Posts about White House

All attempt to make the Ellipse itself more inviting than it is today, as an oval-shaped employee parking lot for the White House complex with a giant desolate lawn in the center. But there's only so much you can do with a big empty oval surrounded by other government buildings and parks that serves little real function outside of White House public events like the national Christmas tree and menorah lightings.

Most create a low concrete wall that doubles as security and also seating for tourists. One, from Sasaki Associates, also suggests a cafe in the west grove just northwest of the Ellipse, but given current Park Service attitudes toward providing food options, it's likely the Ellipse itself will remain a place people primarily pass through in the vain search for anything good to eat within a half mile of the Mall.

The real opportunity to make a positive difference comes at E Street. It used to be a through route between Foggy Bottom and Pennsylvania Avenue downtown. Closed, it has turned into a forbidding and ugly fortress that looks more in place in Baghdad than Washington. It could at least work more like its counterpart on the north side, Pennsylvania Avenue, as a wide and attractive public space where people can observe the White House, protest, and still use as a through route for walking or bicycling.

Some of the designs embrace opportunities to activate E Street, while others think little beyond the current heavy iron gate look of the place. The less imaginative, like the one from Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, keeps the ends largely as they are, with big vehicle gates and guardhouses right by the intersection, small pedestrian gates on the sidewalk, and fences in between:

"Sally port" layout from the Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates design.

Others, like Sasaki's and the one from Reed Hilderbrand move the screening away from the center of the roadway and thereby deemphasize them. Reed Hilderbrand's approach moves this to the northern edge of the roadway on either end, leaving the remainder as a bollard-ringed shared area that looks similar to Pennsylvania Avenue.

E Street perspective from the Reed Hilderbrand proposal.

Sasaki's proposal appears to move buildings for screening vehicles around to the perpendicular East and West Executive Avenues, letting official vehicles queue on more of E Street before reaching the checkpoints. This would have the benefit of reducing the amount of time the line spills over onto 15th and 17th Streets, blocking the road, sidewalk and/or bike lanes.

E Street portion of the Sasaki plan.

In the center, where people can view the White House, most designs try to better link the Ellipse visually to the South Lawn. Several create a large central plaza that forms a break in the lines of planted shrubs and where the distinctions between sidewalk and roadway disappear. Walkways from different angles all converge on this focal point which also includes the Zero Milestone marker.

Imaginary tourists on the central plaza in the Rogers Marvel Architects design.

To increase space for a plaza, some proposals reduce the vehicular orientation of the Ellipse. Two proposals, from Rogers Marvel Architects and Reed Hilderbrand, suggest removing parking from the northern half of the Ellipse and instead having a vehicular roadway entering from the northwest, looping around the south half of the Ellipse, and exiting in the northeast.

Flows of motor vehicles (left) and pedestrians (right) on the Reed Hilderbrand plan.

Taking an opposite tack, Michael Van Valkenburgh keeps all of the parking and designs a place to create a future underground parking garage.

As for bicycles, it's clear some designers were keeping bikes in mind while others were not at all.

Sasaki specifically labels bike lanes on E Street, and Hood Design Studio's submission shows flow for each mode of travel including through routes for bikes. Meanwhile, the proposal from Rogers Marvel Architects has an attractively laid out set of pedestrian pathways but absolutely no mention of bikes.

All proposals fill their renderings with stock images of people running, walking, standing and otherwise using the spaces. Three, the Sasaki, Reed Hilderbrand, and Hood designs, include people biking through, and sometimes rollerblading as well. The Rogers Marvel Architects and Michael Van Valkenburgh proposals, ironically the two from New York, include no images of cyclists (except one on the RMA rendering shown above, with a man in a suit on something the size of a kid's bike a folding bike gazing at the White House).

NCPC will be exhibiting all five designs at the White House Visitor Center at 1450 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW today until Monday, June 27. All groups will present designs live on Tuesday, June 28, and a task force from various agencies will choose a winner by June 30.

You can also view the submissions online and send your comments to NCPC.

Many others apparently couldn't find docks or didn't want to take the time to detour, so people just kept bikes with them or left them sitting nearby. Hopefully they all made it back to docks at the end of the night, even if individual people ended up taking each other's bikes.

Bikes in the crowd. Photo by David Garber.

Bikes sitting near the White House. Photo by Stephen Miller.

One of bike sharing's advantages is that it's very flexible. Unlike buses or trains, bike sharing can operate at full capacity at any hour of the day, even in the middle of the night when a special occasion warrants it.

On the other hand, unlike buses or trains, it can't move huge numbers of people in the same direction at the same time, which commuters need. That's why having a mix of different transit modes is the best policy.

When we last reported on the lanes, NCPC had held off on approving that section until DDOT could work out any issues with the Secret Service and the Park Service. DDOT bike head Jim Sebastian said that they are still finalizing approvals with those agencies, but they are confident they will be able to resolve any remaining questions.

They were confident enough to finish the engineering drawings for the lanes to include this route. Those plans, which could still change call for small curb ramps for cyclists to surmount the curb at the guardhouse at Madison Place and H Street.

The Park Service asked DDOT not to use any signs or pavement markings directing cyclists along Lafayette Park, based on a feeling that the area is a "historic resource" without signs. DDOT officials pointed out, however, that there are existing "no littering" signs, and security measures have had no trouble modifying the historic appearance. A small sign or two or a marking on the roadway showing cyclists where to turn between Madison and Pennsylvania shouldn't disturb the historic feel of Lafayette Park.

DDOT is also working with the Secret Service to address traffic around the E Street entrance to the White House secure area. Today, many cars and trucks waiting to go through security queue up in the rightmost travel lane on 15th, even though that's a general travel lane.

Some cyclists have expressed concern that the 2-way lane will get too crowded and that drivers will become more hostile to them riding in regular traffic lanes. Cyclists are still free to ride like vehicles, in a general-purpose lane and in the direction of traffic. For experienced cyclists, this is often the best approach as long as they follow the same rules as cars (including stopping at traffic lights) and take the entire lane instead of squeezing to the right.

Drivers need to respect cyclists' right to choose either mode of operation. DDOT will remove the current sharrows and signs reminding drivers cyclists can use the full lane, but sharrows and signs aren't necessary since cyclists have those rights on any roadway. Sebastian said DDOT will keep an eye on whether drivers start to act belligerently toward cyclists riding legally.

Sluggers who travel the I-95/395 corridor and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC) have also been talking with DDOT to figure out the best places for sluggers to wait for shared rides and commuter buses to pick up riders. Riders want PRTC commuter bus stops in the same area so they can choose between slugging and the bus.

Some options included moving the slugs and bus stops to 15th, but unless they can fit into the area between McPherson Square and Pennsylvania Avenue, this lane likely makes that impossible. Hopefully DDOT can find a suitable location back on 14th or elsewhere, since slugging is a valuable element of our region's transportation as well.

This lane will give cyclists a safe and, more importantly, safe-feeling route between neighborhoods in the 14th Street corridor and downtown. Many people say they'd be interested in cycling to work but don't because of the harrowing feel of riding on downtown streets. This lane should give those commuters and other residents even more choices for getting downtown.