Breakfast links: Let's roll

by David Alpert • May 5, 2010 8:42 am

Early design for Wiehle project. Image from Fairfax County.

Wiehle turning: Fairfax planners approved a mixed-use development at the future Wiehle Avenue Metro station. The developer will build a garage to be part of 6,000 spaces at the station, along with 7 office and residential buildings. The plan almost got derailed over whether to allow vehicles, like taxis, to drive in the plaza adjacent to the Metro station or dedicated it more to pedestrians. (Fairfax Times, Reston Connection, Michael P)

Metro momentum: DC, Maryland, and Virginia will increase their funding for the Tri-State Oversight Committee, dedicating 1 full-time employee and 1 part-time employee each to the interstate group, and strengthen the chairman (Examiner) ... Richard Sarles hopes to tackle escalator and elevator reliability and will release a regular "scorecard" of performance metrics. (Post)

High turnover or high demand?: MetroAccess's high costs might come from inefficiency by the contractor, or simply the way demand for the paratransit service has soared. COG planner Wendy Klancher thinks WMATA should use multiple competing contractors instead of just one. (WAMU)

Barnes Dance in Chinatown?: 7th and H has new diagonal white lines. Penn Quarter Living suspects this could mean DDOT is installing a Barnes Dance, where pedestrians can cross in all directions at once.

What Cohen says about their project: Lydia DePillis gets some more info on the Cohen Companies development I analyzed last night: It will be a Planned Unit Development (PUD), meaning plenty of design review is yet to come, and financing and final design are waiting until after the project gets through approval hurdles like NCPC. (City Paper)

WTOP on top of bike safety: I missed this a few weeks ago, but given the times we've mocked WTOP, it's worth seeing their excellent piece on cycle safety after Constance Holden was killed at 12th and NY Ave, NW. It quotes WABA bike safety coordinator Glenn Harrison on "windshield perspective" and quotes drivers and cyclists agreeing everyone needs to watch out for each other.

Planning can go in both directions: Rather than thinking of shrinking cities like Youngstown, Cleveland and Detroit as failures, leaders in Youngstown, Ohio is actively planning for its future—it's just that the future involves having a smaller city than today. (Model D, Redline SOS)

And...: The Post covers the UMD transit ban and implications for the Purple Line ... There's another Adams Morgan public art controversy (City Paper) ... Safeway finally delivered the reusable bags it promised to area nonprofits (DCist) ... Tom Toles lampoons the Supreme Court's closing of the front entrance. (Post)

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9 comments

Tags: 1333 M SE, Adams Morgan, Barnes Dance, bike safety, Chinatown, College Park, DC, development, downtown DC, Fairfax, links, Maryland, MetroAccess, NCPC, Near Southeast, Ohio, paratransit, planning, press, Prince George's, public art, Richard Sarles, security, TOD, Tri-State Oversight, UMD, Virginia, waterfront, WMATA, Youngstown

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. 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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Barnes Dance in Chinatown?

I don't think so. Previous Barnes Dance configured intersections had two parallel lines extending into the intersection. Yes, that's right DC use to have several intersections configured with a Barnes Dance pedestrian signal phase.

The lines in the picture at the link provided look to me to be stop lines for motor vehicles turning right when crosswalk has pedestrian in it.

by Sand Box John on May 5, 2010 9:20 am

@SBJ - I agree it doesn't look like a Barnes Dance right now however those lines may be a precursor of more lines soon to be painted at 7th & H. My experience with 5th & Mass nearby is that DDOT projects, even the simple paint components of them, happen slowly over days or even weeks. Nothing ever seems to be done as quickly as would be possible.

by Paul on May 5, 2010 9:54 am

Disregard above, closer inspection of the picture at the link provided shows two parallel lines.

by Sand Box John on May 5, 2010 9:55 am

Here is the Rethink College Park of the UMD Purple Line meeting. Student absolutely berated the administration for their bus plan:
http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2010/2334/

by David Daddio on May 5, 2010 10:02 am

@Sand Box John, @Paul:
According to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the little diagonal parallel lines indicate an all pedestrian phase. You can see the illustration of this at the bottom of page 39.
http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009/part3.pdf#page=39

by Matt Johnson on May 5, 2010 10:25 am

Downtown SF also has the cross all ways intersections. As does NYC, does it not? Of course, the crossings are controlled by the signals so they can be limited to high pedestrian traffic times (downtown SF was only the morning and evening rush, as I recall).

But if DC is really going to use these, aren't they also called for downtown, like 13th and F, for example? Again, just during the peak times, like lunch hour and maybe the afternoon rush.

by Josh S on May 5, 2010 10:28 am

On Tuesday I saw some DDOT workers installing "NO TURNS" signs at the intersection of 7th and H. The signs are covered now but presumably they are associated with the lines on the street.

by mtp on May 5, 2010 11:29 am

The article about right sizing is superficial and misses some important points. Cleveland has not had the kind of wholesale that's occurred in Youngstown or Detroit, despite a plunge in population. The comparison isn't very apt. Detroit has vast deserts of space, whereas Youngstown is more compact and much of the vacancy has occurred in corridors defined by the old steel industry or other land uses like housing projects. At some point, much of that could be repurposed, although brownfield issues will be a limiting step. Younstown has taken radical, controversial steps such as relocating people who live in isolated spots and decommissioning streets. Essentially, they are redefining the inhabited areas of the city, partly to make services more efficient to deliver. Detroit's vastness and relatively low densities probably would undermine the benefits of doing this.

by Rich on May 5, 2010 7:29 pm

"Barnes Dance"?

I thought those types of crossings were called "scramble intersections".

by wmata on May 5, 2010 8:07 pm