Georgetown's Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (ANC) are "collecting anecdotal evidence" about the impact of the Glover Park Streetscape project on traffic on Georgetown and Burleith streets.
At the ANC meeting Wednesday, Commissioner Ron Lewis said they have received a "significant" number of complaints about increased traffic on 37th Street in Burleith and 35th Street near Hardy Middle School.
"It has been hard to figure out what is due to construction and what is due to the configuration," Lewis said.
The Glover Park Streetscape project broke ground in April and was "substantially complete" in mid-December. The project reduced the number of lanes for traffic from three to two during peak hours and from two to one during non-peak hours; select intersections now have left turn lanes.
The Georgetown ANC endorsed the streetscape project in November 2011 with some hesitation.
During the lead-up to the project and throughout construction, Glover Park residents raised concerns about overflow traffic using side streets like 37th Street to avoid the congestion on Wisconsin Avenue. DDOT agreed to reconfigure 37th Street to discourage such behavior.
"An increase in traffic during construction was noted and with ANC 3B and community input, DDOT has committed to reconfigure the 37th Street and Tunlaw Road intersection as well as improve pedestrian cross walks in the Glover Park area," Paul Hoffman, the project manager for DDOT, told Patch in an email.
Georgetown's ANC commissioners said they have spoken with the Glover Park ANC commissioners who believe the recent traffic was related to construction.
In June, DDOT published a report of the traffic counting in the Glover Park neighborhood. After 37th Street and Tunlaw Road is reconfigured this April, the agency will take additional traffic counts to see how or if it has changed, according to Hoffman.
"So we’re going to see how this all plays out," said Commissioner Ed Solomon.
Huge swathes of blacktop now marked "off use" simply to create turn lanes ? BOTTOM LINE: the new traffic pattern does not work
Was there a study released publicly that rigorously outlined purported benefits? I cannot think of any so would like to see the rationale -- can someone post a link (if it exists)?
Traffic is snarled and moves at a snails pace from The Holiday Inn to Whole Foods. Any marginal outcomes: "traffic calming" (oxymoron) and potential pedestrian safety, are just that....marginal. Any calming effect has been wiped out by anxious drivers sitting in a 5 block traffic jam.
I also don't get what all the anger is about... for the last 40 years it's been accepted that adding capacity only adds volume... reducing capacity, reduces volume. We made the mistake in the 1950s and 1960s of thinking it would help our cities to expand thoroughfares that allow more drivers to drive faster through our neighborhoods and it devastated our cities... since that terrible mistake, slowing traffic has been the norm for city planning. I don't really care if people racing from Bethesda to get to Georgetown have congestion -- their problem not mine. I want the roads near my house, where I pay taxes to be accessible to me, as a pedestrian, as a bicyclist, as a bus rider and as a driver... Streetscape helps that AND it looks good to boot. I understand the people who don't want the traffic diverting, but this isn't the first time a project like this has been tried (in fact a project that is similar but much larger in magnitude is currently turning Sherman Ave NW from a blighted strip to a gorgeous street -- bad for commuters, fantastic for locals!) and there are steps to be taken. The answer is not stopping Streetscape but extending it to side roads.
Links to the OP and DDOT reports can be found here: http://georgetown.patch.com/articles/safety-and-logistical-improvements-planned-for-wisconsin-avenue-in-glover-park#pdf-8557789 and here: http://georgetown.patch.com/articles/safety-and-logistical-improvements-planned-for-wisconsin-avenue-in-glover-park#pdf-8556136 Hope that helps! -Shaun
You may find traffic calming to be an oxymoron (it isn't) but it's the way city planning is going these days, and makes quite a bit of logical sense. Slow the traffic, reduce the volume, improve the quality of life for people who actually live in the neighborhood.
We live in a city, we choose to live in a city...that means a certain degree of congestion and traffic. It means that we do have to look both ways when crossing the street. Somehow the people in my house have managed to survive 20+ years in Georgetown without getting hit by a car when crossing the street because we watch out for cars...and bikes who never follow the traffic signs. Seems to me the streetscape was made to be easily altered, the whole lack of middle medians in the road. Anyone with a brain knew this was going to be an unintended consequences (well really they are intended given the citywide war on cars) being worse then the issues trying to be addressed...it is only a matter of time until the turn lanes are gone and traffic flow is improved with additional changes.