TheWashCycle

Broad Branch deemed too narrow for bike lane, but will get a sidewalk

Not gonna happen

DDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have been working on the rehabilitation of Broad Branch Road between Linnean Avenue and Beach Drive since 2011. The project has been slowed by the narrow right-of-way of the road, desires to widen it to accommodate a sidewalk and/or a bike lane and limitations on the ability to do that caused by potential encroachments by the project on Rock Creek Park and Embassy lands owned and occupied by Sovereign Nations. In October they released a Revised Draft Environmental Assessment that includes a preferred alternative that's a modified version of one of the candidates presented in the original EA. This one avoids all encroachments on Embassy properties and further minimizes encroachments on Rock Creek Park.

In the end, the right-of-way was found to be too narrow to include two traffic lanes, a climbing lane for bikes and a sidewalk. It doesn't seem they were able to get access to any of the embassy lands and that RCP was reluctant to give up more than a few feet in a few tight areas. 

With the road connecting to the Rock Creek Trail on on end and climbing up to the west for more than a mile, bike facilities on this road would create many new connections. 

Alternative 4 had a bike lane on the uphill/east side of the road to serve as a climbing lane, while cyclists heading downhill would take the lane. This was the widest and most expensive option (though only a small amount more expensive than the preferred alternative. 

The alternative they chose is basically the same, but with the bike lane gone. The 10' rain garden is only found on the northern section between Linean and 27th, where the ROW is wider.  The preferred alternative is identical to the original Candidate Build Alternative 3 with the exception of the width of sidewalks in front of the sovereign nation lands. To minimize encroachments onto NPS lands on the east side of the roadway at these locations, the sidewalks along the embassy properties were reduced to a 5-foot width.

There's no doubt that the preferred alternative would be better than the status quo. It has a sidewalk - which cyclists are legally allowed to use - and storm water runoff facilities; but it's really unfortunate that adjacent landowners couldn't be convinced to allow for a safer street. Unfortunately none of the relevant countries are Vision Zero leaders, but you'd think Italy might support a climbing lane. 

Land use permission aside, the true missed opportunity here comes from the assumed operational needs - that the road needs two traffic lanes. I'm no expert, but even on the busiest section of Broad Branch, the section closest to Rock Creek, the traffic is less than half of what it is on Beach Drive (6500 vehicles a day vs 13100). And on the north end traffic is less than half of what it is on the south. Beach Drive is a two-lane road, so why not make Broad Branch a one lane, one-way road to free up space for active transportation? There aren't that many destinations along the road - and many of them are the embassies who clearly don't think extra capacity is needed anyway - so there aren't that many people being inconvenienced. 

A one way, one-lane road going in the south/downhill direction would allow

1. downhill cyclists to merge with automobile traffic, just as was planned in the bike lane option
2. 6-8 feet for a protected climbing lane in the uphill direction,
3. a 6 foot wide sidewalk the whole way, without taking land from NPS
4. a slightly reduced footprint, moving the trail away from Broad Branch. 

Unfortunately, the comment period on the Draft EA came and went in the fall. The final EA will come out in the Spring. I'm gonna be disappointed. 

(Aside: I love the way this changes over time) 

On a similar note, Bingham Drive in RCP has been closed for several years now for a sewer rehabilitation project that was supposed to be finished last year. During that time it was significantly damaged during an August 2018 rain storm (remind you of anything). Since then DDOE and NPS have become more worried about storm water management. What if roads, but less? DC Water and NPS could reduce the impervious area and make biking better by replacing the road and adjacent trail with a one-lane road (uphill this time) and an adjacent 10 foot bi-directional bikeway. Together the one lane roads could act like a pair of lanes - one bringing people into the park, and the other bringing them out - though they are pretty far apart along Beach Drive. 

There was a time when NPS was very concerned about all the car traffic in the Park. This is one way to reduce it - with many added benefits. 

Three options for Seminary Road complete streets road diet

Alexandria held a meeting last month to present the three alternatives on Seminary Road between N Howard Street and N Quaker Lane.

Alternative 1 will just repave the street as it is, but 2 and 3 add bike lanes on the outside with either a 2nd lane in the westbound direction or a center turn lane. 

The alternatives also change some of the intersections, by removing exclusive turns, adding LPI or removing Right Turn on Red, for example.

Alternative 3 is the best option according to GGW:

Alternative 3 is the option that the Federal Highway Administration recommends to address safety issues on roads like Seminary Road. It is also the most pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly design of the three. It includes painted bicycle lanes with a one-foot painted stripe (a buffer) between the traffic and bicycle lanes. There's also an opportunity for protected bicycle lanes to be installed in the future.

This is a complete streets project, so the bike lanes are part of the point. If they don't add bike lanes, after putting them in the Transportation Master Plan, then this project will be a failure. 

Locals don't like the project, but for once the problem is not parking. Instead it's cut-through traffic and reduced throughput on the road. In addition they complain that

• No one bikes this road and why would we want more scofflaws
• The road is already safe enough, so no need to slow people down to make it safer

I don't know how one can claim that there's no safety problem, when people continue to be injured in crashes on this road - and they do - but it's definitely in line with our generally "oh, well" cavalier attitude towards road injuries and death. But the point of Vision Zero is to stop seeing injuries and deaths as OK, as long as they're below some threshold. The threshold where they're OK is zero. And this road isn't there yet. 

Several of the identified changes will make the roads safer, by reducing collisions at intersections and slowing traffic speed. Here are the other reasons for the project

1. Improve mobility and access for all roadway users

2. Provide continuous, safe, and comfortable places for people to walk

3. Provide more frequent and safer crossing opportunities along the corridor

4. Minimize delay at intersections, and encourage speed limit compliance

5. Where excess roadway capacity exists, explore opportunities to reconfigure the corridor to better serve all modes

So even if you successfully make the argument that getting drivers to drive slower doesn't make things safer, there's still the other elements. 

As for the argument that no one bikes the road, that's neither true nor relevant. A review of Strava data shows that people do ride it. And if no one rode it, that might be because it is too inhospitable and that a complete street could fix that. 

The claim that it will limit throughput is addressed and it will slow traffic at the worst of rush hour, but people are driving too fast anyway. Mostly though the road will function the same.

Four-lane undivided roadways often already function like three-lane roadways. This is because people driving often use the outside lanes to avoid traffic that is slowed or
stopped in the inside lane to make a left turn.

Spillover traffic is addressed as well

For the majority of road diets, the Average Daily Traffic (ADT) remains constant, indicating little to no diversion to neighboring side streets. Preliminary traffic analysis for the Seminary Road project has shown that while average queue lengths may be longer during the peak hour, the amount of delay remains comparable to existing conditions due to modified signal timing and thus should not encourage cut-through traffic.

Staff will closely monitor conditions on side streets after the project is completed (regardless of which alternative is selected) to evaluate impacts on neighboring streets. Data that was
collected after the King Street road diet showed no traffic diversion onto key connector streets. In fact, traffic volumes actually decreased on side streets.'

The comment period ended April 10th, but I mean you can still fill out the form. 

Army Navy road diet would make room for a PBL

Shortly after I wrote about this project in January, Arlington County had a public workshop about the Army Navy Drive Complete Streets project.  Some more material from that meeting is now available. Nothing official has changed about the concept so far, and yet it's possible that the workshop results in some changes. 

On the bike network map above, you can see how Army Navy connects so many of the facilities together and becomes part of the Columbia Pike to 14th Street Bridge route. 

The project will create a bi-directional Protected Bike Lane on the south side of the street, transit lanes for the Joyce to Hayes section and landscaped medians. It will make room for this by reducing travel lanes. No word on which lanes will be for Navy and which for Army.

On the west side, the bike lane will pass behind a floating bus stop, but won't extend the bike lane on Joyce to connect to it...

and on the east it will have bike boxes and a connection to the shared lanes on 12th.

There are quite a few driveways on this stretch so careful attention will need to be paid to how these cross the PBL. The PBLs will only be 10' wide, which is 2' less than NACTO recommends. And then I have a lot of questions about how cyclists will transition to and from the PBL, but I like the general idea of this for sure. 

Construction is expected to begin in spring 2020, and be complete in spring 2022. That's roughly the time that the new Army Navy Country Club Access Road, which will provide cyclists access from the Columbia Pike area to Pentagon City, goes forward.

Final Meeting on the Alabama Avenue SE Corridor Safety Study later this month

DDOT is considering a road diet for Alabama Avenue SE that might include bike lanes from MLK Avenue to the Maryland boundary at Southern Avenue and the final engagement meeting on that project is scheduled for the end of next week. 

Three alternatives have been proposed and one has no bike lanes. As WABA described them:

• Alternative 1 would install a center median with a travel lane and buffered bike lane on each side. This option would require removing parking on both sides of the street, but does not physically prevent parking in the bike lane. This alternative should be improved by adding flex-posts, curbs or other vertical barriers to the buffer area to protect bicyclists and keep cars out .
• Alternative 2 would add bike lanes in each direction, separated from the travel lane by a narrow 1 foot painted buffer. This option would retain parking on one side of the road, but require drivers to cross the bike lane to park. This design should be improved to better protect bicyclists by adding vertical barriers. More importantly, the bike lane should be positioned between the parking lane and the curb, so that the bike lane is protected by a row of parked cars and cars don’t have to cross the bike lane to park, similar to the design on 15th Street NW.
• Alternative 3 would make the curbside lanes full-time parking and add bulb-outs at intersections. This alternative does not include any dedicated space for people on bikes, encourages riding in the “door zone” and increases likelihood of harassment and driver frustration towards cyclists who ride in the shared lane.

The meeting is on Saturday. I ride Alabama every day to and from work, (but I won't be able to attend this meeting) and bike lanes would be most welcome. I get a lot of close passing and having to get around the one parked car is actually harder then full curb-side parking.

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 10:30am to 1:00pm

Location: 1535 Alabama Avenue SE

Building:  Giant at the Shops at Park Village

Far Southeast III Livability Study final workshop on March 4th

(Here is my most recent post on this study)

The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) will host its third and final public workshop in Ward 7 for the Far Southeast III Livability Study on Saturday, March 4 from 10 am to 12 pm. The purpose of this workshop is to present the final recommendations for transportation improvements in the study area. 

This neighborhood mobility study is designed to enhance the community's quality of life through improvements to transportation safety, connections to destinations and sustainability. Neighborhoods in the Far Southeast III study area include Fort Dupont, Fort Davis, Twining, Greenway, Benning Heights, Benning Ridge, Marshall Heights, and Capitol View.

The study area’s boundaries are East Capitol to the north; Southern Avenue SE to the east; Massachusetts Avenue SE to the south; and the Anacostia River to the west.

The event details are as follows:

What: Far Southeast III Livability Study, Public Workshop #3  

When: Saturday, March 4, 10 am to 12 pm  (Presentation at 10:30 am)

Where: Nalle Elementary School, 219 50th Street SE

Livability is a term that refers to community quality of life as experienced by the people who live, work, and recreate there. DDOT will work with members of the community and key stakeholders to review recommendations for improvements for people walking, biking, riding the bus, driving, and making deliveries. At the end of the study, DDOT will provide recommendations such as: 

• Enhanced pedestrian crossings
• More accessible bus stops
• Expanded bicycle and pedestrian connections
• Attractive streetscapes and green spaces
• Improved stormwater management
• Signage for better driver information
• Updates to traffic signal timing,
• Speed controls in sensitive areas
• Safety improvements around public facilities such as schools and community centers
• Safety improvements at public transit facilities (i.e. bus stops)           

For more information about the study, please contact DDOT Project Manager, Gabe Onyeador, at [email protected]  or (202) 671-0590 or visit the study website  http://www.fse3livabilitystudy.com.

Little Falls Parkway to go on road diet at deadly Capital Crescent Trail crossing; cyclist found at fault; Ourisman encroaches on trail

Two months ago, cyclist Ned Gaylin was killed while crossing Little Falls Parkway on the Capital Crescent Trail, which prompted a safety review of the crossing (and a weird press conference/enforcement blitz by the police). Next month, as a result of the review, Montgomery County will narrow the road to one lane in each direction; add warning signs, flex posts and pavement markings and lower the speed limit from 35mph to 25mph. It's so absolutely the right decision and came so quickly and is so NOT what usually happens that it's refreshingly surprising. But wait, there's more

County officials also plan to review 300 locations across the county to make long-term safety changes to places where paved trails come into contact with cars and major intersections. Changes could include more crosswalks, pedestrian-activated signals and redesigning intersections.

Also, department staff will “conduct additional studies in the vicinity of this intersection to identify a safe long-term solution to accommodate both vehicles and trail users. The long-term solution may involve additional traffic pattern changes and trail connectors."

WABA has a much longer and detailed post on this.

 

The county has since then announced that charges would not be filed against the driver in the Gaylin crash.

“Investigators concluded that Gaylin entered the roadway, illegally, after failing to stop at a posted stop sign on the Capital Crescent Trail,” [Capt. Tom Didone, director of Montgomery County police department’s traffic division] said, reading from a prepared statement about the collision. He said witnesses told police Gaylin “proceeded into the crosswalk without remotely stopping.”

“Further, the investigation proved that the driver of the vehicle, Nils Rudelius, was traveling lawfully on Little Falls Parkway before the collision,” Didone said.

“This is a tragic case where two senior citizens crashed at an intersection that has had some issues in the past,” Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said.

In a somewhat related story, the County is investigating whether or not recent construction carried out by Oursiman Honda immediately adjacent to the trail encroaches on the trail. It's a pretty tight squeeze either way.

Photo by Andrew Metcalf

I have no idea where the property line is, but this is certainly encroaching into the trail's shy space. Someone made a mistake. 

 

A new trail connection and on-street facilities could make Far SE more bikeable

The Far Southeast III Livability study presented some results of the ongoing study and some concepts for making the area more livable last week, and they include some long needed bike facilities in the area. 

The study identified issues for cyclists trying to get to/from the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, getting across the Anacostia and crossing East Capital Street. The general solution to these issues were to complete the bike network, consider alternative designs and to create new connections. In specific, the proposed bicycle improvements (seen on the map below) include protected bike lanes on portions of East Capitol Street, Ridge Road and Burns Street; sharrows on Texas Avenue and Ely place, and a new connection between the Greenway neighborhood and the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. These do not completely address all the issues identified.

The most important part of this may be the connection to the Anacostia Trail, which addresses two of the issues - getting to the trail and crossing the river. 

It would connect to the existing trail at the southern base of the bridge over the railroad tracks. It would then use the existing road to the point where it crosses the tracks at grade, but instead of crossing the tracks it would continue on a new trail on the south side of the tracks, under DC-295 and connecting to Greenway at either E Street or D Street (why not both?). In so doing it would also cross the unused Shepherd Industrial Spur railroad that may become a trail of its own in the future.

This is a pretty common sense connection and one that is well overdue. 

A less fleshed-out idea is to put eastern East Capitol Street onto a road diet and use some of the newfound space to create protected bike lanes. 

The area would still be short on bike facilities, and no doubt some will find fault with the E-W route being a signed and sharrowed on-street route, but nonetheless there are real improvements here. You can send comments here.

 

 

Maryland Ave NE road diet, too slow for some, not right for others and tiny little American flags for all

So Allen didn't show up to the Maryland Ave NE road diet meeting, because he and his wife decided to have a baby instead or some sort of excuse like that, but Mayor Bowser and DDOT Director Dormsjo did. There were two camps main camps there. People who have been waiting for this since 2011 and want to know how much longer it's going to be (probably the end of 2018 before it is all finished) and people who want to re-litigate the road diet decision.

The major change since the Concept Plan dealt with the median. The road isn't quite wide enough for a median near the intersections where there is also a left turn lane. So on some blocks there will only be a median in the middle of the block and on others there will be none at all. But only one person expressed concern about this. DDOT pointed out that because a pedestrian would only have to cross 2 lanes (whereas now it is 4) and they would have bump outs to shorten the crossing distance, a pedestrian refuge wouldn't be as necessary.

The pro-diet group was somewhat disappointed that the project wouldn't go out to bid until mid-2017, and that the 30% design won't be done until early August. The design will be presented at an ANC Transportation Committee meeting that month. But they seemed to be content to see progress. Some asked about what could be done in the interim and I think there might be some traffic lights added in places, but other than that, not much.

The pro-status quo group was angry. They didn't know how people (commuters, Capitol police, fire trucks, ambulances, etc...) were going to be able to get around if one lane was removed. They wanted to know if DDOT was going to do another traffic study since the last one is now 5 years old "and so much has changed since then." They were worried about parking.

Dormsjo's answers were unsatisfying because he skipped over some questions, which is too bad because eventually he got around to answering them pretty clearly, but I think people were frustrated with how long it took him to get to it directly. He told them that traffic was very light on Maryland and that it was overbuilt; and that this was prove by the fact there was still a lot of speeding - at all times of the day - on the road. He, and Bowser, pointed out that many other streets in DC are only one lane wide with a bike lane and ambulances manage to get around on them. It took them a long time, but eventually Bowser basically said that they weren't going to do another traffic study. She noted that the decision has been made. It's been supported by both ANCs, the Ward 6 Councilmember and the DC Council and so this meeting would not be about whether or not to do a road diet. It was to present and discuss the specifics. George Branyan pointed out that there would be no net loss of parking. 

During the presentation it was pointed out that some street space on E, 7th and G would be converted into little plazas. Plazalettes they called them. But that NPS had demanded that the view lines down the carriageways be preserved as they are part of the L'Enfant Plan. So there will be no trees and the carriageways would remain hard scape. Along the sides they were planning more bioswales and grass though. 

One participant suggested that a sidewalk be added to the outside of Stanton Park - all the way around it - and that the inside lane of 4th, 6th and C Streets be narrowed or removed. This is a great idea, but it probably needs NPS approval, and I doubt it will happen. 

Mayor Bowser and CM Allen to attend meeting on Maryland Ave NE update

DDOT is going to update the relevant ANCs on the 30% designs for the Maryland Avenue NE road diet tonight at the NE Branch library from 7:30 to 9:30pm and Mayro Bowser and Councilmember Allen are expected to attend. This project would add bike lanes to Maryland Ave NE (all images from the 2015 concept plan, not tonight's presentation).

 

And add bulb-outs and plazas to improve the experience for pedestrians

Stanton Park changes: