Posts about Georgia Avenue

Multiple sources have said that the District expects to get much of the operating funding for the Circulator from the National Park Service and/or Mall visitors. A Circulator on the Mall primarily benefits tourists, though with easy transportation to and from nearby neighborhoods, it could also help encourage tourists to spend some money at local shops and restaurants.

That funding might come from Circulator fares, parking meters on the Mall (where on-street spaces are now free and thus usually nearly impossible to get), or other sources. Specific details are not yet public and, based on the press release, may not be yet worked out between DC and NPS.

This is the diagram of proposed Circulator routes from a recent plan from DC Surface Transit, the public-private partnership that runs the Circulator. According to the press release, funds in the coming fiscal year will fund planning the actual routes, which might or might not be the same as some of these.

New fund supports bus priority around the city

In addition, Gray has added a $750,000 annual capital fund to support projects that improve bus service and reduce delays. This could presumably fund dedicated bus lanes, queue jumpers, signal priority, off-board fare payment or other projects that make buses a quicker and more appealing way to travel.

DC won a TIGER grant way back in 2010 to improve buses on several corridors, but 3 years later we've seen few if any changes. According to an email forward to me from DDOT, they are planning to use the money to optimize traffic signals downtown and install backup traffic signal power.

The TIGER money will also fund 120 real-time digital displays in some bus stops, "some minor bus stop improvements on 16th Street, Wisconsin Avenue, and Georgia Avenue," and "some bus stop safety features" on H Street and Benning Road, the email says. For a grant which was supposed to fund "shovel-ready" stimulus projects in the immediate term, though, it's taken quite a long time.

Finally, DDOT is working on a short bus lane on Georgia Avenue between Florida Avenue and Barry Place, a spot where buses get significantly stuck in traffic.

There is also an ongoing WMATA study looking at potential bus lanes on H and I Streets in the area north of and around the White House. This would be a more complex project, but it's important for DC to take some big steps that speed up buses significantly, in addition to small and easier steps like new signals.

Neighborhoods still benefit from performance parking

Another new fund creates a pool of money for neighborhood improvements in areas that adopt performance parking. The original performance parking law dedicated some of the extra money to neighborhood-specific projects, and around the ballpark, it has already funded new trash cans, benches, bike racks, and signs for a historic heritage trail.

Gray's budget eliminated the dedicated funding, but to make up for the loss, this new fund will let neighborhoods with performance parking still have some say in local fixes. This fund will have $589,000 for the rest of this current fiscal year and $750,000 a year in future years.

Neighbors acknowledge that the area already has a number of parks, but argue that they're either too far or require crossing busy Georgia Avenue. "We are relieved that we will not have to cross Georgia Avenue, a six-lane state highway, without a pedestrian bridge, a crosswalk, nor an intersection light to access nearby parkland," said Beverly Sobel, head of community group Green Space on Georgia, in a press release from Montgomery Parks.

The new park is across Georgia Avenue from Evans Parkway Park, a four-block-long
green space that's currently being renovated and expanded, but to some that's not enough.

It's "not realistic for parents to ask their kids to cross Georgia Avenue to go to a park," said County Councilmember Marc Elrich at a community meeting in 2009.

Montgomery Parks staff agreed, calling Georgia Avenue a "de facto river of traffic that blocks pedestrian access" in their recommendations to turn the MCAD site into a park. They drew a map of the area with 1/4-mile circles around each park to show what was within a short walk, but cut them off at Georgia Avenue, rendering Carroll Knolls parkless.

However, one could argue that this conclusion was premature. There are already stoplights and crosswalks a block north and two blocks south of Evans Parkway Park. Making those crossings safer, expanding the sidewalks on Georgia Avenue, and building new sidewalks on the side streets could have provided a nicer and safer not only to the park, but to other amenities in the area.

So why didn't neighbors push for those improvements instead? Green Space on Georgia's homepage makes it clear: "Our current efforts are in opposition to the proposed development of townhouses on the current site of The School of Art + Design at Montgomery College."

After absorbing MCAD in 2005, Montgomery College gave the property to the Montgomery College Foundation, which raises money for the school. In 2007, they had a contract to sell it to developer Kaz Brothers, who successfully petitioned the County Council to rezone the property to allow townhouses.

Residents balked, arguing that townhouses violated Carroll Knolls' 1948 covenants, which allowed only single-family homes in the neighborhood. They formed Green Space on Georgia and applied to have the property become a park through Legacy Open Space, a county program that preserves places with historic, cultural and natural significance. The Planning Board rejected it, saying that the cost would be too high.

Kaz Development sued the neighbors, arguing that the now-derelict school already invalidated the covenant; though the Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled in their favor, the neighbors appealed and the decision was reversed in the Maryland Court of Appeals. A second application to Legacy Open Space was approved last year.

The creation of Carroll Knolls Park is a triumph of grassroots campaigning, but it contradicts many of Montgomery County's stated goals and policies. The county wants to promote walking in and around downtown Wheaton but missed an opportunity make it easier to cross its main street. County Executive Ike Leggett talks about facing "unprecedented budget challenges," but nixed an opportunity for needed tax revenue.

Montgomery Parks' strategic vision for the county's park system calls for prioritizing existing facilities, but spent millions of dollars to build a new park across from a park they're already expanding. The county placed a third of its land in an Agricultural Reserve, but creates more pressure to develop it by not building in the rest of the county.

And Carroll Knolls isn't the only neighborhood doing this. White Oak residents opposed to an affordable housing development asked the county to create a nature preserve instead. In South Silver Spring, neighbors who don't want their views blocked by a proposed apartment building are calling for a park as well. And residents in East Silver Spring are preemptively fighting the redevelopment of the old police station, saying it should become a community garden and arts center.

That's not to say that parks aren't necessary, or that the best solution for every vacant lot is private development. But Montgomery County is faced with a significant housing shortage, with a need for as many as 108,000 new homes in the next 20 years. We simply can't afford to turn every unwanted development site, especially those in close-in communities, into a park.

MetroExtra

All of Metro's limited-stop bus services will now be called MetroExtra instead of Metrobus Express, although buses painted with the Metrobus Express scheme won't be repainted right away.

It was always a little bit silly for Metro to have two competing brands for similar limited-stop services, so rebranding them all under one banner makes a lot of sense. WMATA picked MetroExtra as the name to keep because in bus parlance "express" usually means a route that either runs along a freeway, or that doesn't stop at all between two far apart points.

Routes that have widely-spaced stops like the 39 and S9 aren't technically express routes; rather, they're "limited-stop." Meanwhile, some bus routes that are more legitimately expresses, such as the 5A to Dulles Airport, weren't branded as part of Metrobus Express.

The old system was needlessly confusing, and the new one will be clear. It's a good move.

Beyond the rebranding, there are several MetroExtra-related service improvements coming as well. Wisconsin Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and 16th Street will all see additional MetroExtra buses, as routes 37, 39, and S9 are expanded. There will also be more buses running on Leesburg Pike's limited-stop 28X. Finally, new limited routes will begin operation along Chain Bridge Road as an alternate 15L, and between Pentagon and Rosslyn as extensions to the 9E and 10E.

The 28X will be fully rebranded as MetroExtra sometime this fall, when a second round of MetroExtra improvements is scheduled to hit. When that happens, MLK Avenue's A9 route and Columbia Pike's 16F and 16Y routes will also be converted to the MetroExtra brand.

All in all, there are going to be a lot more blue buses on the road.

Georgia Avenue line

Changes coming to routes 70 and 79 won't be so obviously visible, but they could be more profound from an operational standpoint. For these routes, Metro will be shifting to headway-based scheduling, which means that rather than trying to have buses stick to set arrival and departure times, dispatchers will try to keep all the active buses along the corridor about the same distance apart from one another.

The idea is that trying to keep to a timed schedule is a lost cause, and it's better for riders if a bus comes regularly every 12 minutes than for a half hour to go by and then have 3 buses all come at the same time.

This is how DC Circulator works, which is why there's no such thing as a Circulator timetable, and also why it's rare to see multiple Circulators from the same line bunched together.

This will be Metro's first second experiment with headway scheduling. Theoretically this change should make riding the 70 and 79 much more predictable. It will be harder for a route as long as the 70 than it is for Circulator, but it's a worthy experiment.

WMATA has been using headway scheduling on the 90 and 92 since September, 2011. Director of Communications Dan Stessel reports that it has worked quite well. On time performance has increased by 15-20%.

16th Street line

The S-series buses are among the most overcrowded in Metro's entire network. I personally ride them for my commute, and most mornings I have to wait for 2 or 3 to pass by full before one with open capacity comes along. One rainy morning I literally counted 10 full buses pass me by. So I am personally very, very excited about the increased capacity Metro will be adding to this corridor.

And it will be a lot of new capacity.

First, the MetroExtra route S9 will be getting additional service, as previously indicated. Limited stop buses will run every 7-8 minutes instead of the current every 10. These additional runs will be new buses, not buses cannibalized from the S1, S2, or S4, meaning they are 100% new capacity for 16th Street.

In addition to being convenient for longer-distance riders, this should also have a positive effect on bus bunching. Since S9s stop less often than other S-series buses, they bunch less. That means the more riders Metro can shift to the S9, the less of a problem bunching should be along the whole corridor.

Secondly, more articulated buses will be put to use on the S1, increasing capacity for local riders. Because of space constraints at Metro's Northern Division bus storage facility, there are only about 30 articulated buses available for use on routes serving Mid-City.

Among those 30, the busy Georgia Avenue line gets first priority. Historically, whatever articulated buses Georgia Avenue didn't use were kept in reserve, but now as many as possible will be made available for 16th Street. The number of articulated buses on S1 runs on any given day will vary, but it's going to be more than now.

One reduction planned for 16th Street is that midday weekday S4 trips will terminate at Franklin Square instead of going all the way to Federal Triangle. Except for this, S2 and S4 service won't be modified.

Other changes

Although MetroExtra, Georgia Avenue, and 16th Street are the biggest winners, several other routes benefit as well. The G8 and W4 will have additional buses, shortening waits and relieving crowding. Schedule and route adjustments are planned for dozens of other routes, including the F, L, P, Q, R, and Y series.

Unfortunately, all of this comes at a cost. Although WMATA is pumping a lot of new money into Metrobus, and working to squeeze additional efficiencies out of the reserve bus fleet, such a major restructuring inevitably also includes service reductions. The changes coming will result in better bus service for more people overall, but some specific lower-ridership routes will see service decline.

Reductions of one kind or another will come to the 74, D3, D6, 3T, and 22A, as well as to riders on some of the restructured F, L, P, Q, R, and Y-series buses.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Let's fast-forward past the opening and imagine the streetscape after a concert ends. Hundreds of patrons spilling out onto Colesville, making their way to cars, Metro, or crossing the street to head into the downtown or hopefully, Fenton Village south of Wayne for an after-concert bite or beverage. (Yes, there is nightlife in Fenton Village—two of my favorites are Jackie's and the Quarry House.)

The concert-goers have two intersections they might cross: Colesville and Georgia or Colesville and Fenton. Both have recently been redone (one of them twice), and the result is the usual type of crosswalks.

But let's consider a different type of crosswalk. Something new (but actually old) that engages the pedestrian, giving him or her priority over the cars. Consider an intersection that actually makes the pedestrian feel secure. One that reduces apprehension about crossing a downtown street, where most of the cars are intent on just getting through the intersection to get somewhere else.

Should this be our priority? Helping cars move through our downtowns faster so they can get somewhere else? Or should we be focused on the people who want to stop, visit, patronize our businesses or enjoy our markets, events or meet friends? Can we do both?

Believe it or not, the Fenton/Colesville intersection was once just like the intersections that are all the rage in cities like London, where pedestrian traffic and motor car interactions are in constant conflict. This intersection was a "scramble intersection." When the light went red for cars, it went red in all directions. Then it was the people's turn to take priority to move through the intersection. You could walk in any direction in crossing. You could walk at 90 degrees, or even 45 degrees, to avoid crossing to the other side, then again to get to the opposite corner.

Implementing a scramble is about a shift in priority from autocentric to pedestrian- and bike-centric movement. It's a simple and very efficient way of moving people and cars, and we used to do it.

This approach can work in many places here. Think about Rockville Pike a few years from now when the White Flint plan begins to become reality. We could create a pedestrian environment shared equally with cars.

Consider the many intersections in MoCo where this approach could be beneficial for people walking, in wheelchairs, on bikes, as well as in cars.

We are working on some designs in downtown Silver Spring, close to our offices, like at Fenton and Colesville, where this approach makes a lot of sense. If we could transform one or two intersections into a great multi-use intersection, maybe we could resurrect the model that MoCo had at one intersection so many years ago.

Imagine that Live Nation event emptying out onto Colesville, where hundreds of patrons will safely move south into the downtown. Beyond the post-event traffic, the hundreds of people who cross this intersection every day could do so safely, without the apprehension of conflicts with turning vehicles, cars running red lights, or crossing the street twice to get to the opposing corner.

This solution doesn't cost a lot. In fact, it makes the curb design simpler and only requires some changes to signals. And it removes street clutter. As we complete these designs, we will try to build a constituency to implement these at strategic intersections around the county.

This intersection above is at one of the busiest intersections in downtown Toronto. Where not only motor cars, but the subway and streetcar lines all converge. Count the streetcars moving through the intersection. Watch the crowds crossing in all directions then the cars. Unseen is the subway below. At any point in the day there are huge crossings of people and all types of vehicles.

The County is moving forward with some exciting new strategies for infill growth. We can bring our infrastructure along to help us realize the visions expressed in our plans for major intersections in places like Takoma/Langley, Long Branch, White Flint, and in our busy downtown areas. It is time to rethink how we do pedestrian infrastructure to complement our planning visions.

Crossposted at the Director's Blog.

Many neighborhoods talk about how they want a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, or in many cases even any grocery store. But then, at the same time, they oppose new housing in the neighborhood because of fears of traffic (or crime, which makes absolutely no sense since more people being around reduces crime).

The Trader Joe's moved in to the West End while the West End was dramatically developing. Whole blocks of formerly light industrial uses were turned into fairly high density residential buildings (high density for DC, not for most other cities). In Logan Circle, the Whole Foods moved in knowing that substantial development was planned or already underway in the immediate vicinity.

In Cleveland Park, there are constant debates about the health of the commercial strip and the overlays that limit restaurants in an effort to attract more non-food establishments. But the real reason there aren't more non-food establishments is that there aren't enough people. If the long-ago proposal had gone forward to turn the Park and Shop strip mall into some tasteful larger buildings, similar in size to others on Connecticut Avenue, instead of landmarking the thing, Cleveland Park could have more of what it wants.

It's simple. Unless your neighborhood is in the process of growing rapidly, it's unlikely to get more retailers and probably not the kind you want. Most of the time, the retail market is close to an equilibrium where the number of retailers matches the demand for retail in that area. Only when a neighborhood is gaining population is the time ripe to add more.

Once upon a time, the commercial corridors thrived without this added housing, except for two factors. First, family sizes were substantially larger, and a typical single-family house might have parents, 3-4 kids and even some relatives living there. Now, family sizes are smaller, but many neighbors also fight proposals to allow basement or garage apartments, even though those would simply restore the numbers of people that the house used to hold.

Second, people shop more online and more in suburban big box centers. That's not going to change. Bringing big box retail into DC, as these Wal-Marts do, might keep more of the tax dollars from big box shopping in DC, but won't create healthy neighborhood shopping corridors.

Neighborhoods can either stay the same size, and see local retail gradually decline as online shopping grows and DC adds big box stores. Or, they can add enough new residents to support new retail options. Most of us prefer the latter. Some people, though, want to stop new residents but also have the retail. That's completely unrealistic.

Lydia also reports that the last act of the lame-duck ANC 5C, which includes Bloomingdale, was to oppose Big Bear Cafe's request to change its zoning to commercial. Since several new, more retail-friendly commissioners are joining in the new year, there's a good chance they will quickly reverse course, and even so, the Zoning Commission is unlikely to heed this last gasp stance against change.

I live near Mt. Vernon Square and take the 70 line with some regularity and offer the following observations.

One of the reasons for poor on-time performance is the sheer length of the line. If a local bus leaves Buzzard Point or Half & O SW, it takes well over an hour to reach Silver Spring. It hits a number of different traffic choke points en route, compounding delays and causing bus bunching.

The local bus base service is scheduled every 12 minutes between Archives & Silver Spring and about every 24 minutes on the stretch from SW to Archives. There is slightly more frequent service during peak periods. In addition, a Circulator route parallels the line from SW to 7th & P NW from 7 am to 9 pm with 10 minute service.

Why not retain route 79 in its present Metro Extra form so those traveling longer distances don't have to transfer, but break up local route 70/71 into two segments: one from SW to Georgia Ave/Petworth (under 50 minutes) and the other from Petworth to Silver Spring (under 30 minutes)?

Instead of trying to run a schedule, dispatch the buses every 10 minutes on the local lines. Meanwhile, maintain the scheduled operation on the Metro Extra service and for the local service during the early morning, very late night, and Sunday service when it runs less frequently. Eliminate this relatively lightly used Circulator route in favor of 10-minute frequency Metrobus service on a longer stretch from SW to Petworth.

General Manager Sarles had proposed using some bus restructuring savings to pay for improvements throughout the system. One place that was slated to get improvements was Route 79, which was to get two dedicated line supervisors to help with maintaining schedules.

Why not implement this and equip the supervisors with GPS tracking equipment and direct radio contact with the bus operators to maintain spacing on both local and Metro Extra service? Why not use the current strategic buses at Silver Spring, Georgia Ave/Petworth & Archives to help maintain spacing when delays occur? Why not experiment with a reduced fare on the newly split Metrobus lines to see if ridership increases?

The line already has some signal priority intersections designated for Route 79 and a decent bus lane northbound on 7th Street in the downtown area. The TIGER grant will add more signal priority and a short bus lane near Florida Avenue.

Service reliability could be further improved by adding a flow directional bus lane between Florida Avenue & M Street NW during peak periods, eliminating parking on one side of the street during the rush. Also, buses should be allowed to drive on 7th Street instead of detouring with other traffic during Verizon Center events, perhaps at a 5 mph speed to keep the road comfortable for pedestrians.

Another choke point occurs during the pm peak northbound between the Walter Reed site and the District line. Perhaps a northbound peak period bus lane would help on that stretch as well.

The 7th Street line originated as a streetcar line and retained its productivity when converted to buses. Before the inner Green Line segment opened, the Georgia Avenue/7th Street line was recovering nearly 90% of its operating costs during the weekdays. A little creativity, some good analysis, a little paint, some cooperation between DDOT and WMATA, and a will to try some changes could go a long way toward returning this corridor to a model for other major arterial bus lines.