Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood

Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield

Early DDOT concepts for a safer Connecticut Avenue included removing all street parking in the stretches between commercial areas. DDOT officials hinted at a January 19th public meeting that the next concept reveal will be different.

Call it “a spoiler alert,” DDOT’s Ed Stollof told the meeting hosted by the Cleveland Park Community Association and ANC 3C’s Safe, Sustainable, and Equitable Transportation Committee.

“In the modified concept, we will have some type of parking or left turns throughout the entirety of the avenue,” Stollof said. “I think this responds to a lot of folks that went on the parking and loading walkthrough in October.”

DDOT said this type of lane configuration, with five-foot bike lanes and four-foot buffers, “is no longer being retained.”

Adding more left turn lanes, parking and pickup and dropoff zones would require narrowing the bike lanes and the buffers between bikes and motor vehicle traffic along the length of the 2.7 mile project. he parking and loading areas would remain on one side of Connecticut. Whether they would be on the east or west side would be determined block by block.

Above: A cross-section with a left turn lane, four-foot bike lanes and 1.5-foot buffers. Below: A cross-section with parking on one side of the street, four-foot bike lanes and 2.5-foot buffers.

DDOT also revealed new traffic counts at three locations along the study area: Military Road to Nebraska Avenue, Van Ness Street to Tilden Street, and Macomb Street to Devonshire Place.

Car traffic along those stretches of Connecticut Avenue was 21 to 22 percent lower in November 2022 than in February 2020. That’s 6,000 to 6,500 fewer vehicles each day. Using pre-pandemic traffic counts and models, DDOT had estimated that removing the avenue’s reversible lanes and adding bike lanes would divert 7,000 vehicles to other streets every day.

Concept and parking refinements will continue into April, when the design procurement phase is to begin. The design phase would not begin until late October or early November. And construction would not begin until 2025. Stollof said there would be more opportunities for public comment in the meantime.

Speaking of public feedback, DDOT answered some frequently asked questions, including:

Why not place bike lanes down the center of Connecticut Avenue?

We’ve seen this question in several forums, from people wondering if center bike lanes would preserve existing curbside parking and bus boarding areas. DDOT did not go into much detail during the January 19th presentation, but one slide lists some of the reasons the agency never put the concept forward in the first place. And those include the elimination of all street parking along Connecticut, and no space for left turn lanes. Travel times would increase due to the need for dedicated left turn signals. And accessing the center lanes would be difficult for cyclists.

Why isn’t Connecticut Avenue a bus priority corridor?

In short: ridership numbers. “Bus Priority corridors are based on the busiest corridors (ridership) in the District,” says one slide. Stollof said WMATA had provided new Connecticut Avenue bus ridership data that very day. They revealed 2,700 daily riders, a 40 percent drop in riders from the 4,500 who boarded each day before the pandemic.

“We have three Metro stations along the [corridor’s study area] which represents some duplication of service,” Stollof said.

Filed Under: Bike DC, Featured, Getting Around, Metrobus and Rail, News

The 4 foot option doesn’t seem optimal because 1) it may not include the gutter area, which would be contrary to DDOT standards and 2) doesn’t allow for passing, which means an electric wheelchair user may be stuck behind a 5 year old for blocks on end. At a minimum, DDOT should weigh on a block by block basis, where 5 foot lanes can go, so that perhaps in commercial areas, they are 4 feet but in areas, they are five.

DDOT hand picks their data points to justify their lousy bike lane plan. While vehicular traffic is down from 2019, it is on the rise. Now that the mayor has ordered DC employees back to the office, we can expect more traffic. Noticeably absent from DDOT traffic counts is cycle ridership on Conn Ave in December. DDOT is catering to a statistically insignificant group of cyclists at everyone else’s expense. Also absent was the number of cars that will divert from Conn Ave onto local streets. . The 1.5’bike buffer space means parked cars will be opening their doors into the bike lanes.. Why won’t DDOT tell us what the bike lane barricades will look like? Why should we have to wait until the “design phase”? Is this so complicated? What is DDOT hiding? Bike lanes don’t belong on Conn Ave and if built, someone will get hurt and/or killed.

We may have erred in simplifying the traffic data presented by DDOT, which clearly showed that vehicle traffic is indeed on the rise since the dramatic decline in 2020. It is remarkably similar to data DDOT presented to ANC 3D in December on usage of existing protected bike lanes. On many of these cycle tracks, traffic is also down from pre-pandemic levels, but on the upswing.

Forest Hills Connection strives to report data accurately, and we expect the same of our commenters.

Lee Mayer’s comment shows that at least one reader who supports bike lanes and one who opposes bike lanes agree that 18-inch “buffers” for bike lanes are ridiculous.

I did not even think of the “open car door” conflict as something that would cross over an 18-inch buffer. Bike riders fear being “doored” while riding next to parking lanes as much as being flattened by speeders and reckless drivers.

An 18-inch buffer is useless. DDOT should forget about such a small buffer.

Yeah, traffic is still lower than when DDOT said they were doing the installation. So still within their guidelines for a plan that will save lives.

Your claim that a cyclist will get hurt from the bike lanes is rich. Cyclists are being killed plenty often without those lanes and most are avoiding CT Ave because it is a death trap. Your org cites statistics that show that bike lanes cause increases in cyclist injuries, which is true – minor injuries do increase when there are more cyclists. But you ignore the 5 deaths that happened last year.

Also, I think the whole idea that DDOT should show you the plan before they have the plan is just silly. As is the notion that they already have a secret plan they are not showing you.

People are already getting hurt and/or killed. Bike lanes and improvements in pedestrian/bus rider safety are long overdue. Also, with 65 meetings so far and more to come, I’m thinking DDOT is making a pretty big effort to communicate with all concerned parties. In addition, like most projects, software, construction, etc., conceptual plans are used early in the process to come to agreement or at least an understanding across stakeholders. Then design details are developed later so that you don’t waste time reworking details that no longer support the agreed concept. As pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists, my wife and I are both looking forward to the bike lanes and other improvements, especially the traffic calming, while we continue our commuting, errands, and recreation.

This is deeply disappointing because it shows that DDOT is still under the spell of personally-owned motor vehicles (cars) and cannot imagine a world where cars are not given priority for all uses on a major thoroughfare.

If the “buffers” for the bike lanes are shrunk from four feet to only one-and-one-half feet, bicycle riders will risk having their elbows or hands smashed by passenger-side mirrors. What good is a “buffer” that is only eighteen inches wide?

If DDOT is going to shrink the buffers to such an outrageous extent, then they must install concrete Jersey barriers to protect each bike lane for the full length of each bike lane. If restaurants in parking lanes are entitled to protection with Jersey barriers, then so are bike riders.

If DDOT shrinks the buffers from four feet (48 inches) to two-and-one-half feet (30 inches), the buffers would be wide enough to protect hands and elbows of bike riders, so a 30-inch buffer might be acceptable for bike riders.

However, nothing but reinforced concrete will ever protect bike riders from speeding cars on Connecticut Avenue, which often reach 50 miles an hour on the uphill stretch north of Albemarle. To prevent cars from killing bike riders, DDOT must install reinforced concrete barriers (Jersey barriers) at least as high as car bumpers in the buffer zone for the entire length of the bike lanes.

The video of the January 19 presentation by DDOT linked at the top of the main blogpost is at this link on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWDAPtY9ptw

The PDF file showing the slides used in that presentation is at this link (halfway down the main blogpost):

https://www.foresthillsconnection.com/site2/wp-content/upLoadImage2012/2023/01/Connecticut-Avenue_ANC-3C-CPCA_01-17-2023.1.pdf

There are, unbelievably, fifty-four (54) slides in that presentation, which shows clearly how redundant most of the presentation was. The subject of the main blogpost, refinements to Concept C, doesn’t even start until slide 32, and the subject of protected bike lanes doesn’t begin until slide 42!

Starting at the time stamp (minutes colon seconds) of 28:29, DDOT starts its discussion of protected bike lanes in the context of “pedestrian/bicycle safety,” which Ed Stolloff abbreviated as “ped/bike safety.” The first slide in that segment (slide 42) says “The Safe System Approach … assumes that humans make mistakes,” and “[t]o … maximize safety, DDOT’s projects seek to increase separation of travel modes. This is what makes Protected Bike Lanes important.”

Slides 44 and 45 are detailed schematic drawings of “Conflict Areas” where bus stops share the bike lane; since slide 44 was probably borrowed from a European project, it shows an electric trolley at the “bus” stop. But slides 44 and 45 together show very detailed methods for preventing conflicts between bus riders and bike riders. Starting at 30:01 in the video, Ed Stolloff described slide 44 as “duplicative” of techniques DDOT used in the 400 block of K St. NW where (according to slide 43) “DDOT has successfully integrated accessible parking into Protected bike lane projects.” But slide 44 shows very different techniques than slide 43 and Stolloff failed to conform them or even to say anything specific about what Concept C will do for these “conflict areas.”

Starting at 30:32 in the video, Stolloff explained that slide 45 shows a choice between raising the bike lane to sidewalk level, or using a pre-fabricated island, to make “in-lane bus stops” accessible for bus riders where they share the protected bike lane as they cross the bike lane between the bus and the sidewalk. There is some kind of distinction between the raised bike lane being “permanent” construction, but the word permanent was in quotes on slide 45 so it was ambiguous; apparently DDOT thinks of the pre-fabricated island as not “permanent,” but Stolloff didn’t explain why.

Slide 46 shows “intersections, with or without parking lanes,” but Concept C contradicts that slide because there are no dedicated “parking lanes” between the bike lane and the curb in Concept C.

Slides 47-51 deal with parking and loading including on side streets, but the words “bike lane” do not appear on any of those five slides.

Astoundingly, to me, Stolloff said not one word (other than his “spoiler alert”) in his opening presentation about shrinking the “buffer” between the bike lane and traffic lane from the current Concept C size of four feet down to 30 inches or the ludicrous 18 inches.

At 43:15, the moderator asked a question raised in the chat about the width of bike lanes. At 43:33 Stolloff explained that a four-foot wide bike lane is consistent with DDOT’s design standard, although he admitted four feet is the MINIMUM allowable width. Another DDOT manager, Sean Burnett, whose title and assignment were garbled by Zoom, said (43:58 to 44:40) that four feet wide bike lanes are well within the “regulatory size” but “they are the minimum,” and that “this exact design” has been used “in many different corridors across the city.” Which obviously prompts the question, why was Concept C ever shown with bike lanes wider than what DDOT is using everywhere else?

Questions and answers started at 37:37.

From 54:14 to 55:47 in the video, a representative of WABA, Garret Hennigan (phonetic), flatly contradicted the claims by both Stolloff and Burnett that four-foot bike lanes are in use all over the District, and that four-foot bike lanes are “acceptable” under DDOT’s “minimum regulatory standards.” The WABA person expressly stated that (1) when Concept C was first revealed, four-foot bike lanes were being used only in a limited number of blocks in the District where commercial uses were deemed critical, (2) Concept C was presented as “the best compromise” and the bike lanes should not be reduced by further compromises, (3) changing the bike lanes to the minimum four feet wide for the entire three miles of the project will mean that bike riders will be unable to pass anyone, and the project will not achieve higher traffic volume on the bike lanes, which was a stated goal, and (4) federal standards, NACTO** standards and international standards “don’t accept a four-foot minimum, they accept a five-foot minimum.”

In response, Stolloff had no answer and asked Burnett to take the question. Burnett double-talked. Burnett said “I don’t think we’re committing to a four-foot bike lane throughout the entirety of the project” (55:50-55:59), DDOT has not gotten into the design phase yet so they haven’t finalized what the parking situation looks like (55:50-56:07) and “we are reviewing those” design standards to decide whether DDOT can apply them consistently from project to project (56:22-56:34).

**NACTO is the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Under “recommended” reading at this link, NACTO does in fact state “For travel side buffered lanes next to on street parking, a 5 foot minimum width is recommended to encourage bicyclists to ride outside of the door zone.”

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/bike-lanes/buffered-bike-lanes/#

However, contrary to at least two of my posts, in several places on its website NACTO treats 18-inch buffers as acceptable.

See NACTO’s extremely detailed “urban street design guide” for city streets at this link:

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/streets/street-design-principles/

NACTO has published a sort of index to its Urban Bikeway Design Guide (2d ed.) at this link:

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/urban-bikeway-design-guide-second-edition-change-list/

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