Adams Morgan has many more pedestrians than cars. But its major intersections have wide turns and slip lanes that speed traffic while making crossing difficult.

Fortunately, DDOT’s walking-friendly personality has won out over its faster-traffic one in the Adams Morgan/18th Street study, which recommends redesigning the area’s key intersections with more urban designs.

Here’s 18th and Columbia:

18th and Florida. Today, to walk along the east side of 18th, a person now has to cross three separate roadways. This plan consolidates those into a single crossing, and on the west side, cuts off vehicular access to Vernon St from this end entirely.

Columbia at Kalorama, Euclid, and Harvard. Each of these intersections has tiny triangular spaces too small to be usable. The study recommends reconnecting each to neighboring blocks to create better public spaces. (According to the DDOT presentation, Kalorama Park event used to stretch south to complete the full triangle that this study seek to restore).

DDOT originally planned to perform reconstruction of 18th Street in 2009. According to emails on the Adams Morgan neighborhood email list, it was then pushed back to 2011, but the Council decided to force DDOT to do it in 2009 and put money toward it. It doesn’t look like this includes the Columbia Road portions, and I don’t yet have definitive confirmation that they’re going to follow this study’s recommendations exactly, but I’ll post when I have more details.

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.