New 11th Street Bridge Park design aims for better trail connections

The planners of the 11th Street Bridge Park have a new design that is intended to create better connections with the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, but the changes from the 2017 design are modest, especially for cyclists. 

It remains true that the bridge will be a poor through-travel option with the current 11th Street Bridge next door, but it will still feature a shared used path down the middle. The route on the south side will be slightly different with the path taking it's own route to Good Hope Road, instead of joining the current path as was planned in 2017. The existing path will also have bioswales built adjacent to it. Pedestrians on the other hand, will find several new connections on both sides of the river. 

A small change that might matter to cyclists is that in the old design the amphitheater would have faced the trail, with the stage adjacent to it and the audience looking towards the trail. But in the current design the stage has been swung around so that the audience is facing the water now. There is still a pedestrian access point from the amphitheater to the Anacostia Riverwalk's west bank trail. 

And while maybe not a change, just new information, the plan is to add lighting not just to the park, but all the approaches between the park, bridge and trails. 

For it's part, the NCPC seems very interested in the bicycle and pedestrian aspects and impacts of this plan. Two of their seven comments were about that or the trail connections, for example they're concerned about wayfinding. 

The revised preliminary design further promotes pedestrian and bicycle access, as both will be essential in ensuring a successful park. From the north side, pedestrians will access the bridge where it lands adjacent to the Navy Yard and the existing 11th Street Bridge. On the south side, the bridge connects to the adjacent grade, and paths and ramps allow access down to Anacostia Drive, Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Connections will allow both bicycles and pedestrians to cross over from the existing bridge to the park bridge. Thru-bicycle access will primarily be along the existing 11th Street Bridge, although a shared bicycle/pedestrian path will allow direct access to the bridge programming. Due to the activity-based nature of the bridge park design, utilizing a shared bicycle/pedestrian path through the park could become problematic when usage increases. Appropriate wayfinding and materials can help mitigate conflicts on a shared path and staff suggests the Commission request that the applicant provide additional details on the bicycle and pedestrian signage and shared path materials for inclusion in the final
submission.

In the below drawing, you can see the planned connections between Good Hope Road, the bridge and the park. These are, of course, preliminary, and NCPC wants them to work on these. It's hard to see, but there is a small pedestrian connection between the two trails about halfway between Good Hope and the bridge. 

In the below rendering, the couple in the foreground is walking on the pedestrian connection between the bridge trail and the park trail.

The next drawing gives a better view of the north side connections. The trail would continue under the park (the part now closed for environmental remediation, and then up to Water street on the parcel next to the bridge. There would be a connection between the bridge and park to the park, and another stub trail along the waterfront. It also shows the ramp and staircase from the trail to the park directly below the park.

Here's a rendering from the west bank trail.

And a rendering of the park from the east side, with the existing trail path and the park paths.

And a view of the shared use path from above, with the amphitheater below that. 

Comments

[Roy]

Thanks for the update. You mentioned lighting. For years, many of the street lights in the sections of the park east of the river have been unlit (mostly between the Douglass bridge and the 11th St. bridge). I reached out once to a DC agency to try and get them fixed but to no avail. Maybe a NPS issue...

[fongfong]

The photo suggests peds will still walk on the existing bridge. I don't get why that would exclusively be a bike path since it seems pedestrians would rather walk on the new bridge.

[fongfong]

I meant "would not exclusively be"