DDOT is collecting comments on the proposed K Street Transitway until October 30th. The Environmental Assessment weighs three alternatives: 1) no change, 2) a two-lane center busway and 3 traffic lanes in each direction, and 3) a three-lane center busway with 2 traffic lanes and a bike lane in each direction. So far, business organizations are pushing option 2, while WABA supports a modified version of option 3.

Option 2 (2-lane busway) from 19th Street to Farragut Square. View complete plans (PDF).

Option 2 would run Circulator and local DC buses in a center busway. The bus shelters would be part of planted medians on each side. The outer roads would have three travel lanes, narrowing to two adjacent to the National Park Service properties, where K Street is narrower.

Commuter buses, which stop for longer periods of time than local buses, would use those outer roadways, stopping adjacent to the sidewalk. Delivery services like UPS and FedEx would probably stop here as well. Evenings and nights, the curb lane could be used for parking or valet operations.

Option 3 (3-lane busway) from 19th Street to Farragut Square. View complete plans (PDF).

Option 3 uses a three-lane busway, using the center lane as a passing lane around bus stops. In this option, the commuter buses would use the busway, as the various buses could pass each other. Widening the busway by one lane means taking away half a lane from each side road. The half lane becomes a bicycle lane. To allow for deliveries, Option 3 includes small lay-bys cut out of the sidewalk, narrowing it in a few places.

Traffic moves more slowly under Option 3. In the morning peak, simulations predict that cars would take 23.1 minutes to traverse the entire corridor heading east, compared to 12.6 minutes under Option 2. In the opposite direction and at other times of day, cars would likewise take somewhat longer, though sometimes the difference is slight.

Interestingly, Option 3 also moves slightly fewer people on buses than 2 — 3,322 per hour along the 19th to 18th block in the AM peak eastbound compared to 3,525 in the PM peak. Both options move considerably more people than the no-build thanks to the faster movement of buses, which carry more people than the cars.

WABA likes the dedicated bicycle infrastructure of Option 3. Option 2 forces cyclists to share the general-purpose roadway, where they would have to merge with fast-moving traffic and navigate around delivery trucks and buses. However, WABA thinks that trucks would probably just park in the bicycle lane anyway. Therefore, they are advocating for DDOT to raise the bike lane to the level of the sidewalk, as many cities do, especially in Europe. The bike lane would retain a different paving material and/or color to distinguish it from the regular sidewalk.

The Golden Triangle and Downtown BIDs, on the other hand, prefer Option 2. Both worry about loading; today, many trucks load from the side roadways on K Street. The restaurants also want to be able to use K Street for valet operations.

In their comments, the Downtown BID suggests supplementing Option 2 with one-way protected bicycle lanes on the adjacent one-way I and L Streets, similar to the 8th and 9th Avenue bike lanes in Manhattan. I suggested this when the initial plans came out as well. WABA’s Eric Gilliland and many of you did point out that we ought to accommodate bicycles on every street, as many people going to and from destinations on K Street will need to ride there. Plus, there’s no guarantee those other cycle tracks would happen, nor is there a grant proposal or funding currently on the table to build them. At the same time, one really good east-west bicycle route through downtown (and perhaps two good north-south ones) would make a huge difference in bicycle safety and ease.

Loading and valet parking is important to downtown businesses. However, there’s also a strong argument that most loading should take place in alleys. The UPS and FedEx trucks could use the cut-outs, while more substantial loading should use the loading docks which zoning requires all buildings to have. Many property owners successfully petitioned the DC Government in the past to close parts of the alleys to maximize development. For them now to say that they need K Street for loading seems a bit hypocritical. DDOT has cracked down on alley closings for this reason.

Businesses ought to also be able to do some loading on the side streets. Streets like 19th, even during the morning rush, often have two of the three lanes blocked for illegal loading on both sides of the street. If the curb lanes are going to be blocked by a few trucks anyway, more trucks doesn’t make the traffic any worse.

Restaurants could operate their valet parking using the cut-outs or on side streets as well. Many businesses would love to have valet operations right in front, but that’s not a right, nor is it really necessary. On blocks with many restaurants, they can share valet space. DDOT now requires permits for valet areas, and is making many businesses move their valet space to provide adequate distance from the curb, ensure that valet operations don’t block streets, and otherwise regulate this.

Plus, if we build the protected bike lanes on L and I, businesses will probably raise similar objections to losing potential loading (legal or illegal) and valet space. We have to determine where curb space is better used for bicycles, transit, loading, and other uses. New York City has no alleys at all, and managed to put in protected bike lanes and even close much of Broadway.

Based on the higher travel times and lower throughput of Option 3, it’s unclear if the added benefits outweigh the costs in this case. By putting some buses in the transitway and some in the general purpose lanes, we retain more operational flexibility. And off-peak, a third busway lane would get almost no use, making a full lane of the roadway almost completely idle outside rush periods. If DC puts streetcars down K Street in the future, it may make sense to move some buses out of the transitway to avoid getting stuck behind the slower-accelerating but larger streetcars.

It’s a tough decision. Many DDOT officials I’ve spoken to seem honestly unsure which option to pick. I urged the Dupont Circle ANC not to take a firm stand; after looking carefully at the data, I’m still unsure, but lean toward Option 2 as long as I and L Street protected bike lanes are a real possibility.

What do you think? Post your opinions in the comments and submit them directly to DDOT. In this case, I suspect that rather than going through the motions of an EA with an end goal in mind, DDOT really would like to hear from more people who use K Street in a wider range of ways. Help them out and send in your comments.

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.