Posts about 14th Street

JBG recently began demolishing several buildings on the southwest corner of 14th & U Streets, NW to prepare to build of a major, mixed-use project. The sidewalk on the west side of 14th Street abruptly closed, with a fence blocking it off for more than half the block.

The 14th Street corridor has endured near-constant construction for several years now. Other projects have included varying types of temporary walkways, from bare-bones plastic jersey barriers to lit, covered scaffolding. When construction activities have required closing the sidewalk altogether it generally been for only a day, if not hours, at a time. Why not here?

No sidewalk during raze

Eric Fidler posed the question to DDOT, and an inspector gave this response:

The sidewalk is closed and pedestrians are routed across the roadway in accordance with DDOT's Pedestrian Safety and Work Zone Standards. This policy provides a matrix for what methods of pedestrian access are the most appropriate based on the phase of construction. In this case the project is undergoing raze. During raze activities the sidewalk is to be closed with pedestrians routed across the street.

Raze is a short period, typically lasting a few weeks to just more than a month. After this phase the sidewalk is to be opened or a pedestrian walkway is to be provided. It is DDOT's goal to maintain the pedestrian path on both sides of a roadway and will only allow the closure when it is unsafe to maintain it or when the work requires that the sidewalk be closed (e.g. during sidewalk construction).

It's true that DDOT's guidelines recommend closing the sidewalk during the raze. But is that appropriate? A raze doesn't mean dynamiting the building so it just collapses. Workers spend most of the raze period carefully removing materials, mostly from the interior and rear of the block.

Meanwhile, many active sites around the city long past the raze stage pose far more potential danger to pedestrians than sites razing existing structures. A few blocks north on 14th Street, a large 11-story building is being constructed with a covered walkway along part of the frontage, and an in-street, open walkway along the rest.

Recently, tower cranes have been lifting multi-ton sections of preformed concrete into place, frequently swinging directly above the pedestrians walking below. What about that poses less danger than a one-story brick facade being knocked down on the interior of a block?

When closing a block, especially where there are open businesses on either side, a large percentage of pedestrians will still ignore the signs and walk through along the fencing. By closing the sidewalk altogether under the auspices that any pedestrian accommodations would be dangerous, it creates a far more dangerous situation. Not only do people still have to walk past the construction entrance, they're doing so in traffic.

Mid-block closures also harm remaining businesses on either side because of the reduced foot traffic from those people that do cross the street. Even where an entire block is closed, businesses on the same side of the street on adjacent blocks likely see a drop in foot traffic. Having been forced to cross, people generally continue walking on the opposite side of the street if the light permits.

While the weekdays produce a lot of foot traffic, the weekends are even busier, and would benefit most from a temporary walkway. Yet, on the past few weekends (and even occasionally during the week), cars could park in the curbside lane, which is used for receiving during the week. Pedestrians still had to walk in the street.

If this lane is only needed for construction activities some of the time, it should be a walkway the rest of the time, not parking spaces. If DDOT and JBG can get pedestrians out of traffic for even 30% of the week, that would be a major safety improvement.

Access creates complications

The situation at 14th & U is complicated because the strangely shaped parcel is difficult to access. The project is mostly mid-block, so it can't receive trucks and stage materials from a side street.

Alley residents are adamantly opposed to the construction company using the alley. There are several alley dwellings immediately behind the site. Many people in that ANC opposed the use of T Street for construction. As a result, the construction company can only receive trucks and materials from 14th Street. All the other projects along 14th are staging along a side street or in an adjacent alley.

JBG says they have been trying to work with DDOT to create an alternative pedestrian path. DDOT officials, however, insist that there is no safe option because the construction site entrance and staging area are on 14th Street.

A JBG spokesman said that DDOT will not let them open a pedestrian path because of this staging issue on 14th Street. JBG is still considering two alternatives, neither of which is ideal:

• Cut down two street trees and create a path in the treebox zone. There would still be issues since they would have to allow trucks and materials to cross the pathway. Trucks will be received in the parking lane as currently planned.
  
• Receive trucks in the parking lane, since there is nowhere else for them, and convert the bike lane to a pedestrian path.

While JBG's comments imply that DDOT opposes a walkway even during construction phases, DDOT's John Lisle denied that was the case. "A walkway will be provided after the razing period precisely because there is so much construction in the area," Lisle said.

Trucks turning into an alley or side street at construction sites elsewhere on 14th Street pose just as much a danger to pedestrians as those that will enter an exit the JBG site at mid-block. But DDOT hasn't closed R or Swann Streets because of the danger to people on foot.

JBG should be able to use the parking lane or sidewalk for a temporary walkway and establish a site entrance along 14th Street. They should be required to mark it very clearly, and pedestrians and construction workers should both treat it as an intersection.

Instead of being a roadblock, DDOT needs to encourage a developer that wants to accommodate all of the road users and take responsibility for everyone's safety at their site. Preserving traffic lanes and neighbors' peace and quiet is important, but so is providing safe, reasonable accommodations for pedestrians.

They analyzed a number of options and condensed them down to 3 bicycle and pedestrian options, 4 roadway options, and 6 Transportation Demand Management options. This post looks at the roadway and TDM alternatives; the next one will delve into the bicycle and pedestrian options.

Vehicular options

One of the most significant conclusions from the draft EIS is what it chose not to recommend: More single-passenger vehicle capacity. The team looked at adding new general-purpose lanes (which, on a freeway-type bridge, aren't as much "general purpose" as "motor vehicle only") or HOT lanes. Once Virginia decided not to run HOT lanes through Arlington, the HOT lane options became moot, and adding new auto capacity generally did not reduce congestion.

There are 5 remaining proposals that would affect motor vehicles:

Add a bus lane. A lot of commuter buses drive to the Pentagon and then over the 14th Street bridge to DC, and many local buses also cross in this area. This alternative would use the existing shoulder of the Rochambeau bridge (the center of the 3 road bridges, which carries the express lanes in both directions) for a bus lane, and convert one lane on 14th Street to a bus lane.

The heavy volume of buses moves a great many people in this corridor. Helping buses bypass congestion and give riders a quicker ride would further improve the value of taking transit from many parts of Virginia.

Ban left turns at 14th and C (at a cost of about $203,000). C Street SW ends at 14th, in the last intersection with a traffic signal before the bridge. The study says that giving time for vehicles to turn left from southbound 14th onto C, or left from C onto southbound 14th, creates significant delay, and this option would forbid these turns. Drivers would only be able to turn right in or out of C.

On its own, this sounds like a bad idea because it would move further away from a functional grid in this area, and make 14th more like a freeway. It could, however, be a reasonable way to reduce some of the extra delay that comes from the bus lane option, making that a little more palatable.

The most important question, which the report does not specify, is how this would affect pedestrians. People cross on foot to get to and from the Holocaust Museum, for instance, and already the signal here forces them to wait long periods of time for the various movements. Removing the left turns could allow more pedestrian crossing time, or it could make things worse, depending on the final signal timings.

DC should also add a marked crosswalk along the south side of this intersection, where there is none today. Every side of every intersection ought to have a marked crosswalk, regardless of its effect on traffic, but an animation of the proposal makes it appear that there would be no traffic effect with left turns prohibited, anyway.

For the final EIS, the team should investigate pedestrian crossings and suggest timings that help them cross more safely and with a shorter wait.

Restripe around Maine Avenue, 7th and 9th Streets ($185,000). There are a lot of ramps on and off in this area, creating a lot of merging and weaving. This option would narrow the on-ramp at Maine Avenue to 1 lane instead of 2, reducing the amount of merging on the freeway itself.

Also, it would add a solid white line between some of the freeway's lanes east of 9th Street. Drivers getting on at 7th Street would only be able to then continue to the 3rd Street tunnel (the one that goes under the Mall to New York Avenue, also signed as I-395), and drivers getting on from 9th Street would have to continue onto the Southeast Freeway (now signed as 695) instead. Drivers might ignore this line, but FHWA hopes it will decrease weaving.

Remove some ramps on the Virginia side ($2.7 million). There are 10 ramps on and off 395 right around the Pentagon, also creating a lot of merging and weaving. This alternative suggests removing the ramps from 395 northbound to the GW parkway northbound, and the matching ramp from the GW Parkway southbound to 395 southbound. Drivers can still get where they need to go by taking Washington Boulevard (Route 27) instead, which is actually shorter, anyway.

In addition, this alternative would change around the ramps at Boundary Channel Drive, the access road to the Pentagon north parking lots. Now, there are cloverleaf-style ramps on and off of 395 southbound, so that cars coming from or going to each direction of Boundary Channel have their own ramps.

Instead, the ramps in the southwest quadrant would go away, and the northwest quadrant ramps changed so that cars can turn in either direction on and off of Boundary Channel.

Arlington has proposed another option to add roundabouts instead of traffic signals at the ends of the ramps.

Transportation Demand Management options

Reconfiguring roadways is not the only way to reduce congestion. Transportation Demand Management is the field concerned with helping people better understand their travel options besides solo driving. Maps, real-time information, and public service ad campaigns can help people choose transit. Employers can provide incentives or assistance for people to carpool, telecommute, or commute outside peak hours.

The TDM options that the DEIS proposed to carry forward to the final version include:

• Expand incentives for telecommuting
  
• Expand flexible work hours
  
• Increase prices for parking and/or decrease supply
  
• Better coordinate among agencies along the corridor (Federal, District, state, and local) to share information and respond to crashes or other incidents
  
• Create a program to educate drivers in the corridor in "[crash] avoidance maneuvers and defensive driving skills"
  
• Make signs better and more consistent across the corridor

The study team is accepting comments on the draft EIS until March 15th. They will then begin work on the final EIS. I will send them all comments made on this post through at least the end of Wednesday, March 14. If you want to send them your own, more detailed comments, you can do so through this form.

The bicycle and pedestrian proposals, meanwhile, are worth a whole discussion on their own. Part 2 will examine these in detail.

Having blank, featureless façades discourage street life and can send the wrong message. Last year, the Black Cat, which anchors the shopping and entertainment district along 14th Street NW, painted a mural of a cat on their boarded-up second-floor windows.

Nonetheless, it doesn't look much different from the outside than it did as an abandoned shell in 1988. Clubs like the Black Cat and the 9:30 Club a few blocks away have helped revitalize their neighborhoods, but by looking like abandoned bunkers, their aesthetics can perpetuate a run-down image.

Venues outside of the District are no better. While in Baltimore last weekend, I took my friends to The Ottobar, a tiny club in the emerging Station North neighborhood. Judging from its completely blacked-out storefront, they thought it was abandoned. I can imagine someone walking up North Howard Street, assuming there's nothing there, and turning around, missing out on a wonderful coffee shop just a block away.

In Alexandria, the venerable Birchmere Music Hall is largely invisible from the street, despite being in a fairly dense, urban neighborhood. If it weren't for the murals on the side, this club would just look like a warehouse behind a parking lot.

One exception would be the Recher Theatre, located in the center of downtown Towson. I drove through Towson last weekend and was impressed at how busy the downtown is, despite being home to one of Maryland's largest shopping malls. With a big marquee left over from the theatre's days as a movie palace and an adjacent bar that's open every day, the Recher keeps the streets active in a way that other area clubs don't.

Of course, rock clubs thrive on an aura of obscurity, while windows suggest openness and transparency. But perhaps venues can create window displays that affirm their image while creating a more interesting streetscape. For example, the Trocadero, a rock club in Philadelphia, has engaging, albeit suggestive, Barbie Doll dioramas in their windows.

Great streets require the participation of all the buildings that front them, even rock clubs. By creating storefronts that are visually interesting, or by providing uses like cafes or bars that are visibly open when shows aren't going on, clubs can create safer, more vibrant neighborhoods.

Earlier in the month word spread that Miss Pixies is in the market for new retail space. It's reported that the building's landlord wants to quadruple the rent for the storefront at 1626 14th Street NW. Jeffrey Lamoureux says that's a problem for businesses like his, where "high commercial rents make places like Mid City, low-volume neighborhood-centric spaces, untenable."

Mid City did have a loyal customer base. The shop was often busy, popular among coffee lovers, and on the surface, appeared to be successful. That's not to say there wasn't enough demand for Mid City Caffe, or that the shop wouldn't be filled with customers if it re-opened nearby, but it does suggest there isn't enough demand to justify the cost of running such a business on 14th Street.

High rents directly impact businesses by raising the average total cost. Barista wages and coffee prices likely don't waver much from city to city, but the amount a coffee shop pays to its landlord every month can and does vary greatly.

The result is that coffee shops in high-rent neighborhoods, for example, face a challenge that coffee shops in low-rent cities and neighborhoods don't: They have to pay handsomely for the privilege of simply being able to open their doors.

In order to make it work, businesses either need to sell high-margin goods and services, or do brisk volume on low-margin items. Coffee is the kind of business where strong volume is key.

That's the strategy at Peregrine Espresso. The successful Capitol Hill coffee brand opened its second location earlier this summer, exactly one block north of Mid City Caffe. Even so, there are notable differences between the Peregrine and Mid City.

Peregrine owner Ryan Jensen says that his shop caters to a different type of customer. "When we found our space up there, we realized that we really didn't have the space to accommodate a sea of telecommuters," he says, "so we thought it best to keep the chairs turning over so that the space doesn't get too stagnant."

With less than 600 square feet of space and enough seats for only about a dozen customers, Peregrine is banking on strong take-out business. They don't have wi-fi and aren't trying to lure customers looking for a place to hunker down for hours.

Jensen acknowledges that high rents make doing business on 14th Street a challenge. "If you only want to serve coffee (not lunch, dinner, or alcohol) and aren't necessarily interested in being a music venue, it becomes very difficult to sell enough cups of coffee to cover high rent," he says, "particularly in a neighborhood that doesn't have the same type of daily pedestrian traffic that you might find closer to downtown or in Penn Quarter.

Peregrine chose its micro-sized storefront in part because, even though the rent is high on a per-square foot basis, the monthly payments aren't astronomical. They also benefited by securing a long-term lease in July 2010, before some of the new developments nearby had broken ground. While small annual rent increases are expected, Peregrine is at less risk of the price shock that Mid City and Miss Pixies are currently experiencing.

High rents impact more than just individual businesses. Topher Matthews recently questioned the future of DC's "third places". In neighborhoods with high rents, the primary concern of any business is covering its costs. No matter what role it plays in the community, if it can't pay its bills, it won't be around for long.

The zone in question is the two square blocks bounded by 13th Street NW on the east, 15th Street on the west, U Street on the south and V Street on the north. This parcel contains a microcosm of the city: a large city government building (the Reeves Center), two public housing high-rises, a small park and playground, several townhomes, two luxury apartment buildings, and a thriving commercial corridor of bars, restaurants and shops.

LCB's first step will be to compile a detailed statistical snapshot of the two square blocks as they exist. This will provide a baseline to which to compare future measurements after transformations begin.

Three area universities (AU, UDC and Howard) were contracted for this work, which will include demographics, building-by-building energy and water use analyses, descriptions of green spaces and street life, studying the flow of money into and out of local businesses, and attitudinal and behavioral surveys of residents, business employees and others who frequent the zone.

Before LCB even approached any DC business owners, seven businesses had already signed an agreement to begin compacting all of their solid waste: landfill trash, recyclables and compost, each compacted separately.

Instead of having to pay for trucks to haul their waste away every other day, the businesses, as a unit, will only have to have one truck every other week collect the compacted waste. Not only will the businesses save money, but the neighborhood will benefit from reduced noise and pollution from truck activity. Compacting dumpsters will be installed in March.

Founder Llewellyn ("Llew") Wells spun LCB off from the Denver-based green think tank The Rocky Mountain Institute, where he had served as Vice President for Communications for two and a half years after deciding to leave Los Angeles and the entertainment business.

Wells developed many connections in DC and the federal government through his work as one of the original producers of the West Wing TV series. His main residence is near Denver, but he now calls DC a second home and shares a Columbia Heights apartment with a friend.

LCB's first project, a section of downtown Denver occupied by late 19th-century warehouse buildings, has received technological assistance funds from the US Department of Energy. LCB's DC project has gained buy-in from the DC government, community groups, local businesses and universities. A small staff is expected to be in place this summer.

Among Wells' initial partners are Scott Pomeroy, Sustainability Manager at the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID) who has lived near 14th and U for 20 years, and Sheldon Scott, manager of the Marvin Restaurant at 2007 14th St NW.

Wells expects all of LCB's work to take six to eight years. LCB is close to being able to announce the receipt of grants from several major corporations; AT&T has already pitched in. This will enable the nonprofit to hire a small staff of DC residents, who will to use the baseline data in formulating the most cost-effective ways of reducing the zone's overall environmental impact while maintaining a healthy mix of housing, retail and office space, and public space.

The District Department of the Environment and the Energy and Real Estate Divisions of the DC government have worked closely with LCB, which is now working to engage DDOT and the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The U Street Neighborhood Association, Shaw Civic Association, and ANC 1B have also been supportive, but the area lacks a BID or Community Development Corporation. This, along with the difficulty in translating long-term energy savings into a viable investment, makes organizing the business community more of a challenge.

Wells stresses the long-term nature of what Living City Block seeks to do at 14th & U. But if it is successful in eight years, the demonstrated cost savings and ecological improvement it generates should make the case for spreading the idea across the city.

With that—piece by piece, block by block—Washington will put itself in a position to thrive within the resource-constrained and altered-climate realities that will mark the 21st century while offering a high quality of life.

14th Street between Spring Road and Longfellow Street contains three main retail nodes identified in the study. From the south, the first is between Spring Road and Shepherd Street; the second, centered on WMATA's bus barn, is between Webster and Decatur streets; and the third, between Jefferson and Longfellow streets, is centered on the intersection with Colorado Avenue.

Project consultants presented on residential and non-retail potential, retail conditions and concepts for streetscape possibilities.

Streetsense's Heather Arnold talked about retail strategies for the corridor. She performed an inventory of existing retail services in the corridor and analyzed spending habits by residents, area employees, and visitors to see what types of purchases currently being made outside the neighborhood could instead be made on 14th Street.

Arnold noted that retail along the corridor should serve a different purpose than Walmart or Target. Instead of competing on price or selection, retailers must serve a different need by being representative of the neighborhood and offering convenience and quality service. There is little market demand to construct new retail space in the area, Arnold said, but there will be normal retail turnover in the next decade.

The retail node near the WMATA bus barn seems strongly positioned to fill neighborhood needs. A small grocery could serve as an anchor for the area to keep more retail dollars in the neighborhood.

Because it is a local-serving retail strip not far from big-box retailers, this node shares many parallels with Mt. Pleasant Street, a revitalization project Arnold and Ferretti are also working on with DC Office of Planning. Arnold noted that attempting to attract customers from across the city "would cause more problems than it would solve," leading to potential parking and noise issues. In addition to neighborhood residents, employees at the bus barn already form a base of customers for retail in this area.

Analysis for the northernmost node, centered on Colorado Avenue, had to be reset after the plans for Walmart were announced. Because proximity to Walmart would significantly impact what kind of retail could be successful at this end of the corridor, Arnold recommended that the area build upon the relocation of renowned artist Sam Gilliam to the neighborhood and build an arts cluster, creating a destination for unique products that have no overlap with Walmart's offerings.

This concept for this type of arts cluster is consistent with Office of Planning's own Creative Action Agenda, which seeks to foster artistic and creative industries within the District.

Abby Ferretti of Partners for Economic Solutions presented a study on the market in the corridor. Her analysis examined supply and demand for residential and non-retail commercial space within the corridor.

Ferretti identified three market demographics that might play an increasingly important role in the neighborhood: millennials drawn to walkable urban neighborhoods; Latino families that expect to see increased income in the coming years; and single women looking to purchase residential units.

In the next decade, Ferretti forecast that the 14th Street corridor would see 300 new rental units and 120 new for-sale residential units, created through either new construction or conversion. Because the area is not a regional office or retail destination, Ferretti expects that the corridor would see modest growth in the amount of non-retail commercial space, growing by 18,960 square feet over the next decade.

Since the area is a quieter residential neighborhood that is convenient to downtown but off the beaten path for tourists, one possibility for new non-retail businesses is bed and breakfasts. Ferretti cited a cluster of B&B's along 12th Street NE in Brookland as an example for the corridor.

Otto Condon of ZGF Architects & Planners also presented at the meeting. Noting that neighborhoods in this area are generally oriented north-south along major streets such as 14th Street and Georgia Avenue, he raised some possibilities for strengthening east-west connections between these corridors.

There are specific sites within the three retail nodes that offer opportunities for streetscape improvements, such as parking lots near the WMATA bus barn, surface parking and traffic islands near Colorado Avenue and some building facades north of Spring Road. Specific streetscape recommendations will be made later in the study process.

The study's southern boundary is Spring Road. The commercial zone in this area—of Tivoli North controversy fame—extends south to Monroe Street in Columbia Heights. This plan will address the connection to Columbia Heights, even though it is officially focused on an area entirely within Ward 4.

Heather Arnold noted that the commercial area south of Shepherd Street attracts customers from Columbia Heights. "While we aren't suggesting that this area becomes some kind of Columbia Heights North, we are suggesting it would be foolish...not to benefit from that customer draw a couple blocks to the south," she said. The major challenge to drawing customers northward, she noted, is the derelict block between Meridian Place and Oak Street.

Despite stopping short at the Ward 4 boundary, the 14th Street Revitalization Strategy is taking a holistic approach to revitalizing retail nodes that are not usually in the spotlight of the city's economic development agenda.

If you are interested in getting involved as this plan progresses, contact Giz Andargeh, Project Manager, at (202) 724-4314 or Malaika Abernathy, Ward 4 Neighborhood Planner, at (202) 442-7600.

For bike riders, feel free to deck out your bike or your person with lights, wreaths, ribbons or other festive trimmings. Candles are not recommended. And don't forget to dress warmly!

Gabe Klein will be wearing a Santa suit, and we'll make some caroling stops along the way. Also, DDOT will be collecting winter coats, socks, gloves, hats and other winter clothing for a clothing drive at Reeves. Please arrive early to drop off items so the drive organizers have a chance to collect everything and get it back inside before the ride.

Please obey all traffic laws. If a stoplight means the group gets split up, you'll easily be able to catch up quickly or at the holiday market or Marvin.

Don't have a bike? You can grab a CaBi bike at the Reeves Center station and renew your 30 minutes by depositing and re-checking it along the way.