Breakfast links: Do it yourself, not the old way

by David Alpert • April 6, 2009 8:52 am

Image from Oregon Metro.

Design your own Oregon Metro: To weigh potential extensions for the Portland metropolitan area's transit system, Oregon created an interactive tool where you can "build a system" by choosing a combination of corridors. Each has a predefined capital cost, operating cost, ridership and environmental benefit, and the tool shows users the overall costs and benefits of their selected system. (Jess)

Silly, confusing and a waste of space: City Desk puzzles over a peculiarity in the traffic flow at the Memorial Bridge Circle, off the GW Parkway. A better question is, why have we dedicated this entire park island ("Lady Bird Johnson Park") to a crisscrossing jumble of semi-freeway-like ramps that are extremely confusing to navigate and aren't usually even very crowded? Wouldn't a simpler interchange between the Parkway and Memorial Bridge work better and free up more of the park to be an actual park?

Rejected for being "too historic": Historic Preservation staff pushed Shiloh Baptist Church to change the design for an infill building in one of their many vacant lots in Shaw. Shiloh was trying to match the historic building next door, but HPO felt that was "too historicist" and changed it to have more glass. Bloomingdale, For Now prefers the original plan.

The Pullman Porters: Amtrak is looking for the last of the "Pullman Porters", African-American men who worked in trains' luxury sleeping cars until 1969, greatly influenced the civil rights movement and brought information about national affairs to small southern towns. (NYT via Infrastructurist)

Lewis: Cul-de-sacs aren't safer: Roger Lewis discusses Virginia's new anti-cul-de-sac standards. He debunks myths that cul-de-sacs are safer, pointing out that any statistical difference probably comes from the correlation of (newer, larger) cul-de-sac neighborhoods and higher incomes. (Post)

Overseeing bicycling: At a recent oversight hearing for the Bicycle Advisory Committee, Jim Graham and BAC members debated enforcement, the Idaho stop, a bike boulevard on Champlain Street, bike parking and more. (WashCycle)

"Mystery rider" program reveals problems, may be cut: Metro's "mystery riders" discovered that customer service agents gave out incorrect information 25% of the time, among other findings. However, Metro probably can't afford to keep the program. Board member Peter Benjamin feels some objective analysis is valuable (and I agree), though they might switch to volunteers for economic reasons. (Examiner)

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David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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To build on ah's comments, the "path" they speak of, isn't a marked path. Take the south side of the bridge, which has marked crosswalks, and thus, doesn't have runners, etc running across the highway (GW Parkway) in unmarked crosswalks which is very dangerous.

by Matthew on Apr 6, 2009 9:30 am • link • report

I always thought the spaghetti mess of GW parkway was to keep tourists confused and stop them from using those roads, so locals could.

Also love the fact the orginial city post writer discloses he is making two or three very illegal and dangerous crossings to get over the GW parkway on a bike. I rid e there all the time, and those people crossing on the dirt path should be arrested for their own safety.

by charlie on Apr 6, 2009 9:49 am • link • report

Dave,

I must thank you for this post, I never would have found that nifty transportation tool otherwise!

Very, very interesting! Also fun to play around with, I wonder if WMATA/MTA/VTA would ever consider a joint page similar to this?

by Art on Apr 6, 2009 11:05 am • link • report

A few things to note regarding Memorial Circle/GW Pkwy and the park:

- The roads, for the most part, predate both the park and bicycle/pedestrian use of the area. That's not to say that bikes/peds shouldn't use the area...they should. But my interpretation of David's original link comment was that the park came first. And that's not the case. Memorial Bridge dates to the early '30s (opened in 1932), while most of the roadways in the area were built as support roadways for the then-new Pentagon in the early '40s. It wasn't until much later that bicycle/pedestrian use of the park area came around.

- That said, I'll be the first to agree that the area is confusing, especially to out-of-town tourists. Coincidentally, a few weeks ago I sketched out a rough idea for how to rework the roads and ramps in the area. This idea maintains all existing road access on a smaller footprint, improves safety by eliminating what I consider a dangerous at-grade intersection on Route 110, and provides the room to allow for easier bike/ped connections. Would like some thoughts/comments on this.

- Cavan, regarding your last comment, I guess I'm the exception to your rule...in fact, had an awesome drive out as far as Hagerstown yesterday...:o)

by Froggie on Apr 6, 2009 7:29 pm • link • report

ah: correct, GW Pkwy would go under the traffic circle.

The nice thing about having a more standard interchange at the traffic circle is that traffic coming from the bridge gets a bit more spread out. Part of the problem with the current setup is that traffic coming from the bridge and heading to EITHER directon on GW Pkwy uses the same ramp from the traffic circle. With my revised idea, traffic wanting to go north on the Pkwy uses one ramp from the circle, while traffic wanting to go south uses a different ramp.

Also, if traffic operations require such, it'd be easier to signalize the ramp termini under my revised idea than it is under the existing configuration.

There is an exit from the southbound Pkwy to the bridge...it's a really huge loop that actually crosses above the Blue Line. My revised idea is the loop in the top middle.

Only traffic from Wash Blvd wanting to get to the bridge would merge with the NB Pkwy off-ramp under my proposal, and each side could easily have its own lane up to the traffic circle. Wash Blvd traffic heading north on the Pkwy or to Arlington Blvd has a slip ramp directly to the Pkwy mainline.

I was thinking the same thing about the bridge underpass serving as a bike connection...:o)

by Froggie on Apr 6, 2009 9:08 pm • link • report