Bicycling

17th Street bike lanes incorrectly striped

by David Alpert   •   September 3, 2010 1:07 pm

DDOT and its contractors have been doing a terrific job with the reconstruction of 17th Street, NW in the Dupont Circle area. However, the bike lanes were recently painted onto the road, missing the dashed ends that signal to drivers that they should merge for right turns.

Most drivers don't know they're supposed to merge into bike lanes before reaching an intersection, if they plan to turn right. That ensures that when they turn right, they're not turning across the path of any cyclists (unless cyclists improperly squeeze even farther to the right, as some do when they don't know the correct procedure).

To provide some cue to do this, most bike lanes switch from using solid white lines to dashed ones a small distance from the corner. However, the newly striped 17th Street lanes are solid all the way to the corners.

The above images show Q Street approaching 17th, and the other on 17th itself. Note that the right photo shows 17th and Q where right turns are actually not possible, so the line should remain solid, but it's the same at 17th and Church, where there are right turns. I meant to get a picture of that corner but didn't get the chance.

Hopefully it's not too late for the contractor to go back and take out pieces of the striping.

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.