Memorial Circle Transportation Plan and Environmental Assessment – Open House

[dasgeh]

Bumping, since this is tomorrow. I added to the Forum Calendar (after I found it)

[chris_s]

You’ve got to really appreciate how they’re accepting comments for a whole 7 days.

[mstone]

@chris_s 109849 wrote:

You’ve got to really appreciate how they’re accepting comments for a whole 7 days.

Why slow down the predetermined outcome?

And oh my god, that web site.

[bobco85]

I really hate how the drawings are shown as a list of 30 different images that must be downloaded to view. I will not be able to make it to the meeting tonight, but I will download the images and turn them into a video so that people can compare them more easily. I’ll update everyone when I have created the video (probably by tomorrow night).

[Tim Kelley]

@bobco85 109968 wrote:

I really hate how the drawings are shown as a list of 30 different images that must be downloaded to view. I will not be able to make it to the meeting tonight, but I will download the images and turn them into a video so that people can compare them more easily. I’ll update everyone when I have created the video (probably by tomorrow night).

Sounds very helpful!

When you’ve made that, can you make sure to share it with BikeArlington? We’ll put it out over our channels.

[bobco85]

@Tim Kelley 109969 wrote:

Sounds very helpful!

When you’ve made that, can you make sure to share it with BikeArlington? We’ll put it out over our channels.

I definitely will! Would posting it on their FB page be the best way to let them see it?

[Tim Kelley]

@bobco85 109973 wrote:

I definitely will! Would posting it on their FB page be the best way to let them see it?

Why don’t you send it to us at info@bikearlington.com? Thanks!

[bobco85]

@Tim Kelley 109975 wrote:

Why don’t you send it to us at info@bikearlington.com? Thanks!

Okay, I’ll do that!

[chris_s]

@bobco85 109968 wrote:

I really hate how the drawings are shown as a list of 30 different images that must be downloaded to view. I will not be able to make it to the meeting tonight, but I will download the images and turn them into a video so that people can compare them more easily. I’ll update everyone when I have created the video (probably by tomorrow night).

These are awful. The drawings are largely inscrutable with no context, no legend and little (if any) explanation.

“Please give us feedback on these hand-draw, largely unlabeled alternatives which we have taken pictures of with our cell phone camera in the next 7 days. No really, we VALUE your feedback.”

The public outreach budget for this EA must be about twelve dollars.

[americancyclo]

While these are pretty bad, I like the design proposed by 0873 in that it clears out a lot of the spaghetti like mess of the roadways and puts a good amount of space between the trails and the roadways, while it would increase the number of road crossings to 4 instead of the 3 it is now. I’m not sure why they have all the extra ramps for 110, though.

[chris_s]

@americancyclo 109988 wrote:

While these are pretty bad, I like the design proposed by 0873 in that it clears out a lot of the spaghetti like mess of the roadways and puts a good amount of space between the trails and the roadways, while it would increase the number of road crossings to 4 instead of the 3 it is now. I’m not sure why they have all the extra ramps for 110, though.

I think there are probably some great designs in here, but with the size / quality / lack of explanations, consistent legends or explanation it’s hard to tell what is being proposed, let alone compare them.

[scoot]

Yes, at this point it’s obfuscated enough that the only useful feedback I can give is “What???”

It looks like each drawing was done with a different format for colors and symbols, and most of the images contain no legend to explain. So I can’t even tell which crossings are at grade and which are separated… and that’s really important.

Plus there are so many options that it’s impossible to keep them all straight. I guess that’s ostensibly the point though: to allow the public to weigh in on the concepts before they are developed into a handful of alternatives.

[scoot]

@americancyclo 109988 wrote:

I like the design proposed by 0783

Yes, that one looks like it eliminates the worst bicycling hazards (since this picture uses a universal bridge symbol, I’m assuming that GWMP crossing is grade separated!). They should put a crosswalk at the west end of the circle as well. It’s important to allow safe access to both sides of Memorial Bridge. On the DC side, it’s difficult to safely get from the downstream crossing over to Rock Creek Parkway in order to head up along the river toward Kennedy Center. I usually go all the way around the far side of Lincoln Memorial rather than attempt to cross the road to reach the sidewalk above the staircase that leads down to Ohio Dr.

For automobile traffic though, I’d prefer to see both directions of GWMP routed under the eastern half of Route 27. That way at the northbound merge, 27 would come in from the right, and GWMP would come in from the left. Proportionally, 27 traffic is more likely to be heading over Memorial Bridge than to Rosslyn, while traffic approaching on GWMP is more likely heading to Rosslyn than over the bridge. I think too many drivers would be trying to change lanes there with this design.

Some of these spaghetti ramps could be removed overnight without significantly affecting driver mobility. For instance, how many people go northeast up 27 (past the west side of the Pentagon) and then turn to head south down GWMP? Couldn’t the few people who do that use 395 or Boundary Channel instead? Or if their destination is LBJ Park, they could either park in the Virginia lot, or take 110 up then around Memorial Circle.

[PotomacCyclist]

I rode CaBi over to East Potomac Park and walked down Buckeye Drive to the open house. (The cold rain was not pleasant. There were some slippery spots on the sidewalk. When I tried to walk around some of the puddles on the sidewalk, I found that the grass was soggy while the leftover ice was smooth and slippery.)

I mentioned the problems with looking through all the designs on the website. Apparently they can click on the photos and view each one. I mentioned that I had to download and open each image separately, which is a very cumbersome process. I did say that someone on the forum was going to combine the images into a short YouTube video. They seemed very pleased to hear that. Maybe they could add a link on the website, if that’s OK.

Anyway, I looked at the various drawings and concepts. They are really just loose sketches and brainstorming ideas more than polished concepts at this point. Even up close, I couldn’t make sense of all of the drawings. Some were overlaid on maps of the Memorial Circle area, which made it easier to figure out what changes were being proposed. For the drawings taped up on the wall, I didn’t have a frame of reference. I couldn’t tell exactly which trail segment or road segment was being moved or altered or removed on those drawings.

I don’t think the specifics are vital at this point. The representatives said that they are going to continue to review input and combine those ideas with those from professional road/trail engineers. They will also make budget assessments of various options. They want to narrow down everything to 3 to 5 clean proposals. Those proposals might be hybrids that combine elements from several of the existing sketches. One guy said that the process could take 18 months, but he might have been thinking of environmental review too. Another rep said that they were hoping to get the preliminary formal concepts out by this summer, for further public comment. On the long-term view, the entire process, from brainstorming to polished concepts, to environmental review, to engineering review, to budgeting and construction, could take 5 years, but that’s only a rough guess. I mentioned 5-7 years, based on what I’ve seen on other big projects. The rep seemed to think 5 years might be a good guess, but there are dozens of things that could affect such a timeline at this point.

As for the parameters of the process, the rep said that NPS wants to keep Memorial Circle in place. They also want to preserve the viewshed of Memorial Ave., Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial. He said that everything else was on the table, which surprised me. Of course, there will be budgetary restraints, but there are no specific numbers at this time. I would guess that the final 3-5 options will include some concepts that are less expensive than others, while the most expensive option might be difficult to fund.

He also said that NPS would pay for the project as long as it fits into their overall national budget, which is over $2 billion. (Too bad we can’t spend all that money on Memorial Circle, MVT and Rock Creek Park…. No, I realize that they also have to cover the large national parks out west, but $2 billion to spend on DC-area infrastructure would be awesome. For us, anyway.) NPS employees can’t lobby Congress for specific funds, but civilians are free to ask their Congressional representatives to vote for extra funds for the Memorial Circle project. Groups like WABA can also try to build support for the project, so continue to provide input to the NPS, your representatives and advocacy groups as the process continues.

I mentioned some of my biggest concerns about that area: the trail intersections and safety issues for cyclists and pedestrians. Even if you have sent in comments last year, it can help to repeat concerns and suggestions in the new brief comment period.

Some of the preliminary sketches included some very radical ideas, such as removing several ramps and road segments through the area. One sketch took out all the road segments east of Washington Blvd. except maybe one lane of the GWMP, with that road being rerouted. I don’t remember the details, but I saw that all of the trail segments east of Washington Blvd. would now be intersection-free trail segments. That would turn that entire area into a car-free park. That option would likely be very expensive, so I’m not sure this would be done. But at least they put it out there in the preliminary stages.

I don’t think the NPS would go for any overhead bike/pedestrian bridges, unless they were pushed far away from the Memorial Ave./Memorial Bridge viewshed. I don’t know how that would work, but this is why they are asking for comments. If you have an idea, send it in. I wouldn’t worry so much about commenting on specific sketches. Send in specific examples of hazardous points and what type of improvement could fix it. But if you do see a sketch that you like, write in support of it. Detailed reasons would be helpful.

Road removal, bike tunnels and road realignment were on the table for the sketch phase, but for the polished concepts, these could be an issue with the budget. The more support there is for funding, the more options the NPS would have for the final designs. Bike tunnels and road realignment/removal would be expensive. On the other hand, simpler ideas like rumble strips don’t solve the entire problem there. Because the Memorial Circle is at the center of one of the most popular tourist areas in the DC area (and in the U.S.), sitting between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, there could be more political support for spending larger sums on this project. (I hope.) According to a CNN article, 4 million people visit the Cemetery each year. Many if not most of those visitors are not DC-area residents. Thus, the anti-DC members of Congress would not have an incentive to knock down a DC-area project, because safety at the Circle can affect many of their local constituents, who can and do visit the Cemetery. The Cemetery is considered sacred ground to many across the U.S. and the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most famous and most visited sites in the U.S. All this could make it somewhat easier to convince Congress to pay for a better, and more expensive, solution to the problems around Memorial Circle.

I mentioned that I’ve seen families running across multiple lanes of traffic at the Circle because they couldn’t figure a way to walk from the Cemetery to Memorial Bridge (and presumably the Lincoln Memorial). I was completely stunned to see this, but then I realized that an out-of-town visitor isn’t likely to figure out how to walk between the two locations. So it’s not just a cyclist-car driver issue. The NPS rep was interested to hear the comment and asked me to post it again on the website, even if I had already posted it last year. I said I would. It helps to point out that pedestrian safety is also a problem at the Circle. It also shows that even if there aren’t that many injuries there, the traffic patterns can certainly be unsafe for many visitors. I’ve seen the mad dash technique used multiple times by pedestrians there. And with 4 million visitors a year, there are a lot of potential situations like this.

[PotomacCyclist]

The NPS rep also said that they won’t be adding traffic lights in or next to Memorial Circle either. So the final concepts will have to include other means of improving safety for all users. If traffic lights and bike bridges are out, it seems that tunnels and road removal/realignment would be the best options. Those would be expensive, but what are the alternatives? They seem to be serious about redoing the entire area to improve safety, and if lights and bike bridges are not possible, then the expensive options would be the only real choices. Unless I’m missing something here.

When I mentioned the budget and lobbying for funding, that’s when the rep said that NPS employees couldn’t lobby on their own, while civilians can write and campaign for funding for the Memorial Circle project. He tossed out a number. I won’t say what it is, because I don’t want to create unrealistic expectations. But it was very large. He said NPS probably wouldn’t spend quite that much money on this project, but it did indicate to me that, at least at this point, NPS really is thinking big here. Maybe this is the norm at the early stages of a project, before the realities of limited funding hit everyone. Then again, this location is so prominent locally and nationally that maybe there is the political will to spend big (or at least bigger than usual) on this project.

[Author]

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