TheWashCycle

What's the deal with the Roosevelt Bridge?

If you've ever biked or walked across the Theodore Roosevelt bridge, you've probably wondered how the hell we ended up with such a weird bridge sidewalk. I'm here to tell you the story and it's a bit crazy. 

First of all, for those unfamiliar, the Roosevelt Bridge has a 6 ft. wide sidewalk on each side. The north side sidewalk is the usable one, as it connects the Kennedy Center to the Mt. Vernon Trail, while the south side one connects to the E Street Expressway (and then via a substandard sidewalk the intersection of 23rd and Constitution Ave) in DC with...well nothing. It just dead-ends on the Virginia side (though a desire path seems to indicate that SOMEONE is using it).

The most obvious question is

Why doesn't the downstream walk connect to anything on the Virginia side?

To answer that question we have to talk about how the bridge ended up with sidewalks. 

The design presented to the Fine Arts Commission in 1959 included sidewalks on both sides. These sidewalks ended at stairs that would lead down to Little Island (the southern part of Roosevelt Island) on the downstream and Roosevelt Island on the upstream. This would create a pedestrian connection from DC to the Islands where the Monument would go, which DC's Bureau of Roads wanted. The DC Department of Highways, on the other hand, didn't want them included, fearing they would encourage people to run across the highway. Furthermore, sidewalks weren't allowed on Interstates. The two struck a deal to include only the upstream sidewalk and a 2'4" wide maintenance walk on the downstream side. The purpose of the maintenance walk was for workers to get on the bridge or drivers of broken down cars to walk off. It wasn't really for transportation. The upstream sidewalk was preferred as a connection because it would give access to Roosevelt Island, though some preferred the downstream walk for the views, but upstream won out. Planners were able to get a waiver to include sidewalks along an interstate and they resubmitted the design to the FAC.

But the Fine Arts Commission overruled them arguing that the bridge would look lopsided without equal sized sidewalks (same reason for this sidewalk). They forced them to widen the maintenance walk but not to expand its purpose.  Highway officials reluctantly relented. In retrospect, it would have been better if they'd ignored symmetry and forced them to widen the upstream sidewalk to 9 feet. 

FAC also recommended that once the Roosevelt Bridge was opened, that the Memorial Bridge should be closed to commuter traffic. [Oh, what could have been.]

Anyway, that's why the downstream doesn't connect to VA. It wasn't meant to be a transportation path. It was meant to be a way to evacuate or access the bridge. If we ever connect it, as has been planned for decades, it won't be the realization of some long ago plan, it will be an opportunist kluge of a fortuitous aesthetic choice. 

Why are the sidewalks so narrow?

For one, that was kind of the standard of the day when cars were king. In 1955 they narrowed the sidewalks on the Key Bridge to 5'5" to make room for more car lanes and DC was increasing the number of lanes across the Potomac from 12 to 22 because they were going to fix traffic congestion. A plan that worked so well that only a few years later, Nixon's Secretary of Transportation John Volpe and a DC Council Chairman Gilbert Hahn took Nixon on a helicopter tour at rush hour to show him how bad traffic was and to convince him to fund the subway. [Hahn at other times said he'd like to ban all-day parking in the city to increase transit use. Oh, what could have been.]

But also they just expected them to be very lightly used, and not by cyclists. This was before either the MVT or the Rock Creek Trail after all. The only place they thought people would go was to Roosevelt Island - and the bridge across for that across Little River was at the north end of the Island back then making for a long walk. After the bridge opened, they were surprised to find people walking to work at the State Department from River Place (then known as Arlington Towers) in Rosslyn. Frankly, I am too as that required more than a few dangerous road crossings. Not just on the VA side, but on the DC side it required crossing a ramp from I-66 to the Rock Creek Parkway that wasn't removed until sometime after 1980. 

OK, but what about those weird barriers?

The low barriers - you can see them in the photo at top - were not included on the bridge originally.  Those were added in the late 1960's after a driver drove off the bridge and died. They exist to protect drivers from driving off the road, not to protect sidewalk users. Again, no one thought about how they'd feel for cyclists. 

The upstream path wouldn't be connected to the Mt Vernon Trail until 1988, around the same time the bridge to TR Island moved and the trail overpass to Rosslyn was built. Prior to that there was just a simple path along the Parkway which you can kind of see in this photo.

Anyway, all things considered cyclists and pedestrians got lucky. The TR Bridge might not have had any sidewalks had the highway people gotten their way. They might not have connected to VA if the plan for stairs had been retained. We wouldn't have the downstream walk - which I still think we'll utilize some day - if some bureaucrats hadn't found the unsymmetrical bridge wonky (my term).

But it would've been nice if the walks had been wider. And had a barrier like the one on the Mason Bridge. And maybe the stairs would've been a nice addition to what they did. And a little thought into how that downstream sidewalk could've connected would have made that investment better. I have ideas: 

NPS wants to fix all the things you hate about the Potomac section of the Rock Creek Park Trail

The National Park Service has created a concept design for access and safety improvements to the Rock Creek Park Trail from Virginia Avenue to the Tidal Basin Bridge. There are a lot of components to this project and I think it will make many people happy. From north to south

Virginia Avenue NW intersection improvements - This won't really impact trail users, but it will resurface the road, improve the crosswalks, repair the cobblestone median and repave a sidewalk to nowhere. The repaving of the road and repair of the median will happen all along the Parkway.

Trail widening and waterfront improvements - The project contemplates the widening of the trail from Virginia Avenue, NW to Ohio Drive, SW to 14 feet in most locations, with a width of 10 feet in locations constrained by important trees or other landscape features. It will also be resurfaced with a consistent porous asphalt pavement along its length, much of which currently surfaced with variable materials.  Even the cantilevered balcony in front of the Kennedy Center will get a real trail surface. And they want to replace the wooden benches with narrower ones to widen the trail from 6 functional feet to 14. Hooray! The portion of trail from the John Ericsson National Memorial, just south of the Lincoln Memorial, to the Tidal Basin bridge will not be widened, but will also be resurfaced with porous pavement. It won't be widened though. They also want to install improved signage all along the trail. 

Trail tunnel under the Roosevelt Bridge - This is pretty exciting too. At the Roosevelt Bridge, trail users currently use a six-foot-wide sidewalk that runs through an existing tunnel shared with vehicular traffic. NPS is planning to construct a new trail tunnel through the non-historic TR Bridge abutment, which would accommodate a 14-foot-wide trail with 12-foot vertical clearance. There are two trail alignments through the abutment, one that goes through aligned with the abutment and the other at an angle to the abutment, making for a straighter trail. And y'all, they're recommending the one with the straighter trail. They're also recommending the one with an arched roof instead of the square one. So, what you see below and at the top.

Belvedere improvements - The Belvedere is that weird overlook thing that the trail passes around just south of the Roosevelt Bridge. It's kind of an annoyance and, since it's no longer the turnaround for Constitution Ave, it serves no transportation purpose. The proposed design will realign the Rock Creek Park Trail around the outside of the site, and provide landscape improvements in preparation for a future memorial.

With all the improvements to the Rock Creek Trail north of Virginia Avenue (the part along Rock Creek), these improvements will make it really hard for trail users to find anything to complain about. 

2019 to be a very busy year in DC trails (if the TIP is to be believed)

Last November, DC amended the FY 2017-2022 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and it puts a lot of work of interest to cyclists into 2019. 

One of the most important changes to cyclists is that the bulk of funding for construction of the Metropolitan Branch Trail ($11M) was placed in 2019 signaling that DDOT plans to start construction on L&M Streets and Fort Totten soon. 

Meanwhile the "Safety Improvements Citywide" program, which pays for things like lighting, safety studies, roadway improvements (like at Blair Circle) and such received an addition $918,000 in SPR and local funding. This comes on top of previous increases that more than doubled funding for the program. They also added millions for additional streetlight upgrades citywide, which is nice for those who bike at night. 

Though not a change, DDOT plans to reconstruct C Street NE with a cycletrack in 2019. In the same year they will perform more construction on Pennsylvania Ave SE/Potomac Circle/Barney Circle which includes improving "pedestrian and bicycle access to the Sousa Bridge and along proposed Southeast Boulevard to the 11th Street Bridges."  They also have more than $11M set aside for construction of the South Capital Street Trail, $3.5M for the trail bridge across the Anacostia at the National Arboretum, $14M to replace the bike/ped bridges over Kenilworth Avenue, $27M for improvements to Southern Avenue

In 2018, they have funds set aside to rebuild Virginia Avenue (which they're currently doing) with a new Virginia Avenue Trail on the south side. There's also more than $10M for the Rock Creek Park Trail rehabilitation project, and $19M for the Maryland Avenue road diet. 

The reconstruction of South Capitol Street and a new more bike-friendly Frederick Douglass Bridge, which just started, gets oodles of money over multiple years as does "multimodal" roadway improvements around St. Elizabeths. 

The Florida Avenue Streetscape project is funded in 2020, which is also new. 

Oddly, there's $3.3M in the TIP for construction of the New York Avenue Trail in 2017. I don't think that happened. 

Many of the programs that support cycling in part or in whole, like goDCgo, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Management Program, Safe Routes to School, Roadway Reconstruction, Transportation Alternatives,  and the National Recreational Trails will continue to be funded as before.

There's also $500k in planning money to improve Aspen Street NW from Georgia Avenue NW to 16th Street NW to include new turn lanes and a multi-use trail on the north side of the street to support the Walter Reed redevelopment.

NPS considering rehabilitating the MVT boardwalk below Roosevelt Bridge (and more!)

The comment period for the Cultural Landscape Report/Environmental Assessment and the Assessment of Effect efforts by the National Park Service for Theodore Roosevelt Island closes tomorrow and the scope of the project, as well as at least one specific item mentioned in the presentation materials, makes it relevant to cyclists. 

The scope of the project includes the Mount Vernon Trail (MVT), the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway Trail all of which could be improved in the area, but only the MVT is specifically mentioned. In the materials they mention that they want to

Rehabilitate Bridge 31 on Mt. Vernon Trail of the George Washington Memorial Parkway for safer pedestrian/bicycle travel

This is the so-called Trollheim Bridge, the boardwalk that runs from the south side of the TR bridge to just south of the TR Island parking lot. Sometimes described as "The notoriously slippery part of the Mt. Vernon trail that has caused literally thousands of crashes."

This is a slippery and dangerous section - though I'm not sure how to make it safer. It also is starting to show its age so even a rehab would be nice. 

In addition, I can think of a few ways to improve the TR Bridge, and at the top of that list would be finding a way to connect the south span bike/ped lane on the Virginia side to....something, really anything. If for no other reason than to make this sign less sad (it's so depressed that's it's attempting to leap to its death). It's also a goal of the Rosslyn Sector Plan and several other plans as well. 

Work with key stakeholders to create a safe, inviting, accessible pedestrian and bicycle path connection to the downstream sidewalk of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge

In addition, I think it would be great if they created a connection from the north side path down to the island directly by cutting out a piece of the guard rail and putting in stairs. Bikes aren't allowed on the island, but it would be nice for pedestrians. It would obviously need a gate that can be locked. 

The Rock Creek Parkway Trail in front of the Kennedy Center needs a complete rehab and so does the MVT between the Trollheim and the parking lot. 

Though comments end tomorrow, the final report won't be completed until Spring of 2018.

A better Roosevelt Bridge would be nice too, but that's really DDOT's responsibility.