NYC’s Gansevoort Plaza. Photo from Streetsblog.

In February, DDOT decided to experimentally modify 15th Street, NW between Massachusetts Avenue and Florida Avenue to include the city’s first protected bicycle lane. That lane would let cyclists ride south along 15th, opposite the flow of traffic. Cyclists could also ride northbound in a regular bicycle lane. This is a cheap, quick change that DDOT could make with some paint, quick curbs, and a few signs. It’s a great opportunity to test out a protected bike lane on a street easily able to handle it. However, DDOT still hasn’t set it up. Why?

A protected bicycle lane (sometimes called a “cycle track”) puts bicycles between the parked cars and the sidewalk, rather than between the parked cars and the regular car lanes. It makes cycling much more appealing for those less comfortable riding as fast as traffic or intimidated by the cars that often pass too close, honk, and otherwise harass cyclists. 15th Street has four northbound travel lanes that funnel down to one past Florida Avenue. There isn’t enough traffic to use up four lanes, and DDOT planners feel that three lanes, plus the contraflow protected bike lane, is plenty.

When Janette Sadik-Khan took the reins at New York City’s DOT, the agency quickly moved to try many experimental, quick traffic changes. They added plazas and makeshift street furniture in some large intersections, turning huge and underused expanses of pavement into pleasant places to sit. They added a median on a busy and dangerous avenue in Brooklyn. They built several real, separated bike lanes on major avenues, and even closed part of Broadway to traffic. Few of these involved major, federally funded street reconstructions. Often, some oddly-shaped concrete blocks, temporary curbs, signs, and sometimes a few signals were all it took. There wasn’t a multi-year study producing a glossy report; they just tried the change. If the design didn’t work out, they could remove it. But so far, they’ve worked very well.

Proposed configuration for 15th Street.

Under the current proposal, the contraflow lane would be on the west side of the street. New signs would warn drivers to look for cyclists as they turn left. Cyclists would be able to proceed through the intersection when the adjacent pedestrians have a “walk” sign, removing the need for special bicycle signals. According to DDOT planners, they now suggest improving upon this design by widening the protected contraflow lane to 8 feet, while making the northbound lane into a shared lane (“sharrows”) between cars and bikes. A wider contraflow lane would allow bikes to pass each other southbound, and provide more room for them to avoid doors. Meanwhile, three travel lanes is plenty for the current traffic even if some bicycles are also using the rightmost lane. DPW has assured DDOT that this configuation wouldn’t pose a problem for street cleaning.

As with the street’s northern end, DDOT hasn’t moved ahead with a simple, cheap, and quick improvement despite an approved plan to do so. It’s not an issue of budget. Whether this is coming from the engineering department, the top management, or even the office of the Mayor, the agency simply has not yet adopted the sort of quick experimentation culture that has been so successful at NYC DOT.

Likewise, Councilmember Tommy Wells and many others are interested in trying protected bike lanes on M Street, SE and SW. Like 15th, it’s a wide street with more lanes than necessary for the traffic, while cyclists have few good routes. DDOT considered moving ahead and trying a lane, but ultimately decided to contract out a more detailed study. That will just take time and money, with which we could instead just try it out. Actual real-world data is more valuable than anything consultants standing at street corners counting vehicles could ever collect.

The best way to try new things, like protected bike lanes, is to just put them in and see what happens. Some think protected bike lanes will actually be more dangerous. I don’t think so, but if we try it out, we can find out for ourselves in plenty of time to build them in, or take them out, of longer-term plans. DDOT is working hard on a lot of great projects, but most of these will take years to plan, fund and implement. We shouldn’t have to wait that long to try out some low-hanging fruit and make streets safer and better for all users.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.