Posts about 14th Street

The crowd was as diverse as the community, with life-long residents and newcomers alike speaking in opposition to the moratorium. Fewer than 10 people spoke in support of the moratorium. Comments were impassioned, but civil.

According to the meeting announcement from the ANCs,

The moratorium, as proposed, would seek to prohibit all future liquor licenses with the exception of full service grocery stores, it seeks to cap CT and CN licenses as well, and has been requested to be a 5-year moratorium. The boundaries of the moratorium as proposed and filed with ABRA, extend 1800 feet in either direction from Ben's Chili Bowl. This goes north to Clifton Street, south to R Street, east to just before Georgia Avenue. between 7th and 8th streets, and west to just west of 16th Street. overlapping New Hampshire Avenue. NW.

The community discussed a liquor license moratorium for the neighborhood in 2009, when a committee of residents studied the "ARTS" zoning overlay for 14th and U streets and made recommendations to modify it. There were 8 public meetings, and the 27 area ANC commissioners advised increasing the number of liquor licenses in the area.

Moratorium brings harm in Adams Morgan

Business leaders in Adams Morgan are now preparing for an upcoming March 2014 review of the moratorium in their community. A major nightlife destination, Adams Morgan is often invoked as a sort of boogeyman for policy impacting commercial districts, a warning of what might happen on U Street if something is not done to curb issues of noise, trash and crime.

But along 18th Street, the heart of Adams Morgan, a moratorium means that the kinds of businesses that might actually mitigate some of these issues—like higher end restaurants—aren't able to move into vacant spaces unless they wish to purchase an existing liquor license, something that can cost up to $75,000 in the market the moratorium has created. In 2010, the Alcoholic Beverage Control board unanimously lifted a similar moratorium in Georgetown.

There are better solutions than a moratorium

Those of us who have served the U Street community understand that there are serious issues that need to be addressed as our commercial district continues to thrive. But a liquor license moratorium serves as a blunt instrument in a situation where more precision is needed.

There will certainly be cases when a proposed liquor establishment is not the right fit for the space it wishes to occupy. The community will often support an establishment but with certain caveats that can go in a legally-binding "settlement agreement," which serves as a rider to the liquor license. We already have tools to address these issues. But we also need to pursue long-term solutions to the other impacts when residents and businesses are situated so closely.

We should seek funding for hospitality initiatives that train and support business owners. We should support opportunities to create more daytime foot traffic that would support retailers such as offices or hotels. And we should come together around green initiatives that would reduce trash, noise and pollution.

A liquor license moratorium is not the solution to all of our problems. The community has spoken on this issue in the past as it did last night, and it's time to put it to rest so we can focus our attention on real solutions.

Real collaboration is what helped U Street begin to thrive more than 10 years ago and it is what will help us continue to grow in a way that fosters business growth while also making our neighborhood a great place to live.

The police were called to the scene and, after interviewing the parties involved, informed us that there is no violation unless there is contact between the cab and the cyclist. As there was no contact in this case, he was unable to issue any sort of ticket to the driver of the cab. Respectfully, I informed him that I did not believe that that was the correct interpretation of the law and I asked that his sergeant be called to the scene. The sergeant arrived, interviewed us again and then informed us that the first officer on the scene was correct and that there was no violation.

Is this, in fact, the law? Is nobody liable for damage in this case?

The husband of the cyclist who blocked the cab from leaving, "jrenault," posted on the BikeArlington forum about this. He said,

They're arguing that surely "failure to yield" covers what the cabbie did, but not getting anywhere. ... Apparently, according to the police officer, failure to yield must be witnessed by the officer or he can't write a ticket.

Other posters on BikeArlington suggest it might not be worth pursuing, not because the driver necessarily is blameless, but since nobody was seriously hurt, and it would be too much trouble to get the police to take action. It's also possible there is no clear answer here, and no law that speaks to this situation clearly enough.

Shane Farthing from WABA said he couldn't judge this specific incident without hearing more details, but had a broader comment about whether cyclists should want police to write tickets:

In many cases there will be some need for the officer to exercise discretion, such as whether an action was reckless or whether someone was passing too close under the circumstances. These elements are not all objectively defined. So while we want the roadways and laws to be predictable, there isn't always an objective yes/no answer to whether an action is lawful, and it's not always best for cyclists or anyone for officers to always default to issuing a citation.

We've seen several times in the past when an officer feels compelled to write a ticket, but doesn't understand the law well enough, the default ends up being to cite the cyclist, rightly or wrongly. If police always write tickets after crashes, that might mean they learn more about the laws, or it might just mean cyclists get blamed more often even when not warranted.

Still, taxis need to watch for cyclists when pulling out across a bike lane. Near-misses happen every day. Small collisions happen occasionally. The fewer of those, the less likely a serious injury or worse.

The 29-year-old Parisian is known around the world for his unique style, a mixture of photography and graffiti that involves blowing up photographs and pasting them on street corners and buildings.

The mural uses Ernest Wither's photo of the 1968 Memphis strike. The black-and-white image depicts dozens of striking workers and civil rights activists holding up signs that read "I Am a Man."

"This says it all: 'I am a man,'" JR told the Washington Post on Wednesday. "They created such a strong and powerful image that still resonates today, but in another context. Still, people say, 'I am a man,' but they care less about the color [of their skin]. It's 'we are humans, we are here, we want to exist.' And I like that, I think that's pretty powerful."

JR and 3 assistants began work on the mural early Tuesday morning using globs of white paste and rolling out strips of the massive photo. In the past, the semi-anonymous artist has worked both legally and illegally.

This time, he stayed within legal boundaries, with the help of Lauren Gentile, who founded the 14th Street art gallery Contemporary Wing. Gentile facilitated JR's work, with the permission of the unoccupied building's owner, Lori Graham.

"In the right context, street art can start a dialogue about important issues; this one to me is dignity," Gentile said. "The image is installed on a building just two doors down from the historic Post Office for African-Americans and on a street corner just below the center of the 1968 Washington, D.C. riots."

The context has more than historical meaning, as Gentile noted: "You could even go beyond the history and see the image in its new life, now currently in the center of many major developments on 14th street with all of the hundreds of real-time labors working hard nearby. The image, in its new context, has the power to reshape public experience, but how it is reshaped can only be personally decided by its audience."

The mural has already drawn rave reviews from local residents. Its black-and-white faces have turned heads and brought life to a normally dingy and run-down façade. Regular passersby may appreciate having a beautiful piece of art to look at, but a handful of dedicated JR followers have made pilgrimages to U Street just to see the piece.

When one fan arrived at the building on Wednesday and introduced herself to JR, the artist told her to pick up a brush and start painting, according to the Post.

"When you're in New York, people don't say, 'we're happy you came to New York.' In DC, people thank you for coming here and bringing art here," JR told a reporter.

JR's art has graced streets from China and Kenya to Europe and New York City. He has even worked on the wall that separates Israel and Palestine.

JR has long called city streets "the largest art gallery in the world." Notably, the new installation is one of only a handful JR has ever done in the United States.

Because his murals are held together with paste and subject to the wear and tear of weather, there's no telling how long JR's mural at 14th and T will last. It could begin peeling tomorrow or stay in pristine condition for months.

No matter how long the mural survives, it has already done its job: making passersby stop and think, and reminding them how lucky we all are to live in such a vibrant city.

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.