TheWashCycle

DDOT looking at ways to improve transportation safety at Grant Circle and Twining Square

DDOT has a pair of meetings coming up to discuss ways to improve transportation safety at a couple of tricky areas.

First of all, on Thursday, DDOT will hold a public meeting on the Pennsylvania Avenue and Minnesota Avenue, SE, Intersection Improvement Project. [Near and dear to my heart, this happens to be the place where I lost my front teeth earlier this year] 

The project is designed to enhance safety at the intersection for pedestrians and transit users. It also provides a consolidated green space at Twining Square by reconfiguring the existing split roadway system, which comprises two complex intersections into a conventional intersection.

To get off subject just a bit... that this is called Twining Square makes absolutely no sense. The road along the NE and NW sides of the square is called L'Enfant Square SE. Pick one. That's the first thing I'd fix. 

The Twining Square reconfiguration was something started back at least in 2012, and then kind of stalled, so maybe they're picking it back up again. They say they're doing the "conventional intersection" as opposed to the ellipse or one of the traffic squares proposed. That's probably the easiest.

It's mildly disconcerting that the project description doesn't mention trying to make this safer for cyclists. But the design above would likely do that anyway. The meeting will be at Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE at 6:30pm on Thursday.

The other meeting coming us is on Grant Circle. A meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 2 from 6:30-8:00 PM in the gymnasium at EL Haynes Public Charter School, Kansas Avenue Campus, 4501 Kansas Avenue NW.  The purpose of the meeting is to discuss ways to improve transportation safety at Grant Circle. 

This is also been bouncing around for awhile, here's the plans from 2009.

In 2015, they painted new lane markings to improve safety, but I'm not sure how much it matched the design above. But clearly it didn't solve all the problems since an ANC commissioner got DDOT Director Dormsjo to meet him at the Circle to discuss pedestrian safety last fall. For starters they should rename the street around Grant Circle to L'Enfant Circle. That name goes good everywhere.

Finally, tonight there's Public Meeting #2 of the New York Avenue Streetscape and Trail Project. They will discuss design improvement concepts.

New York Avenue Project envisions a bike network around Gallaudet University

At last week's kickoff meeting for the New York Avenue Streetscape and Trail Project, DDOT presented a vision of a bicycle and pedestrian network that would tie the Gallaudet, Ivy City, Langdon and Arboretum neighborhoods together. 

The potential bicycle route options, include a bicycle trail along the north side of New York Avenue; cycle tracks on Florida and West Virginia Avenues; and bike routes throughout the area from the Metropolitan Branch Trail to the Arboretum.

This is the first public meeting since the project was kicked off last October. Three more meetings are planned between now and the completion of preliminary plans in October of this year. Until then they're looking for a lot of input from the public. Specifically, they want to know which streetscape elements are important, a list that includes bike racks; which facility the public would prefer on NY Ave - a north side multi-use trail or a south side cycle track; what other kinds of facilities - sharrows, bike lanes or cycle tracks; preferred locations for crossing NY Avenue - options include the old train tunnel at 4th and a series of crosswalks; and what destinations are important.

Florida Avenue 30% design includes a protected bike lane from 3rd to 9th

by Ezra DF

 

Last night, DDOT held a public meeting to give an update on its Florida Avenue NE project. The project is looking at Florida Ave starting just east of the dreaded "Dave Thomas Circle," where Florida Ave crosses New York Ave in one of the most confusing and dangerous intersections in the city; down through where Florida Ave hits H Street and Benning Road (the "Starburst Intersection"). Varying between four and five lanes of cars, the road currently has narrow sidewalks, no bike infrastructure, and excessive speeding.

 

This is a significant opportunity to make the street safe for bicyclists and pedestrians in a neighborhood with unique issues and undergoing rapid change.  Florida Avenue has always had a high number of deaf pedestrians because Gallaudet University is located right in the middle of the study area. In fact, there were several sign language interpreters at the DDOT meeting and several deaf neighbors who gave their feedback about safety in the area. The continued growth of H Street as a destination for people from all over the city, and the presence of Union Market and the pedestrians and cyclists it adds means it's especially important that pedestrians and cyclists have a way to get there safely.  This will only become more acute in the future as buildings are still being developed on the western edge of the study area (near the new REI). 

 

As recently as yesterday, WABA was letting people know that the previously released plans for redesigning Florida Avenue were alarmingly car-oriented and didn't do nearly enough to accommodate pedestrian or cyclist needs. They encouraged cycling advocates to attend the meeting and give DDOT feedback on the plan.

 

Here's the good news: DDOT's proposal has gotten much better since they last gave an update, It now includes reduced travel lanes and a ~0.6 mile long, curb protected, two-way cycletrack along about half the length of the street, from 3rd to 9th, with a shared use path along the south side of the short block from 9th to West Virginia and another one along the longer block from 2nd to 3rd. There are also two-stage turn boxes at 5th, 6th, 8th and West Virginia. Given what the cycling community had been expecting, that's a huge improvement (and an even larger improvement over the current situation). There are no planned bike facilities from West Virginia to H Street.

 Cycle track between 4th and 6th Streets NE

 

Still, the proposal seems like too little to me. While it will serve a busy street, by itself, it won't do a good job connecting to other parts of the bike lane network nearby, such as the First Street NE cycletrack, the Metropolitan Branch Trail, or the bike lane on I Street. The Florida Ave cycle track also doesn't connect directly with the two-way lanes on 6th street. On a positive note, there are plans, I learned today, for a future lane along West Virginia Avenue, which will connect well with the Florida Avenue cycletrack. [Editor's note: There are also proposed facilities along M Street and through Union Market which, if built, would create connections to First Street, the Metropolitan Branch Trail and a future New York Avenue Trail.]

 

Map showing the location of the proposed cycletrack and the existing bike lane network.

 

In the end I felt like these improvements to Florida Avenue will be welcome, but with just a little bit more ambition this facility could be a truly great, very useful new addition to the DC cycling network.

 

You can see detailed maps of the proposal here, and leave a comment here. DDOT hopes to reach the 100% design stage in the spring of 2018 and start construction soon after that. I'm still disappointed in the glacially slow progress of the Shaw protected bike lane so take those dates to be extremely rough estimates only.

 

Florida Avenue, NE from 2nd Street to West Virginia Avenue, NE

New York Avenue Streetscape and Trail Project Meeting

DDOT invites you to a public meeting on Thursday, February 23, 2017 where staff will discuss the New York Avenue Streetscape and Trail Project.  A brief presentation about the project will be given at 6:30pm.  The purpose of this project is to develop implementable design solutions for a streetscape and trail targeting multimodal, safety and aesthetic improvements along New York Avenue, NE.  DDOT will present design concepts and gather comments from the community at this public meeting. 

Location:  800 Florida Avenue, NE

Building: Gallaudet University

Room: I. King Jordan Student Academic Center -SAC

 

Fact Sheet

Is the New York Avenue Trail in trouble? (short answer: yeah, it is)

For a few years now, DDOT has been looking at building a rail-trail parallel to New York Avenue from the Union Market area to West Virginia Avenue (and possibly on to the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail). In fact, earlier this year they released a rails-to-trails produced feasibility study of such a trail.

But recently it was announced that VRE had its eye on the same space, including the rail tunnel beneath New York Ave. 

The concept map of it shows VRE using the old rail right of way to navigate to the tunnel, pass under NY Ave through it and then to the new "Broccoli" rail yard on the north side of New York Avenue.

But that is also space planned for use for the trail.

And it doesn't get much better on the north side of NY Avenue. Drawings show the tracks and adjacent access road extending all the way over to the existing sidewalk, with just a retaining wall separating them. It even needs the footprint the Howard Johnson's Motel sits on. 

So if you support the trail, it's more than reasonable to be worried. As presently configured, there's no way to fit both the trail and trains through the tunnel and as shown in the image above there isn't room for both the rail yard and the trail north of New York Avenue. This design is incompatible with the trail.

But...it's possible the tunnel could be widened and space made for the trail, either by sharing the service road or decking over the rail yard. For a little hope, a task identified in the design RFP is:

the Consultant shall examine the engineering feasibility of decking over the propose storage facility for the purposes of joint development. Possibilities to be examined shall be determined in consultation with the District of Columbia government. The work product for this task shall consist of a draft and final Ancillary Development Report that describes potential solutions, provides additional descriptive details for potential uses for air-rights development, potential NEPA implications, and rough-order-of magnitude cost estimates for the feasible solutions.

All things considered, I'm certainly less confident about the trail being built now than I was before. And if you tell me the rail yard is a done deal, then I'm going to be significantly less confident. It's possible the tunnel could be widened and a deck built for the trail or some other accommodation, but I'm pessimistic about it happening. I'd say the chance the trail is built now is at about 20%, and the chance that the rail yard and trail are built is about 2%. But maybe I'm just grumpy today.

Connecting Fort Lincoln to the Anacostia Trails: $10.6M and 5 years according to feasibility study

DDOT recently commissioned a feasibility study for the Anacostia Riverwalk Gateway Trail Segment that would connect the Fort Lincoln area to PG County's Anacostia Trail (and thus DC's Anacostia Riverwalk Trail) via the New York Avenue bridge and they determined that while difficult, it would be possible, but much easier if an on-street route were chosen.

Back in 2013, a group of cyclists in the neighborhood began to plan for a possible connection, and one member of that group, Robert Looper III, decided to run for an ANC seat in order to facilitate it. Last year ANC 5C passed a resolution in support of a 2 mile long trail that starts Bladensburg Road and then follows the DC/MD boundary to New York Avenue where it crosses the Anacostia on the New York Avenue Bridge. DDOT and the OP agreed to study it and the feasibility report about it has now been completed. 

The requested alignment was broken up into four segments - Bladensburg Road, Fort Lincoln Drive, the PEPCO easement along the boundary and the bridge crossing.

Bladensburg road was found to present many challenges due to driveways, retaining walls, fences, buildings that prevent an off-road route on one side, etc... The consultants came up with several possible solutions but recommended a road diet and protected bikeway on the east side of the road.

There are a number of ways to provide a bike facility in this area, which would likely require one or more of the following:

• Removal of one parking/peak hour travel lane
• Reconstruction and/or narrowing of the median
• Reconstruction of existing retaining walls and/or decorative fencing on the east side
• Narrowing of one or both sidewalks

It may be necessary to investigate a two-way on-road bike facility along the east side of Bladensburg road due to the number of high-volume high-turnover driveways along the west side.

The Fort Lincoln Drive section would be the easiest to implement because there's already a trail there. It just needs to be rebuilt. [Aside: The label for Figure 3 says it is looking south, but it is actually looking north. The trail thus is across the street, barely visible in the top right quadrant of the photo]

Portions of the existing paved path have been covered over by landscaping, but it would be relatively easy to widen the trail and reconstruct the portions that have been covered over to provide a continuous off-road facility in this area. A roadway crossing on Fort Lincoln Dr. would be required for access to the Pepco Corridor, and design of this crossing must be carefully considered to ensure that users are visible to drivers on Fort Lincoln Dr.

The PEPCO corridor has lots of land ownership (GSA, NPS and a private company all own parts) and environmental issues. 

Much of the open space land is occupied by stormwater management facilities, and a possible constructed wetland related to adjacent development.

It also passes one of DC's Boundary Markers but that's both a complication and an opportunity.

But the biggest problem here is the topography.

Approximately 1,700 feet, or 1/3 of a mile, of the alignment between Fort Lincoln Drive and New York Ave has grades in excess of 7%, and about half of that length exceeds 13%. The grades would need to be flattened in order to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines and the design criteria listed above. Using the steepest allowable grade, 5%, this would result in the need to construct retaining walls on one or both sides of the trail in excess of 50 feet high.

So the recommend not using the PEPCO alignment and instead building an on-road facility along Fort Lincoln and Commodore Joshua Barney Drives, connecting to New York Avenue farther into DC.

The New York Avenue Crossing would use DC, GSA and NPS owned land and would require the New York Avenue bridge to be widened and then "require additional structural work to accommodate the difference in vertical elevation between the bridge surface and the boardwalk."

There are three alternatives for the bridge expansion that comes from a preliminary structural review performed by the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. They include cantilevering a widened deck off the side as was done with the Key Bridge; widening the whole bridge (piers, abutments, deck etc...) to include a path or building a new two span bridge parallel to the existing one. Option 3 is shown below.

The three choices would cost $1.9M, $2.2M and $2.0 respectively (but would likely have different lifetime costs as well). 

The whole thing, using the recommended alignment, would cost an estimated $10.6M, as opposed to $15M for using the PEPCO ROW. Considering time for planning and design, permitting, bidding and construction, it would take up to 5 years to complete. For perspective, the Kenilworth section of the ART will cost $22.1M for four miles of trail. 

I think this is really worthwhile project (though it's too bad the PEPCO alignment is so problematic, I wonder if a hiking trail could be built there). A new connection across the New York Avenue bridge could set up a nice connection to the proposed New York Avenue Trail creating a connection from the Anacostia to the Metropolitan Branch Trail.  Unfortunately, it is unfunded right now, but this study could help to get it funded. Perhaps the District could use it to create a TIGER grant proposal.

DC's State Rail Plan and bicycling

On Monday night, DDOT hosted an open house to start the development of a District of Columbia State Rail Plan (SRP). While, as the name states, primarily a rail plan, there is some overlap with cycling in some of the likely projects. 

One issue is how a passenger rail transportation system ties into the bicycle network. Something noted in the presentation material under "Plan Elements."

Assesses passenger rail connections with other transportation modes (transit, automobile, bicycle, pedestrian)

Union Station is pretty well connected, with the Metropolitan Branch Trail ended at the Bike Station there. And it will get better if it is built as rendered in the Union Station Master Plan.

The L'Enfant Plaza VRE station isn't quite as connected. I've always thought it would be cool to use the ROW from the west end of that platform west to 14th (under the Maryland Avenue Circle through the unused portion of tunnel for a bike trail. That's pretty unlikely to happen and it looks like CSX has been doing work on that part of the ROW and so it may not be unused for much longer. [As long as we're dreaming though, it could end with a ramp that uses this old abutment to allow you to jump the sidewalk Evil Knievel style.] But the Rail Plan presentation mentions that VRE will start a study of L'Enfant Station Improvements soon. 

In addition to station access, there is also complimentary facilities work like the Virginia Avenue Streetscape project and its possible extension.  The nascent New York Avenue rail trail would use an old rail tunnel and then run parallel to the Northeast Corridor/Camden line. A new Long Bridge will likely include a bike/ped path as well. And creating a principle that all future rail projects - like replacing the two bridges across the Anacostia - should include a bike element when possible could help to expand the bike network. Rail with trail should be the default.

There will reportedly be more open houses and a survey in September of 2015 (I know...I know). 

After years of moving around, BicycleSPACE is expanding again

BicycleSPACE, the Mt Vernon Square-area bicycle shop that is currently on its 3rd location, with a 4th (and final?) one scheduled for May just announced another expansion. They had already announced in January plans to open a 2nd location in the old Hecht's Warehouse on New York Avenue, NE but then last week they announced plans to open a 3rd location in Adams Morgan. 

The store, scheduled to open in April, will occupy 6,405 square feet at 2424 18th St. NW, described by the owners as an "unimaginably large shop." It takes over a space that's been vacant for years, since the closure of Slaviya and previously Leftbank. The building is owned by Douglas Development, which also owns the Hecht property, as well as the 7th Street store that BicycleSPACE had to leave so Douglas could proceed with its office development.

Each of the new stores, beyond the K Street one replacing the nearby 7th Street shop, presents a challenge. The Hecht development, in Ivy City, is cut off from much of the city by railroad tracks, a highway-like stretch of New York Avenue, and a cemetery. Bikers in that part of town are few. As a result, the BicycleSPACE there will have to rely on Maryland commuters stopping by with their cars. "Don’t forget, there’s over 70,000 people who pass by there driving in and out of the city every day," says Kugler. It's a different model from the downtown store, where most visitors come by bike or foot.

Not so long ago, there were no bike shops in NE. And there was just the Union Station Bike station (which isn't a full bike shop and is barely in NE) and now there are several. Still, no one has ventured EOTR yet. I put the over/under on that at 2 years. 

But Kugler's also hopeful that infrastructure improvements will make Ivy City more of a cycling destination. The city is planning a bike trail along New York Avenue, and Kugler hopes cyclists will come through the area en route to the newly bike-accessible Arboretum. The Hecht development also aims to be something of a fitness draw; there's a Planet Fitness, and Kugler says the BicycleSPACE will be located between a Bikram Yoga studio and a CrossFit studio.

With car capacity downtown pretty maxed out and cycling infrastructure much cheaper than public transit infrastructure, Kugler sees a major expansion in the future for cycling in D.C., and possibly for BicycleSPACE as well. But for 2015, three new stores is going to be it.

And BicycleSPACE may not be done.

"The locations are exactly what we wanted. We’re going to hunker down this year, work on execution, and next year, we’ve already got four opportunities in front of us."

BicycleSPACE is poised to become the largest bicycle retailer in D.C.

Highline at Union Market could connect to New York Ave Trail

Admittedly the New York Avenue Trail doesn't exist yet, but then neither does the Highline at Union Market. ANC Commissioner Tony Goodman notes about this project that will include 105 bicycle parking spaces and "could also include creating an easier connection to the NoMa-Gallaudet U Metro."

Between this site and the tracks is an oddly shaped DC-owned parcel that stretches from Florida to New York Avenues along the tracks.

This project will provide a small park along a section of this, with future developers bringing the park further North later.

This will eventually tie in to a new pedestrian & bike trail and linear park along New York Avenue NE heading towards the Arboretum taking advantage of some unused railroad right-of-way.

New York Avenue bike path becomes less nebulous

At GGW there's a post by Tony Goodman about the long hinted at New York Avenue bike path. A path on the north side of New York Avenue from Florida Market to West Virginia has been around since at least the 2005 bike plan, and in the 2006 New York Avenue Corridor plan it is included as a linear park that would, as shown at GGW connect the Metropolitan Branch Trail to the Arboretum.

With NYAve getting more development, like the old Hecht's department store, it seems like a natural time to put this in the plan, which DDOT very recently did. A couple of new features of the trail will use old railroad infrastructure such as the tunnel under NYAve near Florida Market and the bridge over it at West Virigina Avenue. 

There are other opportunities to expand on even this such as

• A better connection over the railroad tracks on the existing New York Avenue Bridge (since this bridge was just reworked, that ship may have sailde for a while)
• A trail spur from the West Virginia Bridge along the old rail spur to Fenwick Street
• A trail along the railroad tracks, but at ground level, from Montana Avenue to the Arboretun (or even across the Anacostia to the ART where it could connect to a future Beaverdam Creek Trail)
• Trails along the unused rail spur on the north side of the tracks from just east of Bladensburg road to South Dakota Avenue and to the end of Adams Street NE. 

All in all, this is a good project to get on the radar. But DDOT has a lot on its plate right now, so we'll see how it goes.