Posts about Pennsylvania Avenue Bike Lanes

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.

A smaller plow could come back later to clear the snow from the lanes, but depending on the size of a snowstorm, this would likely not happen until 24 to 48 hours later, meaning the lanes could remain impassable for up to 2 days while the regular roadway is clear.

The other option DDOT is considering is to remove the pylons for the winter. This would allow the plows to clear the lanes. On the other hand, it could mean drivers again getting confused and driving in the lanes, and cyclists feeling less safe at corners.

It doesn't snow very often, so if they do remove the pylons, the lanes would be a little bit worse every day in the winter, but keeping them means they'd be a lot worse for a few days. What's better: keeping them always passable to cyclists, or keeping them in their optimal condition at the cost of losing them temporarily when it snows?

The bicycle team would like your input. What do you prefer?

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!"

This draws a few questions for me:

1. What did I do wrong? I left the cyclist the entire lane while I passed.
2. What do motorists expect of cyclists?
3. What do cyclists expect of motorists?

What I expect of a cyclist:

• If you are on the street, obey the rules of the road (including stop signs, stop lights etc.)
• Stay to the right of the road. You don't have to be on the curb, but assist the motorists if they desire to pass you. It creates a safety issue if you are in the middle of the road going 15-20mph.

What I would expect of a motorist:

• Treat the cyclist as a slow car.
• Give the cyclist plenty of room if you need to pass.
• DO NOT PASS if the road is narrow and there is oncoming traffic (see suggestion two)

It seems like Bradley did nothing wrong in this case, but riding in the middle of the lane is often the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, Steve W. writes,

This morning, I picked up a CaBi bike from my local station for the typically relaxing commute to the office. I made my way onto the cycle track on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. I would typically think of this section as being one of the safer and more segmented parts of my commute with no car doors to open or traffic sharing the same lane with me.

However, as I started through the 11th Street intersection going east, a minivan also going east made an illegal left turn in front of my path and onto 12th Street. Fortunately, I was able to slow down and only tap the minivan as it sped by without any consideration for cyclists.

Not only did the minivan not pay attention as it passed me and then turned in front of me on Pennsylvania Avenue, but it also made an illegal left turn as turns are never allowed at this intersection. Unfortunately, many drivers, especially tourists, are not familiar with having to pay attention to bike lanes that are separate but intersect at cross streets.

Perhaps these no-turn intersections should have some sort of red lights to additionally make drivers aware when and where they should not turn. Alternatively, maybe some sort of double yellow line would provide greater awareness to drivers.

I'm fortunate that no one was injured today, but not everyone is as fortunate.

Turning across the Pennsylvania Avenue lane illegally and without looking is definitely not the right thing to do.

In this video, Streetfilms takes a look at New York City's complete streets transformation. If you haven't been to the big apple lately, you might not recognize some of the spaces that have been transformed in recent years.

The District and many of the other jurisdictions in the region have made great strides toward opening our roadways to all modes over the past few years. Let's hope that the region continues to follow the progressive example New York is setting.

WMATA has asked DDOT to grant buses an exception to the left turn restriction. DDOT will have to weigh the value of moving buses efficiently versus the potential danger to cyclists. Bus exceptions to left turn rules do exist elsewhere.

But is this the most efficient routing for the bus? Last week, we printed a letter from reader Tom Leonard wondering why the P1 bus detours away from its most direct route to service this same area of Pennsylvania Avenue. The P1 takes Pennsylvania in the opposite direction, eastbound between 10th and 7th, and uses Constitution instead westbound.

WMATA bus planner David Erion explained that that detour provides a common transfer point between various P routes. But is that worth the extra detour? Each diversion benefits some riders and inconveniences others.

The 13B loops counterclockwise around the FTC, Archives, and DOJ. Meanwhile, the 13A, which runs the loop around the Mall and Potomac in the other direction, instead goes north on 12th, east on Pennsylvania, and south on 10th, looping around the Old Post Office and the IRS. 13A riders who want to go to Archives, for example, access it from the Constitution Avenue side instead of the Pennsylvania Avenue side.

What about putting the 13A and 13B on the same route in the Federal Triangle area? Riders going to restaurants and theaters on 7th Street would have to walk one extra block if they're using the 13B, but would then have stops in the same places for the 13A and 13B. And DDOT wouldn't have to grant an exception.

Hamre also noted that the south side of Pennsylvania is very crowded with buses today, including the 13B as well as the 30s, 63/64, D1 and more. The more buses stop on a block face, the more often they delay each other. For this reason, the bus planners try to spread buses out between different streets in busy areas like downtown DC.

On the other hand, this makes the bus map extremely confusing and hard to remember beyond simply the one bus someone takes each day. It also means that riders who could choose between two different routes can't wait on a single street and take whichever bus shows up first.

It would make a certain sense to have major "bus streets," perhaps with dedicated lanes, that group as many buses as possible onto the same streets. But if the WMATA bus planners are right, at the very least DC would need a number of these downtown because there simply isn't enough room on a few streets for all the buses.

The bus planning also does try to get buses as close to as many riders as possible. It's always a tricky tradeoff between simpler and faster routes and minimizing the walking riders have to do. I'd move the balance a bit toward simplicity, but any change would surely hurt some riders, including many for whom walking an extra block or two isn't as easy as it is for some of us.

Fenty replied that while he sometimes gets involved in high-level policy issues in transportation or education, he leaves specific engineering details to the experts, and thinks like firing a principal are the equivalent of engineering. But then what about the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes, where the experts designed an arrangement which the traffic analysis backed up, but then DDOT ripped it out before even launching it?

Well, that time, Fenty did intervene in engineering, but that's because the first draft hadn't taken everything into account, he explained. Maybe so. Though some people are pretty sure Michelle Rhee has made a few decisions that didn't take everything into account either.

Vince Gray says he's going to ensure everyone has a say in policies, though he will ultimately make the decision and go forward. Fenty is prioritizing action over participation. That's a legitimate style difference, and there are pros and cons to each, but why must Fenty be inconsistent and a bit disingenuous about it?

The starkest example of this was on inclusionary zoning, which his administration stonewalled for two years while numerous projects got built or got zoning approvals without any affordable component. Why did he do this, I asked?

"I'm a believer in the saying, 'measure three times, cut once,'" he replied.

Really?

His administration has done a great deal of good, but measuring carefully has not been the hallmark of his tenure. Again, some argue that it's better that way. But he doesn't defend moving quickly and the design-build process; he instead claims he only moves with great care... except when he doesn't.

So what if he isn't consistent? He's got cabinet officials who are feeding him stats and good policy ideas, and almost all of the time, he goes along. He often incorporates these good ideas into his speeches and his overall visions. Is that a problem?

What I worry about most is what would happen if, say, Harriet Tregoning left. Would the Mayor definitely replace her with someone equally committed to a similar vision? Or would he put in someone from DMPED who simply does the bidding of developers and wants to get as much done, regardless of what exactly is getting done or whether it's good?

A change in the head of a department can cause some pretty rapid change. Just look at DDOT after Gabe Klein came in or, even more starkly, NYC DOT after Janette Sadik-Khan. A DMPED lackey heading up OP might trigger a 180° turnaround in that quality of that department in no time.

Of course, we don't know who Gray would pick either, or how strong his commitment to these areas would be. On Smart Growth, I'm pretty confident. On transportation, his thinking may not be so clear, at least not yet.

And herein lies the issue. I could decide instantly whether to vote for Fenty or Gray if I knew exactly who would comprise their cabinets. But we definitely don't know for Gray, and while we know a lot more for Fenty, there's still some uncertainty. When the Mayor is really not as well versed in some of our issues as he could be, doesn't strongly stand behind the key principles, and has some bad people in related areas, it creates some doubt.

This happens because all of Pennsylvania Avenue's traffic signals are on removable posts in the center of the roadway. According to DDOT, each post can only hold 2 traffic signals and 2 crosswalk signals plus signs. Therefore, the signals and signs for each direction face toward the intersection.

A driver or cyclist looks across the intersection to the far side signals to know whether to stop or go. From most of the lanes, those signals are easily visible, but from the bike lanes in the median, the signals and signs for the opposite direction obscure the far side signal.

Another issue, which DDOT has downplayed, is the reduction in the space available for pedestrians in the median refuges. Formerly, pedestrians could stop halfway across the intersection, either because they didn't have time to finish crossing or because they wanted to take pictures of the Capitol.

Design cues still indicate that this is possible. The stone pads, while not raised, still suggest a pedestrian safe space, especially in conjunction with pedestrian signals located in the median.

But now, two-thirds of the former refuge is part of the bike lane. The remaining third is also supposed to be a place for turning bicycles to stage. Unfortunately, the little space which remains and the design cues combine to create an additional hazard for cyclists and pedestrians.

But stationary pedestrians aren't the only hazard. Because of its grand vistas and relatively calm traffic, the median of the avenue is a popular place to stop to view monuments and for tour guides to give a little speech.

Another drawback to the redesigned lanes is their width. They were narrowed in order to be fit into the median. But they're still proving popular with pedicabs, which tend to take up the entire width of the lane. Passing them requires moving into the left lane of auto traffic or using the opposing bike lane. Neither is an optimal solution.

Regardless of these issues, the lanes are still a wonderful addition to DC's transportation network. Some improvements are still necessary, but fixes can be worked out. A repositioning of the signs posted on the signal supports, for instance, could greatly improve visibility. I look forward to DDOT's solutions to these issues.

In the meantime, if you haven't had a chance to see the lanes yourself, the below slideshow should give you a good tour of the lanes.

Join the Flickr group and submit your own photos! Photos will ideally depict either great or not-so-great features of a part of the Washington, DC region, showing people, roads, parks, stores or buildings as beautiful and lively places filled with people, or unsightly or desolate places that could be greater.