Caution at Lincoln Memorial

[PrintError]

Wait, drivers in DC yield? Since when?!

[DaveK]

@Brendan von Buckingham 3400 wrote:

If you travel around the south side of Lincoln Memorial, use extra caution while crossing 23rd Street. The sign that says “yield to pedestrians” has been knocked down. Drivers might not yield.

After countless times passing through that intersection I think the decision on whether to yield is based more on wind direction and phase of the moon. Thanks for the heads up though.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Outbound, with an opportunity to make eye contact with drivers, I’ve almost never had a problem; drivers typically yield. Inbound however, when I can’t make eye contact over my should, is when I have some touch-and-go encounters.

[baiskeli]

Thanks for the heads-up.

I have to defend drivers here – around the Lincoln, they seem to almost always yield.

[Dirt]

I’m impressed with the number of people at that intersection that actually do yield. It is kinda cool to see. I ride through there every now and then when I get fed up with how automotive society behaves.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Now there’s a new hazard. They’ve reinstalled the yield sign, but they’ve also installed a tourist friendly area map on the blind turn eastbound off Memorial Bridge. The sightlines are not good coming eastbound because of the turn and the architecture of the bridge. The new NPS map that will encourage tourists to stand in the blind spot while reading the map.

It’s a terrible location and cyclists will have to use extra caution.

[brendan]

The sharp left on the North side eastbound or the curved right from the South side eastbound?

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Southside side of Memorial Bridge, eastbound.

[brendan]

@Brendan von Buckingham 4034 wrote:

Southside side of Memorial Bridge, eastbound.

Thanks, that’s my route into parts of DC. Good to know.

Brendan

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Riding the brakes on the turn, down to about 10-12 mph, I had 2 seconds (one thousand one, one thousand two) between first seeing the map and then getting to the map. That’s not a lot of reaction time.

[DaveK]

Passed through there a few times since the map’s been installed – I haven’t had a problem but I could see how there would be one. It would be much better to install the map between the slip lane and the main road – there’s plenty of sight distance there all around.

[5555624]

@Brendan von Buckingham 4051 wrote:

Riding the brakes on the turn, down to about 10-12 mph, I had 2 seconds (one thousand one, one thousand two) between first seeing the map and then getting to the map. That’s not a lot of reaction time.

If you can’t react that quickly, then slow down.

You know the map is there. Pedestrians — even tourists — have the right-of-way. You should be able to estimate whether there might be someone there and how fast you can go to stop in time. My morning commute goes right through there. At the time of my commute, there’s maybe a 1 in 500 — if that — chance of encountering someone there, so I go a little faster than I would at lunch time. Besides, there’s a Stop sign right past the map, so you’re just slowing down 20 feet earlier.

Tourists — oops, pedestrians — are one of the reasons I take the George Mason Brdige on the commute home.

[Author]

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