Community Corner

Access To Georgetown: DDOT Considers Canal Road Project

Neighbors complain the road is a barrier, not a gateway.

The District of Columbia Department of Transportation held its first public meeting Friday to consider significant improvements on Canal Road. The hot topic: access to Georgetown.

“It’s a key piece of district infrastructure,” said DDOT project manager Paul Hoffman. “We don’t know if it’s serving people the way we want.”

DDOT officials and residents of Georgetown, Foxhall and Palisades agreed that the infrastructure of Canal Road needed a lot of work, but the big complaints were about Foxhall and Palisades residents’ inability to safely get to Georgetown by foot, bike or car.

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Geoff Grubbs, who lives near the intersection of Canal Road and Arizona Avenue, is concerned about the safety of his son, who rides his bike to a summer job at the Fletcher’s Cove Boathouse.

His son goes to great lengths to avoid crossing Canal Road, a commute Grubbs could only describe as “urban exploring.”

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“You need a very large gun if you are going to stop it,” Grubbs said of the Maryland and Virginia commuter traffic that makes crossing Canal Road so hairy.

Instead, his son rides his bike down the old trolley path, climbs down a creek bed to a tunnel under Canal Road, and then comes out at the Capital Crescent Trail, Grubbs said.

Several residents echoed Grubbs concerns, adding horror stories about seeing people try to cross Canal Road while carrying kayaks, having traffic detour through their neighborhoods and not being able to turn left, a regulation that prevents Palisades and Foxhall residents from being able to use the road they help pay to maintain.

“We want to be able to use Canal Road,” Grubbs said. “We pay for it!”

In addition to concerns about pedestrian use of Canal Road, the group also pointed to traffic control issues.

DDOT’s study of challenges on Canal Road focus on the area from Chain Bridge Road in Palisades to Georgetown’s M Street, stopping just short of Whitehurst Freeway.

But several in attendance demanded the department extend the project to include the Whitehurst Freeway and Key Bridge intersections, where traffic flow tends to stop, they said. 

Foxhall residents Bill Brown and Conrad DeWitte said they had been contacting DDOT for years about the poor traffic flow on Canal Road, caused by congestion on the stretch of road between Whitehurst Freeway and Key Bridge, they said. 

DeWitte said the backup on Canal extends to Foxhall Road, making it difficult for him to leave home.

“Anything that can improve traffic from Canal Road to Key Bridge will help wit congestion on Foxhall Road,” he said.

Brown called for designated lanes to the freeway, bridge and M Street, eliminating the bottleneck that happens when drivers cut into other lanes at the last minute. 

“It’s very, very simple,” Brown said, pointing to a Key Bridge ramp that was removed decades ago. 

Will Handsfield, representing the Georgetown Business Improvement District, said he wants better access to Georgetown in general. That includes better access to the C&0 Canal, more crosswalks on Key Bridge and less traffic congestion on Canal Road, he said.

“We want people to come into Georgetown,” Handsfield said. “Right now, it’s hard.”  

Please share your thoughts on Canal Road in the comments. 


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