map shows high requests for help in Takoma, near NH avenue and North Capitol and around Blair Circle.
If these are areas you travel through and have strong opinions on, you should go to one of the workshops or submit comments online.
aaaand none of the rock creek east study items have been implemented
shameful, what's the point of the study?
Posted by: eric | February 26, 2019 at 12:44 PM
i guess i meant the crosstown study, but rock creek east 2 has also been done with no subsequent action
Posted by: eric | February 26, 2019 at 12:51 PM
Crosstown. Nothing permanent has been built, but they had a public meeting on the project on June 12, and another in November. They did the September 21 demonstration of 2-way protected bike lane on Irving St between Park Pl and Warder St. And then this is one of the crosstown study items that's been implemented. Also the Monroe/Michigan intersection improvement.
But the cycletracks were "recommended" for start last year, and are still in design.
The point of the study is to identify and prioritize needs.
Posted by: washcycle | February 26, 2019 at 01:10 PM
alright - none of the rock creek east II recommendations have been implemented, though. lane reduction on grant and sherman circles? nope. bike lane extension on kansas? nope. bike facility on new hampshire up to grant circle? nope.
don't really see the point of engaging with this study if the past livability studies have been ignored.
Posted by: eric | February 26, 2019 at 01:53 PM
I'm fairly certain that the Sherman Circle bike lanes/lane reduction happened last spring. And DDOT did a test of Grant Circle that led them to decide not to reduce lanes, but did add a buffered bike lane.
That study was completed in 2016 so that's a pretty short timescale really. Studies make recommendations, and recommendations are either followed or they aren't. These aren't contracts. But they are the way that change filters its way to the street. Not participating is like not voting. Voting's not guaranteed to get you the outcome you want, but it makes it more likely.
Posted by: washcycle | February 26, 2019 at 02:53 PM
Sherman Circle got bike lanes, but DDOT went against both public comment + the results of its study to maintain two lanes. I was at the meeting, it was very clear the DDOT planner was presenting a decision he disagreed with.
Posted by: Eric | February 26, 2019 at 04:37 PM
I stand by my main point. These studies are the foundation on which the changes get built. They don't all happen, and they don't all match the recommendations. But they rarely happen without some study to start them.
Posted by: washcycle | February 26, 2019 at 04:46 PM
Looking at that map, it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that MacArthur really is the best candidate for useful bike infra in Rock Creek Far Faraway. It's flat, wide and moderate speed. Most of the other major roads have significant issues, though something could be done on Nebraska (which serves the scattered AU facilities).
Posted by: Crickey | February 26, 2019 at 06:22 PM
Crikey --
Just about anywhere the best real estate for roads has already been claimed by roads, if you're looking for bike-only infrastructure you're kind of hobbled by the fact that you get the leftovers.
The problem with MacArthur Boulevard is the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the median and a lot of the land alongside. They are opposed to any widening. There are long stretches of MacArthur that don't even have sidewalks.
On the flip side, it was probably the Corps that kept MacArthur from turning into a high-speed arterial.
Posted by: Contrarian | February 26, 2019 at 11:05 PM
I don't know, I'd rank them:
1. Dalecarlia Parkway
2. Arizona/Nebraska Avenue
3. Reservoir Road
4. Loghboro Road
5. New Mexico/Tunlaw
6. Mass Avenue
7. 42nd to 49th through the greenway
Posted by: washycle | February 26, 2019 at 11:20 PM
Crickey-
Where would you put all of those cars parked on MacArthur Blvd?
There aren't enough side streets. (Especially the area from Reservoir to Foxhall RD
Posted by: Brett Young | February 27, 2019 at 08:57 AM
Sad to not see the once-planned circle fort route via Fort Stevens, Fort Slocum, etc., on that map.
Posted by: John Stith | February 27, 2019 at 09:11 AM
Dalecarlia, western Nebraska, and Loughboro have pretty forbidding terrain. Central and eastern Nebraska are obvious candidates, especially since Nebraska connects to routes to the North and East better than others. New Mexico is promising. Mass Ave. east of Wisconsin has little used sidewalks on the hill part that work well.
I hear the part about how devoted the Army Corps is to that median on MacArthur. I just find it a little difficult to believe that they actually care about a tiny strip of land that has no connection to any mission of the Corps.
Posted by: Crickey | February 27, 2019 at 09:18 AM
Bad terrain or not, the Strava heatmap shows heavy use of western Nebraska, and Loughboro. If you can bike up Mass Ave, you can bike up Dalecarlia Parkway - if it had a sidepath or PBL.
Trails along Maddox Branch/Chain Bridge Road and Foundry Branch would be great too.
Posted by: washcycle | February 27, 2019 at 09:38 AM
Brett - thank you for supporting the "better things aren't possible" caucus.
put more kindly, I'd rather flip the current situation (where people on bikes have to figure out a workaround) to a better one (where people parking their cars have to figure out a workaround).
Posted by: tony ward 3 | February 27, 2019 at 10:49 AM
@tony ward 3
Unlike yourself, I don't just post on blogs.
I actually talk to people who can get these bike paths done in DC. I talk to people from DDOT.
And living in the Palisades, I know what it would take to put a bike path on Macarthur Blvd.
So far, neither myself nor DDOT nor members of the BAC that I bike with in the area (Not David) all concluded that we don't think a bike path on Macarthur Blvd is feasible.
1) Removing the parkedCars.
Where do you put them? There are lots of parked car on the BLVD.
2) The Median is owned by Army Corp. A DC official told me that Army Corp would want an obsene amount of land in a land swap for the property.
3) Once you got the property, hypothetically, you reduce the width. But then the trees having over the street. Do you cut them back? Can you cut them back? At this point, I think they are too big to cut back without hurting the tree.
Finally, Tony, it is for this reason that I've been pushing for the Trolley path.
Posted by: Brett Young | February 27, 2019 at 08:27 PM
My understanding is that the reason MacArthur has a median in the first place is that it was originally built for the main pipe that brings water into the city (It was called "Conduit Road" until WWII when it was named for General MacArthur). The pipe itself goes under the median because it's 150 years old and can't take the weight of modern vehicles. So even if the Army Corps were to cede control it still would be a major undertaking to use that land.
Posted by: Contrarian | February 27, 2019 at 10:20 PM
@Contrarian
All of that is true. The pipes date back to the civil war. We found this out when one of the pipes burst about 2 years ago.
Posted by: Brett Young | February 27, 2019 at 10:54 PM
Bikes don't weigh much, even with me on them.
Posted by: Crickey | February 28, 2019 at 08:57 AM
Crickey, the Army corp of engineers doesn't give away land. And they aren't giving away the median.
If you can figure out how to remove parked cars on Macarthur and put them somewhere else reasonably close by, let me know. I don't see it and I've lived in the neighborhood for 8 years
Posted by: Brett Young | February 28, 2019 at 09:50 AM
I think you've put all your eggs in one basket that is unlikely to succeed, and is more for recreation than transportation.
Posted by: Crickey | February 28, 2019 at 11:58 AM
Why not both. Why not a mostly-for-recreation, but also transportation trail on the trolley path AND remove a bunch of car parking on MacArthur to add bike/bus lanes?
Posted by: washcycle | February 28, 2019 at 12:22 PM
If I thought I could get a bike lane on Macarthur Blvd I would have pursued it.
Posted by: Brett Young | February 28, 2019 at 01:36 PM
I bike on MacArthur Boulevard a lot. It's a crappy but usable route. With bike lanes, I'm afraid it would still be a crappy but usable route so I'm not too hot on the issue. Other than heavy traffic, the reason it's a crappy road is that the width keeps fluctuating. There are a lot of roads in the city where they have bike lanes where there's room, but they end abruptly when the space runs out. I think that's worse than no bike lane at all. Long stretches of MacArthur don't have sidewalks or have substandard sidewalks because that's all there is space for.
Getting off topic a bit here, but what I'd love to see on Mac is prioritized bus lanes. The area is poorly served by public transportation. The D6 bus traverses MacArthur and it's famously slow, it averages about 5mph and is only slightly faster than walking.
I think this would be a great place to do a pilot on prioritized intersection signals for buses. Imagine a bus line that could go from Sibley to downtown without ever stopping for lights or traffic.
Posted by: Contrarian | March 01, 2019 at 12:31 PM
If only there were a right of way somewhere around there for a trolley.
Posted by: Crickey | March 01, 2019 at 03:45 PM
The city has lost control of a few critical pieces of the trolley ROW. Where it crosses Battery Kemble Park the NPS controls the land, as they do around Foundry Branch. Georgetown University shrewdly bought up one piece of the trackway so that any use going through their campus is going to require their approval. And at Norton Street the Dalecarlia water treatment plant now lies where the trolley used to run.
Posted by: Contrarian | March 01, 2019 at 10:22 PM
Don’t miss Public Workshop #2 for the Rock Creek Far West Livability Study on Saturday, May 18, 2019 from 11:00AM – 1:00PM. Short presentation at 11:30AM
Stoddert Elementary School, Multipurpose Room
4001 Calvert Street NW, Washington, DC 20007
Join the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) Project Team to review preliminary recommendations and provide input for final recommendations.
For more information, visit www.rockcreekfarwest.com
Posted by: Kimberly Sescoe | May 17, 2019 at 10:34 AM