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Metropolitan DC Local Politics
Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?
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Anonymous
Driver are already turning left. The addition of turn lanes simply means other cars don't have to queue behind them. IOW, it is an improvement to the flow of cars. |
Anonymous
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Well, well,, well. Guess that robust public engagement wasn’t so good after all.
“However, Chevy Chase House, Regency House, Sunrise Senior Living and Forest Hills of DC told me and community member William Sittig that they did not know about the plan for bike lanes. Nor did Northwest Neighbors Village and Cleveland Park Village.” https://www.foresthillsconnection.com/news/connecticut-avenue-updates-ddot-walkthroughs-few-details-on-future-public-engagement-how-bikes-and-walkers-might-interact/ |
Anonymous
But but but they met the legal requirements for notice! They should have been reading the classified section of the Georgetown Dish. It's their fault. |
Anonymous
Is it weird that the groups most likely to oppose the bike lanes like seniors and families knew little, if anything, about the plan? It’s really suspicious that the DDOT community relations specialist in charge of public outreach is a self described “bike enthusiast” on his Twitter account. This does not lend credibility to this proposal. |
Anonymous
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Again, do you expect city officials or ANC commissioners to hand walk gold plated notices to every property in the city?
They all conducted reasonable outreach - Forest Hills Connection, other blogs, the various community assocaitions, the various ANC's, the Mayor's newsletter, the Councilmember's newsletter...what more did you want? |
Anonymous
It wasn’t that long ago that the Snark Growth folks complained that public meetings with panels and audience questions excluded folks who couldn’t go to meetings, etc. Now they think that social media and online newsletters are sufficient, ignoring the fact that not everyone is on Twitter or Instagram. |
Anonymous
Anyone can attend a video based internet meeting, certainly more so than can attend an in-person meeting. Are you suggesting otherwise? Do you think these meetings, that took place during COVID, should have been in person? |
Anonymous
Of course not but websites, online surveys, and “charettes” run by consultants to DDOT and the Office of Planning are not complete substitute for public meetings. The fact is that a lot of people are just waking up to the impacts of making such far-reaching changes on one of NW Washington’s principal arterial routes and are alarmed. That’s evidence that there has not been a robust public process, despite what one assumes to have been the best of intentions. |
Anonymous
They were public meetings, but they were held on a video platform rather than in-person. Many more people attended these meetings than would have been able to attend if they were held in person. And again I will ask, during COVID, you are still suggesting these meetings should have been held in person. Why? |
Anonymous
Given the amount of outreach that took place to get people engaged on this, if people are just waking up to it, then they have never been engaged in Council or ANC or Community Association activities to begin with. If you have been on this forum for more than a year, then you would have seen the other bike lane thread before this one. If you live in any of the NW neighborhoods that abut Connecticut Avenue and you are on one of the email lists, then you would have seen any number of announcements about these meetings, either from the ANC, individuals, bike advocates If you live in Ward 3 and receive Mary Cheh's weekly newsletter, you would have seen the announcement. If you are on Facebook and live in 20008 or 20015 or 20016, you would have seen the announcements. If you live in ANC 3C, 3E, 3F or 3G and are on their email lists, you would have seen the announcements. If you belong to any of the Community Associations in Woodley Park, Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase, you would have seen the announcements. If you receive emails from the Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, Van Ness or Chevy Chase Main Streets, you would have seen the announcements. If you live in the Ward and don't receive any of the emails or announcements from the above, then you simply aren't engaging in the community. |
Anonymous
Again, during the height of the pandemic many people saw the announcement about the “Reversible Lane Safety Study.” They shrugged and went back to their busy lives. Nobody saw the notice about “Connecticut Ave Bike Lanes Project.” |
Anonymous
Most government news is boring. Especially transporation. People against bike lanes in Ward 3 are really going to lose their minds when Wisconsin, Western Ave, Mass Ave and many more all come on the next set of rounds after the Conn Ave project goes in. The city isn't going to stop. Wake up and realize that car-only streets are failed transportation policies from the 1970's. The rest of the world moved one. We didn't. And 40,000 people die every year from traffic accidents. This is happening, and its wonderful. https://imgur.com/a/HWVrZyk |
Anonymous
This. There was nothing in those notices that suggested that six traffic lanes would be reduced to four, or that millions of tax dollars and years of construction delays were at stake. It was very much a stealth action. |
Anonymous
Where is that from? |
Anonymous
The video meetings were a travesty at first. The new leadership of ANC 3C (Beau Finley who later flamed out spectacularly in the Council race) hired someone to facilitate the ANC Zoom meetings. People were required to register with their email addresses. The facilitator captured the email addresses and later sent out Go Fund Me solicitations to everyone to help him pay off his personal IRS tax debt! Some people vowed not to participate in another ANC Zoom meeting again. |