Evening commute route – Georgetown to NoMa – the big obstacles
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If you were coming off the Key Bridge, and you had to get to K & North Capitol, how would you do it?
In the evenings I have been taking M Street through Georgetown, then Pennsylvania down to the White House, then New York back up to K Street and eastward from there.
Obstacle #1: It didn’t take me long to figure out that Mount Vernon Square is a bad, bad place to be on a bike. The NY Ave bike track just ends, and you’re on your own in a jungle of potholes, stalled cars, parked buses and unmarked lanes. My solution has been to go around – I angle off New York onto I Street (going through the plaza at CityCenterDC that once was a street), then left on 7th, then a simple right onto K. I’m curious if there’s a better way to get around Mount Vernon Square, though.
Obstacle #2: I may be crazy, but in the summer I would just plow straight through Washington Circle. Take a lane, be patient, wait for the lights, move with the cars as much as possible. With the change back to Standard Time, though, I’m suddenly very uncomfortable at being surrounded by cars like that in the dark, even with all my blinky lights. So I’ve been going around.
Now, L Street, with its semi-suicidal left-side bike track, peels off of Pennsylvania just before the circle. If you’re eastbound on Pennsylvania, how are you supposed to even get to it without getting killed?? I see guys all the time getting in the far left lane, but it’s like they’ve got a death wish. There’s four lanes of eastbound traffic, no protection and no escape route, and you’re in a spot where drivers really don’t expect you to be. I’ve been pulling to the curb at 25th Street and crossing with the light. It takes patience. But I don’t feel like I’m about to get squished.
The L Street path ends even more poorly than the NY Avenue one, and again the big obstacle is Mount Vernon Square. Mass Ave is so tightly packed you can’t even squeeze past at the curb. So taking L Street all the way isn’t a great option – you gotta bail at some point. Are there ANY south-bound streets that are bike friendly to get me back onto Pennsylvania and/or NY Ave?
If you’ve read all this, thank you!!
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