This year, let’s have a great Summer Streets

Now that spring is upon us, it’s time to think about the summer. New York’s Summer Streets program closed down 5 miles of Park Avenue on three consecutive August Saturdays and met with resounding success. DC should follow suit this summer with a similar program on a similarly important north-south route: 14th Street.

Summer Streets brought tens of thousands of walkers, bicyclists, rollerbladers, and more from around the city to enjoy the warm August weather. People relaxed along the route or traveled up and down its length.

Stations along the way featured dance classes for kids and adults, green food demonstrations, bike valet parking, martial arts demonstrations, city cycling classes, yoga and fitness events, and more.

DC held its own event last year, Feet in the Street, in Fort Dupont Park. DDOT did a nice job with the event, but it was in a relatively low-density location not particularly close to Metro. It also rained, which didn’t help.

Park Avenue passes through some of the densest areas of New York (and the world). Hundreds of thousands of people live within a short walk and millions within an easy subway or bike ride. We don’t have that, but by selecting a route through our densest and most transit-rich areas, a DC Summer Streets could likewise attract far more people.

An ideal route would extend along 14th Street from Franklin Park (at McPherson Square Metro) to Park Road in Columbia Heights.

They are the same size in the images above, but this 14th Street route is only 2 miles compared to New York’s 5 miles (plus 2 more miles for the Central Park loop which it connects to). Since our metropolitan area is about 38% the size of New York’s, a Summer Streets/Feet in the Street of 40% the length seems appropriate.

The route runs from hotels downtown through the Logan Circle, U Street and Columbia Heights neighborhoods, some of DC’s densest. 14th also has many stores along the entire route which could benefit from an intense concentration of foot traffic.

Stations could be located at Franklin Park, Thomas Circle, P Street, U Street, somewhere around Euclid Street, and finally in the center of Columbia Heights.

DC could close Thomas Circle, which cars can still traverse using the Massachusetts Avenue underpass. New York kept a number of major cross streets open for cross traffic. DC could do the same, such as K Street, Masschusetts Avenue (via the underpass), Rhode Island Avenue, Q and R Streets, U Street, Florida Avenue, Columbia and Harvard Streets, as well as I Street and Park Road at either end.

How about it?