Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traffic has picked up dramatically on CT Ave, NW in the last two weeks. More people are returning to work.

I don’t see how taking away lanes can possibly help.

You know the part of southbound CT across from Comet Ping Pong Pizza that still has cafe seating in the far lane? That creates a bottleneck every day.

Car traffic will never get better. the region grows, more people living in the 'burbs means more cars and more cars coming in to DC. We cannot build more lanes to handle those cars. We need to do something different, and thus are.

The 1950's transportation planning simply doesn't work. Europe and Asia have shown how to do it, so that is what we need to do.

But how does this improve the situation?

People aren’t going to magically hop on bikes. They just won’t. First of all, this isn’t a warm weather area. It snows. It rains.

People live too far from their offices. Bikes just aren’t practical. Neither are buses.

Aren’t practical for who? The *majority* of DC commuters do not drive, but either take transit or bike into the office.

I have live and worked in DC since the early 2000s. I have never once driven in the office.

You may be addicted to your vehicle. That is OK. It is an affliction that millions of people across the country struggle with. But you don’t need to project it on to everyone else.

Omg…

You live and work in DC.

^^^

I live in MoCo and have commuted to my job in DC for 20* years by car. I’m too far to bike and there’s no simple bus or metro option.

I literally recognize cars and drivers who have commuted the same route for years/decades at the same time.

I honestly am terrified by the obvious lack of awareness by those pushing for this.

You don’t live in DC or pay anything other than sales taxes in DC. But you think you can dictate to DC residents and taxpayers how to do what the roads they pay for. Got it.

I have revelation for you: park and ride. Check it out.

No. DC must understand that its economic well being is based on the professional service businesses that operate downtown. Like NYC, DC needs its business community. Conn Ave has been a commuter road since the early to mid 1900s. If you live near Conn Ave, you know that, and have no reason to complain.

So you support restoring the original configuration of Conn Ave including the 1900 streetcar? Me too!

The argument that DC needs commuter pseudo-highways like Conn Ave in its current state to remain economically viable are a sick joke given what automobile-driven suburbanization actually did to the central core of DC and almost ever other major city in the US. The idea that measures to improve the quality of life for residents of the inner core and surrounding neighborhoods will adversely affect those areas is incredibly peculiar.

Seriously. The PP's argument seems to be "I don't live in DC or pay taxes there and I choose to love further out because DC makes it easy for me to drive 30 MPH through residential neighborhoods. DC just doesn't UNDERSTAND that its economic well being depends on people like me and not on people who actually pay taxes and purchase things in the city and don't just drive through. I spend $15 a day on Sweetgreen and Starbucks, the tax dollars that DC gets from that is SO MUCH HIGHER than what they would get from me actually paying income taxes in DC and doing most of my grocery and restaurant spending in DC."

No, they didn't say any of that or even imply it. You are just trying to demonize them to distract from the reality that it is DC residents who are against this plan. What they did was give a first hand account of the commuters you claim will switch to biking. As the multitude of DC residents have said, people aren't biking 10, let alone 20, miles.

The more the suburbs grow, the more people will be commuting downtown. Given that Connecticut Avenue is already a mess, the capacity to handle more cars during peak periods is nil. So those people who are choosing to live 10 and 20 miles out either need to figure out another way in, or simply deal with the traffic that is already there and will be there after this project is completed. the goal of the project is to improve safety and ensure that some percentage of the population who want to bike, can do it safely. And for every biker, there is one less car on the road. So the drivers ought to be supporting this 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traffic has picked up dramatically on CT Ave, NW in the last two weeks. More people are returning to work.

I don’t see how taking away lanes can possibly help.

You know the part of southbound CT across from Comet Ping Pong Pizza that still has cafe seating in the far lane? That creates a bottleneck every day.

Car traffic will never get better. the region grows, more people living in the 'burbs means more cars and more cars coming in to DC. We cannot build more lanes to handle those cars. We need to do something different, and thus are.

The 1950's transportation planning simply doesn't work. Europe and Asia have shown how to do it, so that is what we need to do.

But how does this improve the situation?

People aren’t going to magically hop on bikes. They just won’t. First of all, this isn’t a warm weather area. It snows. It rains.

People live too far from their offices. Bikes just aren’t practical. Neither are buses.

Aren’t practical for who? The *majority* of DC commuters do not drive, but either take transit or bike into the office.

I have live and worked in DC since the early 2000s. I have never once driven in the office.

You may be addicted to your vehicle. That is OK. It is an affliction that millions of people across the country struggle with. But you don’t need to project it on to everyone else.

Omg…

You live and work in DC.

^^^

I live in MoCo and have commuted to my job in DC for 20* years by car. I’m too far to bike and there’s no simple bus or metro option.

I literally recognize cars and drivers who have commuted the same route for years/decades at the same time.

I honestly am terrified by the obvious lack of awareness by those pushing for this.

You don’t live in DC or pay anything other than sales taxes in DC. But you think you can dictate to DC residents and taxpayers how to do what the roads they pay for. Got it.

I have revelation for you: park and ride. Check it out.

When Metro increases frequency of service and starts arresting those who jump turnstiles and trash the trains with impunity, then I’ll return to the Metro. I have no desire to see lawbreakers serve jail time but dressing them in pink coveralls and having them spend a week or two scrubbing Metro stations would be an appropriate penalty and a deterrent to others.

LOL - you haven't been on public transportation in 20 years, if ever.

Sorry that you had to drive until you qualified and that you left you stuck in Olney which is one of the worst suburbs in the region but DC should not be making transportation policy so you can commute in your 4Runner every day.

[Anonymous]

Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should take the billions of dollars they spend on bike lanes that no one uses and plow that money into the subway.

It's odd how D.C. plows so much money into something that no one uses (bike lanes) and starves something that everyone at least used to use (subway).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

Barely any resources (or roadway) space has been dedicated to people who bike - it is astonishing anyone bikes considering how difficult and unsafe it is.

However in DC neighborhoods that have built safe bike infra the percentage of trips done on bikes is much higher than 2 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

Barely any resources (or roadway) space has been dedicated to people who bike - it is astonishing anyone bikes considering how difficult and unsafe it is.

However in DC neighborhoods that have built safe bike infra the percentage of trips done on bikes is much higher than 2 percent.

How many people in D.C. ride bikes? Maybe 500? How much has the government spent over the past decade? Three billion? That's quite a bit of money spent on very few people.

My favorite bike expenditure: The city has people whose full time jobs it is to clean bike lanes. Concierge service for bikers in a city with a poverty rate that matches West Virginia's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

The 2% figure is the proportion of commuters who bike to the office in 2021. Half of the sample was working from home that year and about a quarter drove. If road space and transportation funding were allocated to cyclists (and other non-drivers) in accordance with their share of road users, we’d have bike lanes on every single road. The idea that creating bike lanes is unfair to drivers is so laughably absurd it could only be put forward by anonymous clowns on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

Barely any resources (or roadway) space has been dedicated to people who bike - it is astonishing anyone bikes considering how difficult and unsafe it is.

However in DC neighborhoods that have built safe bike infra the percentage of trips done on bikes is much higher than 2 percent.

How many people in D.C. ride bikes? Maybe 500? How much has the government spent over the past decade? Three billion? That's quite a bit of money spent on very few people.

My favorite bike expenditure: The city has people whose full time jobs it is to clean bike lanes. Concierge service for bikers in a city with a poverty rate that matches West Virginia's.

You are not very good with numbers, are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

Barely any resources (or roadway) space has been dedicated to people who bike - it is astonishing anyone bikes considering how difficult and unsafe it is.

However in DC neighborhoods that have built safe bike infra the percentage of trips done on bikes is much higher than 2 percent.

How many people in D.C. ride bikes? Maybe 500? How much has the government spent over the past decade? Three billion? That's quite a bit of money spent on very few people.

My favorite bike expenditure: The city has people whose full time jobs it is to clean bike lanes. Concierge service for bikers in a city with a poverty rate that matches West Virginia's.

There you go again tossing around billions.

The 15th Street bike lane alone routinely gets 3000 riders a day. But maybe it is those 500 just biking back and forth all day!

This has been thoroughly debunked multiple times already in this thread - under 5% of DDOT's annual budget goes toward bike and pedestrian infra. DDOT has literally 2 FTE's who focus on bike infra and just a handful who focus on pedestrian issues in a city where 40% of households don't even have cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

Barely any resources (or roadway) space has been dedicated to people who bike - it is astonishing anyone bikes considering how difficult and unsafe it is.

However in DC neighborhoods that have built safe bike infra the percentage of trips done on bikes is much higher than 2 percent.

How many people in D.C. ride bikes? Maybe 500? How much has the government spent over the past decade? Three billion? That's quite a bit of money spent on very few people.

My favorite bike expenditure: The city has people whose full time jobs it is to clean bike lanes. Concierge service for bikers in a city with a poverty rate that matches West Virginia's.

There you go again tossing around billions.

The 15th Street bike lane alone routinely gets 3000 riders a day. But maybe it is those 500 just biking back and forth all day!

This has been thoroughly debunked multiple times already in this thread - under 5% of DDOT's annual budget goes toward bike and pedestrian infra. DDOT has literally 2 FTE's who focus on bike infra and just a handful who focus on pedestrian issues in a city where 40% of households don't even have cars.

This notion that 40 percent of households don't own cars is complete B.S.

There's 288,000 households in DC. There's 300,000 cars currently registered with the city. There's probably another 100,000 cars that aren't registered because the city charges people thousands of dollars for the privilege of having their data keyed into the city's database.

If 40 percent of households didn't own cars, that would mean those 400,000 cars are owned by 173,000 households, which would mean the average car owning household owns 2.3 cars. That's obviously wrong. Most of the people I know and that you know who have cars have one single car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traffic has picked up dramatically on CT Ave, NW in the last two weeks. More people are returning to work.

I don’t see how taking away lanes can possibly help.

You know the part of southbound CT across from Comet Ping Pong Pizza that still has cafe seating in the far lane? That creates a bottleneck every day.

Car traffic will never get better. the region grows, more people living in the 'burbs means more cars and more cars coming in to DC. We cannot build more lanes to handle those cars. We need to do something different, and thus are.

The 1950's transportation planning simply doesn't work. Europe and Asia have shown how to do it, so that is what we need to do.

But how does this improve the situation?

People aren’t going to magically hop on bikes. They just won’t. First of all, this isn’t a warm weather area. It snows. It rains.

People live too far from their offices. Bikes just aren’t practical. Neither are buses.

Aren’t practical for who? The *majority* of DC commuters do not drive, but either take transit or bike into the office.

I have live and worked in DC since the early 2000s. I have never once driven in the office.

You may be addicted to your vehicle. That is OK. It is an affliction that millions of people across the country struggle with. But you don’t need to project it on to everyone else.

Omg…

You live and work in DC.

^^^

I live in MoCo and have commuted to my job in DC for 20* years by car. I’m too far to bike and there’s no simple bus or metro option.

I literally recognize cars and drivers who have commuted the same route for years/decades at the same time.

I honestly am terrified by the obvious lack of awareness by those pushing for this.

You don’t live in DC or pay anything other than sales taxes in DC. But you think you can dictate to DC residents and taxpayers how to do what the roads they pay for. Got it.

I have revelation for you: park and ride. Check it out.

When Metro increases frequency of service and starts arresting those who jump turnstiles and trash the trains with impunity, then I’ll return to the Metro. I have no desire to see lawbreakers serve jail time but dressing them in pink coveralls and having them spend a week or two scrubbing Metro stations would be an appropriate penalty and a deterrent to others.

LOL - you haven't been on public transportation in 20 years, if ever.

Sorry that you had to drive until you qualified and that you left you stuck in Olney which is one of the worst suburbs in the region but DC should not be making transportation policy so you can commute in your 4Runner every day.

You haven't been to Olney this century if ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traffic has picked up dramatically on CT Ave, NW in the last two weeks. More people are returning to work.

I don’t see how taking away lanes can possibly help.

You know the part of southbound CT across from Comet Ping Pong Pizza that still has cafe seating in the far lane? That creates a bottleneck every day.

Car traffic will never get better. the region grows, more people living in the 'burbs means more cars and more cars coming in to DC. We cannot build more lanes to handle those cars. We need to do something different, and thus are.

The 1950's transportation planning simply doesn't work. Europe and Asia have shown how to do it, so that is what we need to do.

But how does this improve the situation?

People aren’t going to magically hop on bikes. They just won’t. First of all, this isn’t a warm weather area. It snows. It rains.

People live too far from their offices. Bikes just aren’t practical. Neither are buses.

Aren’t practical for who? The *majority* of DC commuters do not drive, but either take transit or bike into the office.

I have live and worked in DC since the early 2000s. I have never once driven in the office.

You may be addicted to your vehicle. That is OK. It is an affliction that millions of people across the country struggle with. But you don’t need to project it on to everyone else.

Omg…

You live and work in DC.

^^^

I live in MoCo and have commuted to my job in DC for 20* years by car. I’m too far to bike and there’s no simple bus or metro option.

I literally recognize cars and drivers who have commuted the same route for years/decades at the same time.

I honestly am terrified by the obvious lack of awareness by those pushing for this.

You don’t live in DC or pay anything other than sales taxes in DC. But you think you can dictate to DC residents and taxpayers how to do what the roads they pay for. Got it.

I have revelation for you: park and ride. Check it out.

No. DC must understand that its economic well being is based on the professional service businesses that operate downtown. Like NYC, DC needs its business community. Conn Ave has been a commuter road since the early to mid 1900s. If you live near Conn Ave, you know that, and have no reason to complain.

So you support restoring the original configuration of Conn Ave including the 1900 streetcar? Me too!

The argument that DC needs commuter pseudo-highways like Conn Ave in its current state to remain economically viable are a sick joke given what automobile-driven suburbanization actually did to the central core of DC and almost ever other major city in the US. The idea that measures to improve the quality of life for residents of the inner core and surrounding neighborhoods will adversely affect those areas is incredibly peculiar.

"Auto driven suburbanization" didnt destroy the urban core, lol. The urban core was hollowed out by building Federal Triangle in the 50s, desegregation and racial problems in the 60s and 70s, and then Barry's office building obsession in the 80s. Urban development fads and people who claim to know better were the problem.

This proposal has nothing to do with the urban core. So that's irrelevant anyway. Upper NW was only developed in the first place because of the automobile shortening time, distance and topography barriers.

Oh, that’s right, 295 / 395 / 695 were build on vacant land, weren’t they? And bifurcating neighborhoods with giant expressways does wonders for their vitality, am I right? Do you have any more falsehoods you’d like to peddle here today?

There are some valid concerns to be raised about the proposal - many of which can be addressed through simple tweaks - but the argument that the DC government should prioritize a convenient commute for those in rural MD who avoid the Metro as a political statement over the safety of those who pay for the roads and want to get around their city in a cheap and environmentally-friendly manner is not one of them.

You've gone pandemic crazy. The satanic child eating suburbanites you imagine only exist in your head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traffic has picked up dramatically on CT Ave, NW in the last two weeks. More people are returning to work.

I don’t see how taking away lanes can possibly help.

You know the part of southbound CT across from Comet Ping Pong Pizza that still has cafe seating in the far lane? That creates a bottleneck every day.

Car traffic will never get better. the region grows, more people living in the 'burbs means more cars and more cars coming in to DC. We cannot build more lanes to handle those cars. We need to do something different, and thus are.

The 1950's transportation planning simply doesn't work. Europe and Asia have shown how to do it, so that is what we need to do.

But how does this improve the situation?

People aren’t going to magically hop on bikes. They just won’t. First of all, this isn’t a warm weather area. It snows. It rains.

People live too far from their offices. Bikes just aren’t practical. Neither are buses.

Aren’t practical for who? The *majority* of DC commuters do not drive, but either take transit or bike into the office.

I have live and worked in DC since the early 2000s. I have never once driven in the office.

You may be addicted to your vehicle. That is OK. It is an affliction that millions of people across the country struggle with. But you don’t need to project it on to everyone else.

Omg…

You live and work in DC.

^^^

I live in MoCo and have commuted to my job in DC for 20* years by car. I’m too far to bike and there’s no simple bus or metro option.

I literally recognize cars and drivers who have commuted the same route for years/decades at the same time.

I honestly am terrified by the obvious lack of awareness by those pushing for this.

You don’t live in DC or pay anything other than sales taxes in DC. But you think you can dictate to DC residents and taxpayers how to do what the roads they pay for. Got it.

I have revelation for you: park and ride. Check it out.

When Metro increases frequency of service and starts arresting those who jump turnstiles and trash the trains with impunity, then I’ll return to the Metro. I have no desire to see lawbreakers serve jail time but dressing them in pink coveralls and having them spend a week or two scrubbing Metro stations would be an appropriate penalty and a deterrent to others.

LOL - you haven't been on public transportation in 20 years, if ever.

Sorry that you had to drive until you qualified and that you left you stuck in Olney which is one of the worst suburbs in the region but DC should not be making transportation policy so you can commute in your 4Runner every day.

You haven't been to Olney this century if ever.

Nope - have family there and am there almost every month - even know my way around the back roads and the aquatic center! It's an awful suburb - only place to walk is in between stores in the strip malls - crossing any road in the commercial area is like playing Russian roulette.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminder: Only two percent of commuters ride bikes. That's not two percent of the population. Half the people in D.C. don't work because they're retired or children or whatever so they aren't counted among commuters. Probably the only mode of transportation that's used less is scooters.

This is a lot of resources to dedicate to something hardly anyone uses.

The census didn't track people making trips on bike that have nothing to do with commuting to work. This is about mobility options for people who live and work in the Connecticut Avenue corridor, not just people who commute to work on a daily basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should take the billions of dollars they spend on bike lanes that no one uses and plow that money into the subway.

It's odd how D.C. plows so much money into something that no one uses (bike lanes) and starves something that everyone at least used to use (subway).

Metro is a regional asset. DC pays more than its fair share for it. If you think WMATA needs more funding, then talk to MD and VA.