Plans to stop one way traffic on Rock Creek during rush hour- As traffic gets Worse article

[Anonymous]

WASHINGTON (7News) — On Tuesday, a group called “Save Connecticut Avenue” called on the National Park Service to scrap plans to end reversible lanes on Rock Creek Parkway in D.C.

“The study is totally outdated,” Save Connecticut Avenue President Lee Mayer said of an assessment the Park Service released last year in which NPS came out in favor of ending reversible lanes. “It’s a really horrible idea, especially now that federal workers are being recalled back to the office.”
Mayer said making traffic two-way at all times on Rock Creek Parkway would lead to a traffic mess on not just Connecticut Avenue, but also other major and minor roads.

“It won’t just affect Connecticut Avenue. It’ll affect 16th Street, Massachusetts Avenue, Georgia Avenue,” Mayer said. “It’ll make it a nightmare, and then people will route off to the side streets, making them dangerous for residents, schools, and children.”
Reversible lanes have been in place on Rock Creek Parkway since 1937. On non-holiday weekends, all four lanes of traffic go southbound towards downtown Washington from 6:45 – 9:30 a.m. All lanes go northbound from 3:45-6:30 p.m. The rest of the time, two lanes go in each direction. The area that is reversed runs about three miles between the National Mall area and near an exit for Calvert Street close to Connecticut Avenue. The Park Service said about 7500 vehicles use Rock Creek Parkway each time the lanes are reversed, and a total of about 50,000 vehicles use the parkway each weekday.

The National Park Service released a study in January 2024 in which it concluded that the lanes should no longer be reversed, and traffic should run in both directions at all times.

Among the reasons NPS gave in the study for wanting to stop reversing the lanes:

they take up too much of U.S. Park Police officers’ time and put them in danger
the rate of crashes is worse during one-way traffic than two-way traffic (Save Connecticut Avenue disputes that, saying the traffic numbers don’t back up that assertion)
NPS concluded some traffic concerns could be alleviated through improvements
7News asked an NPS spokesperson Tuesday if the study of Rock Creek Parkway needed to be redone now that commuting patterns have changed.

[Anonymous]

They should have shut it down during Covid and never reopened it. Really the RTO will be done in 6 months when they fire 75% of the Feds. So traffic will not be an issue.