Posts in category Roads

Inefficiency is the least of the problems with this style of law enforcement. Police who drive all day don't understand the reality of walking on the county's roadways. When you get out of the squad car and join the thousands who cross Veirs Mill every day (it's among the county's busiest bus corridors), you suddenly learn that "it's kind of scary."

All of this raises the question: in an increasingly urbanized county, where is the cop on the beat? Downtown Bethesda throngs with people on weekend evenings, and the police sit in parked squad cars behind rolled-up windows. If they were on foot, they would have plenty to do—especially in the late evening when drivers often zoom through the emptying streets.

Foot patrols succeeded in calming downtown Silver Spring after a series of brawls in 2010. But they ended once the brawls went away.

Street fighting is hardly Montgomery County's biggest law enforcement problem. Driver violations of pedestrian rights are ubiquitous, and they do far more harm. There are as many pedestrian deaths per year in the county as homicides.

Where people walk, we need police on foot. Not just on a few not-so-secret "stings"—Capt. Didone said these operations will continue only through the end of the month—and not just in response to occasional outbreaks of crime.

Police should be walking every day, in Aspen Hill and Germantown as well as Bethesda and Silver Spring, protecting the rights of pedestrians as a routine element of law enforcement. Drivers need to understand that they can be ticketed any time they break the law, not just between 11:00 and 3:00 during the month of May.

Photo by DDOTDC on Flickr.

Streetcar tracks can be hazardous for bicyclists because bicycle tires can slip on the rails or get stuck in them, causing riders to fall. That doesn't mean bikes and streetcars can't coexist, and many world cities have extensive bike and streetcar networks. Small design features can help cyclists better cross streetcar tracks at an angle that minimizes danger, for instance.

But especially for cyclists less experienced riding around streetcar lines, the tracks pose a hazard. M. Loren Copsey has seen many crashes as owner of The Daily Rider, a bike shop on H Street. He says that they have had "numerous customers come into the shop directly after a fall with injuries and damaged bikes."

Last week, Copsey says he "saw a cyclist in the streetcar lane get caught and thrown over the handlebars. The first thing he said was that he was glad there wasn't a vehicle behind him when he fell. Thankfully he wasn't injured."

DDOT has a two-pronged approach to keeping bicyclists safe in this corridor. One is to educate riders on the dangers streetcar tracks can pose. Warning signs could go at Capital Bikeshare stations or be painted on to the roadway itself. There are currently some text-only signs on lightposts, but some could be replaced by more graphic warnings like this one in Portland.

The other way is to offer bicyclists the choice of another nearby route. That's what Arlington County is doing along the future Columbia Pike streetcar line. They're turning two parallel streets, one on either side of Columbia Pike, into "bike boulevards," low-speed streets designed to give bicyclists an alternative to a busier street where there isn't room for bike lanes.

Today, G and I streets are about 30 feet wide and contain 2 7-foot parking lanes and one 16-foot travel lane, which is wider than a normal 9-foot travel lane. DDOT is looking at 4 ways to use that extra space for bicyclists:

Option 1 paints sharrows in the primary direction of travel, with no provision for bicyclists to travel in the opposite direction. This is only a small step above a "no build" option. Riders could need up to a 4-block detour to legally reach a destination if they don't want to ride at all on H Street.

Option 2 also paints sharrows in the primary direction and adds a contraflow bike lane on the left side of the roadway, between parked cars and the primary travel lane. Any drivers trying to park would need to cross the bike lane. However, drivers will not be backing into the lane, improving visibility. The hazard of doors opening into the bike lane would be less because they would be passenger doors, which open less often.

Drawings from DDOT.

Option 3 converts parking to be diagonal along only one side of the street, with a contraflow bike lane on the opposite side. Cars would not need to cross into this area, so bollards or a curb could protect it from the rest of traffic. This option may be the safest configuration for bicyclists, but would take away some parking spaces.

Option 4 converts both streets to 2-way traffic, with painted sharrows in each direction. In addition to allowing biking in both directions, this change could alleviate congestion in the area by reducing the number of turns and increasing the number of alternative routes to H Street. However, this option may increase the chances drivers would hit parked cars.

These options could also help residents find parking spaces. Each block has between 24 and 30 spaces today. Under options 1, 2 and 4, no on-street parking spaces would disappear, while option 3 would mean 4-6 fewer spaces on each block.

Streetcars and bikes happily coexist in cities from Philadelphia to Amsterdam, and they can in DC as well. On some future streetcar corridors, there may be room for bicyclists to get their own lanes. Meanwhile, in areas like H Street where there isn't room for bike lanes, it's good to provide an alternative route for those bicyclists who may not feel safe riding on a busy street.

In the TV news tradition, Tuss also interviews a few "people on the street," and does make sure to talk to people with multiple points of view. One driver thinks DC can probably figure out a better system, though he doesn't say anything inflammatory. Another says it's important to design signals to accommodate pedestrians, adding, "cities are for people, not for cars."

At the end, Tuss and his crew take a drive on Wisconsin Avenue. We can see them leaving one intersection with a green light and getting to another one. He concludes, "Clearly, from the driver's standpoint, some signals were not timed properly."

Actually, no, and this is the most dangerous part of this report because it reinforces the notion that if you hit a red light, there is something wrong with the timing.

Quite simply, lights are not going to be green for everyone all the time. Wisconsin Avenue, for instance, is a 2-way street. Any timing that gives successive green lights to people driving one direction will mean more red lights the other way.

Parts of 16th Street do have "platooning," where lights turn green in succession. This also encourages people to drive the speed limit, since if they go faster, they'll just hit red lights each time. Some people surely think 16th's lights are terrible because they keep hitting red lights. Others, driving the opposite way, have a legitimate beef that they timing makes things worse for them.

Downtown, there are many main streets intersecting at various angles in close proximity. There's no way to time all of the streets for continuous greens in every direction. Should the timing encourage people to drive north on 16th or west on streets like R and U in the evening? Both have a lot of commuters traveling in conflicting directions.

One way to combat that particular problem is to close segments of streets to car traffic. When New York closed the diagonal Broadway around Times and Herald Squares, it found that traffic flowed better because the diagonal confounded signal timings on the avenues. DC could probably help everyone better traverse a place like Dupont Circle if it reduced the number of roads coming in, but that would surely spark even more "war on cars" claims even if it actually helps cars and the people inside as well as pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders.

There are many other reasons traffic engineers might time lights in a way that appears wrong to a driver traveling a particular direction. Contributor and engineer Andrew Bossi offered many examples, such as:

Gap Provision: Providing breaks in traffic, such as to allow nearby uncontrolled interactions to operate adequately. Without these breaks, some uncontrolled intersections may never be able to clear out, subsequently requiring some treatments such as an additional traffic signal—which would only increase motorists' delays. Breaks in traffic improve net mobility for the greatest amount of road users.

Many signal timings could be better. If DDOT changes them, however, it won't necessarily ensure that Adam Tuss always gets a green. What helps move on group of drivers could slow down another group. Also, as people say in Tuss's story, drivers aren't the only people on the roads.

In some places, DC could time signals to help buses get past a trouble spot when they cross a busy road. That might mean drivers on that main road more often get a red, but if the bus caries 20 people and 5 drivers have to wait a little longer, it's a net gain. Pedestrians need time to cross, especially wide roads like Wisconsin in places with a lot of seniors like upper Northwest.

Any fixes to signals have to take everyone's needs into account. That'll surely make someone frustrated, creating good fodder for another Adam Tuss transportation story.

It sounds far out, but it might actually work. Montgomery County is blessed with a number of above-ground public parking garages in the downtowns of Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Wheaton. Their rooftop levels have great views, but outside of a few events each year, most of them are empty.

Our parking garages may not be as pretty as the Herzog and de Meuron-designed garage in Miami Beach which doubles as an event space. But since many of our garages are intended for commuters, they're usually next to Metro stations or bus stops, meaning you don't have to drink and drive.

People and cars are forbidden from using the top floors of many public garages in Montgomery County.

Unfortunately, most parking garage roofs in Montgomery County are blocked off with chains when they're not being used for parking. County police threaten to arrest anyone who tries to go up there.

In 2011, photographer Chip Py attempted to do a photo shoot of a popular go-go band atop a parking garage in downtown Wheaton. He'd been detained by police for taking pictures there before, so he decided to contact the Department of Transportation, which manages the garages.

"It was 13 people, lights and everything. And I didn't want to risk going in there and getting it shut down," Py said. But officials from the county said he'd get arrested for trespassing. "You can't do anything in there except park a car," he remembers being told.

Of course, people go anyway. One Saturday afternoon last year, I decided to visit the top floor of every parking garage in downtown Silver Spring. As with any forbidden-but-accessible place in the urban realm, I also found teenagers. On one garage roof, I walked into a stairwell to leave and stumbled on two kids sketching and listening to music on a little boombox. The smell of pot wafted through the air. I wanted to ask, "Why are you here?" but before I could, they freaked out and packed up.

To me at least, the answer is obvious. I remember sneaking onto the roof of the Town Square Garage on Ellsworth Drive with my friends from high school before it opened in 2004. There's the thrill of breaking the rules, yeah, but there's also the great view and the feeling like you're in the middle of everything and completely alone at the same time.

Two kids hang out atop a Silver Spring parking garage in 2010.

That's not too different from being in a great urban park or plaza. Public parking garages belong to the public, and we should think about them as part of the public realm. In other words, Montgomery County should take advantage of all this empty space they have, especially since it's not being used for parking. Of course, not all parking garages are engineered to actually hold people, like this one in Phoenix that violently shook when Arizona State University students held a dance party on top. We'd have to make sure that our garages were up to the task.

In recent months, there's been a lot of talk about growing the county's nightlife scene. However, it's primarily been about street-level drinking, or in the case of the Quarry House Tavern in downtown Silver Spring, subterranean drinking.

Not only would rooftop events on parking garages be a good use of wasted space, but they might be unusual enough to draw people here for a night out. The DC area may have a lot of rooftop bars, but definitely not one like this.

For more examples, check out this photoset of views from parking garages in downtown Silver Spring.

Purple Line open houses: The Maryland MTA is holding 5 open houses to inform residents about the Purple Line, now looking a lot more likely to actually become a reality. They're tonight (Tuesday) in Silver Spring, Thursday 5/9 in Riverdale, Saturday 5/11 in Langley Park, Tuesday 5/14 in Bethesda, and Wednesday 5/15 at Woodridge Elementary School in Hyattsville. Each is 5-8 pm, except the Saturday one which is 11-2.

Bike to school: If you have children in school and don't bike to school regularly, tomorrow is a great time to try. 17 DC schools are participating, and for the dozen on those which are on Capitol Hill, families can congregate in Lincoln Park for an event featuring Ray LaHood, then form bike trains to the schools. Sandra Moscoso has more on Greater Greater Education.

Walk Route 1: CSG's next walking tour looks at Route 1 in Fairfax, the oft-forgotten highway where big box sprawl has the potential to become eco-friendly, walkable communities. Volunteers will help groups take the bus from Huntington Metro for those arriving by transit. RSVP before it's full!

Height "master plan" meetings: The National Capital Planning Commission and DC Office of Planning are working together on a study that might recommend changes to the federal height limit, or might not. Regardless, the issue is sure to be completely noncontroversial, since as we know nobody ever wants to argue about the height limit. (Kidding.) The first public involvement is next week, with a meeting Monday, May 13, 6:30-8:30 pm at the Petworth Library, and then Saturday, May 18, 10:30-12:30 at the MLK Library by Gallery Place Metro.

Learn about, push for BRT: There's a big hearing on Montgomery County's BRT plans on Thursday, May 16, 6-9 pm in Silver Spring. Can you testify? Also, Montgomery transportation planner Larry Cole will talk about BRT as well as MARC expansion at ACT's monthly meeting Tuesday, May 14, 7:30 pm in Silver Spring.

What's up with Pennsylvania and Potomac? The second public meeting on the intersection at Potomac Avenue Metro is Thursday, May 16, 6:30-8:30 pm at Payne Elementary. Have DDOT and its consultants listened made the early designs even better to walk and bike, or have they gotten worse? We'll find out!

Bike to work: Just a little over a week after Bike to School Day (but much farther down our chronological calendar) is Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 17. Pledge to ride, stop by one of the pit stops around the region, join one of the commuter convoys along popular routes, and support almost all of the event sponsors.

Talk Smart Growth with David Grosso: Ward 3 Vision, the smart growth resident group in upper Northwest DC, is having a meet and greet on Tuesday, May 21, 6:30 pm at Guapo's by the Tenleytown Metro. At-large councilmember David Grosso will be there to hear from you about your vision for a more walkable and vibrant Ward 3 and all of DC.

Roosevelt Ride: Ride around Greenbelt, the New Deal planned community, in your best New Deal-era attire, followed by a picnic. You can also get a free tour of the Greenbelt Museum, which shows how families lived in what was built as working-class housing in 1937. That's Sunday, May 26; the ride starts at 11, the picnic after, and the tours at 1.

Have an event we should consider including on the ? Send them to events@ggwash.org. Please include a URL to a webpage that has the information about your event as well, so that we can link directly to your event.

I travel this area frequently, and know this is a dangerous intersection because it includes a right red arrow to allow pedestrians to cross 9th Street safely even while other through lanes get a green light. Many drivers nevertheless illegally turn right when the light turns green for people continuing straight.

I have asked the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) on multiple occasions to add enforcement here, but have never witnessed any.

I have seen this behavior numerous times before at this spot, so I am ready for it. However, this time the first car, a black Chevy Suburban waiting to turn right, remained stopped. But the driver second in line could not stand for this, changed lanes to the left, then drove around the Suburban to make the right turn.

I saw this coming from the corner of my field of vision, but it was too late. The driver cut in front of me, clipping my front tire with the rear corner of his car. It was a grazing blow, but enough to knock me off the bike.

The driver left the scene, never bothering to stop. Fortunately, my spill was fairly minor and I was able to continue to Union Station with little injury. However, if I had been a few seconds faster, I would have been more squarely in his path and would likely be in the hospital.

Without enforcement, lawlessness runs rampant

There was no police officer to witness the incident. Police can't be be everywhere and catch everything. However, I've also seen MPD simply ignore dangerous infractions by drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians occurring directly in front of them.

Last weekend, while riding in the 15th Street cycletrack, a driver illegally turned left against the protected left turn signal at 15th and U Street NW, right behind my wife and me. By coincidence, a MPD patrol unit was directly behind this illegally turning driver but did nothing.

On the same trip, my wife and I witnessed two illegal U-turns on Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of police cars and officers stationed along the street for the marathon. At the time, there were lots of pedestrians and cyclists around but they refused to enforce against illegal driving right in front of them.

This is even more frustrating because this episode occurred during the regional Street Smart campaign, an annual campaign to raise safety awareness and increase enforcement. Mayor Vincent Gray stood with MPD Chief Cathy Lanier to announce DC's part of the program a week ago, alongside advocacy groups such as WABA. The Pennsylvania Avenue cycle track was supposed to be an area targeted for enforcement during this campaign.

Drivers are not the only problem. Cyclists and pedestrians also contribute when they ride down one-way bike lanes in the wrong direction, run out in front of cyclists and drivers without bothering to look, and more.

The roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks all function as a transportation system and users interact with this system according to a set of laws. When these laws go unenforced for long periods of time it creates a broken system of lawlessness.

Mayor Vincent Gray has called for a 25% mode share for walking and cycling by 2032. To reach this goal, sustained and consistent traffic enforcement will become pivotal. The city doesn't need any more public safety campaigns, advertisements, lip service, and promises. We need results.page/2

The bike lane itself will be slightly narrower, and a row of parking will separate the bike lane from the general travel lanes in some places. Mike Goodno, bike planner for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), expressed hope these elements will dissuade people from driving or parking in the lane.

Both lanes are on the north side of their respective streets, which means that while L Street's is on the left, the M Street bike lane will be on the right. In addition to full-time parking along most of the lane, blocks where M Street is wider will also have part-time parking on the south side.

Because there's an extra lane in between, the mixing zones on M Street will be totally different. Instead of the gradual merge of L Street, drivers will turn toward the bike lane at a sharper angle, and are supposed to yield to bikes before crossing into the right turn lane. New York uses a similar arrangement for its Grand Street cycle track.

Mixing zones on L (left) and New York's Grand Street (right). Photos from Streetsblog.

One trade-off is there's no more green paint in the mixing zone. However, the spaces in front of driveways will be green, to make it clear to drivers they're not supposed to stop in the bike lane.

At some corners, like 22nd Street, there won't be a mixing zone. Instead, drivers cross the cycle track during an exclusive signal phase, like on 15th Street.

According to Goodno, many of the changes come simply because M Street is wider than L, offering more room to try different options for the lane. If they work well, some could make their way back to L Street.

DDOT will present its plans and accept public comments at a public meeting on Wednesday, May 15, 6:30-8:30 pm at the West End Library.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.