Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

The DC government is mandated to give their views "great weight" in making decisions. They have no budget and can pass no laws, but plans by city agencies are (sometimes / not always) revised on the basis of input from the relevant ANCs. I honestly don't think you understand much about DC.

“Great weight” in planning and zoning cases is why Greater Greater Washington and others in the Smart Growth lobby are working overtime to elect and control the ANCs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A constructive counterproposal, which I haven't seen anyone advance yet, would be radically improving bus service on Connecticut and Wisconsin. It could be so much better than it is right now, especially for commuters. If the goal is to get people out of cars in Ward 3, I could see that getting buy-in from both sides of the Connecticut tussle.

In other words, if we don't agree on shifting toward biking infrastructure, but we do agree on shifting toward bus infrastructure, why don't we start by accomplishing that?

I think you are the voice of reason and I hope we end up here. I think neighbors can all agree that traffic calming (HAWKS, speed cameras, and actual enforcement) is necessary on Connecticut and improved bus/transit service would be great. We can probably agree on 80% of improvements, yet we are spending 100% of our time arguing about the bike lanes which is clearly a divisive issue. We need to find the common ground and start there.

Sure, but for people who want to bike, what you are telling them that your ability to get somewhere 25 seconds faster in a car is more important than their ability to have a safe space to ride.

Yes, exactly. It’s an ugly truth, but as long as vehicle occupants vastly outnumber bicyclists and traffic is congested, most drivers would like to discourage bicyclists from being on the road. Planners are creating bike lanes anyway because we should be encouraging bicycling, but people who do not and will not ride bikes don’t want that.

People don't want to bike. Look at the numbers. The number of people riding bikes in this city is pathetically small. People have voted with their feet. Transportation resources should be used to move people around as efficiently as possible, not because people want to make a political statement about bikes.

People aren't biking on CT Ave because it is unsafe. Make it safe, and more people will.

And I agree, transportation resources should be dedicated to efficient movement. Single occupancy cars is the LEAST efficient way to move people around. So how about we just ban single occupancy cars and have everyone bus and bike? Problem solved, right?

We've had bike lanes in this city for 15 years. If biking was going to become popular, it would have by now. If anything, it's becoming less popular. I'm sorry but people simply aren't interested for a long list of reasons.

False. Again.

I have posted this multiple times in this thread, but here we go again. Biking in core DC has grown considerably since 2007 when DC started focusing on bike infrastructure. It's likely even higher now (this data was from 2017): https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

we dont have to rely on such old data (especially since the pandemic scrambled the numbers). here's what the census said about commuting in dc in 2021:

drive -- 29 percent
public transportation -- 11.6 percent
walk -- 6.7 percent
cab, motorcycle, other -- 2.6 percent
bike -- 2.1 percent
work from home -- 48 percent

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Washington%20city,%20District%20of%20Columbia&t=Commuting&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0801

So about 4% of DC residents who actually went into work commuted by bike. This is a quadrupling of the proportion in 2007-08 and a 60 percent increase over 2017-18. Name any other mode of transport that has that rate of increase.

Of course, bike lanes aren’t just for bikes, but for scooters, one-wheels, and personal mobility devices - including electric wheelchairs. If you want to tell us that these have not also increased in popularity, go ahead but be forewarned that you will being telling us a lot more about yourself than about the subject you are opining on.

And before you say that 4% is a tiny number, I beg you to calculate the proportion of road space and the city’s transportation budget that are dedicated to bikes and other personal mobility devices. I think you’ll find that both numbers are a good order of magnitude less than 4%.

There are also many people who are working from home and are finding it easier to have meetings or run errands on bike during breaks in the work day. Guess what. They ride bikes. This isn't JUST about commuting downtown.

Perhaps. But traffic in the Washington metropolitan region has returned almost to prepandemic levels, even with many workers still working remotely part of the time. Whether most are commuters is beside the point. There are lots of vehicle trips daily. Pretending that a substantial amount of traffic pushed off of Connecticut Ave onto other streets will magically switch to bikes or simply vanish is not tenable.

We know from decades of research that, absent monetary or temporal taxation, the volume of traffic will expand to the carrying capacity of the road before drivers switch to other modes. Pretending that retaining the status quo is going to protect the side streets or secondary arteries from increased traffic flows represents a lack of understanding of how traffic works.

The choice is not as you present it between traffic spilling over and traffic not spilling over. It's between providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes or not providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes.

There is no evidence that existing drivers in large numbers ever switch to other modes. What happens instead is that economic activity shifts, either to edge cities or to other regions without hangups about roads.

I don't get. So Washington, DC should in fact aspire to become more like Tyson's Corner?

You may not be aware, but much of Wards 3, 1, and 5 came very close to being bulldozed in favor of an Inner Beltway that would have connected to the Whitehurst Freeway and the Anacostia Freeway. Maybe you would have liked that city more, but not me.

More than enough damage was done by the demolition of black neighborhoods to create 395, 695, and 295, roads which are predominantly used by vehicles that pass through the city.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with this plan

It’s great that activists blocked radial interstates in much of DC in the Sixties. But Connecticut consequently is one of the principal arterials and evacuation routes that substitutes for not having freeways. It is a 6-lane road. Thrusting 34th and Porter streets into that role in lieu of Connecticut is nuts. Certainly it’s unsafe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

The DC government is mandated to give their views "great weight" in making decisions. They have no budget and can pass no laws, but plans by city agencies are (sometimes / not always) revised on the basis of input from the relevant ANCs. I honestly don't think you understand much about DC.

“Great weight” in planning and zoning cases is why Greater Greater Washington and others in the Smart Growth lobby are working overtime to elect and control the ANCs.

This is a conspiracy theory as ridiculous as the one that the Council-Member from Ward 8 advanced about the weather. If you really have to spread this nonsense, take it 4Chan or whatever, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A constructive counterproposal, which I haven't seen anyone advance yet, would be radically improving bus service on Connecticut and Wisconsin. It could be so much better than it is right now, especially for commuters. If the goal is to get people out of cars in Ward 3, I could see that getting buy-in from both sides of the Connecticut tussle.

In other words, if we don't agree on shifting toward biking infrastructure, but we do agree on shifting toward bus infrastructure, why don't we start by accomplishing that?

I think you are the voice of reason and I hope we end up here. I think neighbors can all agree that traffic calming (HAWKS, speed cameras, and actual enforcement) is necessary on Connecticut and improved bus/transit service would be great. We can probably agree on 80% of improvements, yet we are spending 100% of our time arguing about the bike lanes which is clearly a divisive issue. We need to find the common ground and start there.

Sure, but for people who want to bike, what you are telling them that your ability to get somewhere 25 seconds faster in a car is more important than their ability to have a safe space to ride.

Yes, exactly. It’s an ugly truth, but as long as vehicle occupants vastly outnumber bicyclists and traffic is congested, most drivers would like to discourage bicyclists from being on the road. Planners are creating bike lanes anyway because we should be encouraging bicycling, but people who do not and will not ride bikes don’t want that.

People don't want to bike. Look at the numbers. The number of people riding bikes in this city is pathetically small. People have voted with their feet. Transportation resources should be used to move people around as efficiently as possible, not because people want to make a political statement about bikes.

People aren't biking on CT Ave because it is unsafe. Make it safe, and more people will.

And I agree, transportation resources should be dedicated to efficient movement. Single occupancy cars is the LEAST efficient way to move people around. So how about we just ban single occupancy cars and have everyone bus and bike? Problem solved, right?

We've had bike lanes in this city for 15 years. If biking was going to become popular, it would have by now. If anything, it's becoming less popular. I'm sorry but people simply aren't interested for a long list of reasons.

False. Again.

I have posted this multiple times in this thread, but here we go again. Biking in core DC has grown considerably since 2007 when DC started focusing on bike infrastructure. It's likely even higher now (this data was from 2017): https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

we dont have to rely on such old data (especially since the pandemic scrambled the numbers). here's what the census said about commuting in dc in 2021:

drive -- 29 percent
public transportation -- 11.6 percent
walk -- 6.7 percent
cab, motorcycle, other -- 2.6 percent
bike -- 2.1 percent
work from home -- 48 percent

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Washington%20city,%20District%20of%20Columbia&t=Commuting&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0801

So about 4% of DC residents who actually went into work commuted by bike. This is a quadrupling of the proportion in 2007-08 and a 60 percent increase over 2017-18. Name any other mode of transport that has that rate of increase.

Of course, bike lanes aren’t just for bikes, but for scooters, one-wheels, and personal mobility devices - including electric wheelchairs. If you want to tell us that these have not also increased in popularity, go ahead but be forewarned that you will being telling us a lot more about yourself than about the subject you are opining on.

And before you say that 4% is a tiny number, I beg you to calculate the proportion of road space and the city’s transportation budget that are dedicated to bikes and other personal mobility devices. I think you’ll find that both numbers are a good order of magnitude less than 4%.

There are also many people who are working from home and are finding it easier to have meetings or run errands on bike during breaks in the work day. Guess what. They ride bikes. This isn't JUST about commuting downtown.

Perhaps. But traffic in the Washington metropolitan region has returned almost to prepandemic levels, even with many workers still working remotely part of the time. Whether most are commuters is beside the point. There are lots of vehicle trips daily. Pretending that a substantial amount of traffic pushed off of Connecticut Ave onto other streets will magically switch to bikes or simply vanish is not tenable.

We know from decades of research that, absent monetary or temporal taxation, the volume of traffic will expand to the carrying capacity of the road before drivers switch to other modes. Pretending that retaining the status quo is going to protect the side streets or secondary arteries from increased traffic flows represents a lack of understanding of how traffic works.

The choice is not as you present it between traffic spilling over and traffic not spilling over. It's between providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes or not providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes.

There is no evidence that existing drivers in large numbers ever switch to other modes. What happens instead is that economic activity shifts, either to edge cities or to other regions without hangups about roads.

I don't get. So Washington, DC should in fact aspire to become more like Tyson's Corner?

You may not be aware, but much of Wards 3, 1, and 5 came very close to being bulldozed in favor of an Inner Beltway that would have connected to the Whitehurst Freeway and the Anacostia Freeway. Maybe you would have liked that city more, but not me.

More than enough damage was done by the demolition of black neighborhoods to create 395, 695, and 295, roads which are predominantly used by vehicles that pass through the city.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with this plan

It’s great that activists blocked radial interstates in much of DC in the Sixties. But Connecticut consequently is one of the principal arterials and evacuation routes that substitutes for not having freeways. It is a 6-lane road. Thrusting 34th and Porter streets into that role in lieu of Connecticut is nuts. Certainly it’s unsafe.

You have never heard of other NW arteries like Mass Ave, Wisconsin Ave, or Canal Rd, have you? No road in a densely-populated residential area needs to be six freaking lanes wide. That is what is unsafe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

You have a very vivid imagination. Unfortunately it bears no relation whatsoever to what happens in the real world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A constructive counterproposal, which I haven't seen anyone advance yet, would be radically improving bus service on Connecticut and Wisconsin. It could be so much better than it is right now, especially for commuters. If the goal is to get people out of cars in Ward 3, I could see that getting buy-in from both sides of the Connecticut tussle.

In other words, if we don't agree on shifting toward biking infrastructure, but we do agree on shifting toward bus infrastructure, why don't we start by accomplishing that?

I think you are the voice of reason and I hope we end up here. I think neighbors can all agree that traffic calming (HAWKS, speed cameras, and actual enforcement) is necessary on Connecticut and improved bus/transit service would be great. We can probably agree on 80% of improvements, yet we are spending 100% of our time arguing about the bike lanes which is clearly a divisive issue. We need to find the common ground and start there.

Sure, but for people who want to bike, what you are telling them that your ability to get somewhere 25 seconds faster in a car is more important than their ability to have a safe space to ride.

Yes, exactly. It’s an ugly truth, but as long as vehicle occupants vastly outnumber bicyclists and traffic is congested, most drivers would like to discourage bicyclists from being on the road. Planners are creating bike lanes anyway because we should be encouraging bicycling, but people who do not and will not ride bikes don’t want that.

People don't want to bike. Look at the numbers. The number of people riding bikes in this city is pathetically small. People have voted with their feet. Transportation resources should be used to move people around as efficiently as possible, not because people want to make a political statement about bikes.

People aren't biking on CT Ave because it is unsafe. Make it safe, and more people will.

And I agree, transportation resources should be dedicated to efficient movement. Single occupancy cars is the LEAST efficient way to move people around. So how about we just ban single occupancy cars and have everyone bus and bike? Problem solved, right?

We've had bike lanes in this city for 15 years. If biking was going to become popular, it would have by now. If anything, it's becoming less popular. I'm sorry but people simply aren't interested for a long list of reasons.

False. Again.

I have posted this multiple times in this thread, but here we go again. Biking in core DC has grown considerably since 2007 when DC started focusing on bike infrastructure. It's likely even higher now (this data was from 2017): https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

we dont have to rely on such old data (especially since the pandemic scrambled the numbers). here's what the census said about commuting in dc in 2021:

drive -- 29 percent
public transportation -- 11.6 percent
walk -- 6.7 percent
cab, motorcycle, other -- 2.6 percent
bike -- 2.1 percent
work from home -- 48 percent

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Washington%20city,%20District%20of%20Columbia&t=Commuting&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0801

So about 4% of DC residents who actually went into work commuted by bike. This is a quadrupling of the proportion in 2007-08 and a 60 percent increase over 2017-18. Name any other mode of transport that has that rate of increase.

Of course, bike lanes aren’t just for bikes, but for scooters, one-wheels, and personal mobility devices - including electric wheelchairs. If you want to tell us that these have not also increased in popularity, go ahead but be forewarned that you will being telling us a lot more about yourself than about the subject you are opining on.

And before you say that 4% is a tiny number, I beg you to calculate the proportion of road space and the city’s transportation budget that are dedicated to bikes and other personal mobility devices. I think you’ll find that both numbers are a good order of magnitude less than 4%.

There are also many people who are working from home and are finding it easier to have meetings or run errands on bike during breaks in the work day. Guess what. They ride bikes. This isn't JUST about commuting downtown.

Perhaps. But traffic in the Washington metropolitan region has returned almost to prepandemic levels, even with many workers still working remotely part of the time. Whether most are commuters is beside the point. There are lots of vehicle trips daily. Pretending that a substantial amount of traffic pushed off of Connecticut Ave onto other streets will magically switch to bikes or simply vanish is not tenable.

We know from decades of research that, absent monetary or temporal taxation, the volume of traffic will expand to the carrying capacity of the road before drivers switch to other modes. Pretending that retaining the status quo is going to protect the side streets or secondary arteries from increased traffic flows represents a lack of understanding of how traffic works.

The choice is not as you present it between traffic spilling over and traffic not spilling over. It's between providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes or not providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes.

There is no evidence that existing drivers in large numbers ever switch to other modes. What happens instead is that economic activity shifts, either to edge cities or to other regions without hangups about roads.

I don't get. So Washington, DC should in fact aspire to become more like Tyson's Corner?

You may not be aware, but much of Wards 3, 1, and 5 came very close to being bulldozed in favor of an Inner Beltway that would have connected to the Whitehurst Freeway and the Anacostia Freeway. Maybe you would have liked that city more, but not me.

More than enough damage was done by the demolition of black neighborhoods to create 395, 695, and 295, roads which are predominantly used by vehicles that pass through the city.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with this plan

It’s great that activists blocked radial interstates in much of DC in the Sixties. But Connecticut consequently is one of the principal arterials and evacuation routes that substitutes for not having freeways. It is a 6-lane road. Thrusting 34th and Porter streets into that role in lieu of Connecticut is nuts. Certainly it’s unsafe.

We should be funneling as much traffic onto major roads, ie anything named after a state. Better there than spilling out into a thousand side streets that were never intended to carry so many cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

Not true. Facts matter. DDOT started this process with the 2003 corridor study. Seriously, stop with the nonsense, it really makes you look silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

Not true. Facts matter. DDOT started this process with the 2003 corridor study. Seriously, stop with the nonsense, it really makes you look silly.

You really need to come clean about your role in all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A constructive counterproposal, which I haven't seen anyone advance yet, would be radically improving bus service on Connecticut and Wisconsin. It could be so much better than it is right now, especially for commuters. If the goal is to get people out of cars in Ward 3, I could see that getting buy-in from both sides of the Connecticut tussle.

In other words, if we don't agree on shifting toward biking infrastructure, but we do agree on shifting toward bus infrastructure, why don't we start by accomplishing that?

I think you are the voice of reason and I hope we end up here. I think neighbors can all agree that traffic calming (HAWKS, speed cameras, and actual enforcement) is necessary on Connecticut and improved bus/transit service would be great. We can probably agree on 80% of improvements, yet we are spending 100% of our time arguing about the bike lanes which is clearly a divisive issue. We need to find the common ground and start there.

Sure, but for people who want to bike, what you are telling them that your ability to get somewhere 25 seconds faster in a car is more important than their ability to have a safe space to ride.

Yes, exactly. It’s an ugly truth, but as long as vehicle occupants vastly outnumber bicyclists and traffic is congested, most drivers would like to discourage bicyclists from being on the road. Planners are creating bike lanes anyway because we should be encouraging bicycling, but people who do not and will not ride bikes don’t want that.

People don't want to bike. Look at the numbers. The number of people riding bikes in this city is pathetically small. People have voted with their feet. Transportation resources should be used to move people around as efficiently as possible, not because people want to make a political statement about bikes.

People aren't biking on CT Ave because it is unsafe. Make it safe, and more people will.

And I agree, transportation resources should be dedicated to efficient movement. Single occupancy cars is the LEAST efficient way to move people around. So how about we just ban single occupancy cars and have everyone bus and bike? Problem solved, right?

We've had bike lanes in this city for 15 years. If biking was going to become popular, it would have by now. If anything, it's becoming less popular. I'm sorry but people simply aren't interested for a long list of reasons.

False. Again.

I have posted this multiple times in this thread, but here we go again. Biking in core DC has grown considerably since 2007 when DC started focusing on bike infrastructure. It's likely even higher now (this data was from 2017): https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

we dont have to rely on such old data (especially since the pandemic scrambled the numbers). here's what the census said about commuting in dc in 2021:

drive -- 29 percent
public transportation -- 11.6 percent
walk -- 6.7 percent
cab, motorcycle, other -- 2.6 percent
bike -- 2.1 percent
work from home -- 48 percent

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Washington%20city,%20District%20of%20Columbia&t=Commuting&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0801

So about 4% of DC residents who actually went into work commuted by bike. This is a quadrupling of the proportion in 2007-08 and a 60 percent increase over 2017-18. Name any other mode of transport that has that rate of increase.

Of course, bike lanes aren’t just for bikes, but for scooters, one-wheels, and personal mobility devices - including electric wheelchairs. If you want to tell us that these have not also increased in popularity, go ahead but be forewarned that you will being telling us a lot more about yourself than about the subject you are opining on.

And before you say that 4% is a tiny number, I beg you to calculate the proportion of road space and the city’s transportation budget that are dedicated to bikes and other personal mobility devices. I think you’ll find that both numbers are a good order of magnitude less than 4%.

There are also many people who are working from home and are finding it easier to have meetings or run errands on bike during breaks in the work day. Guess what. They ride bikes. This isn't JUST about commuting downtown.

Perhaps. But traffic in the Washington metropolitan region has returned almost to prepandemic levels, even with many workers still working remotely part of the time. Whether most are commuters is beside the point. There are lots of vehicle trips daily. Pretending that a substantial amount of traffic pushed off of Connecticut Ave onto other streets will magically switch to bikes or simply vanish is not tenable.

We know from decades of research that, absent monetary or temporal taxation, the volume of traffic will expand to the carrying capacity of the road before drivers switch to other modes. Pretending that retaining the status quo is going to protect the side streets or secondary arteries from increased traffic flows represents a lack of understanding of how traffic works.

The choice is not as you present it between traffic spilling over and traffic not spilling over. It's between providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes or not providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes.

There is no evidence that existing drivers in large numbers ever switch to other modes. What happens instead is that economic activity shifts, either to edge cities or to other regions without hangups about roads.

I don't get. So Washington, DC should in fact aspire to become more like Tyson's Corner?

You may not be aware, but much of Wards 3, 1, and 5 came very close to being bulldozed in favor of an Inner Beltway that would have connected to the Whitehurst Freeway and the Anacostia Freeway. Maybe you would have liked that city more, but not me.

More than enough damage was done by the demolition of black neighborhoods to create 395, 695, and 295, roads which are predominantly used by vehicles that pass through the city.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with this plan

It’s great that activists blocked radial interstates in much of DC in the Sixties. But Connecticut consequently is one of the principal arterials and evacuation routes that substitutes for not having freeways. It is a 6-lane road. Thrusting 34th and Porter streets into that role in lieu of Connecticut is nuts. Certainly it’s unsafe.

We should be funneling as much traffic onto major roads, ie anything named after a state. Better there than spilling out into a thousand side streets that were never intended to carry so many cars.

What is unsafe is the way drivers behave. Six lanes would be fine if people could obey the traffic laws. This plan is brought to you, in large part, by drivers who must must must get there five minutes sooner. Traffic would not need calming if drivers would calm down. But they don’t and they won’t and this is what they have wrought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

Not true. Facts matter. DDOT started this process with the 2003 corridor study. Seriously, stop with the nonsense, it really makes you look silly.

You really need to come clean about your role in all of this.

Their role is that they reside in DC and pay attention to local public affairs. The latter is something that opponents of the project who actually do live in DC apparently haven't been able to do - maybe because they have no concern for local public affairs until they perceive it will affect their narrow self-interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

no you are wrong.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission

+1. Almost every ANC Rep is unopposed. So all you need is 25 warm bodies to sign a petition and you get the job. This should not entitle anyone to make major transportation decisions. Especially a 25 year old single childless nonprofit worker who’s parents still help him with the rent.

The ANC did not make any decisions.

DDOT announced a process. The ANCs up and down CT Ave held public meetings. DDOT held public meetings, ANCs took input and passed resolutions supporting a concept that was presented by DDOT.

DDOT went down that path based on global best practices and the Mayor personally made the decision. It was supported by our elected Councilmember and the various ANCs with almost unanimity.

So how do you see it as a bunch of 25 year olds?

DDOT announced a process after receiving multiple ANC Resolutions from ANC commissioners who were trained and financed by the bike community. The tail has always been wagging the dog here.

Not true. Facts matter. DDOT started this process with the 2003 corridor study. Seriously, stop with the nonsense, it really makes you look silly.

You really need to come clean about your role in all of this.

Their role is that they reside in DC and pay attention to local public affairs. The latter is something that opponents of the project who actually do live in DC apparently haven't been able to do - maybe because they have no concern for local public affairs until they perceive it will affect their narrow self-interest.

All their “meetings” and rushed “public processes” have been during the pandemic. Residents within a half mile of Conn Ave are just waking up to this and they’re upset. It’s time that the council and the GGW ANCs hear the voices of the people they’re supposed to represent, rather than WABA and the development lobbyists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A constructive counterproposal, which I haven't seen anyone advance yet, would be radically improving bus service on Connecticut and Wisconsin. It could be so much better than it is right now, especially for commuters. If the goal is to get people out of cars in Ward 3, I could see that getting buy-in from both sides of the Connecticut tussle.

In other words, if we don't agree on shifting toward biking infrastructure, but we do agree on shifting toward bus infrastructure, why don't we start by accomplishing that?

I think you are the voice of reason and I hope we end up here. I think neighbors can all agree that traffic calming (HAWKS, speed cameras, and actual enforcement) is necessary on Connecticut and improved bus/transit service would be great. We can probably agree on 80% of improvements, yet we are spending 100% of our time arguing about the bike lanes which is clearly a divisive issue. We need to find the common ground and start there.

Sure, but for people who want to bike, what you are telling them that your ability to get somewhere 25 seconds faster in a car is more important than their ability to have a safe space to ride.

Yes, exactly. It’s an ugly truth, but as long as vehicle occupants

vastly outnumber bicyclists and traffic is congested, most drivers would like to discourage bicyclists from being on the road. Planners are creating bike lanes anyway because we should be encouraging bicycling, but people who do not and will not ride bikes don’t want that.

People don't want to bike. Look at the numbers. The number of people riding bikes in this city is pathetically small. People have voted with their feet. Transportation resources should be used to move people around as efficiently as possible, not because people want to make a political statement about bikes.

People aren't biking on CT Ave because it is unsafe. Make it safe, and more people will.

And I agree, transportation resources should be dedicated to efficient movement. Single occupancy cars is the LEAST efficient way to move people around. So how about we just ban single occupancy cars and have everyone bus and bike? Problem solved, right?

We've had bike lanes in this city for 15 years. If biking was going to become popular, it would have by now. If anything, it's becoming less popular. I'm sorry but people simply aren't interested for a long list of reasons.

Those roads are already full at rush hour (which according to the Post extends to noon on some weekdays). So where is the diverted Connecticut traffic supposed to go? Explain.

False. Again.

I have posted this multiple times in this thread, but here we go again. Biking in core DC has grown considerably since 2007 when DC started focusing on bike infrastructure. It's likely even higher now (this data was from 2017): https://ggwash.org/view/80233/the-bike-boom-is-real-says-new-mode-share-data-regional-travel-survey

we dont have to rely on such old data (especially since the pandemic scrambled the numbers). here's what the census said about commuting in dc in 2021:

drive -- 29 percent
public transportation -- 11.6 percent
walk -- 6.7 percent
cab, motorcycle, other -- 2.6 percent
bike -- 2.1 percent
work from home -- 48 percent

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Washington%20city,%20District%20of%20Columbia&t=Commuting&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0801

So about 4% of DC residents who actually went into work commuted by bike. This is a quadrupling of the proportion in 2007-08 and a 60 percent increase over 2017-18. Name any other mode of transport that has that rate of increase.

Of course, bike lanes aren’t just for bikes, but for scooters, one-wheels, and personal mobility devices - including electric wheelchairs. If you want to tell us that these have not also increased in popularity, go ahead but be forewarned that you will being telling us a lot more about yourself than about the subject you are opining on.

And before you say that 4% is a tiny number, I beg you to calculate the proportion of road space and the city’s transportation budget that are dedicated to bikes and other personal mobility devices. I think you’ll find that both numbers are a good order of magnitude less than 4%.

There are also many people who are working from home and are finding it easier to have meetings or run errands on bike during breaks in the work day. Guess what. They ride bikes. This isn't JUST about commuting downtown.

Perhaps. But traffic in the Washington metropolitan region has returned almost to prepandemic levels, even with many workers still working remotely part of the time. Whether most are commuters is beside the point. There are lots of vehicle trips daily. Pretending that a substantial amount of traffic pushed off of Connecticut Ave onto other streets will magically switch to bikes or simply vanish is not tenable.

We know from decades of research that, absent monetary or temporal taxation, the volume of traffic will expand to the carrying capacity of the road before drivers switch to other modes. Pretending that retaining the status quo is going to protect the side streets or secondary arteries from increased traffic flows represents a lack of understanding of how traffic works.

The choice is not as you present it between traffic spilling over and traffic not spilling over. It's between providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes or not providing a safe and comfortable means for people to commute via non-vehicular modes.

There is no evidence that existing drivers in large numbers ever switch to other modes. What happens instead is that economic activity shifts, either to edge cities or to other regions without hangups about roads.

I don't get. So Washington, DC should in fact aspire to become more like Tyson's Corner?

You may not be aware, but much of Wards 3, 1, and 5 came very close to being bulldozed in favor of an Inner Beltway that would have connected to the Whitehurst Freeway and the Anacostia Freeway. Maybe you would have liked that city more, but not me.

More than enough damage was done by the demolition of black neighborhoods to create 395, 695, and 295, roads which are predominantly used by vehicles that pass through the city.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with this plan

It’s great that activists blocked radial interstates in much of DC in the Sixties. But Connecticut consequently is one of the principal arterials and evacuation routes that substitutes for not having freeways. It is a 6-lane road. Thrusting 34th and Porter streets into that role in lieu of Connecticut is nuts. Certainly it’s unsafe.

You have never heard of other NW arteries like Mass Ave, Wisconsin Ave, or Canal Rd, have you? No road in a densely-populated residential area needs to be six freaking lanes wide. That is what is unsafe.

[Anonymous]

The main power ANCs have — and the main power they have traditionally exercised in D.C. — is to say no to things. Only now that they have failed to block a project are people inventing these conspiracy theories where ANCs actually drive policy in local government and/or where they mostly represent the interests of young transient renters (who are, by far, the least likely people to vote in local elections, which means there’s almost no incentive for any elected official to listen to them ever).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the fairest idea is to put Option C to a voter referendum in Ward 3 next year?

The decision has been made. The city is moving forward with this, and there is nothing the complaining public can do about it. The voters spoke through the ANCs and Councilmember and Mayor who all supported and moved this decision forward.

And, even if the decision hadn't been made, should we put ever new speed hump and liquor license on a referrendum as well?

We live ins a representative democracy, where we elect leaders to make these decisions. That is what happened here.

ANCs are not elected leaders. It's an unpaod volunteer liason position

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://anc.dc.gov/page/anc-elections

Yes they are elected but they are not leaders and their role is advisory. They are supposed to just be community liasons.

Just look at GGW’s website and social media. They recruit ANC candidates to run who embrace their agenda. They even run an ANC boot camp. Facts don’t lie.

The DC government is mandated to give their views "great weight" in making decisions. They have no budget and can pass no laws, but plans by city agencies are (sometimes / not always) revised on the basis of input from the relevant ANCs. I honestly don't think you understand much about DC.

“Great weight” in planning and zoning cases is why Greater Greater Washington and others in the Smart Growth lobby are working overtime to elect and control the ANCs.

This is a conspiracy theory as ridiculous as the one that the Council-Member from Ward 8 advanced about the weather. If you really have to spread this nonsense, take it 4Chan or whatever, please.