Rather than close Ellsworth Drive, narrow Georgia Avenue

Public Spaces

Rather than close Ellsworth Drive, narrow Georgia Avenue

by Dan Reed • December 21, 2010 11:13 am

The best and most vibrant public space in downtown Silver Spring is Ellsworth Drive, a street already designed more for pedestrians than for cars. Its success has led to some calls to close it entirely to traffic. But instead, a better approach would be to create other, new public spaces by narrowing Georgia Avenue.

Ellsworth Drive in downtown Silver Spring. Photo by the author.

Even if you don't like the chain stores that line it, it's hard to ignore that Ellsworth Drive has become the place where our community gathers to celebrate, to remember, and even to protest.

So it's not surprising that many people, including Sligo from Silver Spring, Singular, have called for it to be closed to cars altogether, not just on weekends:

"I'm not sure what the original rationale was for keeping this street open on weekdays, but I think that the last seven years have shown us that there's a lot more demand for public space in downtown Silver Spring than there is for a single block of road."

Many of the people I spoke to at last May's charrette talked about the need for public space in Silver Spring. Though pedestrian malls in the United States have often failed, there are quite a few examples of successful ones, like Main Street in Charlottesville, Pearl Street Mall in Boulder and Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Nonetheless, turning Ellsworth Drive into a permanent pedestrian mall may not be the answer, and there are two reasons why.

First off, successful pedestrian malls have pedestrians at all times. Stores need people passing by to get customers, and if there aren't enough people walking by, they'll close. Ellsworth may be crowded on a weekend evening but not the rest of the week. Are the sidewalks busy on a Tuesday morning? Or a Saturday night after 10pm?

Ellsworth Drive does have shops and restaurants and movie theaters, but not enough to keep it busy at all times. Though thousands of new apartments have been built in downtown Silver Spring over the past ten years, there are still very few people living within a quarter-mile of Ellsworth Drive, meaning that the only people on the sidewalks are those who came intentionally.

Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica has a wide variety of stores and other activities taking place at all times.

Main Street in Charlottesville has a number of bars, including the one where Dave Matthews got his start. Like Boulder, Charlottesville also has a major university nearby, drawing tens of thousands of carless college students who have to walk everywhere.

On Third Street, you can buy anything from today's newspaper to a coffeepot to a skateboard. You can also have dinner and a drink afterwards. Above are apartments, offices, hotels and a hostel, and a few blocks away are Santa Monica's famous beaches. Together, all of these amenities create places where the sidewalks are busy at all times, which justifies closing a street to cars.

Second, we shouldn't be asking why the sidewalks on Ellsworth are so crowded, but rather why sidewalks everywhere else in Silver Spring are so empty. Ellsworth Drive currently works well for cars and pedestrians. But most others in the downtown area, from big ones like Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road to little ones like Thayer Avenue or Fenton Street, have been designed to move cars, resulting in some pretty uninviting places to walk.

The biggest reason why businesses along Georgia Avenue or Colesville Road may continue to struggle despite the ongoing revitalization is probably because nobody wants to walk there. Tight sidewalks and speeding cars are enough to encourage walkers to find safe places, like Ellsworth Drive, and stay put as long as they can.

Georgia Avenue is as wide as the Beltway!

The space given over to cars on Georgia Avenue is as wide as the through lanes on the Beltway.

How can we create more public space in downtown Silver Spring? Make the streets narrower. At its intersection with Silver Spring Avenue, Georgia Avenue is nearly 110 feet wide from curb to curb. That's as wide as the through lanes on the Beltway.

Let's say you made the lanes on Georgia 10 feet wide, narrow enough to get cars going 30 miles an hour. Keeping the current setup, with six lanes for through traffic and two for parking, you could make the road 80 feet wide, freeing up thirty feet of pavement for other uses, like wider sidewalks, a landscaped median, or space for cafe tables.

You could do this exercise with any street in the business district, giving space back to the pedestrian without changing traffic patterns. But if we were really ambitious, we would change traffic patterns, giving over street space to bikes or transit vehicles, such as the DC streetcar, which may one day continue up Georgia Avenue to Silver Spring. These changes could allow our streets to move more people than a lane of cars ever could while making them much nicer spaces to be in.

Georgia Avenue's a nice place to drive through, but a pretty miserable place to walk.

What Georgia Avenue could be like. Drawing by architect Darrel Rippeteau.

The argument for making Ellsworth Drive a pedestrian mall is pretty similar to the one for building a bridge across Wayne Avenue to the new Silver Spring Library: drivers speed through downtown Silver Spring, so let's keep pedestrians far away where they can be safe. But doesn't this condone speeding?

We should make all of Silver Spring safe and fun for walking, even if it means drivers have to slow down. In doing so, we'll help local businesses, improve traffic, and return public space to the people.

25 comments

Tags: Maryland, Montgomery, public spaces, road diet, Silver Spring

New York, San Francisco "instant plazas" could inspire East Silver Spring (May 28, 2009)
Bookstores create public places (Dec 1, 2010)
Charrette participants embrace Silver Spring's new urbanity (May 28, 2010)
Party time in Silver Spring (Feb 16, 2010)
Two plans for Times Square (Jun 13, 2005)

A planner and architect by training, Dan Reed is interested in suburban retrofits. Dan works for the Friends of White Flint, writes his own blog, Just Up the Pike, and serves as the Land Use Chair for the Action Committee for Transit. Dan lives in Silver Spring.

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Another idea. Close King St in Alexandria for cars from Royal St or even better Washington St down to the waterfront. Close Union St from Prince to Queen or Oronoco. Same argument as above.

[PS I think these closures should not have any effect on parking, because most if not all parking have alternate entrances, but I may have missed one.]

by Jasper on Dec 21, 2010 11:36 am • link • report

Ugh. Really? The stretch of Georgia between Sligo and Spring street is already congested to nightmarish proportions. This is only going to get worse as you add residences to upper Georgia Avenue (DC) and Wheaton. Why would you want to make traffic worse than it is now. Even now, personally I avoid driving into Silver Spring for anything other than Ray's because of the traffic. Without traffic on Georgia, it takes about 5 extra minutes to drive from the developing areas of Wheaton to Bethesda. However, if you drive to DTSS during any of the peak times (evenings and weekends), the gridlock on Georgia completely negates this time savings. For me, at least, this makes the decision to drive to Bethesda a no brainer, but I guess if you want to continue to cater to the lower income consumer go right ahead. I know where I'll take my business.

by Wheatoner on Dec 21, 2010 11:51 am • link • report

I think the stretch on Georgia Ave from Spring Street south to Colesville and then continuing south have really, really wide sidewalks, especially between Cameron and Colesville. For me what is frustrating isn't the width of the sidewalks, but crossing the street at busy intersections, like Georgia & Colesville. Cars routinely try to beat the left turn lane ( or any light for that matter ) and end up in the crosswalk. You wind up playing frogger with about 10 seconds to cross. I think they should just make it safer for peds to cross these huge roads ( Georgia, Colesville, East-West, 16th Street ). Otherwise, I think Downtown SS is really nice and walkable.

by dc denizen on Dec 21, 2010 12:21 pm • link • report

Hmm... as much as I as a DTSS-dwelling pedestrian type love the idea, I figure narrowing Georgia Avenue will be a next-to-impossible sell politically because of its importance as a commuter route. Too bad the old streetcar that made it an important commuter route in the first place in the late 19th century is long since gone. If there were an easy way to route the Georgia Avenue through traffic onto the 16th Street bypass west of DTSS it might be easier, but as it is that would either involve using East-West Highway (already probably even more congested than Georgia Avenue) or working with the District to use Eastern Avenue or the side streets in Shepard Park, which are all pretty narrow streets already.

I think what would really help Georgia Avenue south of Wayne is something to direct pedestrians from the Silver Spring Metro station up Bonifant Street to put them in the middle of the Georgia Avenue retail strip. As things are right now, people coming out of the Metro station with no particular destination in mind pretty much psychologically directed right up Colesville Road toward the Ellsworth strip. Of course the construction site is in the way now, but even before construction started, there was nothing in particular to make people interested in walking up Bonifant Street unless they already had a destination in mind up there. Just a couple of office buildings, a couple of blocks of sooty parking garage that crosses over the street, then the backs and sides of buildings that front on Georgia Avenue -- the only thing to interesting to look at is the back yard of Piratz Tavern.

What would be interesting is some kind of streetscape improvements on Bonifant after the construction site is done that would entice people to take a walk up that way. That's easier said than done, though, since so much of that distance is taken up by that enormous and psychologically imposing parking garage. Probably we'll end up having to wait for the purple line to start running up Bonifant before there's any hope of change!

by pagodat on Dec 21, 2010 1:40 pm • link • report

I think you can also take the approach of looking at each intersection, rather than a wholesale change of Georgia Avenue. The intersection you show (Georgia and Silver Spring Avenue) has the potential for major improvements that could be made relatively simply. If you look at the crosswalk at that intersection, its length is about 100 feet (not 110’), since it has bulb outs instead of the parking lanes (shorter), but is angled (longer). That intersection could be re-worked to allow the crosswalk to be square the road at the cost of a single parking spot, and that gets you down to a 95’ length. The inside travel lanes are already quite narrow (9-10’), but that outside lane on both sides of the street is quite wide (16-20’). While outside lanes typically are wider, especially with parallel street parking, maybe this could be trimmed down. More importantly, a pedestrian refuge needs to be created in the middle of Georgia Avenue by extending the median up to the intersection. This makes the crossing far less daunting, and also forces the high speed traffic on Georgia to slow down before making the turn. Since turning traffic is a large part of the risk to pedestrians, the extended median would directly protect pedestrians on crossing Georgia, while indirectly protecting those on Silver Spring.

er Spring. The re-worked intersection would have a crossing of about 90’ (instead of the discussed 110’), contain a pedestrian refuge, and would slow turning traffic. In distance, it would more closely resemble crossing Colesville Road near East-West Highway and the metro station. No pedestrian panacea, but far better than the Frogger experience currently in place. Most of these changes could be implemented very easily.

by Brian DiNunno on Dec 21, 2010 1:49 pm • link • report

This entire argument is faulty. I'd have to write an entire article as to why almost all of your reasoning is based on pure speculation rather than established theory.

by Eric on Dec 21, 2010 2:29 pm • link • report

You hit it on the head Dan. As for pure speculation vs. established theory, how about empirical evidence! They need to make a median with trees down that stretch just like they have on Georgia north of Colesville. The only reason they didn't continue down that stretch is because it was considered the Silver Spring Ghetto. Any traffic going north will be no more constrained by a new median than by the existing one to the north. To continually back down in the face of the traffic engineer's numbers is to negate the human factor that makes any human habitation worth living in. As form follows function, let it follow the pedestrian and not the car. That's why we need trolleys more than ever, and real solutions to retrofit the suburbs in a sustainable way.

by Thayer-D on Dec 21, 2010 3:04 pm • link • report

couple of minor quibbles:

1) i'd not say 'narrow Georgia Avenue' if, in fact, you're just talking about re-apportioning the street to increase its capacity/livability/tax-revenue-generating-capability, etc. Just public perception, Jane Jacobs ('expanding/increasing' as opposed to 'contracting/decreasing'), etc., but also just being accurate in describing your proposal.

2) i'd suggest that before talking about sidewalk-widening (a zillion-dollar project), let's make Georgia Ave and Colesville Road bikable -- which means they'll need cycletrack facilities with some type of physical barrier -- it can be parking (car or bike), parklets for sidewalk cafes, etc. Just re-appropriate one of the travel lanes in each direction. done. this will allow more and more types of people to use the streets, increase the vitality and diversity of the streets, relieve auto traffic congestion, make these streets more interesting places to be on and travel through, introduce the streets to both bikers and drivers (who will now be able to see some of the stores b/c they won't be doing 50 mph thru the area anymore), make these streets a quieter/nicer place to eat (study: "noise makes food taste like crap"), allow pedestrians to feel safer, allow everyone to be safer -- all for an extremely low price, with little-to-no disruption of existing businesses -- and you can do it on a trial basis, just like NYC does, and you can start tomorrow. making streets bikable is a moral imperative anyways, even if it wasn't Teh Awesome for the myriad reasons listed above and more. and, remember that allowing bikes to use those streets will decrease auto congestion not just in those corridors, but in every other corridor where those bikes travel -- it's just one of the many positive knock-on effects of allowing people to bike.

we have to allow bikes on these major corridors, especially these major corridors.

by Peter Smith on Dec 21, 2010 6:05 pm • link • report

Thayer-D, Your Opinion/Excuse to narrow Georgia Avenue/Colesville Road holds no merit. The reason the two roads are as busy as it is today is due to the failurre to build the Expressway from DC to the Beltway in Kensington via Downtown Silver Spring.

To narrow Georgia Avenue/Colesville Road will not increase Business in Silver Spring especially since there are no attractive chain retail businesses to attract people throughout the DC area to make Silver Spring a Retail Destination.

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 22, 2010 2:38 am • link • report

Shawn,
And the reason EastWest Highway is busy is the failure to build a beltway to speed up east west traffic. Also, if we could get a Boarders, Anne Taylors, Chipolte or a number of other attractive chain retail businesses, we might have a reason to build the express way from DC to Silver Spring.
Maybe next year Silver Spring will finally get what it deserves! Merry Christmas

by Thayer-D on Dec 22, 2010 7:23 am • link • report

I'd be very hesitant to physically expand sidewalks because that is both expensive and hard to adjust in the future. If more space is being given to pedestrians, the NYC approach in Times Square is more appealing in that cheap barriers and painted asphalt have been shown to make a welcoming place for much less total cost.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that there is about to be a new bus terminal in downtown SS with a lot of buses going in every direction. Every block where they narrow the existing lanes to add a bus lane will speed up mass transit commute times and commute times for those not having to share lanes with buses.

by Dan on Dec 22, 2010 9:49 am • link • report

What will positively impact the pedestrian experience more than anything is adding more people in the areas you want to the to be. Before you say "duh", think about just how little residential development exists today in Fenton Village or the Ripley District. All of that will change over the next few years as thousands of new rental/condo units are built in both of these areas that are in very close proximity to the parts of Georgia Avenue that Dan laments. More peds = greater market demand = greater redevelopment. It obviously won't come in a big chunk like the DTSS development, but the demand will be there. And once (if?) the Purple Line is built, there will be even more peds flooding into DTSS. Not all are going to be looking/coming for the Ellsworth Experience. Finally, I strongly agree that extending the median down GA is an excellent idea. We need to do it on Colesville Road, too, all the way to the Beltway.

by Woodsider on Dec 22, 2010 1:47 pm • link • report

As for getting more people into the area, I was at a Purple line meeting last week and it was mentioned that the strip mall on 16th st north of East West Hwy is slated to be torn down to become a Purple Line Station. It sounded like there was absolutely no design plans for that station yet, but it could be a great multi-use with housing, retail, and a train stop with an easy walk on the CCT or ride on the Purple line to Downtown SS.

by Dan on Dec 22, 2010 1:57 pm • link • report

The Purple Line station at 16th street will take up only a small portion of the site, but the right of way for the tracks will slice off 50' (?) from the back of it, leaving a long narrow lot to redevelop. I'm sure a developer can overcome that, but let's dream for bit: imagine putting that portion of 16th street at grade, creating a pedestrian oriented boulevard and tunneling under the metro/rail tracks...then you could re-build a street grid to connect with the massive rental properties on the other side of 16th and voila'...new town center with primary focus on non-auto traffic. If only it were that easy.

by Woodsider on Dec 22, 2010 2:30 pm • link • report

Thayer-D, cheap sarcasm is not going to change the Fact that reducing lanes on Georgia Avenue/Colesville Road will not improve/increase pedestrian access. Again Silver Spring does not have upscale enough upscale chain retail businesses to warrant massive increase in pedestrian growth. Reducing lanes on the heavily traveled streets in Silver Spring will only create more traffic backups which is one of a few arguments you folx have made against building Freeways in DC/Takoma Park. The only outcome that will come out of reducing the lanes on Georgia Avenue/Colesville Road will be a decrease in business growth because it will force people to go to other areas(Arlington, Alexandria, Downtown DC, and Tysons Corner) to spend their money and not have to sit in bottle neck traffic.

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 22, 2010 7:38 pm • link • report

Dan, reducing the existing lanes to accomidate buses will not make sense especially since the "buses" don't run 24/7. It would make better sense to create express bus lanes during rush hour since thats the time that buses run rapidly....

Again reducing lanes on Georgia Avenue/Colesville Road is not a bright idea and it will kill businesses in the future. Plus there is no proof that it will benefit future growth in Silver Spring because Arlington, Alexandria, Downtown DC, Falls Church, and Reston All have growing Businesses and Population than Silver Spring along with 6-8 Lane Roads(may it be one way or two way streets)...

Its funny that there is no recommendation of reducing the lanes along Jefferson Davis Highway(us 1) in Crystal City/Pentagon City from 6-8 Lanes to 4 Lanes with Bus and Bike lanes but yet they have more Hotels, Upscale Retail, and Pedestrian Traffic than Silver Spring......

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 22, 2010 7:48 pm • link • report

Woodsider, what good does is do if reducing the lanes on Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road and people that mostly go to silver spring on the weekends are car drivers. It will definately not attract people throughout the DC region to want to come to Silver Spring knowing that it will take forever to get there due to bottle neck traffic. And to make it worse there is not enough retail options to make people want to visit Silver Spring so reducing the lanes on the busiest roads in Silver Spring will reduce the number of people thinking of visiting silver spring. And before you say anything about "new residential development" if the apartments/condos are going to be expensive($1500/month) then it is going to be very hard to sell people on moving into Silver Spring.

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 22, 2010 7:55 pm • link • report

Dan, demolishing the shopping center on 16th, are you serious?

Unless there are SOLID Plans to build a new shopping center to replace the existing shopping center, I do expect a Severe resistance against the demolishing of the shopping center.....

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 22, 2010 7:59 pm • link • report

Shawn, Did you read the original post? You keep talking about plans to reduce the number lanes for cars. The existing lanes are very wide. They are as wide as the lanes on the beltway. By simply narrowing the existing 6 lanes to standard city wides, it is possible to ADD stuff to the existing road without reducing the total number of lanes. That "stuff" could be a bus lane, more pedestrian space, bike lanes, etc.

by Dan on Dec 22, 2010 8:05 pm • link • report

Shawn, I hare to break it to you (and unfortunately anyone moving to this region from anywhere but NYC and San Fran), but the $1,500 per month apartments will seem like a bargain compared to the comparable unit in downtown DC, Bethesda or the orange line corridor in Arlington. The idea that one can live in an urban environment like DTSS without needing a car is very desirable and developers know it. DTSS is at the nexus of so many transit alternatives to driving: metro, Marc, future purple line, the future capital crescent and metropolitan branch trails. And now, there are more and more options for entainment, dining out, shopping, etc. Compare Silver Spring of ten years ago to today...then double that and you'll imagine the next tenp years.

by Woodsider on Dec 22, 2010 9:06 pm • link • report

@Shawn,
The plans do include the demolition of much of that shopping center. You can clearly see it in the "Lyttonsville 2" image at:
http://www.purplelinemd.com/maps-graphics/aerial-photographs
and in LPA-11 and LPA-12 at:
http://www.purplelinemd.com/maps-graphics/engineering-drawings

I assume they will build something besides the station in it's place, but, at the recent Woodside Purple line it sounded like the current land owner will be maintaining some building rights and voice regarding what will happen there beyond the station.

Considering I've heard no protest about it, I assume the strip mall owner is not protesting whatever deal he/she is getting (perhaps because whatever he builds will be next to a train station unlike the current semi-isolated strip mall). At the Woodside meeting, not a single person pro or against the Purple Line expressed significant concern about the loss of that strip mall and even some of the anti-Purple Line/trail people seemed to look forward to a station with less light pollution into their windows than the current strip mall.

Why exactly do you expect severe resistance? How often do you shop there?

by Dan on Dec 22, 2010 11:03 pm • link • report

Dan, a few flaws in your logic:

- Your 110ft width includes the two dedicated parking lanes. Actual travel width is more along the lines of 95ft.

- You also picked one of the wider points along that stretch of Georgia Ave, which isn't really representative of the corridor as a whole. A couple blocks north, between Bonifant St and Wayne Ave, the travelway is only 85ft wide.

- You didn't take into account the existence of and need for a left turn lane, unless you were planning on prohibiting all left turns from Georgia Ave. Including a curb divider, this requires 14ft of width. More if you want to landscape the median in between intersections.

- The only lanes that are extra wide are the outside lanes in each direction. The remaining lanes, as noted earlier by Brian, are already 10ft width.

Given the fairly heavy bus use along Georgia, and for future conversion to streetcars, you'd want to keep the right lane on each side at about 13ft width. Make this 14ft if you want to include sharrows for bicyclists.

So your total travelway width should be on the order of about 80ft. Anything beyond that is what you could use for sidewalk widening, bike facilities, landscaping, etc etc.

by Froggie on Dec 22, 2010 11:12 pm • link • report

i might have been a bit hasty/strident in knocking down/de-prioritizing sidewalk expansion as too expensive -- there are less expensive ways to do it these days.

of course, i'd maintain that we should make these streets bikable first, but after that - have at the sidewalk expansion - and if you can find a private financier for the project, maybe even better - and if that financier is a car company that is willing to potentially battle its own interests in the 'war on the car', maybe even better still.

_that_ is a great idea. i have no idea if it's actually been proposed explicitly or not -- maybe not here, not yet -- until now. i propose it. and i credit you with the idea if we get rich from it. (wouldn't that be cool - if you actually made money from coming up with ideas that are actually useful to society?)

and really, it's an excellent idea. imagine what that area could be if it weren't for that darn highway. the human population is pressuring the highway -- eventually it's going to have to be made walkable and bikable -- and we should be able to use some type of tax increment/value capture financing to do the project. yes - seriously good idea. lots of folks seem to get all excited by the thought of raising building heights, so when they see the numbers that could be generated by redeveloping Highway 1/Jefferson Davis Highway, they'll probably fall out. instead of being a major (financial and human) cost center for Crystal City and the State of Virginia, the highway could actually become productive.

Jefferson Davis Highway tears apart Arlington, just like Jefferson Davis tried to do to America during the Civil War -- it'd be great reconstruct the road so that it acts to bring people together instead of separate them, and rename it for an inclusive figure in history.

and, well, i guess the idea/plan to redevelop Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington/Crystal City/Pentagon City is already included in the updated 40-year plan -- it doesn't look like they plan on making it bikable -- just walkable, cap it in at least one place, etc. (kinda shows you how bikes remain an 'invisible' mode to many/most people) -- but i suspect it'll be make bikable during any major redesign. and, there are already car highways on either side of Crystal City - we don't need this one through the heart of town - or, what was once a town. time to remove the Jefferson Davis Separation Barrier.

by Peter Smith on Dec 23, 2010 3:39 am • link • report

Dan, Thanks for clearing that up. If that is the case then it would make sense to resize it to add express bus lanes. I am still not sold on creating bike lanes on surface streets in the name of slowing down drivers.

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 23, 2010 9:40 pm • link • report

Woodsider, $1500 is still a lot of money in this economy and if you think a mass of people are going to jump on that then you may want to think again.

Soo much for "Smart Growth":

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001938-smart-growth-and-quality-life

http://www.city-data.com/forum/general-u-s/1156931-smart-growth-not-really-so-smart.html

by Shawn Jacobs on Dec 23, 2010 9:57 pm • link • report