Posts about 15th Street Bike Lane

Both options would limit traffic in the block of 15th from V to W only 2 lanes, moving back the 3-lane to 2-lane merge point to the block between U and V. At W Street, one lane would continue up the hill on 15th, while the other would let drivers turn right onto either Florida Avenue or W, in more of a traditional intersection.

The 2 options only differ in the location of the newly-created green space. One option puts it mostly on the east side of the street, while the other divides new green space between the east and west sides.

These options have safety trade-offs. Keeping the roadway on the left (left-hand image) makes the lane shift on 15th more gradual and makes speeding easier, but it also allows for a larger triangular pedestrian island in the middle of the intersection. Shifting the roadway to the right (right-hand image) forces drivers on 15th to slow down more as they approach the hill, but leaves a smaller pedestrian island.

Both proposals add numerous bulb-outs at the crosswalks just as the agency has included on H Street NE and other places around town. In these places, the curb juts out toward the travel lane and reduces the distance pedestrians must spend vulnerable in the roadway while crossing the street.

The design also extends the 15th Street cycle track into this area. Right now, the 2-way track ends at V Street. Riders heading northbound have to cut across traffic to a bike lane on the east side of the street (or just share the lane), while riders southbound can't legally use 15th in this area (though many do anyway).

The part of 15th going up Meridian Hill now has two bike lanes, both northbound, one on each side of the street. DDOT's original hopes for the 2-way 15th Street cycle track included having it stretch to Euclid, the northern edge of the park. DDOT bicycle program head Jim Sebastian says that when DDOT rebuilds the "Death Star" intersection, they will also complete a continuous 2-way bicycle facility from U to Euclid.

DDOT could just build the cycle track in this intersection along the edge of the roadway, separated with poles, as with the rest of the cycle track today. Other options, though, elevate it up to sidewalk level like many European cities do. The tree boxes would still separate the track from the sidewalk, but then one of a few different curb treatments would divide it from the roadway.

At the meeting, DDOT planner Gabriela Vega said the agency was still weighing the pros and cons of the last three designs' barriers between the cycle track and the parking lane. The barriers in the last three designs all include permeable pavers that allow the ground to absorb more stormwater.

Renderings show treeboxes between the sidewalks and streets including rain gardens to trap stormwater and "flow-through planters," where water that lands in one treebox can gradually flow to the next as it runs downhill, feeding more than one tree.

If those treatments make the trees extremely verdant, the intersection could ultimately look something like this:

Even while the trees are growing, it'd be a huge improvement over today:

Many years ago, DDOT had considered an unsignalized roundabout for the intersection. In 2008 we published a proposal of what that might look like. Back then, the agency responded that they had dropped the idea of a roundabout.

When asked at Wednesday's meeting why a roundabout was not under consideration, Vega said DDOT's traffic models showed that a roundabout could not accommodate the traffic volumes of both 15th Street and W Street.

The designs DDOT presented are preliminary concepts. The agency will update the ANC again in a few months with refinements. DDOT is still seeking input, especially on the cycle track separation options and the roadway alignment options mentioned above.

16th Street/U Street New Hampshire

• Motor vehicle intersection [Level of Service (LOS)] remained the same before and after the bicycle facilities were installed.
  
• Fewer than 20% of cyclists are using the bike box and bike signal as intended to cross the intersection.
  
• 82% of cyclists are stopping in the crosswalk instead of the bike box as intended. Though the bike box may still be effective at giving separation as only 15% of cars are stopping in it.
  
• 13% of Cyclists using the bike signal encounter motor vehicles who are running the red, but are able to navigate through.
  
• There was 1 more bicycle crash (5 vs. 4) at the intersection in the year after the installation than before.

Pennsylvania Ave cycletrack

• Bicycle volume doubled after the cycletrack was installed.
  
• Arterial LOS was similar for motor vehicles on Pennsylvania Avenue before and after the bicycle facilities were installed.
  
• Danish Bicycle LOS and Bicycle Environmental Quality Index (BEQI) analyses all show significantly improved operations for cyclists with the median bike facilities.
  
• Signal timing for bicycles generally works well between 10th Street and 15th Street, but results in large delays to cyclists between 3rd Street and 9th Street.
  
• Bike crashes went up 80% after the bike lanes went in (so, not as much as bike traffic went up).
  An average of 42 percent of cyclists arriving on a red signal violated the signal.
  
• Most cyclists stopping at red lights stop in the crosswalk or median area rather than behind the white stop bar.

15th Street cycletrack

• After the two-way cycle track was installed, there was a 205 percent increase in bicycle volumes (from before conditions) between P Street and Church Street during the p.m. peak hour, and there was a 272 percent increase in bicyclist volumes (from before conditions) between T Street and Swann Street during the p.m. peak hour
  
• Motor vehicle counts show that volumes are up a little bit on 15th Street before and after the bicycle facilities were installed.
  
• Motor vehicle LOS was basically the same after the cycletrack was installed.
  
• Bicyclists experience less delay on 15th Street between lower E Street and I Street than between I Street and U Street.
  
• The number or crashes again grew, but not as fast as the number of cyclists did (so crash per cyclist went down).
  
• There are potential issues with the existing design, which uses the pedestrian signal to control cyclist movements.
  
• Over 40 percent of cyclists were observed running red lights.
  
• There are now fewer cyclists on the sidewalk.

DDOT is hosting a public meeting on Thursday, May 3, to present more details of the study and discuss the proposed L Street cycletrack from 25th to 12th Streets, NW. The meeting is at the Reeves Center, at the corner of 14th and U, in the 2nd floor community room.

A version of this article was originally posted at TheWashCycle.

Someone riding south on the 15th Street lane has to merge into busy traffic and then cross the Mall either by riding on the sidewalk, which is often quite crowded with tourists and joggers, or in the road, where cars expect to drive fast and not encounter cyclists. The last time David rode there, a DC taxi pulled up right behind and started honking, even though there was another, mostly empty lane it could switch into. It eventually did, honking even more.

It gets worse around Maine Avenue and Ohio Drive, near the Tidal Basin. Not only is the pavement in this area in horrible condition, but those roads are configured like highways with cars speeding along the winding curves. The sidewalks are extremely narrow and packed with pedestrians, especially during warm, sunny weather and in Cherry Blossom season.

The pedestrians deserve to use that space, but what do cyclists do? Riding in the road is only an option for southbound bicyclists, and it's a harrowing experience with the curved yet high-speed roads and drivers traveling very fast.

In the other direction, there isn't really a choice. From the path over the Mason Bridge, a cyclist has to ride on the sidewalks around the Tidal Basin, go the long way around west of the Tidal Basin toward the Lincoln Memorial, or take a long detour through East Potomac Park to get to the eastern side Ohio Drive and then head back up through the Maine Avenue area.

From Southwest DC, there's a path along the Case Bridge, which carries I-395 over the Washington Channel, but to get to it you have to navigate across and around highway-style ramps in Banneker Park, then 2 narrow switchbacks which force dismounting.

On the East Potomac Park side, the path turns into a narrow sidewalk along the on-ramp from the Park Police headquarters. Riders have to travel though the NPS parking lot (or go farther out of the way), then ride along the western Ohio Drive past the George Mason Memorial to get to the path.

On the Virginia side, the Mount Vernon Trail connects to many trails, but has no direct connection from the 14th Street bridge area to Pentagon City right across the freeways. Someone riding there has to either head north through Lady Bird Johnson Park and then wind around the Pentagon parking lots, or go south to the airport and then backtrack through Crystal City.

Alternatives improve Virginia connections

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement suggests 3 alternatives. The most ambitious, Alternative 2, proposes a new bridge from western Ohio Drive across the Potomac along side the Long Bridge (the CSX and VRE tracks) and then over the GW Parkway, with access to both the Mount Vernon Trail and Long Bridge Park.

The connection in Virginia seems great, but dumping cyclists in East Potomac Park isn't that useful. It's a little closer to the Case Bridge path, but not much, and getting to downtown or the Mall is worse than today's existing bridge.

The DEIS also contains 2 other, smaller bicycle proposals. Alternative 1 slightly widens and makes some changes to the approaches to the Mason Bridge path on each side, connecting to the Mount Vernon Trail and to the Jefferson Memorial. An earlier version also proposed widening the bike/ped path on the George Mason Bridge, but this bridge widening was removed from the alternative for "technical complexity." The final EIS ought to reconsider this option.

Alternative 3 has two parts. One would create better and more consistent wayfinding signage on both sides of the river. The second part proposes new trail connections to the Pentagon and in Pentagon City.

Around the Pentagon, a new connection would extend the half-built trail under the Humpback Bridge over to Boundary Channel Drive, providing a more direct connection between the 14th Street Bridge and the Pentagon. In Pentagon City, it would create a better bike connection from the north end of Crystal City (12th and Clark) west along Army-Navy Drive, under I-395, and along the south edge of the Pentagon Reservation to Columbia Pike and the Washington Blvd trail.

DC needs better bike connections as well

The Virginia connections would significantly improve access to the bridges, but there are no comparable bike connections proposed on the DC side of the river. This is the most glaring missing piece in the DEIS. The team should study and propose a better connection to 15th Street.

Drivers have direct connections in all directions here, even having too many ramps to too many roads. Cyclists, meanwhile, have one bad connection southbound from downtown and none at all northbound, and poor and winding connections to other directions.

This isn't just a recreational amenity. Many already use the bridge for commuting. Many more likely would for both commuting and general transportation if there were a clear, direct, and safe connection.

Ideally, we could find a way to extend the 15th Street cycle track from Pennsylvania down through the Mall, then past or through the Maine Avenue/Ohio Drive/East Basin Drive area up to either the Mason Bridge path or a new bridge.

WashCycle suggests extending the new bridge along the railroad tracks across East Potomac Park to the east side, where it's a lot closer to the mainland. Another option is to convert 1 lane on East Basin Drive (the 2-lane road from Maine Avenue to I-395 South and the Jefferson Memorial) into a 2-way bicycle facility up to Maine Avenue, and eventually connect through the Mall to the 15th Street lanes.

What do you think is the best way to create a connection between the Mall and downtown across the Potomac?

To the credit of the Secret Service and the Treasury Department, the northern end of the closure is located at a crosswalk where pedestrians can cross to the east side of 15th. On the south side, however, the closure starts a quarter of a block past the E Street/Penn Ave intersection.

Realizing this misled pedestrians, Secret Service installed caution tape on the norther corner of 15th & E to prompt pedestrians to cross the street at that crosswalk.

On both ends of the closure, officials have installed clear signage instructing pedestrians to cross the street and not to walk in the bike lanes. Unsurprisingly, no one pays attention to them.

Why would they after all? Across the city and the country, pedestrians are killed while walking in car-traffic lanes where a sidewalk is closed or impassable. A bike lane appears far safer to a pedestrian than walking in traffic.

Despite all good intentions, the Secret Service's closure has created a situation which is probably far more dangerous on a day-to-day basis than the relatively unlikely event of a piece of granite balustrade falling toward the sidewalk.

Pedestrians walking in both directions fill a cycle track designed for bi-directional use, which often forces cyclists erratically in and out of traffic, many times riding head-on into traffic.

The best solution would create a temporary sidewalk in the existing bike lanes and place temporary barriers to create a new cycle track in the next lane over. In order to best accommodate car traffic, DDOT could temporarily move the center line of 15th Street one lane to the east and restrict stopping in the eastern most lane, leaving two northbound and two southbound lanes.

If this cannot be accomplished for lack of political willpower, then the responsible parties could at least change the signage and instruct pedestrians to use the southbound half of the cycletrack, northbound bicyclists to use their normal lane space, and southbound cyclists to take the full traffic lane next to the cycletrack as they had to do prior to its installation anyway.

Unfortunately, inconveniencing and endangering cyclists and pedestrians is not a new subject. We have written frequently about jurisdictions' predilection for closing sidewalks without providing legitimate alternatives to pedestrians. Even in DC this happens, despite DDOT's policy that construction permit holders must replicate as best as possible the pedestrian pathway which has been closed at a construction site.

Perhaps the worst irony in this case is that the Treasury official, who writes of the sidewalk closure with absolutely no mention of how the reality of the situation plays out, is none other than former DDOT director Dan Tangherlini.

This stretch of 15th Street is a particularly good place to underline the danger and inequity of the habit of closing sidewalks without alternatives. This may be one of the city's busiest pedestrian and bicycle blocks.

According to a summer count by DDOT, the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes between 14th and 15th Street see between 60 and 170 riders per hour during morning and evening rush hours, most of whom are coming off of or continuing onto the 15th Street cycle track.

In terms of pedestrians traffic, this section of 15th Street is the most direct path for tourists going from Lafayette Square and other points north to the main entrance for White House tours. It also is a direct connection for workers moving between the Departments of Commerce and Treasury as well as a popular route connecting the Mall to the White House.

Why should these 15th Street users bear the entire burden caused by the damage to this building? Why shouldn't motorists be asked to share in the inconvenience?

The Treasury has said it expects the current closure to last through December. Once the railing has been removed, it will be repaired off site and then placed back on the building. Treasury is estimating this will require another lengthy closure, this time during the height of the tourist season in 2012.

Unfortunately, DDOT has not had a particularly good record of enforcing its temporary pedestrian walkway policy under the Gray Administration. The north side of H Street along the CityCenterDC site and Massachusetts Ave in front of the Convention Center Marriott site are two high-profile examples. Since the federal government is enforcing this closure, it may be even less likely that DDOT will intervene to improve the accommodations for bicycles and pedestrians.

Whatever the final compromise might be, the ultimate point is that the current situation is not a tolerable solution. It should no longer be acceptable for pedestrians and cyclists to bear the full burden and inconvenience of construction projects which benefit everyone. Especially not in locations like this where there are as many of them as there are motorists.

Cycle tracks provide bikers with a high degree of separation from both automobiles and pedestrians. They are, by and large, very safe pieces of infrastructure. The one weakness of cycle tracks is at intersections, where car drivers turning out of the main roadway lanes parallel to the cycle track and onto cross streets may not always remember to watch for cyclists.

The 15th Street cycle track addresses this problem cleverly, with a pair of treatments intended to help drivers remember to watch for cyclists.

The bike lane shifts over as it approaches an intersection so that car drivers can see if there are any bikes approaching in it, and the intersection itself is covered with sharrows and dashed lines. But can we do even more?

It seems like common sense to combine two successful ideas in order to improve the safety of our facilities. The Federal Highway Administration recently started allowing green pavement for bike lanes, and seems to allow a pattern (though perhaps not quite the pattern above:

The green colored pavement may be installed for the entire length of the bicycle lane extension or for only a portion (or portions) of the bicycle lane extension. The pattern of the green colored pavement may be dotted in a manner that matches the pattern of the dotted lines, thus filling in only the areas that are directly between a pair of dotted line segments that are on opposite sides of the bicycle lane extension.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Leaving from Evans' house in Georgetown, he mentioned right away an eagerness to see the 15th Street lane, noting he'd gotten many complaints about it from drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and more. But at the end, he told me he felt DDOT should just "leave [15th Street] the way it is and people can get used to that."

He's referring to the well-known effect that when something changes, people complain, but often after a period of time people adjust to the new pattern. In the case of 15th, many drivers found the left turn red arrows awkward, but now things have settled out well where those driving through know to take one of the rightmost two lanes.

As we passed one downtown restaurant which had complained about parking and loading, DDOT's Jim Sebastian pointed out that they had created a loading zone in the lane adjacent to the cycletrack to let them continue with valet operation. People have to cross the bike lanes to get from cars to the restaurant and watch for bikes, but they also have to cross the sidewalk and watch for people walking and running, and that has become second nature.

Evans also endorsed the L and M Street crosstown bike lanes. "We need a complete system," he said, calling it "crazy" to have to ride crosstown on streets like L and M without any good bicycle facility option in the vicinity. He doesn't feel DDOT needs to spend much time analyzing existing cycletracks before moving forward on L and M.

Even though he regularly drives L and M, he doesn't anticipate traffic problems. M does back up in the evening rush, but Evans observed that most of those cars turn left on 23rd to get to the Memorial Bridge, and the bottleneck is on 23rd, not M. Therefore, removing a lane for bicyclists, in addition to taking some cars off the road, won't actually cut down on the total throughput of the road network.

The group observed some of the flaws in the 16th and U bike signals, where half our group got left behind because they weren't quite poised to ride quickly as soon as the very short bike signal turned green. Coming back from the north, a bus driver honked at the group on 16th, demonstrating how cyclists can incur the ire of drivers when following the law. It wasn't the only honk we received on the trip for doing nothing wrong.

Evans also expects to bike more in the future. Currently, he regularly goes on a 7-mile run along both sides of the Potomac, but knows his knees won't hold up for much longer. He now suspects he'll switch to bicycling when his knees can no longer handle running, since they didn't bother him at all on our trip.

He's up for reelection this year, and his campaign was surely at least partly on his mind. Evans clearly knows that Ward 2 has some of the highest biking, walking, and transit using rates in the city, and that while he drives to work, understanding the experience and the frustrations of users of the other modes is a necessary part of representing all people in the ward.

Harnik suggested five specific projects that would make cycling safer and more enjoyable in Washington:

• A bike lane, the width of one full car lane, on 15th Street, NW from Florida Avenue to I Street.
  
• Closing the service lanes on K Street except to bicycles and delivery trucks, like European bike boulevards.
  
• A bike lane on Pennsylvania Avenue from Georgetown to the Sousa Bridge.
  
• Close Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and the Arboretum to motor vehicles on Sundays.
  
• Close the George Washington Parkway and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway for two days a year.

How are we doing with those? The 15th Street bike lane is a hugely successful reality, and now goes farther than Harnik proposed, all the way down to Pennsylvania Avenue where it connects to the Pennsylvania Avenue lane.

The Pennsylvania Avenue lane only goes from the White House to the Capitol, plus the part always closed to traffic and usually open to bikes past the White House itself.

K Street remains a heavily car-centric road. The K Street Transitway plan would improve that, but not really for cyclists. Instead, DDOT is proposing cycle tracks on L and M Streets, but those projects haven't moved forward since Gabe Klein took his cycle track enthusiasm to Chicago.

Beach Drive does close to motor vehicles on Sundays. The Arboretum does not. The GW Parkway does become a bike-only road once a year, for Bike DC; the BW Parkway does not.

In summary, DC went above and beyond on one and partway on three. Harnik wrote when he sent along the article, "Not bad, until you realize it's been 32 years!"

Hopefully bike planner Jim Sebastian will be able to explain the value of this project to the commissioners. This recommendation was part of the Glover Park Transportation Study. Glover Park is in the adjacent ANC 3B, but the lanes would extend into 3D.

If you live in the area, it would be helpful to go voice your opinions about this topic. ANC commissioners listen more to individual local residents than you might think. One person who lives in the neighborhood participating on a semi-regular basis can change a lot of minds.

The meeting starts at 7 at Sibley Hospital, in the new Medical Building, 5215 Loughboro Road, NW.

Speaking of bike lanes, WABA is responding to Jack Evans' criticisms of the 15th Street bike lane by going to enjoy and appreciate it on Friday.

In Arlington, the Bicycle Advisory Council is hosting a film screening about European bicycle facilities, followed by a public discussion. That's Monday, March 7, in the auditorium of the Arlington central library, 1015 N. Quincy St. Doors open at 6:30 and the film starts at 7.

Montgomery County planning director Rollin Stanley is speaking about their zoning rewrite at Tuesday's monthly meeting of the Action Committee for Transit. The meeting is March 8, 7:30 pm at the Silver Spring Center, 8818 Georgia Ave.

Next Thursday, March 10, is the latest meeting for the Office of Planning's study of revitalizing retail in the Ward 4 portion of 14th Street, above Spring Road. That meeting is 6:30-8:30 pm at West Education Campus, 1338 Farragut St, NW.

Finally, that Saturday, Tommy Wells will speak to residents of Ward 7 about ways to improve bus service in the area. GGW contributors Veronica Davis and Kelsi Bracmort have written about the issues before, and are involved in organizing this event.

The meeting is March 12th, 11 am-12:30 pm at the Department of Employment Services, 4058 Minnesota Ave NE, in the large conference room on the 5th floor. DOES is very close to the Minnesota Avenue Metro.