Capital Crescent trail head in Georgetown

This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 7 months ago by JorgeGortex.

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December 2, 2012 at 11:56 pm #912489

JorgeGortex
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Friends,

I wanted to talk to you today about the Capital Crescent trail head, in Georgetown, near the old Aqueduct Bridge. Anyone that has ridden, run, walked, or otherwise traveled through this area knows how congested it can be. Water Street narrows as you come past Key Bridge and out from under Whitehurst Freeway. Parking is perpendicular to the road, and back-in only on both sides of the street. There is a lot of car traffic, bike traffic, runners, skaters, AND….rowers. That’s right, I said rowers. At this location lies the Potomac Boat Club of which I am a member, and I frequent the location often. For some reason, entitlement rises to an extreme level from some cyclists as they enter this area. Rules of the road get tossed out the window, and anyone not on two wheels seems to be something to slalom or yell at.

I want to make a plea for everyone using the area to slow down and consider the other guy a bit. The rowers that park here are athletes like you, and are often cyclists as well. They try really hard when they maneuver their car to be careful. The same can be said when they must transport boats out of the house and onto trailers to go to away regattas: they must maneuver rather large, expensive (a single person shell laughs at the cost of your racing rig), and sturdy boats across the road way. These are good people… but they lose their cool too when some cyclists don’t and won’t slow down for a fraction of a second while all this maneuvering of car or boat is happening. It takes just a second for you to slow down to let people do what they need to, and then proceed. Its nerve wracking and dangerous to your health to weave in and out of traffic here. (the last person that didn’t heed warnings while people were moving a boat, and hit it… knocked himself out) There is no need to for the bird flipping and epitaphs I have seen thrown about.

Anyway, this is a bit of a rant based on an encounter the other day. All in all, the crux is please slow down, keep your eyes open, follow the rules of the road, and be courteous to your fellow athletes, Thank you.

JG
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December 3, 2012 at 1:35 am #956670

Bilsko
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Jorge,
Thanks for this reminder – I’ve certainly gotten a bit too hot-headed at the trail head. I ride it twice a day, every day, and have done my best to try and be more mellow about it lately.

One of my big gripes is that drivers (often from out of town, but plenty of DC drivers too) speed down to the end of Water St. thinking they’ve found the secret exit out of Georgetown (or thinking that they are actually driving up on the Whitehurst, because their GPS maps dont do 3D very well. Getting to the end, they find out there’s no where to go, then do an 18-point U-turn at the trailhead and speed off back up Water St. As someone who rides that stretch, and pushes my daughter in the stroller along that stretch (with no sidewalks, of course), its really unnerving.

The problem was made worse by the fact that the only indication that the street was a dead end came *at the end of the street*. I pleaded with DDOT for more than a year to fix this and put up No Outlet signs further up Water St. They did, although they posted them about 20ft in the air on the Whitehurst support columns (20ft traffic control signs are definitely not code). It seems to help a little but not much.

All of that is my rant about the trailhead – which may in fact only get worse if Georgetown gets there way and gets to build a boathouse at the beginning of the trail – but I agree that people should take it easy down there – whether on two wheels or four.

December 3, 2012 at 1:58 am #956672

JorgeGortex
Participant

I hear you about the signage. Before they renovated Whitehurts there were dead end signs at street level. It helped, but back then the cobbled street with trolley tracks did more to keep random traffic out. The other problem is that many a GPS indicates that is the way to get to Key Bridge. Or at least that is how it is interpreted. As annoying at it is we find it amusing. We don’t even have to look up to know the person is lost and doesn’t know it for 5-4-3-2-1 about now. What we’ve been told is that you really have to get a DC councilman involved to get anything to change. Personally if I was driving down that way, I’d question my GPS directions long before I got there.

Its off topic, but as for the Georgetown boathouse project… shouldn’t affect the trail at all. There will be no vehicular parking down on site, at least that is my understanding. The most you will get are most students on bikes…

December 3, 2012 at 2:13 am #956676

jrenaut
Participant

This is one of the reasons I think it’s good to be multi-modal. There have definitely been times when I’m driving and I’ve seen a cyclist do something and though, “What a jerk”. Then, five seconds later, I realize I do the same thing when I’m on my bike. The same goes for being a pedestrian (especially when I’m herding the 2 and 4 year old through busy streets).

It’s much easier to dismiss situations you’ve never been in yourself. So I try to imagine myself in the other person’s shoes, and sometimes that actually works (Often I still think they’re a jerk, but you do what you can).

December 3, 2012 at 3:04 pm #956473

vvill
Participant

@Bilsko 37043 wrote:

One of my big gripes is that drivers (often from out of town, but plenty of DC drivers too) speed down to the end of Water St. thinking they’ve found the secret exit out of Georgetown (or thinking that they are actually driving up on the Whitehurst, because their GPS maps dont do 3D very well. Getting to the end, they find out there’s no where to go, then do an 18-point U-turn at the trailhead and speed off back up Water St. As someone who rides that stretch, and pushes my daughter in the stroller along that stretch (with no sidewalks, of course), its really unnerving.

Ok, that explains it! I don’t ride this stretch often but when I do I always wondered why I’d get the odd car tailing me at speed only to stop at the end and turn around.

December 4, 2012 at 2:31 pm #956748

Bilsko
Participant

@JorgeGortex 37045 wrote:

Its off topic, but as for the Georgetown boathouse project… shouldn’t affect the trail at all. There will be no vehicular parking down on site, at least that is my understanding. The most you will get are most students on bikes…

Hmm – last time I checked the plans, they had a driveway all the way up to the entrance of the boathouse. And, just as with the current facilities, there’s going to be traffic for picking up and dropping off boats. There may very well be limited parking, but I suspect the volume of vehicle traffic will increase significantly.

It would be unfortunate to have to remove a piece of DC history, but one way to deal with the space constraints may be to remove the remains of the Aqueduct.

December 4, 2012 at 7:07 pm #956780

JorgeGortex
Participant

Huh. I’ll have to look at the current plans. The plans might include a drive and parking only so that emergency vehicles and handicapped requirements are met. The students would all arrive by foot or bike, probably through the tunnel from near campus to the CC trail. There is no way a boat trailer could make it down there in that confined space and turn around to come back up the street. As someone who has pulled those trailers (longer than a semi!) it would not work to back it up all the way either. The team would have to walk boats up to the Aqueduct area, near PBC. (and how neat would be if they used cargo-trailer bikes to move gear up the path to the trailer and back?!)

I think it would be sad to remove the Aqueduct Bridge section. Anyway, it might be designated as historical, as part of the Tow Path, and its NPS park.

JG
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