Posts about C Street

Public Spaces

Plans envision "green street" for C Street, NE

by David Alpert   •   March 9, 2010 12:36 pm

Capitol Hill residents recently reviewed traffic-calming options for C Street, NE including separated bike paths ("cycle tracks"), reducing lanes, bulb-outs, "chicanes" where the road curves from side to side, reconfigured intersections, medians, stormwater bioretention araes, and more.

C Street, NE through northeastern Capitol Hill serves two roles. It's a neighborhood street with houses and a school, but it's also a major westbound route from the East Capitol Street bridge toward the Capitol and downtown.

In the morning peak, it carries high volumes of traffic. At other times, it has many fewer cars, but the wide configuration encourages them to speed.

At the request of residents, DDOT engaged Toole Design, one of the best local transportation firms, to study alternatives. They found that the wide roadway could become much more, even preserving the ability of the street to move many cars.

Pedestrians

Breakfast links: Things are going very Wells

by David Alpert   •   February 25, 2009 7:28 am

Give me a C: Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6) has endorsed the C Street, Northeast neighbors' suggestion to narrow C west of RFK Stadium. Previously: we looked at C Street proposals.

Give us a PAC: Wells is also working on a bill to establish a Pedestrian Advisory Council. Senior advocate Marlene Berlin and Mount Pleasant ANC Commissioner Phil Lepanto both endorsed the concept at Monday's DDOT oversight hearing; Councilmember Graham also expressed his enthusiasm for the idea.

Give us the vote: Every blog and paper has extensively covered the very important news: the bill to give DC a vote in the House has passed a key hurdle in the Senate. Last time around, the bill died in the Senate. At this point, passage (and the probable court challenge) seem very likely.

Don't give us bricks: Montgomery Councilmember Nancy Floreen introduced a resolution banning brick pavers on sidewalks. They look very nice, but are more expensive to maintain, and can be more hazardous, especially to people with disabilities. Dupont Circle went through the same debate last year, and came to the same conclusion.

Pedestrians

Positive resident activism: C Street, NE

by David Alpert   •   February 5, 2009 4:02 pm

Like Dupont's 15th Street and many others around DC, C Street, NE in the Rosedale section of Capitol Hill is a neighborhood street that traffic engineers turned into a high-speed traffic raceway. After crossing the Anacostia on East Capitol Street, the freeway-like road passing RFK Stadium dumps traffic onto C Street. According to the 2005 Capitol Hill transportation study, drivers regularly speed on this portion, making it unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Instead of waiting for a streetscape project from DDOT, residents are proactively designing a better C Street. Resident Ken Granata created a blog for the street that explores potential redesigns. Granata, who also maintains the Rosedale Citizens' Alliance neighborhood site, advocates removing one lane between 16th and 22nd Streets. On this stretch, C is a divided highway of three lanes in each direction. Heading west on C, the road divides at 16th, with C continuing west as a narrower road and North Carolina Avenue heading southwest to Lincoln Park. This creates a bottleneck around 16th.

Instead, Granata argues, a narrow C Street will move the bottleneck to the ramps around RFK, out of the residential areas. Instead, the C Street site shows potential designs (16th Street, 17th Street, 17th Place, 18th Street, 18th Place). The proposals include bulb-outs at the corners and a widened median containing a two-way bicycle path in the center:

Residents arranged for a walkthrough of C Street with DDOT Ward 6 Transportation Planner Allan Fye on January 5th. Fye suggested also considering a physically separated bike lane on one side of the street, similar to those NYC recently added on Eighth and Ninth Avenues or one proposal for 15th Street.

Such a lane would allow cyclists to enter and exit without crossing half of C Street. On the other hand, there may not be enough space on C Street for one of these on each side including the landscaped buffers between parked cars and the bicycle lanes, whereas a two-way path in the median occupies less space. It also adds pedestrian refuges for people to stop in if they can't cross the entire street on one light cycle. Area resident Lance Brown also suggested widening the sidewalks, writing that "Many streets, including the north side of C Street [in this area], have sidewalks that are much too narrow."

Often, some residents reflexively oppose bulb-outs or medians because of ingrained habits through years of designing streets for cars above all else. It's good to see residents of the Rosedale part of Capitol Hill thinking about creative solutions to reorient their streets for the benefit of all users.